concurred in the invitation to
William of Orange, who made him privy councillor, lord chamberlain
(1689), and knight of the Garter (1692). During William's absences in
1695-1698 he was one of the lord justices of the realm.

He was a generous patron of men of letters. When Dryden was dismissed
from the laureateship, he made him an equivalent pension from his own
purse. Matthew Prior, in dedicating his _Poems on Several Occasions_
(1709) to Dorset's son, affirms that his opinion was consulted by Edmund
Waller; that the duke of Buckingham deferred the publication of his
_Rehearsal_ until he was assured that Dorset would not "rehearse upon
him again"; and that Samuel Butler and Wycherley both owed their first
recognition to him. Prior's praise of Dorset is no doubt extravagant,
but when his youthful follies were over he appears to have developed
sterling qualities, and although the poems he has left are very few,
none of them are devoid of merit. Dryden's "Essay on Satire" and the
dedication of the "Essay on Dramatic Poesy" are addressed to him.
Walpole (_Catalogue of Noble Authors_, iv.) says that he had as much wit
as his first master, or his contemporaries Buckingham and Rochester,
without the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principles or the
earl's want of thought; and Congreve reported of him when he was dying
that he "slabbered" more wit than other people had in their best health.
He was three times married, his first wife being Mary, widow of Charles
Berkeley, earl of Falmouth. He died at Bath on the 29th of January 1706.

The fourth act of _Pompey the Great, a tragedy translated out of
French by certain persons of honour_, is by Dorset. The satires for
which Pope classed him with the masters in that kind seem to have been
short lampoons, with the exception of _A faithful catalogue of our
most eminent ninnies_ (reprinted in _Bibliotheca Curiosa_, ed.
Goldsmid, 1885). _The Works of the Earls of Rochester, Roscommon and
Dorset, the Dukes of Devonshire, Buckinghamshire, &c., with Memoirs of
their Lives_ (1731) is catalogued (No. 20841) by H. G. Bohn in 1841.
His _Poems_ are included in Anderson's and other collections of the
British poets.

LIONEL CRANFIELD SACKVILLE, 1ST DUKE OF DORSET (1688-1765), the only son
of the 6th earl, was born on the 18th of January 1688. He succeeded his
father as 7th earl of Dorset in January 1706, and was created duke of
Dorset in 1720. He was lord stewar