CHARLES SACKVILLE, 6TH EARL OF DORSET (1638-1706), Eng lish poet and courtier, son of Richard Sackville, 5th earl (1622-77), was born on Jan. 24, 1638, and succeeded to his father's estates and title in 1677. In Charles II.'s first parliament he sat for East Grinstead, Sussex. He won a reputation as court ier and wit at Whitehall, where he bore his share in the excesses for which Sir Charles Sedley and the earl of Rochester were notorious. In 1662 he and his brother Edward, with three others, were indicted for the robbery and murder of a tanner named Hoppy. The defence was that they were in pursuit of thieves, and mistook Hoppy for a highwayman. In 1665 he volunteered to serve under the duke of York in the Dutch war. His famous song, "To all you Ladies now at Land," was written, according to Prior, on the night before the victory over "foggy Opdam" off Har wich (June 3, 1665). Dr. Johnson, with the remark that "seldom any splendid story is wholly true," says that the earl of Orrery had told him it was only retouched on that occasion. In 1667 Pepys laments that he had lured Nell Gwyn away from the theatre, and that with Sedley the two kept "merry house" at Epsom. Next year the king was paying court to Nell, and her "Charles the First," as she called him, was sent on a "sleeveless errand" into France to be out of the way. His gaiety and wit did not especially recommend him to James II. He retired from court at the begin ning of the new reign. Dorset concurred in the invitation to William of Orange, who made him privy councillor, lord chamber lain (1689), and knight of the Garter (1692). During William's absences in 1695-98 he was one of the lord justices of the realm.
He was a generous patron of men of letters. 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 con temporaries, Buckingham and Rochester, without the royal want of feeling, the duke's want of principle 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.
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, etc., with Memoirs of their Lives (1731) is catalogued (No. 20,841) by H. G. Bohn in 1841. His Poems are included in Anderson's and other collections of the British poets.