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In October 1671 a little-known bookseller called Hobart Kemp, whose publishing career lasted little more than twelve months, entered a miscellany in the Stationers’ Register which appeared the next year under the title A Collection of Poems, Written upon Several Occasions, by Several Persons. Different publishers were to republish the collection five times in ensuing years, and it remains a principal source for the work of Etherege and Sedley. In this first edition, the compilation of which can be dated by the inclusion of Etherege's Prologue for the opening of the new Duke's theatre in Dorset Garden soon after 9 November 1671, none of the poems was attributed. The book was printed into two sections, separately paginated; two poems by Rochester, both called ‘To Celia’, appear towards the end of the second section. In pride of place at the head of the volume is the longest work in it, a translation of Philippe Habert's Le Temple de la Mort by the Earl of Mulgrave.
Mulgrave corresponds to the type of ‘blockhead’ who was ridiculed in ‘The Ballers’ Life’, a drinking song of the young gentlemen who lived for going to balls, included in part 2 of the 1672 Collection:
They have to many hours that employ ‘em
About Business, Ambition or News,
Whilst we that know how to enjoy ‘em
Wish in vain for the time which such blockheads misuse …
Far from following the Ballers’ creed – ‘We love and we drink till we dye’ – Mulgrave was relentlessly pursuing a dual career as a soldier and a politician. Having built himself a formidable military reputation, he seduced one by one the most powerful court ladies, aided in his conquests by an arrogance and detachment that Rochester could never have commanded. No contemporary court satire couples Rochester's name with that of any court lady, while Mulgrave and his ‘lobcock tarse’ feature in nearly every one. Rochester seems to have been naturally shy and thin-skinned – Nathaniel Lee refers to a hesitation in his speech – but Mulgrave's sallow skin was never seen to flush. Successful though he was in acquiring power through intrigue and manipulation, he envied the court wits the literary success that they seemed hardly to value and set about building himself a reputation as a wit where they would have scorned to seek it, in print.
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