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 steward of the royal household from 1725 to 1730, and lord-lieutenant of Ireland from 1730 to 1737; he was again lord steward from 1737 to 1745, and was lord president of the council from 1745 to 1751. In 1750 he was appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland for the second time, and after a stormy viceroyalty he was dismissed from office in 1755. The duke, who was several times one of the lords justices of Great Britain and held many other positions of trust, died on the 10th of October 1765. He left three sons: Charles, the 2nd duke; John Philip (d. 1765); and George, who took the additional name of Germain in 1770, and in 1782 was created Viscount Sackville (q.v.).