impromptus, drunken rake,

Rochester's reputation would not begin to revive until the 1920s. Ezra Pound, in his ABC of Reading, compared Rochester's poetry favourably to better known figures such as Alexander Pope and John Milton.^[43] Graham Greene characterised Rochester as a "spoiled Puritan".^[44] Although F. R. Leavis argued that "Rochester is not a great poet of any kind", William Empson admired him. More recently, Germaine Greer has questioned the validity of the appraisal of Rochester as a drunken rake, and hailed the sensitivity of some of his lyrics.^[45]

Rochester's poetic work varies widely in form, genre, and content. He was part of a "mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease",^[30] who continued to produce their poetry in manuscripts, rather than in publication. As a consequence, some of Rochester's work deals with topical concerns, such as satires of courtly affairs in libels, to parodies of the styles of his contemporaries, such as Sir Carr Scroope. He is also notable for his impromptus,^[31] one of which is a teasing epigram on King Charles II:

We have a pretty witty king,

Whose word no man relies on,

He never said a foolish thing,

And never did a wise one"^[32]

To which Charles supposedly replied, "That's true, for my words are my own, but my actions are those of my ministers".^[33]

• Rake (character), a man habituated to immoral conduct