Restoration England witnessed an extraordinary flowering of literature, music, architecture and science. At the centre of the burgeoning cultural life of the age was John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. A peerlessly witty satirist, Rochester epitomised the manners of the court of Charles II. But he was also a libertine and drunkard, a writer of scandalously offensive poetry who got himself banned from court. Rochester died of syphilis at the age of just...