A man whom the muses were fond to inspire, but ashamed to avow.
--Horace Walpole

Nay so confirm'd was he in Sin, that he lived, and oftentimes almost died, a Martyr for it.
--Robert Parsons, A Sermon preached at the Earl of Rochester's Funeral, 1680

A God-haunted atheist, pornographer and panegyrist of "that lost thing (Love)," misogynist and protofeminist...
--Warren Chernaik, Sexual Freedom in Restoration Literature, 1995