In the month of June 1663 our author, Charles lord Buckhurst, and Sir Thomas Ogle, were convened at a public house in Bow-street, Covent-Garden, and being enflamed with strong liquors, they went up to the balcony belonging to that house, and there shewed very indecent postures, and gave great offence to the passengers in the street by very unmannerly discharges upon them; which done, Sedley stripped himself naked, and preached to the people in a gross and scandalous manner; whereupon a riot being raised, the mob became very clamorous, and would have forced the door next to the street; but being opposed, the preacher and his company were driven off the balcony, and the windows of a room into which they retired were broken by the mob. The frolic being soon spread abroad, and as persons of fashion were concerned in it, it was so much the more aggravated. The company were summoned to appear before a court of justice in Westminster-Hall, where being indicted for a riot before Sir Robert Hyde, lord chief justice of the Common Pleas, they were all fined, and Sir Charles being sentenced to pay 500 l. he used some very impertinent expressions to the judge; who thereupon asked him if he had ever read a book called the Compleat Gentleman; to which Sir Charles made answer, that he had read more books than his lordship. The day for payment being appointed, Sir Charles desired Mr. Henry Killegrew, and another gentleman to apply to his Majesty to have the fine remitted, which they undertook to do; but in place of supplicating for it, they represented Sir Charles's frolic rather in an aggravating light, and not a farthing was abated. After this affair, Sir Charles's mind took a more serious turn, and he began to apply himself to the study of politics, by which he might be of some service to his country. He was chosen, says Wood, a recruiter of that long parliament, which began at Westminster the 8th of May 1661, to serve for New Romney in Kent, and sat in three succeeding Parliments since the dissolution of that. Sir Charles, considered as an author, has great delicacy in his turns, and Eachard observes in his dedication of Plautus's three comedies to Sir Charles, that the easiness of his stile, the politeness of his expressions in his Bellamira, and even those parts of it which are purely translation, are very delightful, and engaging to the reader. Lord Rochester, in his imitation of the 10th satire of the first book of Horace, has the following verses in his commendation. Sedley has that prevailing gentle art, That can with a resistless charm impart. The loosest wishes to the chastest heart: Raise such a conflict, kindle such a fire, Betwixt declining virtue and desire; That the poor vanquish'd maid dissolves away In dreams all night, in sighs and tears all day.