GENERAL Thou hast redeemed us, Will., and future times

Shall not account unto the age's crimes Dearth of pure wit: since the great lord of it, Donne, parted hence, no man has ever writ So near him in's own way: I would commend Particulars; but then, how should I end Without a volume? every line of thine Would ask, to praise it right, twenty of mine.

-SUCKLING, SIR JOHN, 1638, To my Friend Will. Davenant, on his other Poems.

In the time I writ with him, I had the opportunity to observe somewhat more nearly of him than I had formerly done, when I had only a bare acquaintance with him: I found him then of so quick a fancy, that nothing was proposed to him, on which he could not suddenly produce a thought, extreamly pleasant and surprising and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the old Latin proverb, were not always the least happy. And as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the products. of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other; and his imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man. His corrections were sober and judicious: and he corrected his own. writings much more severely than those of another man, bestowing twice the time. and labour in polishing, which he used in invention.-DRYDEN, JOHN, 1669, Preface to The Tempest, or The Enchanted Island, by Sir William D'Avenant and John Dryden.

'Twas observ'd, that at his Funeral his Coffin wanted the Ornament of his Lau

reats Crown, which by the Law of Heraldry justly appertain'd to him: but this omission is sufficiently recompenc'd by an Eternal Fame, which will always accompany his Memory; he having been the first Introducer of all that is splendid in our English Opera's, and 'tis by his means and industry, that our Stage at present rivals the Italian Theatre.-LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 115.

He was amongst the first who refined our poetry, and did more for the interest of the drama, than any who ever wrote for the stage.-CIBBER, THEOPHILUS, 1753, Lives of the Poets, vol. II, p. 63.

Davenant was a sort of adventurer and wit, and in every manner worthy of the royal favour, to enjoy which dignity of

character was never considered as a necessary requisite. He set himself to work in every way which the want of a rich theatrical repertory may render necessary; he made alterations of old pieces, wrote himself plays, operas, prologues, &c. But of all his writings nothing has escaped a merited oblivion.-SCHLEGEL, AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, 1809, Dramatic Art and Literature, Lecture xiii, tr. Black, p. 395.

Devoid of all higher original genius, D'Avenant applied himself, in no vulgar spirit nor without taking full advantage of such lights as were vouchsafed to him, to the task of satisfying what to him was the supreme criterion of merit, viz. the most cultivated taste (or what appeared to him such) of his age. . . . As a dramatist, D'Avenant may, in the earlier series of his plays, be described as a limb of Fletcher. WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, pp. 167, 169.

There is not a more hopelessly faded laurel on the slopes of the English Parnassus than that which once flourished so bravely around the grotesque head of Davenant. The enormous folio edition of his works, brought out in 1673 in direct emulation of Ben Jonson, is probably the most deplorable collection of verses anywhere to be found, dead and dusty beyond the wont of forgotten classics.-GoOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. II, p. 289.

Dryden's practice shows clearly enough that his earlier critical creed was modelled on the teaching of his friend and predecessor, the inventor of the heroic play, the best exponent of heroic doctrine, Sir William Davenant.-RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, p. 104.

Of Davenant's numerous plays it would be impossible to speak in detail. They are energetic and bold in construction, show novelty in imagery, and often originality in the analysis of character. They teem with philosophical reflections and condensed epigrams, and yet they lack passion and fire, and have not the exalted. view of human nature and of the earnestness of human life which is shown in "Gondibert." Even with Davenant the stage began to take its downward course. And this, in spite of the great and undeniable services he rendered it. With all his talent, Davenant had not the moral force to stem the tide of his age. He

overrated by Denham's contemporaries, but it is certainly one of the best tragedies of its time, and had doubtless been produced under the inspiration of worthy models. In the political wisdom which it teaches in one of its most striking scenes, something nobler than party spirit reveals itself; and a lesson is enforced deserving the attention both of kings and of rebels who misuse religion as an instrument or as a pretext.-WARD, ADOLPHUS WILLIAM, 1875-99, A History of English Dramatic Literature, vol. III, pp. 148-49.

-ADDISON, JOSEPH, 1694, An Account of the Greatest English Poets.

Sir John Denham, in his "Cooper's Hill," (for none of his other poems merit attention), has a loftiness and vigour which had not before him been attained by any English poet who wrote in rhyme. The mechanical difficulties of that measure retarded its improvement. Shakspeare, whose tragic scenes are sometimes so wonderfully forcible and expressive, is a very indifferent poet when he attempts to rhyme. Precision and neatness are chiefly wanting in Denham.-HUME, DAVID, 1762, The History of England, The Commonwealth.

This poem, by Denham, though it may have been exceeded by later attempts in description, yet deserves the highest applause, as it far surpasses all that went before it: the concluding part, though a little too much crowded is very masterly. GOLDSMITH, OLIVER, 1767, The Beauties of English Poetry.

"Cooper's Hill" if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digressions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the sentiments sometimes such as will not bear a rigorous enquiry. It has beauty peculiar to itself, and must be numbered among those felicities which cannot be produced

at will by wit and labour, but must arise unexpectedly in some hour propitious to poetry. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779, Sir John Denham, Lives of the English Poets.

The plan is original, as far as our poetry is concerned; and I do not recollect any exception in other languages. Placing himself upon an eminence not distant from Windsor, he takes a survey of the scene; he finds the tower of St. Paul's on its farthest horizon, the Castle much nearer, and the Thames at his feet. These, with the ruins of an abbey, supply, in turn, materials for a reflecting rather than imaginative mind, and, with a stag-hunt, which he has very well described, fill up the canvas of a poem of no great length, but once of no trifling reputation. The epithet, majestic Denham, conferred by Pope, conveys rather too much; but "Cooper's Hill" is no ordinary poem. It is nearly the first instance of vigorous and rhythmical couplets; for Denham is incomparably less feeble than Browne, and less prosaic than Beaumont. Close in thought, and nervous in language like Davies, he is less hard and less monotonous; his cadences are animated and various, perhaps a little beyond the regularity that metre demands; they have been the guide to the finer ear of Dryden. Those who cannot endure the philosophic poetry must ever be dissatisfied with "Cooper's Hill"; no personification, no ardent words, few metaphors beyond the common use of speech, nothing that warms or melts or fascinates the heart. It is rare to find lines of eminent beauty in Denham; and equally so to be struck by any one as feeble or low. His language is always well chosen and perspicuous, free from those strange turns of expression, frequent in our older poets, where the reader is apt to suspect some error of the press, so irreconcilable do they seem with grammar or meaning.-HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iii, ch. v, pars. 36, 37.

"Cooper's Hill" may be considered as belonging in point of composition to the same school with Sir John Davies's "Nosce Teipsum;" and, if it has not all the concentration of that poem, it is equally pointed, correct, and stately, with, partly owing to the subject, a warmer tone of imagination and feeling, and a fuller swell of verse. The spirit of the

same classical style pervades both; and they are the two greatest poems in that style which had been produced down to the date at which we are now arrived. CRAIK, GEORGE L., A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 33.

Gratification is united with solidity; the author of "Cooper's Hill" knows how to please as well as to impress. His poem is like a king's park, dignified and level without doubt, but arranged for the pleasure of the sight, and full of choice prospects. It leads us by easy digressions across a multitude of varied thoughts.-TAINE, H. A., 1871, History of English Literature, tr. Van Laun, vol. 1, bk. iii, ch. i, p. 502.

"Cooper's Hill" remains his only really noteworthy production. -MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, p. 128.

GENERAL

I confess, 'tis somewhat to do well In our high art, although we can't excel Like thee, or dare the buskins to unloose Of thy brave, bold, and sweet Maronian muse. But since I'm call'd, rare Denham, to be gone,

Take from thy Herrick this conclusion: 'Tis dignity in others, if they be Crown'd poets, yet live princes under thee; The while their wreaths and purple robes do shine

Less by their own gems than those beams of thine.

-HERRICK, ROBERT, 1642? To M. Denham on his Prospective Poem.

Denham is deservedly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry. . He appears to have had, in common with alomst all mankind, the ambition of being upon proper occasions a merry fellow, and, in common with most of them, to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing less exhilarating than the ludicrousness of Denham: he does not fail for want of efforts; he is

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familiar, he is gross, but he is never merry, unless the "Speech against Peace in the close Committee" be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant shows him to have been well qualified. He is one of the writers that improved our taste, and advanced our language, and whom we ought therefore to read with gratitude, though, having done much, he left much to do.JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1779, Sir John Denham, Lives of the English Poets.

Denham was the first writer to adopt the precise manner of versification introduced by Waller. His relation to that poet resembles that taken a century later by Mason with respect to Gray, but Denham is a more original writer than Mason. The names of Waller and Denham were first associated by Dryden, and the critics of the next sixty years were unanimous in eulogizing the sweetness of the one, and the strength of the other. It is quite true that the versification of Denham is vigorous; it proceeds with greater volume than that of Waller, and produces a stronger impression. But he is a very unequal and irregular writer, and not unfrequently descends to doggerel, and very dull doggerel too. His literary taste was superior to his genius; he knew what effect he desired to produce, and strove to conquer the difficulties of antithesis, but the result of his effort was rarely classic. He takes the same place in English poetry as is taken in French by Chapelain and other hard versifiers of the beginning of the seventeenth century, who had lost the romantic fervour and had not yet gained the classic grace. But, like those poets, he has his fine flashes of style.GOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. II, p. 279.

Denham's satires are crude doggerel, and show more bad taste than ability.MASTERMAN, J. HOWARD B., 1897, The Age of Milton, p. 128.