Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

DENHAM

WAS born at Dublin in 1615, the only son of Sir John Denham, of Little Horsely in Essex, then chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, and Eleanor, daughter of Sir Garrat Moore, of Mellefont.

Two years afterwards his father, being made one of the Barons of the Exchequer in England, brought him away from his native country, and educated him in London,

In 1631 he was sent to Oxford, where he was considered "as a dreaming young man, given more to dice and cards than study," and therefore gave no prognostics of his future eminence.

When he was, three years afterwards, removed to Lincoln's Inn, he prosecuted the common law with sufficient appearance of application, yet did not lose his propensity to cards and dice, and was very often plundered by gamesters. He resolved at length to desist from the practice, and published "An Essay upon Gaming. In 1636 he translated the Second Book of the Æneid. Two years after, his father died, and then, notwithstanding his resolutions, he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost several thousand pounds that had been left him.

"

In 1641 he published "The Sophy," which seems to have given him his first hold of the public attention; and afterwards being pricked for Sheriff of Surry, and made Governor of Farnham Castle

for the King, which he soon resigned, he retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published “Cooper's Hill."

"In 1647, the distresses of the royal family required him to engage in more dangerous employments. He was intrusted by the Queen with a message to the King; and, by whatever means, so far softened the ferocity of Hugh Peters, that by his intercession admission was procured. Of the King's condescension he has given an account in the dedication of his works.

He was afterwards employed in carrying on the King's correspondence; but, being accidentally discovered, he made his escape.

He was yet engaged in a greater undertaking. In April 1648 he conveyed James the Duke of York from London into France, and delivered him there to the Queen and Prince of Wales. This year he published his translation of "Cato Major.

[ocr errors]

He now resided in France as one of the followers of the exiled King; at which time he wrote several pieces of poetry. At the Restoration he obtained, what many missed, the reward of his loyalty, being made surveyor of the King's buildings, and dignified with the order of the Bath.

After the Restoration he wrote the "Poem on Prudence and Justice," and perhaps some of his other pieces-He failed, however, in the attempt to make "A metrical Version of the Psalms of David."

It might be hoped that the favour of his King

H

and the esteem of the public would now make him happy. But human felicity is short and uncertain. A second marriage brought upon him so much disquiet as for a time disordered his understanding. But his frenzy lasted not long, and he seems to have regained his full force of mind; for he wrote afterwards his excellent Poem upon the Death of Cowley, whom he was not long to survive, for on the 19th of March 1668 he was buried by his side.

"Denham is deservedly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry." Denham and Waller (says Prior) improved our versification, and Dryden perfected it.' "He has given specimens of various compositions, descriptive, ludicrous, didactic, and sublime."

"His "Poem on the Death of Cowley" was his last, and, among his shorter works, his best performance the numbers are musical, and the thoughts are just.

66

Cooper's Hill" is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author, He seems to have been, at least among us, the author of a species of composition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is some particular landscape to be poetically described with the addition of such embellishments as may be supplied by historical retrospection or incidental meditation.

"To trace a new scheme of poetry has in itself a very high claim to praise, and its praise is yet more when it is apparently copied by Garth and

Pope, after whose names little will be gained by an enumeration of smaller poets that have left scarce a corner of the Island undignified by rhyme or blank verse.

Cooper's Hill," if it be maliciously inspected, will not be found without its faults. The digressions are too long, the morality too pregnant, and the sentiments sometimes such as will not bear a rigorous inquiry."

"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.”

ROCHESTER.

JOHN WILMOT, afterwards Earl of Rochester, the son of Henry Earl of Rochester, better known by the title of Lord Wilmot, was born in April, 1648, at Ditchley in Oxfordshire. After a grammatical education at the school of Burford, he entered a nobleman into Wadham college in 1659, only eleven years old; and in 1661, at thirteen, was, with some other persons of high rank, made master of arts by Lord Clarendon in person.

In

He travelled afterwards into France and Italy, and, at his return, devoted himself to a court. 1665 he distinguished himself at sea by uncommon intrepidity, and the next summer served again on

board Sir Edward Spragge, who in the heat of the engagement, having a message of reproof to send to one of his captains, could find no man ready to carry it but Wilmot, who in an open boat went and returned amidst the storm of shot.

But his reputation for bravery was not lasting: he was reproached with slinking away in street quarrels, and leaving his companions to shift as they could without him; and Sheffield Duke of Buckingham has left a story of his refusal to fight him.

When he became a courtier he unhappily addicted himself to dissolute and vitious company, by which his principles were corrupted, and his manners depraved. He lost all sense of religious restraint; and, finding it not convenient to admit the authority of laws which he was resolved not to obey, sheltered his wickedness behind infidelity.

He was so much in favour with King Charles that he was made one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and Comptroller of Woodstock Park. He is mentioned, by Wood, as the greatest scholar of all the nobility. His favourite author in French was Boileau, and in English, Cowley.

At the early age of one and thirty, in consequence of dissolute and abandoned habits, he had exhausted the fund of life, and reduced himself to a state of weakness and decay.

He died July 26, 1680, before he had completed his thirty-third year.

"Lord Rochester was eminent for the vigour of his colloquial wit, and remarkable for many

« AnteriorContinuar »