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It might be hoped that the favour of his mafter and esteem of the publick would now make him happy. But human felicity is short and uncertain; a fecond marriage brought upon him fo much difquiet, as for a time disordered his understanding; and Butler lampooned him for his lunacy. I know not whether the malignant lines were then made publick, nor what provocation incited Butler to do that which no provocation can excufe.

His frenzy lafted 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 fervive; for on the 19th of March, 1668, he was buried by his fide.

* In Grammont's Memoirs many circumstances are related, both of his marriage and his frenzy, very little favourable to his character.

R.

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DENHAM is defervedly confidered as one of the fathers of English poetry. "Denham

"and Waller," fays Prior," improved our "verfification, and Dryden perfected it."

He has given fpecimens of various compo

fition, defcriptive, ludicrous, didactick, and fublime.

He appears to have had, in common with almost all mankind, the ambition of being upon proper occafions a merry fellow, and in common with most of them to have been by nature, or by early habits, debarred from it. Nothing is lefs exhilarating than the ludi'croufnefs of Denham; he does not fail for want of efforts; he is familiar, he is, grofs; but he is never merry, unless the "Speech “against péácè in 'the 'clofe Committee" be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant fhews him to have been well qualified.

Of his more elevated occafional poems there is perhaps none that does not deserve commendation. In the verfes to Fletcher, we have an image that has fince been adopted:

But

"But whither am I ftray'd? I need not raifeTrophies to thee from other men's dispraise; "Nor is thy fame on leffer ruins built, "Nor need thy jufter title the foul guilt "Of eastern kings, who, to fecure their reign, "Muft have their brothers, fons, and kindred "flain."

After Denham, Orrery, in one of his logues,

pro

"Poets are fultans, if they had their will; "For every author would his brother kill."

And Pope,

"Should fuch a man, too fond to rule alone, "Bear like the Turk no brother near the throne."

But this is not the beft of his little pieces: it is excelled by his poem to Fanfhaw, and his elegy on Cowley.

His praise of Fanfhaw's version of Guarini, contains a very spritely and judicious character of a good tranflator:

"That fervile path thou nobly doft decline, "Of tracing word by word, and line by line.

VOL. I.

I

"Thofe

"Those are the labour'd births of flavish brains,
"Not the effect of poetry, but. pains;

"Cheap vulgar arts, whofe narrowness afford's
"No flight for thoughts, but poorly stick at
"words.

"A new and nobler way thou doft pursue,
"To make tranflations and tranflators too.

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They but preferve the afhes, thou the flame, "True to his fenfe, but truer to his fame."

The excellence of thefe lines is greater, as the truth which they contain was not at that time generally known.

His poem on the death of Cowley was his laft, and, among his fhorter works, his best performance: the numbers are mufical, and the thoughts are just.

COOPER'S HILL" is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He feems to have been, at leaft among us, the author of a species of compofition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental subject is fome particular landfcape, to be poetically. defcribed, with the addition of fuch embel

lishments

lishments as may be fupplied by historical retrospection or incidental meditation.

To trace a new fcheme 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 whofe names little will be gained by an enumeration of fmaller poets, that have left scarcely a corner of the island not dignified either by rhyme, or blank verfe.

"COOPER'S HILL," if it be maliciously infpected, will not be found without its faults. The digreffions are too long, the morality too frequent, and the fentiments fometimes such as will not bear a rigorous enquiry.

The four verses, which, fince Dryden has commended them, almoft every writer for a century past has imitated, are generally known:

"O could I flow like thee, and make thy ftream "My great example, as it is my theme!

* By Garth, in his "Poem on Claremont," and by Pope, in his "Windfor Foreft." H.

I 2

"Though

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