especially nothing (if anything of yt kind have escaped my pen) wch may give the least offence in point of religion or good manners. And in consideration of this unpleasant task, I desire him to accept of my Study of Books.67 "This I declare to bee my last Will and Testament. Lord have mercy upon my soul. Written by my own hand, signed and sealed, at Chertsea, this 28th day of September, 1665. Signed and sealed in the presence of "Thomas Waldron.68 "The mark of John Symonds, Wheelwright, of Chertsey." "ABRAHAM COWLEY. 67 Mr. Cowley in his will recommended to my care the revising of all his works that were formerly printed, and the collecting of those papers which he had designed for the press. And he did it with this particular obligation, That I should be sure to let nothing pass that might seem the least offence to religion or good manners. A caution which you [Martin Clifford] will judge to have been altogether needless. For certainly, in all ancient or modern times, there can scarce any author be found that has handled so many different matters in such various sorts of style, who less wants the correction of his friends, or has less reason to fear the severity of strangers.-SPRAT's Life of Cowley, 1669. 68 The poet's man-servant. See the body of the will. Let me add here that Cowley did not excel in conversation, and that only one of his sayings has been preserved. "Pray, Mr. Howard, if you did read your grammar, what harm would it do you?" This was to Ned Howard. (See Pope's 'Letter to a Noble Lord.") DENHA M. 1615-1668. Born at Dublin - - Educated at Oxford and Lincoln's Inn - Addicted to Gaming-Becomes unexpectedly a Poet-Sides with Charles I.Writes Cooper's Hill' Employed by Charles I. — Made Knight of the Bath and Surveyor of the Works - His two Wives - Becomes Insane-Death and Burial in Westminster Abbey-Character and Works. OF SIR JOHN DENHAM very little is known but what is related of him by Wood, or by himself. He 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 of Eleanor, daughter of Sir Garret More, baron of Mellefont.1 Two years afterwards, his father, being made [July 1617] 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 [Trinity College] Oxford, where he was considered "as a dreaming young man, given more to cards and dice than study," and therefore gave no prognostics of his future eminence-nor was suspected to conceal, under sluggishness and laxity, a genius born to improve the literature of his country. 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; but was very often plundered by gamesters. Being severely reproved for this folly, he professed, and perhaps believed, himself reclaimed; and, to testify the sin She was his second wife. His first wife was the widow of Richard Kellefet of Egham, chief groom in Queen Elizabeth's removing gardrobe of beddes' and yeoman of Her Majesty's standing gardrobe at Richmond.' cerity of his repentance, wrote and published 'An Essay upon Gaming.' 2 He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for, in 1636, he translated the second book of the Æneid. Two years after, his father died,3 and then, notwithstanding his resolutions and professions, he returned again to the vice of gaming, and lost several thousand pounds that had been left him. In 1642 he published 'The Sophy.' This seems to have given him his first hold of the public attention; for Waller remarked, "that he broke out like the Irish rebellion three score thousand strong when nobody was aware, or in the least suspected it "an observation which could have had no propriety had his poetical abilities been known before. He was after that pricked for sheriff of Surrey, and made [1642] governor of Farnham Castle for the King; but he soon resigned that charge, and retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published 'Cooper's Hill.' 5 This poem had such reputation as to excite the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence. A report was spread that the performance was not his own, but that he had bought it of a vicar for forty pounds. The same attempt was made to rob Addison of his 'Cato,' and Pope of his Essay on Criticism.' 6 In 1647 the distresses of the royal family required him to The Anatomy of Play, written by a worthy and learned Gent. Dedicated to his father, to show his detestation of it. London, 1645, sm. 8vo. He would game extremely; when he had played away all his money he would play away his father's wrought caps with gold.-AUBREY'S Lives. 3 His father died 6th January, 1638-9, having made his will in March, 1637, wherein he commends "his son John Denham, Esq., his wife and child to the blessing of Almighty God." His estate he left "wholly and freely" to his son. He is buried at Egham, in Surrey, where his monument with his effigy in a winding-sheet is still to be seen. So Aubrey. Dryden in his Preface to Walsh's Dialogue (1691) refers to the remark as said of Waller's appearance "by the wits of the last age." 5 There is an edition of 'Cooper's Hill' in 4to., dated London, 1642. The first genuine edition is that in 4to., 1655. 'Cooper's Hill written in the year 1640. Now printed from a perfect copy and a corrected impression by John Denham, Esq.' London, Moseley, 1655. |