hall, being part of that noble entertainment which their majefties received on November 20, 1660, from his grace the duke of Albemarle. 4. The true prefbyterian without difguife: or, a character of a prefbyterian's ways and actions. Lond. 1680. Our author's name is to this poem'; but it was then questioned by many, whether he was the author of it. In 1666 there were printed by ftealth, in 8vo. certain poems, intituled Directions to a Painter, in four copies or parts, each dedicated to Charles II. They were very fatirically written against several perfons engaged in the dutch war in 1665. At the end of them was a piece, intituled, "Clarendon's Houfe-warning," and after that his Epitaph; both containing bitter reflections on that excellent nobleman. Sir John Denham's name is to these pieces; but they were generally thought to be written by the well-known Andrew Marvel: the printer, however, being difcovered, was sentenced to stand in the pillory for the fame. "Denham," fays Dr. Johnson, "is defervedly confidered as one of the fathers of english poetry. Denham and Waller, according to Prior, improved our verfification, and Dryden perfected it. 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 ludicroufnefs 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 Peace in the close Committee' be excepted. For grave burlesque, however, his imitation of Davenant fhews him to have been well qualified. His poem on the death of Cowley, was his laft, and, among his fhorter works, his best performance: the numbers are musical, and the thoughts are juft. Cooper's Hill' is the work that confers upon him the rank and dignity of an original author. He feems to have been, at least among us, the author of a fpecies of compofition that may be denominated local poetry, of which the fundamental fubject is fome particular landfcape, to be poetically defcribed, with the addition of fuch embellishments 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 praife, and its praife 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 scarce a corner of the ifland undignified by.rhyme, or blank verse. He appears to have been one of the first that understood the neceflity of emancipating tranflation from the drudgery of counting lines and interpreting fingle words. How much this fervile practice obfcured the cleareft and deformed the most beautiful parts of the antient authors, may be discovered by a perufal perufal of our earlier verfions; fome of them the works of men |