Denham

From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781.

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Of sir John Denham very little is known but what is related of him by Wood, or by himself.

He was born at Dublin, 1615[22]; the only son of sir John Denham, of Little Horsley, in Essex, then chief baron of the exchequer in Ireland, and of Eleanor, daughter of sir Garret More, baron 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 prognosticks 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 sincerity of his repentance, wrote and published an Essay upon Gaming.

He seems to have divided his studies between law and poetry; for, in 1636, he translated the second book of the Aeneid. Two years after, his father died; 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 1641, he published the Sophy. This seems to have given him his first hold of the publick 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 governour of Farnham castle for the king; but he soon resigned that charge, and retreated to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published Cooper's Hill.

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.

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