The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) Volume III.

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Jayam Subramanian and PG Distributed
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GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND.
Compiled from ample Materials scattered in a Variety of Books, and especially from the MS. Notes of the late ingenious Mr. COXETER and others, collected for this Design,
By Mr. CIBBER, and other Hands.
Contains the
Denham Killegrew Howard Behn, Aphra Etherege Mountford Shadwell Killegrew, William, Howard Flecknoe Dryden Sedley Crowne Sackville, E. Dorset Farquhar Ravenscroft Philips, John Walsh Betterton Banks Chudley, Lady Creech Maynwaring Monk, the Hon. Mrs. Browne Tom. Pomfret King Sprat, Bishop Montague, E. Hallifax Wycherley Tate Garth Rowe Sheffield, D. Buck. Cotton Additon Winshelsea, Anne Gildon D'Urfey Settle

Sir JOHN DENHAM.
He received his education, in grammar learning, in London; and in Michaelmas term 1631 he was entered a gentleman commoner in Trinity College, Oxford, being then 16 years of age; where, as Wood expresses it, 'being looked upon as a slow dreaming young man, and more addicted to gaming than study, they could never imagine he could ever enrich the world with the issue of his brain, as he afterwards did.'
In the latter end of the year 1641 he published a tragedy called the Sophy, which was greatly admired, and gave Mr. Waller occasion to say of our author, 'That he broke out like the Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong, when no body was aware, nor in the Ieast expected it.' Soon after this he was pricked for high sheriff for the county of Surry, and made governor of Farnham-Castle for the King; but not being well skilled in military affairs, he soon quitted that post and retired to his Majesty at Oxford, where he published an excellent poem called Cooper's-hill, often reprinted before and since the restoration, with considerable alterations; it has been universally admired by all good judges, and was translated into Latin verse, by Mr. Moses Pengry of Oxford.
Ye sacred nine, that all my soul possess, Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless; Bear me, O bear me, to sequester'd scenes, The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens; To Thames's bank which fragrant breezes fill, Or where the muses sport on Cooper's-hill. (On Cooper's hill eternal wreaths shall grow, While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.) I seem thro' consecrated walks to rove, I hear soft music die along the grove, Led by the found, I roam from shade to shade, By god-like poets venerable made: Here his last lays majestic Denham sung, There the last numbers flow'd from Cowley's tongue.