Memorandum:—he delighted much in bowles, and did bowle very well.
He was of the tallest, but a little incurvetting at his shoulders, not very robust. His haire was but thin and flaxen, with a moist curle. His gate was slow, and was rather a stalking (he had long legges), which was wont to putt me in mind of Horace, De Arte Poetica:—
'Hic, dum sublimes versus ructatur, et errat
Si veluti merulis intentus decidit auceps
In puteum foveamve:'——
His eie was a kind of light goose-gray, not big; but it had a strange piercingness, not as to shining and glory, but (like a Momus) when he conversed with you he look't into your very thoughts.
He was generally temperate as to drinking; but one time when he was a student of Lincolne's-Inne, having been merry at the taverne with his camerades, late at night, a frolick came into his head, to gett a playsterer's brush and a pott of inke, and blott out all the signes between Temple-barre and Charing-crosse, which made a strange confusion the next day, and 'twas in Terme time. But it happened that they were discovered, and it cost him and them some moneys. This I had from R. Estcott[824], esq., that carried the inke-pott.
In the time of the civill warres, George Withers, the poet, begged Sir John Denham's estate at Egham of the Parliament, in whose cause he was a captaine of horse. It <happened> that G. W. was taken prisoner, and was in danger of his life, having written severely against the king, &c. Sir John Denham went to the king, and desired his majestie not to hang him, for that whilest G. W. lived he should not be the worst poet in England.
Scripsit the Sophy: Cowper's Hill: Essay against Gameing: Poems, 8vo, printed anno Domini ...; Cato Major sive De Senectute, translated into English verse, London, printed by H. Heringman, in the New Exchange, 1669.
Memorandum:—in the verses against Gondibert, most of them are Sir John's. He was satyricall when he had a mind to it.