XXVI.
But the vast ocean of unbounded day
In th'Empyræan heav'n does stay;
Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below,
From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.
Footnotes:
Sir William Davenant.
Few poets have been subjected to more various turns of fortune, than the gentleman whose memoirs we are now about to relate. He was amongst the first who refined our poetry, and did more for the interest of the drama, than any who ever wrote for the stage. He lived in times of general confusion, and was no unactive member of the state, when its necessities demanded his assistance; and when, with the restoration, politeness and genius began to revive, he applied himself to the promotion of these rational pleasures, which are fit to entertain a cultivated people. This great man was son of one Mr. John Davenant, a citizen of Oxford, and was born in the month of February, 1605; all the biographers of our poet have observed, that his father was a man of a grave disposition, and a gloomy turn of mind, which his son did not inherit from him, for he was as remarkably volatile, as his father was saturnine. The same biographers have celebrated our author's mother as very handsome, whose charms had the power of attracting the admiration of Shakespear, the highest compliment which ever was paid to beauty. As Mr. Davenant, our poet's father, kept a tavern, Shakespear, in his journies to Warwickshire, spent some time there, influenced, as many believe, by the engaging qualities of the handsome landlady. This circumstance has given rise to a conjecture, that Davenant was really the son of Shakespear, as well naturally as poetically, by an [64] unlawful intrigue, between his mother and that great man; that this allegation is founded upon probability, no reader can believe, for we have such accounts of the amiable temper, and moral qualities of Shakespear, that we cannot suppose him to have been guilty of such an act of treachery, as violating the marriage honours; and however he might have been delighted with the conversation, or charmed with the person of Mrs. Davenant, yet as adultery was not then the fashionable vice, it would be injurious to his memory, so much as to suppose him guilty.
Our author received the first rudiments of polite learning from Mr. Edward Sylvester, who kept a grammar school in the parish of All Saints in Oxford. In the year 1624, the same in which his father was Mayor of the city, he was entered a member of the university of Oxford, in Lincoln's-Inn College, under the tuition of Mr. Daniel Hough, but the Oxford antiquary is of opinion, he did not long remain there, as his mind was too much addicted to gaiety, to bear the austerities of an academical life, and being encouraged by some gentlemen, who admired the vivacity of his genius, he repaired to court, in hopes of making his fortune in that pleasing, but dangerous element. He became first page to Frances, duchess of Richmond, a lady much celebrated in those days, as well for her beauty, as the influence she had at court, and her extraordinary taste for grandeur, which excited her to keep a kind of private court of her own, which, in our more fashionable æra, is known by the name of Drums, Routs, and Hurricanes. Sir William afterwards removed into the family of Sir Fulk Greville, lord Brooke, who being himself a man of taste and erudition, gave the most encouraging marks of esteem to our rising bard. This worthy nobleman being brought to an immature fate, by the cruel hands of an assassin, 1628, Davenant was [65] left without a patron, though not in very indigent circumstances, his reputation having increased, during the time he was in his lordship's service: the year ensuing the death of his patron, he produced his first play to the world, called Albovino, King of the Lombards, which met with a very general, and warm reception, and to which some very honourable recommendations were prefixed, when it was printed, in several copies of verses, by men of eminence, amongst whom, were, Sir Henry Blount, Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, and the honourable Henry Howard. Our author spent the next eight years of his life in a constant attendance upon court, where he was highly caressed by the most shining characters of the times, particularly by the earl of Dorset, Edward Hyde, and Lord Treasurer Weston: during these gay moments, spent in the court amusements, an unlucky accident happened to our author, which not a little deformed his face, which, from nature, was very handsome. Wood has affirmed, that this accident arose from libidinous dalliance with a handsome black girl in Axe-yard, Westminster. The plain fact is this, Davenant was of an amorous complexion, and was so unlucky as to carry the marks of his regular gallantries in the depression of his nose; this exposed him to the pleasant raillery of cotemporary wits, which very little affected him, and to shew that he was undisturbed by their merriment, he wrote a burlesque copy of verses upon himself. This accident happened pretty early in his life, since it gave occasion to the following stanzas in Sir John Suckling's Sessions of the Poets, which we have transcribed from a correct copy of Suckling's works.
Will Davenant ashamed of a foolish mischance,
That he had got lately travelling in France,
[66] Modestly hop'd the handsomness of his muse,
Might any deformity about him excuse.
Surely the company had been content,
If they cou'd have found any precedent,
But in all their records in verse, or prose,
There was none of a laureat, who wanted a nose.