Denham, SIR JOHN, a Caroline poet, was the only son of an Irish judge, himself of English birth, and was born at Dublin in 1615. He was educated in London and at Trinity College, Oxford, where Wood tells us he was 'a slow dreaming young man, and more addicted to gaming than study'—a taste from which his own essay against gaming (1651) did not cure him. In 1634 he married and went to live with his father at Egham in Surrey, an estate to which he succeeded four years later. At the outbreak of the Civil War he was high-sheriff of Surrey, and he immediately joined the king. He fell into Waller's hands on the capture of Farnham Castle, and was sent prisoner to London, but soon permitted to repair to Oxford. In 1641 he produced Sophy, a feeble tragedy which was acted with great applause at Blackfriars. Next year was issued his long poem, Cooper's Hill, a poetical description of the scenery around Egham, itself still read, but more famous in the merits of its greater successors, Pope's Windsor Forest, avowedly an imitation, and Garth's Claremont. The final form of the poem is that published in 1655, all the changes in which, according to Pope, were made 'with admirable judgment.' Here first appeared its finest lines—the famous apostrophe to the Thames:
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!
Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.
In 1647 Denham was engaged in the performance of secret services for Charles I., but these being discovered, was obliged to flee to Holland and France. In 1650 he collected money for the young king from the Scots resident in Poland, and he made several journeys into England on secret service. At the Restoration he was appointed surveyor-general of works, and created Knight of the Bath. He was a better poet than architect, but he had Christopher Wren to his deputy. In 1665 he married a young girl, who soon showed such open favour to the Duke of York that the poor poet became crazy for a few months. Soon after his recovery his wife died suddenly, not without suspicion of poison—a charge which Pepys evidently believed. Denham's last years were miserable betwixt poverty and the satires of Marvell, Butler, and others. He died early in 1669, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His Elegy on Cowley, written in the short interval between recovery from frenzy and his death, is one of his most successful poems, and is much less obscure and laboured, ungrammatical, and overladen with tedious moralising, than usual. His other works, as the Destruction of Troy, a paraphrase of part of the Aeneid, and especially his satirical doggerel verses, are comparatively worthless. 'Nothing,' says Dr Johnson, 'is less exhilarating than the indelicity of Denham; he does not fail for want of efforts; he is familiar, he is gross; but he is never merry.' His fame rests securely on Cooper's Hill, but more securely still on the commendations of Dryden, Pope, Swift, and Johnson. He is especially eulogised for his strength, as Waller is for his sweetness; indeed, Dryden's critical judgment stands expressed in the words that Cooper's Hill 'for the majesty of its style is and ever will be the standard of exact writing.'