Dennis

Dennis, JOHN, critic, was born in London in 1657, the son of a prosperous saddler. He had his education at Harrow, and Caius College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1679. After a tour through France and Italy, he took his place among the wits and men of fashion, and brought a sufficiently rancorous pen to the assistance of the Whig party. His acquaintance with Dryden and Wycherley and other distinguished wits, as well as his native bent, made him a playwright. His plays had but little success. Of the nine, the two most famous were Liberty Asserted (1704) and Appius and Virginia (produced 1709). Pope's Essay on Criticism (1711) contained a contemptuous allusion to the latter, answered by Dennis next month in Reflections, Critical and Satirical, which was the commencement of a long and embittered feud between the poet and the critic. Pope's Narrative of Dr Robert Norris, concerning the Strange and Deplorable Frenzy of John Dennis, an officer in the Custom-House (1713), was a virulent, vulgar, and officious attack made on Addison's behalf, but in which that genial author, through Steele, disavowed any complicity. Dennis was poor and blind during his last years. A few weeks after a theatrical performance, got up for his benefit by Pope and some others, he died, 6th January 1734. Dennis was embroiled in controversy all his life, and his naturally impatient temper became completely soured. He made many enemies, and his name, which his own writings could scarce preserve, will live for ever in their contempt and hate. He is one of the best-abused men in English literature. Swift lampooned him, and Pope not only assailed him in the Essay on Criticism, but finally 'damned him to everlasting fame' in the Dunciad. Yet he was no fool, and his Advancement and Reformation of Modern Poetry (1701) and The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (1704) will still repay perusal. 'Spite of the growling of poor old Dennis,' says Mr Lowell, 'his sandy pedantry was not without an oasis of refreshing sound judgment here and there.'