attachment to that persuasion. The object of his negociation was to persuade the king to save his crown by sacrificing the church, a proposition which his majesty rejected with becoming dignity, and this as lord Clarendon observes, " evinced an honest and conscientious principle in his majesty's mind, which elevated him above all his advisers." The queen's advisers in the measure were, his majesty knew, men of no religious principle, and he seems to have resented their sending an ambassador of no more consequence than the manager of a play-house.

During our poet's residence at Paris, where he took up his habitation in the Louvre, with his old friend lord Jermyn, he wrote the first two books of his Gondibert, which were published in England, but without exciting much interest. Soon after he commenced projector, and hearing that vast improvements might be made in the loyal colony of Virginia, by transporting good artificers, whom France could at that time spare, he embarked with a number of them, at one of the ports in Normandy. This humane and apparently wise scheme ended almost immediately in the capture of his vessel on the French coast by one of the parliamentary ships of war, which carried him to the Isle of Wight, where he was imprisoned at Cowes Castle. After endeavouring to reconcile himself to this unfortunate and perilous situation, he resumed his pen, and proceeded with his Gondibert; but being in continual dread of his life, he made but slow progress. His fears, indeed, were not without foundation. In 1650, when the parliament had triumphed over all opposition, he was ordered to be tried by a high commission court, and for this purpose was removed to the Tower of London. His biographers are not agreed as to the means by which he was saved. Some impute it to the solicitations of two aldermen of York, to whom he had been hospitable when they were his prisoners, and whom he suffered to escape. Others inform us that Milton interposed. Both accounts, it is hoped, are true; and it is certain, that after the Restoration he repaid Milton's interference in kind, by preserving him from the resentment of the court. He remained, however, in prison for two years, and was treated with some indulgence, by the favour of the lord keeper Whitlocke, whom he thanked in a letter written with peculiar elegance of style and compliment.

By degrees he obtained complete enlargement, and had nothing to regret but the wreck of his fortune. In this dilemma, he adopted a measure which, like a great part of his conduct throughout life, shows him to have been a man of an undaunted and unaccommodating spirit, fertile in expedients, and possessed of no common resources of mind. Indeed, of all schemes, this seemed the most unlikely to succeed, and even the most dangerous to propose. Yet, in the very teeth of national prejudices or principles, and at a time when all dramatic entertainments were suspended, discouraged by the protectoral court, and anathematised by the people, he conceived that, if he could contrive to open a theatre, it would be sure to be well filled. Viewing his difficulties with great precaution, he proceeded by slow steps, and an apparent reluctance, to revive what was so generally obnoxious. Having, however, obtained the countenance of lord Whitlocke, sir John Maynard, and other persons of rank,

he opened a theatre in Rutland-house, Charter-house-yard, on the 21st of May, 1656, and performed a kind of non-descript entertainments, as they were called, which were dramatic in every thing but the names and form, and some of them were called When he found these relished and tolerated, he proceeded to more regular pieces, and with such advantages in style and manner, as, in the judgment of the historians of the stage, entitle him to the honour of being not only the reviver, but the improver, of the legitimate drama. These pieces he afterwards revised, and published in a more perfect state, and they now form the principal part of his printed works, although modern taste has long excluded them from the stage.

On the Restoration, he received the patent of a playhouse, under the title of the Duke's Company, who first performed in the theatre in Portugal-row, Lincoln's Inn Fields, and afterwards in that in Dorset Gardens. Here he acted his former plays, and such new ones as he wrote after this period, and enjoyed the public favour until his death, April 7, 1668, in his sixty-third year. He was interred with considerable ceremony, two days after, in Westminster Abbey, near the place where the remains of May, his once rival, had been pompously buried by the parliament, but were ordered to be removed. On his gravestone is inscribed, in imitation of Ben Jonson's short epitaph, O rare sir William Davenant!" His son, Dr. Charles Davenant, was afterwards a well-known civilian and political writer.

The life of Sir William Davenant occupies an important space in the history of the stage, to which he was in many respects a judicious benefactor, by introducing changes of scenery and decorations; but he assisted in banishing Shakspeare, to make way for dramas that are now intolerable. He appears to have been, in his capacity of manager, as in every part of life, a man of sound and original sense, firm in his enterprises, and intent to gratify the taste of the public, with little advantage to himself, as he died insolvent. The greater part of his works was published in his lifetime in quarto; but they were collected in 1673 into one large folio volume, dedicated by his widow to the duke of York.

As a poet, his fame rests chiefly on his Gondibert; but the critics have never been agreed in the share he derives from it. The reader, who declines to judge for himself, may have ample satifaction in the opinions of the late bishop Hurd, and of Dr. Aikin, as detailed in the conclusion of his life in the Biographia Britannica. It will probably be found, on an unprejudiced perusal of this original and very singular poem, that the opinions of Dr. Aikin and Mr. Headley are founded on those principles of taste and feeling which cannot be easily opposed: yet, in considering the objections of Dr. Hurd, allowance is to be made for one who is so powerful and elegant an advocate for the authorised qualities of the epic species, and for arguments which, if they do not attach closely to this poem, may yet be worthy of the consideration of those whose inventive fancy leads them principally to novelty of manner,

The reader, who is curious in such matters, may be referred to Davenant's life in the Biographia Britannica, and to Mr. Malone's History of the Stage, where he will find a minute detail of Davepant's various grants, licences, and disputes with his rival managers. C.

and who are apt to confound the arbitrary caprices with the genuine powers of a poet.

His miscellaneous pieces, of which we have been obliged to confine ourselves to a selection, are of very unequal merit. Most of them were probably written in youth, and but few can be reprinted with the hope of satisfying a polished taste. Complimentary poetry, so much the fashion in his times, is now perused with indifference, if not disgust; and although the gratitude which inspired it may have been sincere, it is not highly relished by the honest independence which belongs to the sons of the Muses.

TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS.

YOUR Highness is no sooner return'd from exposing your person, for the honour and safety of three kingdoms, but you are persecuted by a poor widow, who humbly begs you to protect the works of her deceased husband from the envy and malice of this censorious age: for whoever sees your royal highness's name in the front of this book, and dares oppose, what you are pleased to defend, not only shows his weakness, but ill nature too.

I have often heard (and I have some reason to believe) that your royal father, of ever blessed memory, was not displeased with his writings; that your most excellent mother did graciously take him into her family; that she was often diverted by him, and as often smiled upon his endeavors; I am sure he made it the whole study and labour of the latter part of his life, to entertain his majesty, and your royal highness, and I hope he did it successfully.

When ever we are, or when ever we fear to be opprest, we always fly to your highness for redress or prevention, and you were ever graciously pleased to protect us; 'tis that has emboldened me to present these papers to your royal highness, and I humbly beg pardon for the presumption of

your most humble

and obedient servant

MARY DAVENANT.