of Lord Brooke he was admitted to the inner circle of society. In obedience to the prevailing taste of the age, Davenant perceived that if he were to become a writer, the best way to win distinction at court was to write plays. Many noblemen of high rank whom he flattered in his dedications responded by their unstinted patronage, and the numerous plays and masques which he brought out with great industry soon brought him fame and wealth. Best of all, he sought both the friendship and the advice of Ben Jonson, and, all things considered, it seemed natural that when that great dramatist died in 1637, the laurel which he had worn with so much honour should be given to his young associate. But Davenant did not win this distinction at once; for many months the office remained in abeyance, and when at last he received the appoint'ment he had several formidable rivals. That he defeated them all does not necessarily prove that he was a better poet. The office which had been conferred upon Ben Jonson because he was the foremost man of letters of his time, ceased with Jonson to have this peculiar significance. With Davenant, who owed his appointment to the intercession of the queen, we see that the Laureateship was beginning to be more a mark of courtly favour than a reward for poetic merit. After Dryden's death the office became still more degraded.

Davenant not only served the crown by his services as laureate, but when the king's fortunes grew dark he stood firmly by his side, winning distinction at the seige of Gloucester (where he was knighted), and helping the queen by many friendly and delicate services.

It

Davenant's political as well as literary eminence invited many audacious satirical attacks. The lampoons which he inspired were oftentimes directed against his personal appearance. is not known how it happened, but the face which in youth had been distinguished for its beauty, was marred in manhood by the loss of its principal feature. One of the most painful of the many insults he received on account of his disfigured nose was when, one day, he refused an unworthy woman charity. Instead of her curses he heard her beseeching Heaven to spare his eyesight. His attention being arrested thus, as he was passing on, he told her that his eyesight was very good. Her reply was that it pleased her much to hear this, as should it ever fail he would be in a sorry plight, as he would then have nothing upon which to rest his spectacles! Poor Davenant's portrait which has come down to us plainly shows this distressing disfigurement.

When the Parliament came into power Davenant fled to France, where he busied himself with his heroic poem, “Gondibert." Embarking after a time for the New World, his ship

was driven by a storm upon the English coast. The poet was made prisoner and taken to London. To the friendly intercession of Milton he probably owed his life, though the Tower held him captive for two years. Gondibert," which he had thought was to be interrupted by so great an experiment as dying," was here resumed, and the sad and lonely days in the Tower were cheered by this congenial work.

Released at length, he plunged with zest into his former theatrical life, but he was now the deposed laureate and had to work in secret. The Puritan reaction had closed the theatres, and the results of Davenant's efforts were very uncertain. But his aim was to revive the stage, and he worked on faithfully until the Restoration, and then he came boldly forth from his retirement. He opened a theatre for the production of his own plays, where he introduced many novelties in scenery, was the author of many innovations, such as women actors, musical accompaniments, etc., and thus the progress of the English drama owed much to this industrious worker.

"The

Davenant was the first to begin that despicable remodelling of Shakespeare which Dryden, Tate, and others imitated; but they were all but catering to the depraved taste of the age, which could not appreciate the higher flights of genius. giant race before the flood had long since departed, Shakespeare and Jonson were in their graves, the Elizabethan age was past and gone. Mere amusement was what was demanded of the poets if they were to win popular approval. The people wanted no great ennobling work of art, no moral strength and dignity on the stage.

At the Restoration the laurel had been again placed upon the brow of Davenant, and he wore it till his death in 1668. His last days were quiet and uneventful, much happier than those of Ben Jonson, and the end came in peace. His life had "exhibited a moving picture of genius in action and in contemplation. With all the infirmities of lively passions, he had all the redeeming virtues of magnanimity and generous affections," and at the last his friends laid him to rest in the sacred seclusion of the grand old Abbey.

Of Davenant's numerous plays it would be impossible to speak in detail. They are energetic and bold in construction, show novelty in imagery, and often originality in the analysis of character. They teem with philosophical reflections and condensed epigrams, and yet they lack passion and fire, and have not the exalted view of human nature and of the earnestness of human life which is shown in "Gondibert." Even with Davenant the stage began to take its downward course. And this, in spite of the great and undeniable services he rendered it.

With all his talent, Davenant had not the moral force to

stem the tide of his age. He could not dictate to it like Jonson, nor was he unworldly enough, like Milton, to go serenely on, unmindful of its applause and its alluring rewards.

In the hands of dramatists like Wycherley, Etheredge, Congreve, and Davenant's successor in the Laureateship, Dryden, the English stage became a mere panderer to vice, well meriting the vigorous onslaughts of Jeremy Collier.

Milton said that he who aspires to write a heroic poem must make his own life heroic. Davenant himself said that he who writes a heroic poem gives a greater gift to posterity than to the present age. Poor Davenant hoped to win a place among the immortals by his Gondibert," but, though many of its fine and sonorous phrases live in the language, the poem, as a whole, is seldom read. Yet the versatile genius of Davenant claims a far better fate for this poem than has been accorded it. Disraeli very justly calls attention to the new vein of invention in narrative poetry which Davenant opened in "Gondibert." "The poet styled it heroic, but we have since called it romantic." Scott, Byron, and Southey worked this same vein of invention, and discovered richer treasures than ever came within the ken of Davenant, and they had a depth of passion also unknown to him; but he was the pioneer, and should, for his originality, receive due praise. Davenant's work has neither the vitality nor the permanence of the best work of Jonson, and therefore it has not withstood the disintegrating power of time. But, as Disraeli says, one of the curiosities in the history of our poetry is this very poem, which is now nearly forgotten by the world: The fortunes and the fate of this epic are as extraordinary as the poem itself. Davenant had viewed human life in all its shapes, and had himself taken them. A poet and a wit, the creator of the English stage, a soldier, an emigrant, a courtier, and a politician, and at all times a philosopher, he was, too, a state prisoner, awaiting death with his great poem in his hand."

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