At the final overthrow of the royalists, he again fled to France; where he embraced the Popish religion, and experienced a renewal of the queen's favour. She deputed him, in the summer of 1646, to urge the king's compliance with certain temporising measures; but he behaved himself so impertinently, that the king dismissed him, with severe exprobation; and, returning to Paris, he set himself about the composition of Gondibert, an epic poem. In 1650, he collected a body of artificers, and set sail for the colony of Virginia. The vessel was intercepted; and our poet thrown into Cowes Castle, in the Isle of Wight. He alleviated his imprisonment by continuing his epic poem; and had got about half through the third book,-when he was removed to the Tower of London, in order to be tried by the High Commission Court. How he escaped the trial, is not certainly known; but the credit of his rescue is generally given to Milton and two aldermen of York. The latter, it is said, had been permitted to escape a military imprisonment, while Davenant was lieutenant-general of the ordnance; and the former was repaid, at the Restoration, by our poet's exertions to include him in the act of oblivion.

Plays, by this time, had been absolutely prohibited; and, unless Davenant had devised the happy expedients of calling regular dramas, in five acts, entertainments instead of plays, he would have found his liberation little better than a change from imprisonment to pauperism. His First Day's Entertainment at Rutland House, in May, 22, 1656, was, indeed, a mixture of declamation and music, after the manner of the ancients; but the eight perfor mances which succeeded,-The Seige of Rhodes, in the same year,-The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, in 1658,-The History of Sir Francis Drake, in 1659,-The Fair Favourite,--Law against Lovers, -Playhouse to be Let,-The Siege and The Distresses,

-were as naughty plays as could well have violated the law. The Restoration extended itself even to the theatre; and Davenant obtained a patent for representing plays, under the title of the Duke's Company, of Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. He opened the house with the Siege of Rhodes, in the spring of 1662; and, for the first time, it is said, introduced painted scenery, and female performers. The comedies of The Rivals, and the Man's the Master, came next. He altered Macbeth to suit his stage; and joined with Dryden in remodelling the Tempest. This was his last performance. He died at his house in Little Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, April 7th, 1668; and was buried in Westminster Abbey, under a stone, inscribed, like Jonson's, with O RARE SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT! We have a good account of his person; and a bad account of his morals. He was called Bilboa, from a depression of the nose, which necessitated him to keep a piece of brown paper applied to that part; and which was traced, by cotemporary wits, 'to his familiarity with a handsome black girl, in Axeyard, Westminster.'

As a poet, perhaps Davenant is entitled to the epithet inserted upon his tomb. It was his ambition to be rare; and his misfortune to be successful. He was one of the first to throw off the yoke of authority; and to declare openly and boldly, that Homer was altogether unworthy of imitation. He was determined, therefore, to write Gondibert upon his own plan; excluding all episode and machinery, and confining himself, as rigorously as possible, to the dramatic unities of the narrative. He has displayed a vigorous and fertile mind; but he rendered it comparatively weak and barren by over cultivation and refinement. Almost every book is a riddle; and almost every stanza, an epigram. He could see no difference between originality and excellence; and thought, that every thing which is new, must be good. We think as meanly as any

of the servile herd of imitators; yet there are certain things which it is no mark of security to imitate; and, among these, are the long established rules of epic composition. We confess, we have some predilection for immemorial usage; and, at the hazard of insulting the manes of some dead authors, and of grievously offending a few that are living, we must think, after all, that Homer is no very contemptible poet.

WILLIAM DAVENANT.

GONDIBERT.

CANTO THE EIGHTH.

THE ARGUMENT.

Birtha her first unpractis'd love bewailes,
Whilst Gondibert on Astragon prevailes,
By shewing high ambition is of use,
And glory in the good needs no excuse.
Goltho a grief to Ulfinore reveales,
Whilst he a greater of his own conceales.

BIRTHA her griefs to her apartment brought,
Where all her maids to Heav'n were us❜d to raise
Their voices, whilst their busie fingers wrought
To deck the altar of the house of Praise.

But now she findes their musick turn'd to care,
Their looks allay'd, like beauty overworn;
Silent and sad as with'ring fav'rites are,

Who for their sick indulgent monarch mourn.

Thula, (the eldest of this silenc'd quire)
When Birtha at this change astonish'd was,

With hasty whisper begg'd her to retire,

And on her knees thus tells their sorrow's cause: VOL. V.

M