avowedly imitated Denham in ‘Windsor Forest,’ as Garth did in his ‘Claremont.’ Pope calls Denham ‘majestic,’ and insists on his strength. Swift, in ‘Apollo's Edict,’ writes:
Nor let my votaries show their skill
In aping lines from Cooper's Hill;
For know I cannot bear to hear
The mimicry of ‘deep yet clear.’
The poem is the earliest example of strictly descriptive poetry in the language, and, in spite of an excess of moralising, deserves its reputation. The sprightly eulogy on ‘Friendship and Single Life against Love and Marriage’ is the most attractive of Denham's lighter pieces. The Senecan tragedy of ‘Sophy,’ which Butler charged Denham with borrowing, is an interesting effort in a worn-out style of dramatic art. Denham shows to worst advantage in his satirical doggerel. ‘Nothing is less exhilarating than the ludicrousness of Denham, … he is familiar, he is gross; he is never merry’ (Johnson). His translations of Virgil and Cicero, in which he practised his theory of paraphrase as opposed to literal reproduction, are only interesting in their influence on Dryden (cf. Dryden's pref. to Ovid's Epistles in Works, ed. Scott, xii. 12–14). Dr. Johnson assigns to Denham the credit of first endowing the heroic couplet with epigrammatic terseness.
Denham's separate publications are: 1. ‘The Sophy,’ 1642 and 1667. 2. ‘Cooper's Hill,’ 1642; 1650 (with prologue and epilogue to ‘The Sophy’ and verses on Fanshawe's translation of ‘Pastor Fido’); 1655 (corrected). 3. ‘Cato Major,’ verse translation from Cicero, 1648, 1669, 1703, 1710, 1769, and 1779. 4. ‘The Destruction of Troy, with a preface on translation,’ 1656. 5. ‘Anatomy of Play,’ 1651, prose tract (Bliss notes a copy dated 1645). 6. ‘Second and Third Advices to a Painter for describing our Naval Business,’ 1667. Two editions of this work appeared in 1667, one in 12mo and the other in 8vo, and it is reprinted in ‘Poems on Affairs of State.’ In these poems, which are accompanied by two addresses to the king, Denham continued the poetic narrative of the Dutch wars which Waller had begun in his ‘Instructions to a Painter,’ describing the naval battle with the Dutch (3 June 1665). The 8vo edition was described as ‘the last work of Sir John Denham,’ and ‘written in imitation of Waller,’ but it was apparently produced surreptitiously, and to it was ‘annexed “Clarendon's House-Warming,” by an unknown author.’ The unknown author was Andrew Marvell, and it has been assumed in some quarters that Marvell rather than Denham was the author of the whole work. But this is an error, attributable to the fact that Marvell parodied Denham's poem in a satire on the Dutch war and other political incidents which he christened ‘Last Directions to a Painter.’ Except in their titles, Denham's and Marvell's poems are easily distinguishable. 7. ‘Psalms of David, fitted to the Tunes used in Churches,’ 1744, with an interesting essay on earlier metrical versions. This was edited by Heighes Woodford, and dedicated to the Earl of Derby. Samuel Woodford refers to the existence of this work in his ‘Occasional Compositions in English Rhimes,’ 1668. Poems by Denham in celebration of Monck's efforts (1659–60), of Monck's entertainment of the king (1661), of the crimes of a Colchester quaker (1659–1660), of the queen's new buildings at Somerset House (1665), of Cowley (1667), and the ‘True Character of a Presbyterian,’ were issued separately in single folio sheets. Much of Denham's political doggerel appeared in ‘The Rump,’ 1662. Denham wrote the fifth act for Mrs. Katherine Philips's—‘matchless Orinda's’—translation of Corneille's ‘Horace’ (not issued till 1669), and contributed verses to Richard Fanshawe's translation of Guarini's ‘Pastor Fido’ (1647), to ‘Lacrymæ Musarum’ on the death of Lord Hastings (1649), to the satirical volume on Davenant's ‘Gondibert’ (‘Certain verses by several of the author's friends’), 1653, to Robert Howard's ‘British Princess,’ and to the collected edition of Beaumont and Fletcher's works. The first collected edition of Denham's poems appeared in 1668, with a dedicatory epistle to Charles II. Other collected editions followed in 1671, 1676, 1684, and 1709. They are reprinted in Johnson's (1779), Anderson's (1793), Park's (1808), and Chalmers's (1810) collections of English poets. One poem by Denham, ‘To his Mistress,’ is only to be found in Gildon's ‘Poetical Remaines’ (1698).
[Wood's Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 823; Langbaine's Dramatick Poets (1691), with Oldys's manuscript notes in Brit. Mus. C. 28, g. 1; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 24491; Aubrey's Lives, vol. ii.; Johnson's Lives of the Poets, ed. Cunningham, i. 67–78; Berkeley's Memoirs (1702); Cal. State Papers, 1650–67; Gent. Mag. (1850), ii. 370; Chester's Marriage Licenses (Foster), p. 395; Pepys's Diary; Evelyn's Diary; Grammont's Memoirs; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. i. 532, x. 249 (by Rev. H. W. Cookes); Marvell's Works, ed. Grosart.]
DENHAM, MICHAEL AISLABIE (d. 1859), collector of folklore, a native of Bowes, Yorkshire, was engaged in business at Hull in the early part of his life, and ultimately settled as a general merchant at Piersebridge, near Gainford, Durham, where he died on 10 Sept. 1859.
