will have him a Welshman. Camden also tells | Usher could see no reason to depart. Yet us that St. Patrick was born in Ross Vale (in with reverence to these great authorities, I Valle Rosina), which signifies a verdant plain; must take the liberty to fix his birth a year and Humphrey Lloyd in Vale Rosea or Rosina, later, i.e. in 373, on the 5th of April. For the rosy plain. Sigebert of Gemblours and the most commonly received opinion is (with many others have called him a Scot, and the which Usher in another part of his work Scottish writers to a man will have him their agrees) that St. Patrick lived but 120 years, countryman. But this is grounded on two and that he died in 493. And this is further mistakes: First, from the language of ancient confirmed by the old Irish Book of Sligo, as martyrologists, as I observed before, which quoted by Usher, that St. Patrick was born, means by the nativity of a saint the day of his baptized, and died on the fourth day, Weddeath, so that when we meet in Bede, &c., nesday. Now the 5th of April, 373, fell on this passage, "On the 17th March in Scotia, Wednesday, and consequently was his birththe nativity of St. Patrick," it must be under- day that year. stood the day of his death. And it is well known that in the days of St. Patrick, and for many ages after, Ireland was known by the name of Scotia and not the modern Scotland. The second mistake hath been occasioned by the alteration of the bounds and limits of countries, so that Dun-Britain, near which St. Patrick was born, though it be now a part of modern Scotland, yet in his time it was within the British territories. Having thus cleared the different pretensions to his birth, I shall now proceed to fix the right place of it, and from thence go on to relate the several particulars of his life. He was born in the extreme bounds of Britain (in that part of it which is now comprehended within the limits of modern Scotland), at a village called Banavan in the territory of Tabernia (as he himself saith in his confessions). Joceline explains Tabernia to signify the Field of Tents, because the Roman army had pitched their tents there, and adds "that the place of his father's habitation was near the town of Erupthor, bounding on the Irish Sea." From this description Usher points out the very spot where he was born, at a place called after him Kirk-Patrick or KilPatrick, between the castle of Dunbriton and the city of Glasgow, where the rampart which separated the barbarians from the Romans terminated. As there were various opinions concerning his country, so writers differ much as to the time of his birth. William of Malmesbury, Adam of Dornerham, and John the Monk of Glastonbury, place his birth in 361, with whom Stanihurst agrees, and all of them follow Probus, on whom we cannot depend. . . . The Annals of Connaught are yet more grossly mistaken in assigning his birth to the year 336. Henry of Marleburg says he was born in 376, Joceline in 370, but Florence of Worcester, nearer the truth, in 372; from whose calculation I shall pass over his infancy without taking any notice of the miracles ascribed to him by the legend writers of his life. His contemporary, the venerable Fiech, is silent as to this particular; and St. Patrick himself ascribes his captivity to his ignorance of the true God, and his disobedience to his commands. He was educated with great care and tenderness by his parents, and his sweet and gentle behaviour rendered him the delight and admiration of all his neighbours. His father, mother, brother, and five sisters undertook a voyage to Aremoric Gaul (since called Bas-Bretagne) to visit the relations of his mother Conchessa. It happened about this time that the seven sons of Factmude, some British prince, were banished, and took to the sea; that making an inroad into Aremoric Gaul they took Patrick and his sister Lupita prisoners. They brought their booty to the north of Ireland, and sold Patrick to Milcho-Mac-Huanan, a petty prince of Dalaradia.1 Others tell the story in a different manner and with a better face of probability, that the Romans having left Britain naked and defenceless, its inhabitants became an easy prey to their troublesome neighbours the Irish, and that our saint fell into the hands of some of these pirates and was carried into Ireland. But in this they all agree, and he himself confirms it, that he continued captive in Ireland six years. He was sold to Milcho and his three brothers, which gave the occasion of changing his name into Cothraig, or rather Ceathir-Tigh, because he served four masters, Ceathir signifying four, and Tigh a house or family. Milcho observing the care and diligence of this new servant, bought out The south and south-east parts of the county of Antrim and all the county Down. own property. He sent him to feed his hogs on Slieu Mis.1 the shares of his brothers, and made him his | in some islands of the Tuscan Sea, and he spent a good part of the time in the city of Rome among the canons regular of the Lateran Church. It was here he perfected himself in the Irish language; the wonderful providence of God visibly appearing in this instance of his captivity; that he should have the opportunity in his tender years of becoming well acquainted with the language, manners, and dispositions of that people to whom he was intended as a future apostle. Possibly the ignorance in these particulars of his predecessor Paladius might have been the cause of his failure in the like attempt. A.D. 395. He continued six whole years in servitude, and in the seventh was released. There seems to have been a law in Ireland for this purpose, agreeable to the institution of Moses, that a servant should be released the seventh year. He was in his sixtieth year when he landed in Ireland in 432; Alfred, Cressy, and other writers, following the authority of William of Malmesbury and of John the Monk of Glastonbury, place his arrival in Ireland in 425, but this plainly contradicts the more early writers. He happily began his ministry by the conversion and baptism of Sinell, a great man in that country, the grandson of Finchad, who ought to be remembered, as he was the first-fruits of St. Patrick's mission in Ireland, or the first of the Irish converted by him. He was the eighth in lineal descent from Cormac, king of Leinster, and afterwards came to be enumerated among the saints of Ireland. Nathi, the son of Garchon, and king of that district, who the year before had frightened away Palladius, in vain attempted to terrify Patrick by opposing and contradicting his doctrine. All the early Irish writers affirm that St. Patrick was buried at Down, in Ireland, and it is from such authorities that the truth must be drawn. . . . From these and many more early authorities we may safely conclude to give Down the honour of containing his remains, with which several of the English writers also agree; and Cambrensis affirms that the bodies of St. Patrick, St. Brigid, and St. Columb were not only buried at Down, but were also there taken up and translated into shrines by John de Courcy, conqueror of Ulidia, about the year 1185, and to this purpose gives us these verses :- "In Down three saints one grave do fill, youth was entered a gentleman commoner of Trinity College, Oxford, where it seems he was "looked upon as a slow and dreaming young man by his seniors and contemporaries, and given more to cards and dice than his study; they could never then in the least imagine that he would ever enrich the world with his fancy or issue of his brain, as he afterwards did." At the end of three years he underwent his B.A. examination, and was sent to Lincoln's Inn to study law, which he did so far as his vice of gaming would allow him. After having been plundered by gamesters and severely reproved by his parents he acquired a sudden abhorrence of the evil practice, and wrote an essay against it, which he presented to his father. He also about this time added the study of poetry to that of laws, and produced a translation of the second book of Virgil's Æneid. In 1638 his father died, and immediately after Denham gave himself up to his old vice, and lost the money-several thousand pounds-that had been left him. In 1641, like a lightning flash out of a clear sky, appeared his tragedy called The Sophy, which was at once admired by the best judges, and gave him fast hold of the public attention. Speaking of the poet in connection with this piece, Waller said that "he broke out like the Irish rebellion, threescore thousand strong, when nobody was aware or in the least suspected it." Soon after this he was made highsheriff of Surrey and governor of Farnham Castle for the king, but not caring for, or not being skilled in military affairs, he quitted the post before long and retired to Oxford, where, in 1643, he published Cooper's Hill, a poem of some three hundred lines, on which his fame chiefly rests. Of this work Dryden says it is "a poem which for majesty of style is, and ever will be, the standard of good writing." An attempt was made to rob Denham of his laurels by what Johnson calls "the common artifice by which envy degrades excellence." In the "Session of the Poets," in some lumbering verses, it is said that the work was not his own, but was bought of a vicar for forty pounds. 1 It has been supposed that this poem was directly inspired by his residence at Egham. The writer of the additions to Camden's Britannia says, in speaking of Egham, "Here lived Sir John Denham the poet, who has immortalized Cooper's Hill adjoining." | "The same attempt," says Johnson, "was made to rob Addison of his Cato, and Pope of his Essay on Man.” In 1647 Denham began to mix in political matters, and in 1648 he conveyed James, Duke of York, into France, or at least so says Johnson and others, though Clarendon affirms that the duke went off with Colonel Bamfield only, who contrived his escape. Certain it is, anyhow, that Denham went to France, from whence he and Lord Crofts were sent ambassadors to Poland from Charles II. In that kingdom they found many Scotchmen wandering about as traders, and from these they obtained £10,000 as a contribution to the king. About 1652 he returned to England, where he was entertained by Lord Pembroke, with whom, having no home of his own, he lived for about a year. At the Restoration he was appointed to the office of surveyor-general of the king's buildings, and at the coronation received the order of the Bath. After his appointment he gave over his poetical works to a great extent, and "made it his business," as he himself says, "to draw such others as might be more serviceable to his majesty, and, he hoped, more lasting." Soon after this, when in the height of his reputation for poetry and genius, he entered into a second marriage, in which he was so unhappy that for a time he became a lunatic. For this misfortune he was cruelly and ungenerously lampooned by Butler, but fortunately it did not last long, and he was again restored to his full health and vigour of mind.3 A few months after he wrote one of his best poems, that on the death of Cowley. This was his last work, for on March 19, 1669, he died at his office in Whitehall, and was laid in Westminster Abbey by the side of the poet he had just panegyrized. Dr. Johnson says that "Denham is justly considered as one of the fathers of English poetry. . . . He is one of the writers that improved our taste and advanced our language, and whom we ought, therefore, to read with 2 An anonymous poem which appeared in Dryden's beauty, and before she had completed her twenty-first Miscellanies. The facts relating to Lady Denham's death are thus given in Notes and Queries, Sept. 28, 1872:-"Lady Denham had attracted the notice of the Duke of York; but in the midst of this liaison she was married, by the interposition of her friends, at the age of eighteen to Sir John Denham, year. It was believed at the time that she had been poisoned in a cup of chocolate. In notes to the English edition of Grammont's Memoirs of 1809-notes partly written, it is said, by the late Sir Walter Scott-we read, 'The slander of the times imputed her death to the jealousy of the Duchess of York.'" 2 gratitude, though, having done much, he left | That lies between, and first salutes the place much to do." Dryden, speaking of Waller's, Crowned with that sacred pile, so vast, so high, Cowley's, and Denham's translations of Virgil, That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky declares that "it is the utmost of his ambition Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud to be thought their equal, or not much inferior Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud. . . to them." Prior places Denham and Waller Under his proud survey the city lies, side by side as improvers of our versification, And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise; which was perfected by Dryden. Pope in his Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd, Essay on Criticism speaks of "the easy vigour of a line Where Denham's strength and Waller's swectness join ;" and in his Windsor Forest, within the compass of a few lines, he calls Denham "lofty" and "majestic," and, talking of Cooper's Hill, he prophesies "On Cooper's Hill eternal wreaths shall grow, While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow." There can be little doubt that Cooper's Hill is an almost perfect model of its kind, notwithstanding the fact that Johnson, characteristically enough, declares that "if it be maliciously inspected it will not be found without its faults." Denham's works have been several times reprinted in one volume under the title of Poems and Translations, with the Sophy, a Tragedy. In addition to what appears in this collection there are other things attributed to him. The most important of these is a New Version of the Book of Psalms, which is now little known. A panegyric on General Monk, printed in 1659, is generally ascribed to him, and his name appears on the poem "The True Presbyterian without Disguise," as well as two pieces called "Clarendon's House Warming," and "His Epitaph." These last are, however, believed to be by Marvell, and are printed in the late American edition of that author's works. Strange to say, Denham has been rather overlooked and forgotten of late years, and his name does not appear in any of the later popular editions of the poets.] COOPER'S HILL.1 Through untraced ways and airy paths I fly, 1 This and the three following extracts are from the work entitled Poems and Translations, with the Sophy, a Tragedy. Seem at this distance but a darker cloud: Some to undo, and some to be undone.. My eye, descending from the Hill, surveys Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold; But free and common as the sea or wind, Strong without rage; without o'erflowing full! 2 St. Paul's, as seen from Cooper's Hill. . A shady mantle clothes; his curled brows This scene had some bold Greek or Roman bard Of fairies, satyrs, and the nymphs, their dames, Had given this false alarm, but straight his view He calls to mind his strength, and then his speed, Then to the stream, when neither friends nor force, Nor speed nor art avail, he shapes his course, So fares the stag; among the enraged hounds In troops surround, now these assails, now those, OF A FUTURE LIFE. These to his sons (as Xenophon records) Though a foul foolish prison her immure keep; When from their fleshly bondage they are free, Then what divine and future things they see! Which makes it most apparent whence they are, And what they shall hereafter be declare." This noble speech the dying Cyrus made. Me, Scipio, shall no argument persuade Thy grandsire, and his brother, to whom fame Runnymede, where the Magna Charta was first sealed. |
