A

KIN G.

SIR,

FTER the delivery of your royal father's perfon

into the hands of the army, I undertaking to the queen-mother that I would find fome means to get access to him, fhe was pleafed to fend me; and by the help of Hugh Peters I got my admittance, and coming well inftructed from the queen (his majesty having been kept long in the dark) he was pleased to difcourfe very freely with me of the whole ftate of his affairs: But, fir, I will not launch into an history, instead of an epiftle. One morning waiting on him at Caufham, smiling upon me, he said he could tell me fome news of myfelf, which was, that he had feen some verses of mine the evening before (being those to Sir R. Fanfhaw); and asking me when I made them, I told him two or three years fince; he was pleased to say, that having never seen them before, he was afraid I had written them fince my return into England, and though he liked them well, he would advise me to write no more; alledging, that when men are young, and have little else to do, they might vent the overflowings of their fancy that way; but when they were thought fit for more ferious employments, if

they ftill perfifted in that courfe, it would look as if they minded not the way to any better.

Whereupon I ftood corrected as long as I had the honour to wait upon him, and at his departure from Hampton-Court, he was pleased to command me to ftay privately at London, to fend to him and receive from him all his letters from and to all his correfpondents at home and abroad, and I was furnished with nine feveral cyphers in order to it which truft I performed with great fafety to the perfons with whom we correfponded; but about nine months after being difcovered by their knowledge of Mr. Cowley's hand, I happily escaped both for myself, and those that held correfpondence with me. That time was too hot and bufy for fuch idle fpeculations: but after I had the good fortune to wait upon your majefty in Holland and France, you were pleased sometimes to give me arguments to divert and put off the evil hours of our banifhment, which now and then fell not fhort of your majefty's expectation.

After, when your majesty, departing from St. Germains to Jersey, was pleafed freely (without my asking) to confer upon me that place wherein I have now the honour to ferve you, I then gave over poctical lines, and made it my business to draw fuch others as might be more ferviceable to your majesty, and I hope more lafting. Since that time I never difobeyed my old master's commands till this fummer at the Wells, my retirement there tempting me to divert thofe melancholy thoughts, which the new apparitions of fo

reign invafion and domestic discontent gave us but these clouds being now happily blown over, and our fun clearly fhining out again, I have recovered the relapfe, it being fufpected that it would have proved the epidemical disease of age, which is apt to fall back into the follies of youth; yet Socrates, Aristotle, and Cato did the fame; and Scaliger faith, that fragment of Ariftotle was beyond any thing that Pindar or Homer ever wrote. I will not call this a dedication, for those epiftles are commonly greater abfurdities than any that come after; for what author can reafonably believe, that fixing the great name of fome eminent patron in the forehead of his book can charm away cenfure, and that the first leaf fhould be a curtain to draw over and hide all the deformities that stand behind it? neither have I any need of fuch fhifts, for most of the parts of this body have already had your majesty's view, and having paft the teft of fo clear and sharp-fighted a judgment, which has as good a title to give law in matters of this nature as in any other, they who shall prefume to diffent from your majesty, will do more wrong to their own judgment than their judgment can do to me and for those lat ter parts which have not yet received your majesty's favourable afpect, if they who have feen them do not flatter me (for I dare not truft my own judgment) they will make it appear, that it is not with me as with most of mankind, who never forfake their darling vices, till their vices forfake them; and that this divorce was not Frigiditatis caufa, but an act of choice,

and not of neceffity. Therefore, fir, I fhall only call it an humble petition, that your majesty will please to pardon this new amour to my old mistress, and my difobedience to his commands, to whofe memory I look up with great reverence and devotion: and making a ferious reflection upon that wife advice, it carries much greater weight with it now, than when it was given; for when age and experience has fo ripened man's difcretion as to make it fit for use, either in private or public affairs, nothing blafts and corrupts the fruit of it fo much as the empty, airy reputation of being Nimis Poëta; and therefore I shall take my leave of the Mufes, as two of my predeceffors did, faying,

"Splendidis longum valedico nugis.
"Hic verfus & cætera ludicra pono."

Your majesty's most faithful

and loyal fubject, and most

dutiful and devoted fervant,

JO. DENHAM..

POEMS

URE there are poets

HILL.

which did never dream

Upon Parnaffus, nor did tafte the stream:

Of Helicon; we therefore may fuppofe

Those made not poets, but the poets those.

And as courts make not kings, but kings the court,
So where the Mufes and their train refort,
Parnaffus ftands if I can be to thee
A poet, thou Parnaffus art to me.
Nor wonder, if (advantag'd in my flight,
By taking wing from thy aufpicious height)
Through untrac'd ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundlefs in my fancy than my eye:
My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and firft falutes the place
Crown'd with that facred pile, so vaft, fo high,
That, whether 'tis a part of earth or sky,