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72 DENHAM. nal author.” Dryden likewise praises Cooper's Hill very highly, and says, “it is a poem, which for majesty of style, i s , and ever will be, the standard o f good writing.” Pope has also celebrated this poem i n h i s “Windsor Forest:” and i t i s s o universally thought s o much supe rior t o his other poems, that some have suspected him, (though without any just foundation) not t o have been the author o f i t . And i n the “Session o f the Poets,” printed i n Dryden's Miscellanies, w e have the following insinua tion :- “Then i n came Denham, that limping old bard, Whose fame o n the Sophy and Cooper's Hill stands; And brought many stationers, who swore very hard, That nothing sold better, except 'twere his lands. But Apollo advis'd him t o write something more, To clear a suspicion which possessed the court, That Cooper's Hill, s o much bragg'd o n before, Was writ b y a vicar, who had forty pounds for 't.” I n 1647, the distresses o f the royal family obliged him t o relinquish the study o f poetry, and engage i n a more dangerous employment. He was entrusted b y the queen with a message t o the king, who was then i n the hands o f the army, and t o whom h e got admittance b y the assist ance o f his acquaintance Hugh Peters, “which trust,” says he, i n the dedication o f his poems t o Charles II. “I performed with great safety t o the persons with whom we corresponded; but, about nine months after, being discovered b y their knowledge o f Mr. Cowley's hand, I happily escaped both for myself and them.” He was, however, engaged i n a greater undertaking, a s , according t o the authority o f Wood, h e conveyed away James Duke o f York into France, i n April 1648; but Clarendon declares t o the contrary, and assures us, that the duke went off with Colonel Bamfield only, who con trived the means o f escape. This year (1648) h e published his translation o f “Cato Major.”