COOPERS-HILL. A POEM, Written by the Honourable Sir JOHN DENHAM, Knight of the Bath. BLIO LONDON: Printed and Sold by H. Hills, in Black-fryars, near the Water-fide. 1709, The Epiftle Dedicatory. and made it my business to draw fuch others as might be more ferviceable to Your Majefty, and I hope more lafting. Since that time I never difobeyed my old Mafters commands till this Summer at the Wells, my retirement there tempting me to divert thofe malancholy thoughts, which the new apperitions of Foreign invafion. and Domeftick difcontent gave us: But. thefe Clouds being now happily blown over, and our Sun clearly fhining out again, I have recovered the relapfe, it being fufpected that it would have proved the Epidemical Difeafe of Age, which is apt to fall back into the follies in Youth; yet Socrates, Ariftotle 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 reasonably believe, that fixing the Great Name of fome eminent Patron in the Forehead of his Book can charm away cenfure, and that the firft Leaf should be a Curtain to draw over and hide all the deformities that ftand behind it ? neither have I any need of such shifts, for moft of the Parts of this Body have already had Your Majeflies view, and having paft the Test of so 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 latter Parts which have not yet received your Majefties favourable Afpect, if they who have seen them do not flatter me, (for I dare not trust 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 causâ but an Act of Choice, and not of Neceffity, Therefore, Sir, I fall oly call it an humble Petition, That Your Majesty will please to pardon this new Amour to my old Miftres, and my disobedience to his Commands, to whose Memory ! look up with great Reverence and Devotion, and making a serious 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 mans Difcretion as to make it fit for us, either in private or publick Affairs, nothing blasts and corrupts the fruit of it so much as the emty, airp reputation of being nimis Poeta, and therefore I shall take my leave of the Mujes, as two of my Predefors did, faying, Splendidie longum vale dico nugis, D our Majefties most faithful and loyal Subject, and most dutiful and devoted Servant, 70. DENHAM, Cooper (3) Coopers-Hill. S Ure there are Poets which did never dream Those made not Poets, but the Poets those. And as Courts make not Kings, but Kings the Court, Parnaffus ftands; if I can be to thee A Poet, thou Parnaffus art to me. More boundless in my Fancy than my eye: Paul's, the late Theme of fuch a Mule whofe flight M. W. Has bravely reach'd and foar'd above thy height; Now fhalt thou ftand, though Sword, or Time, or, Fire, Or Zeal more fierce than they, thy Fall confpire, A 3 Seruve |