ot always
the least happy, and as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the
products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other, and his
imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man.
His corrections were sober and judicious, and he corrected his own
writings much more severely than those of another man, bestowing twice
the labour and pain in polishing which he used in invention.'

Before we enumerate the dramatic works of Sir William Davenant, it
will be but justice to his merit, to insert some animadversions on his
Gondibert; a poem which has been the subject of controversy almost a
hundred years; that is, from its first appearance to the present time.
Perhaps the dispute had been long ago decided, if the author's leisure
had permitted him to finish it. At present we see it to great
disadvantage; and if notwithstanding this it has any beauties, we may
fairly conclude it would have come much nearer perfection, if the
story, begun with so much spirit, had been brought to an end upon the
author's plan.

Mr. Hobbes, the famous philosopher of Malmsbury, in a letter printed
in his works, affirms, 'that he never yet saw a poem that had so much
shape of art, health of morality and vigour, and beauty of expression,
as this of our author; and in an epistle to the honourable Edward
Howard, author of the British Princes, he thus speaks. My judgment in
poetry has been once already censured by very good wits for commending
Gondibert; but yet have they not disabled my testimony. For what
authority is there in wit? a jester may have it; a man in drink may
have it, and be fluent over night, and wise and dry in the morning:
What is it? and who can tell whether it be better to have it or no? I
will take the liberty to praise what I like as well as they, and
reprehend what they like.'--Mr. Rymer in his preface to his
translation of Rapin's Reflexions on Aristototle's [sic] Treatise of
Poetry, observes, that our author's wit is well known, and in the
preface to that poem, there appears some strokes of an extraordinary
judgment; that he is for unbeaten tracts, and new ways of thinking,
but certainly in the untried seas he is no great discoverer. One
design of the Epic poets before him was to adorn their own country,
there finding their heroes and patterns of virtue, where example, as
they thought, would have the greater influence and power over
posterity; "but this poet, says Rymer, steers a different course