coarse
appellatives of Dick, Will, and Jack! Such was the era when the
serious "Gondibert" was produced, and such were the judges who seem to
have decided its fate.

FOOTNOTES:

[321] D'Avenant commenced his poem during his exile at Paris. The
preface is dated from the Louvre; the postscript from Cowes
Castle, in the Isle of Wight, where he was then confined,
expecting his immediate execution. The poem, in the first
edition, 1651, is therefore abruptly concluded. There is
something very affecting and great in his style on this
occasion. "I am here arrived at the middle of the third book.
But it is high time to strike sail and cast anchor, though I
have run but half my course, when at the helm I am threatened
with _death_; who, though he can visit us but once, seems
troublesome; and even in the innocent may beget such a
gravity, as diverts the music of verse. Even in a worthy
design, I shall ask leave to desist, when I am interrupted by
so great an experiment as _dying_;--and 'tis an experiment to
the most experienced; for no man (though his mortifications
may be much greater than mine) can say _he has already
died_."--D'Avenant is said to have written a letter to Hobbes
about this time, giving some account of his progress in the
third book. "But why (said he) should I trouble you or myself
with these thoughts, when I am pretty certain I shall be
hanged next week?"--A stroke of the gaiety of temper of a very
thoughtful mind; for D'Avenant, with all his wit and fancy,
has made the profoundest reflections on human life.

The reader may be interested to know, that after D'Avenant's
removal from Cowes to the Tower, to be tried, his life was
saved by the gratitude of two aldermen of York, whom he had
obliged. It is delightful to believe the story told by
Bishop Newton, that D'Avenant owed his life to Milton; Wood,
indeed, attributes our poet's escape to both; at the
Restoration D'Avenant interposed, and saved Milton. Poets,
after all, envious as they are to a brother, are the most
generously-tempered of men: they libel, but they never hang;
they will indeed throw out a sarcasm on the man whom they
saved from being hanged. "Please your Majesty," said Sir