Page:Biographia Hibernica volume 2.djvu/77

 DENHAM. 73 Not long after, he was sent ambassador from Charles I I . t o the king o f Poland, and William, (afterwards) Lord Crofts, was joined i n the embassy with him. Among his poems i s a ballad, entitled, “On my Lord Crofts's and my Journey into Poland, from whence we brought 10,000l. for his Majesty, b y the decimation (or tithing) o f his Scottish subjects there.” About 1652, h e returned t o England, and the remnant o f his estate that the wars and the gamesters had left him, was sold b y order o f the par liament, and h e was hospitably entertained b y Lord Pem broke, a t Wilton; but how h e employed o r supported himself till the Restoration, does not appear. After that event, h e obtained the office o f surveyor o f the king's buildings; and a t the coronation o f his majesty, was dig nified with the order o f Knight o f the Bath. Wood pre tends, that Charles I . had granted our poet the reversion o f that place after the decease o f Inigo Jones, who held it; but Sir John himself, i n the dedication o f his poems, assures us, King Charles I I . a t his departure from St. Ger mains t o Jersey, was pleased, freely, without his asking i t , t o confer i t upon him. After the Restoration h e composed his poem o n Prudence and Justice; but shortly after h e abandoned the study o f poetry, and “made i t his busi ness,” h e says, “to draw such others a s might b e more serviceable t o his majesty, and, h e hoped, more lasting.” I t might b e reasonably imagined that the favour o f his sovereign and the esteem o f the public, would now render him happy; but alas ! human felicity i s short and uncer tain. A second marriage brought upon him s o much disquiet, that h e had the misfortune t o b e deprived o f his reason; and Dr. Johnson asserts, that when our poet was thus afflicted, Butler lampooned him for his lunacy, for which the doctor has inflicted on him a well-merited cas tigation. This malady was o f short continuance, nor does his mind appear t o have been impaired b y it; a s h e wrote immediately after his recovery, his fine verses o n the death o f Cowley; 44 But poets themselves must fall like those they sing;”