Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 14.djvu/376

 pen. He defended the revolution, and after Anne's accession wrote in support of the war. This secured him the patronage of the Duke of Marlborough, who procured him a place as one of the royal waiters in the port of London, at a salary of 120l. per annum (6 June 1705). He was allowed to sell out by treasury warrant of 21 March 1715 (Gent. Mag. 1850, pt. ii. p. 18). Lord Halifax protested against his selling the place without securing a reversion for himself during forty years. Dennis acknowledges the interference of Halifax in the dedication of his poem upon Ramilies. A letter from Mr. Thomas Cook to the antiquary Thomas Baker of St. John's (Harleian MSS. 7031, and Gent. Mag. 1795, p. 105) says that Dennis possessed this waiter's place ‘many years, and sold [it] for 600l. about the year 1720.’

Dennis wrote various poems, ‘in the Pindaric way,’ as Cibber puts it, between 1692 and 1714. They are loyal, but beneath notice. Three specimens are given in Edward Bysshe's ‘Art of English Poetry’ (edit. 1702).

Dennis's first play, an anti-Jacobite performance called ‘A Plot and No Plot,’ was acted at Drury Lane in 1697 without success. Two years afterwards his tragedy of ‘Rinaldo and Armida’ (from Tasso's ‘Gerusalemme Liberata’) was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields. Another tragedy, ‘Iphigenia,’ was acted at the same place in 1700. The story is taken from Euripides' ‘Iphigenia in Tauris,’ as Dennis states in his preface. It had no success, although Cibber found it impossible to read it without tears (Lives, iv. 233). ‘Liberty Asserted’ was produced at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1704, the leading characters being taken by Bowman, Betterton, Powell, and Booth, Mrs. Barry (whom Dennis describes in the preface to this play as an ‘incomparable actress’), and Mrs. Bracegirdle. Its success was probably due to its violent attacks upon the French. The play was issued by Strahan & Lintot, the latter purchasing a half-share of the former for 7l. 3s., on 24 Feb. 1703–4 (, Lit. Anecd. viii. 295–301). Dennis is said to have feared that the French would stipulate for his extradition upon the peace of Utrecht. It is stated that he informed the Duke of Marlborough of his alarm, and that the duke replied that he was not himself nervous, though perhaps an equally formidable enemy to France. It is added that Dennis fled from the coast on seeing a French ship, which he assumed was coming for him (, Lives, iv. 221–2). Swift refers to this probably mythical story in the ‘continuation’ of his ‘Thoughts on various Subjects,’ 1726 (Scott's edit. ix. 238).

In 1702 ‘The Comical Gallant, or the Amours of Sir John Falstaffe,’ by Dennis, from the ‘Merry Wives of Windsor,’ was played at Drury Lane without success. In 1705 he brought out ‘The Invader of his Country, or the Fatal Resentment,’ founded on ‘Coriolanus,’ which languished at Drury Lane for three or four nights. In 1705 the comedy ‘Gibraltar, or the Spanish Adventure,’ was brought out, also at Drury Lane, again without success. His masque, ‘Orpheus and Eurydice,’ published in the ‘Muses' Mercury,’ February 1707, was probably never acted. Dennis wrote his last play, the tragedy of ‘Appius and Virginia,’ in 1705, but it was not produced at Drury Lane until 1709. This play had a very short run. Pope's ‘Essay on Criticism,’ published 15 May 1711, contained these lines, obviously pointed at Dennis:

Dennis replied the following June by ‘Reflections, Critical and Satirical, on a late Rhapsody called an Essay on Criticism.’ This was the beginning of a long and bitter quarrel. Dennis injured his cause by gross personalities, amply retorted by Pope, who, however, took some of Dennis's hints and erased the passages attacked. Dennis was popularly credited with having invented a new device for simulating thunder on the stage. This was used in the ‘Appius and Virginia.’ In a note to a line in the ‘Dunciad’—‘with thunder rumbling from the mustard-bowl’—Pope states that ‘the old way of making thunder and mustard were the same; but since, it is more advantageously performed by troughs of wood with stops in them.’ It is not certain whether Dennis was the first to introduce this ‘improved’ method. It is said, however, that shortly after ‘Appius and Virginia’ was withdrawn, Dennis was at a performance of ‘Macbeth,’ and, on hearing the thunder, exclaimed, ‘That is my thunder, by God! the villains will play my thunder but not my plays’ (, Lives, iv. 234). ‘The Mohocks,’ attributed to Gay, is dedicated to Dennis as a ‘horrible and tremendous piece.’ Dennis's plays are bad, and written to illustrate a quaint theory of ‘poetical justice;’ but his prefaces have some interest.

Dennis is now best remembered as a critic. He was ridiculed by, (in the ‘Censor’), and Pope; his temper became soured, and he was a general enemy of the wits. But he showed real abilities, and justly observes that Dennis's critical pamphlets deserve republication (Specimens of the Later English Poets, i. 306). He cri-