Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/227

Rh his exigences, and the preſſing demands that were then made upon him: which did not however ſatisfy his lordſhip, who inſiſted if he did ſell it, it ſhould be with ſome reverſion to himſelf for the ſpace of forty years, a term which the earl had no notion Mr. Dennis could exceed. But he was miſtaken in his calculation upon our poet’s conſtitution, who outlived the term of forty years ſtipulated when he ſold his place, and fulfilled in a very advanced age, what his lordſhip had propheſied would befal him. This circumſtance our author hints at in his dedication of his poem on the Battle of Ramellies, to lord Hailifax, ‘I have lately, ſays he, had very great obligations to your lordſhip, you have been pleaſed to take ſome care of my fortune, at a time when I moſt wanted it, and had the leaſt reaſon to expect it from you.’ This poem on the Battle of Ramellies is a cold unſpirited performance; it has neither fire, nor elevation, and is the true poetical filler of another poem of his, on the Battle of Blenheim, addreſſed to Queen Anne, and for which the duke of Marlborough rewarded him, ſays Mr. Coxeter, with a preſent of a hundred guineas. In theſe poems he has introduced a kind of machinery; good and bad angels intereſt themſelves in the action, and his hero, the duke of Marlborough, enjoys a large ſhare of the cœleflial protection.

Mr. Dennis had once contracted a friendſhip with Sir Richard Steele, whom he afterwards ſeverely attacked. Sir Richard had promiſed that he would take ſome opportunity of mentioning his works in public with advantage, and endeavour to raiſe his reputation. When Sir Richard engaged