too, has been found out to be a myth; and we know not if even
Dante's originality has altogether passed unquestioned in this age of
disbelief and downpulling; although what brow, save that thunder-scathed
pile, could wear those scorched laurels, and who but the "man who had
been in hell" could have written the "Inferno?" Worst of all, a class of
writers have of late sought to prove that there is no such thing as
originality--that genius means just dexterous borrowing-that the
"Appropriation Clause" is of divine right--and have certainly proved
themselves true to their own principles.

In 1647, circumstances brought our poet more closely in connexion with
the royal family, and on one occasion he carried a message from the
Queen to King Charles, then in prison. He subsequently conducted, with
great success, the King's correspondence; and in April 1648 he conveyed
the young Duke of York (afterwards James II.) from London to France, and
delivered him to the charge of the Queen and the Prince of Wales. He
had, ere leaving Britain, written a translation of Cato-Major on Old
Age. While in France, attending on the exiled prince, he wrote a number
of poetical pieces at his master's desire; among others, a song in
honour of an embassy to Poland, which he and Lord Crofts undertook for
Charles II., and during which they are said to have collected L10,000
for the royal cause from the Scotchmen who then abounded in that country
as travelling merchants or pedlars. Meanwhile his political
misdemeanours were punished by the Parliament confiscating the remnant
of his estate. In 1652, he returned to England penniless, and was
supported by the Earl of Pembroke. After the Restoration, Charles, more
mindful of him than of many of his friends and the partners of his
exile, bestowed on Denham the Surveyorship of the King's Buildings and
the Order of the Bath. The situation of Surveyor, even in his careless
and improvident hands, turned out a lucrative one; for it is said that
he cleared by it no less than L7000. Of his first wife, we hear little
or nothing; but about this time, flushed as he was with prosperity, and
the popularity of the writings he continued to produce, he contracted a
second marriage, which was so far from happy that its consequences led
to a fit of temporary derangement. Butler, then a disappointed and
exacerbated man, was malignant enough to lampoon him for lunacy--an act
which, Dr. Johnson well remarks, "no provocation cou