Born, at Oxford, Feb. 1606. Educated at Magdalen College School, Oxford; and at Lincoln College, 1620[?]–22[?]. Page to Duchess of Richmond; afterwards to Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. Play, “The Cruel Brother,” performed, 1630. Appointed Poet Laureate, 13 Dec. 1638. Governor of King and Queen’s Company of Players, 27 June 1639. Active part in Civil War; escaped imprisonment and took refuge in France. Knighted after Siege of Gloucester, Sept. 1643. Returned to France after King’s defeat. Became Roman Catholic. Sent on private mission from Queen to King, 1646. Returned to Paris. Sent by Queen on mission to Virginia, 1650. Captured by Parliament ship soon after start, and imprisoned in Cowes Castle; thence to London for trial. Imprisoned in the Tower, 1651–53. First wife, Anne, died, 1655. Was twice married. Licensed to give dramatic entertainments at Rutland House, 1656 (“The Siege of Rhodes” produced there, 1656), and at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane, 1658. Imprisoned for short time in 1659 on account of implication in Sir George Booth’s insurrection. At Restoration, license granted him to maintain a company of players, 1660. These acted at Salisbury Court Theatre, or at Cockpit, Nov. 1660 to Spring of 1662. Under patronage of Duke of York, the company was installed in new Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theatre, March or April 1662. Successful production of plays. Died, in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, 7 April 1668. Buried in Westminster Abbey. Works: “The Tragedy of Albovine,” 1629; “The Cruel Brother,” 1630; “The Just Italian,” 1630; “The Temple of Love” (with Inigo Jones), 1634; “The Triumphs of the Prince d’Amour” (anon.), 1635; “The Platonick Lovers,” 1636; “The Witts,” 1636; “Britannia Triumphans” (with Inigo Jones), 1637; “Madagascar,” 1638; “Ode in Remembrance of Master Shakespeare,” 1638; “Salmacida Spolia,” 1689; “To the honorable … House of Commons,” [1641]; “The Unfortunate Lovers,” 1643; “London,” 1648; “Love and Honour,” 1649; “Gondibert,” 1651; “The Siege of Rhodes,” 1656 (revised and altered edn., 1663); “The First Dayes Entertainment at Rutland House” (anon.), 1657; “The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru” (anon.), 1658; “The History of Sir Francis Drake” (anon.), 1659; “Poem to the King’s most sacred Majesty,” 1660; “Poem upon his sacred Majestie’s most happy return,” 1660; “The Rivals” (anon.; altered from “The Two Noble Kinsmen”), 1668. Posthumous: “The Man’s the Master,” 1669; “The Tempest” (with Dryden), 1670; “New Academy of Complements” (anon., with Lord Buckhurst and Sir Chas. Sedley), 1671; “Macbeth … with all the Alterations, etc.,” 1673. Collected Works: in 3 pts., ed. by his widow, 1673; in 5 vols., ed. by Laing and Maidment (“Dramatists of the Restoration” series), with Life, 1872–74.

Personal

  Up and down to the Duke of York’s play-house, there to see, which I did, Sir W. Davenant’s corpse carried out towards Westminster, there to be buried. Here were many coaches and six horses, and many hacknies, that made it look, methought, as if it were the buriall of a poor poet. He seemed to have many children, by five or six in the first mourning coach, all boys.

  I was at his funerall. He had a coffin of walnutt-tree; Sir John Denham sayd ’twas the finest coffin that ever he sawe. His body was carried in a hearse from the play-house to Westminster-Abbey, where, at the great west dore, he was received by the sing (ing) men and choristers, who sang the service of the church (“I am the Resurrection, &c.”) to his grave, which is in the south crosse aisle, on which, on a paving stone of marble, is writt, in imitation of that on Ben Johnson, “O rare Sir Will. Davenant.”… That sweet swan of Iris, Sir William Davenant, dyed the seaventh day of April last, and lies buried amongst the poets in Westminster abbey, by his anatgonist, Mr. Thomas May, whose inscription of whose marble was taken away by order since the king came in. Sir William was Poet Laureat, and Mr. John Dryden hath his place. But me thought it had been proper that a laurell should have been sett on his coffin—which was not donne.

  His mother was a very beautiful woman, of a good wit and conversation, in which she was imitated by none of her children, but by this William. The father, who was a very good and discreet citizen, (yet an admirer and lover of plays and play-makers, especially Shakespeare, who frequented his house in his journies between Warwickshire and London,) was of a melancholic disposition, and was seldom or never seen to laugh…. As for William, whom we are farther to mention, and may justly stile “the sweet swan of Isis,” he was educated in grammar learning under Edw. Sylvester, whom I shall elsewhere mention, and in academical in Linc. Coll. under the care of Mr. Dan. Hough, in 1620, or 21, or thereabouts, and obtained there some smattering in logic; but his geny which was always opposite to it, lead him in the pleasant paths of poetry, so that tho’ he wanted much of university learning, yet he made as high and noble flights in the poetical faculty, as fancy could advance, without it.

  That notion of Sir William Davenant being more than a poetical child only of Shakespeare, was common in town; and Sir William himself seemed fond of having it taken for truth.

  Was a great favourite of the Earl of Newcastle, who appointed him lieutenant-general of his ordnance; but it was thought that he might easily have found a person much better qualified for that command. We read, that Alexander took Homer’s Works with him in his expeditions; but it is not probable that he would have taken the poet himself, if he had been living. Voltaire informs us, that Lewis XIV. in his pompous expedition to Flanders, was attended by Vander Meulen the painter, and Pelisson the historian, to design and record his victories; but he does not say that he took Boileau with him to sing them; and, if he did, he knew better how to employ him than to make him a lieutenant-general.

  A princess in any degree more delicate than Henrietta must have shrunk with loathing from affording her patronage to a man whose licentious conduct had become matter of such very peculiar notoriety.

Gondibert, 1650

  The sort of verse he made choice of, might, I suppose, contribute much to the vitiating of his stile; for thereby he obliges himself to stretch every period to the end of four lines. Thus the sense is broken perpetually with parentheses, the words jumbl’d in confusion, and a darkness spread over all; that the sense is either not discern’d, or found not sufficient for one just verse, which is sprinkl’d on the whole tretrastick.

  Sir William Davenant’s “Gondibert” is not a good poem, if you take it in the whole; but there are a great many good things in it.—He is a scholar of Donne’s, and took his sententiousness and metaphysics from him.

  He distinguished himself by a bold, but unsuccessful attempt to enlarge the sphere of poetry. He composed an heroic poem, called “Gondibert,” in five books, after the model of the drama; applauded himself greatly upon this invention; and looked upon the followers of Homer as a timorous, servile herd, that were afraid to leave the beaten track. This performance, which is rather a string of epigrams than an epic poem, was not without its admirers, among whom were Waller and Cowley. But the success did not answer his expectation. When the novelty of it was over, it presently sunk into contempt; and he at length found, that when he strayed from Homer he deviated from nature.

  His heroic poem of “Gondibert” has, no doubt, great imperfections; but it intimates everywhere a mind above those laborious triflers, who called that poetry which was only verse; and very often exhibits a majestic, dignified, and manly simplicity, equally superior to the metaphysical school, by the doctrines of which Davenant was occasionally misled. Yet, if that author too frequently imitated their quaint affectations of uncommon sentiment and associations, he had at least the merit of couching them in stately and harmonious verse.

  More than a century and a half have elapsed since the first publication of “Gondibert,” and its merits are still a subject of controversy; an indubitable proof of some inherent excellence not willingly forgotten. The critics are marshalled on each side, one against the other, while between these formidable lines stands the poet, with a few scattered readers; but what is more surprising in the history of the “Gondibert,” the poet is a great poet, the work imperishable!

  Davenant’s “Gondibert” is a tissue of stanzas, all aiming to be wise and witty, each containing something in itself, and the whole together amounting to nothing. The thoughts separately require so much attention to understand them, and arise so little out of the narrative, that they with difficulty sink into the mind, and have no common feeling of interest to recall or link them together afterwards.

  It wants the charm of free and forcible narration; the life-pulse of interest is incessantly stopped by solemn pauses of reflection, and the story works its way through an intricacy of superfluous fancies, some beautiful and others conceited, but all as they are united, tending to divert the interest, like a multitude of weeds upon a stream, that entangle its course while they seem to adorn it.

  As for “Gondibert,” those may criticise it who can read it.

  The narrative is diffuse, the action without unity, the events are complicated, and the language often obscure. Instead of naïve perception and lofty inspiration, we find reflection and elegant phraseology, nay even epigrammatic turns, upon which D’Israeli, strangely enough, bestows especial praise, and designates the poet as a poetical Rochefoucauld. The metre also is unhappily chosen, as the four-lined stanza is stiff and wearisome, and leaves no room for the flow of the narrative or for the minuteness of description, such as is offered by the hexameter, the blank verse, or by the ottava rima. Davenant in his preface considers it an advantage of this metre, that the end of each stanza requires a pause or conclusion to the thought, that the alternate rhyme is suited to stately music, and that the shortness of the stanza makes it more convenient to the singer. If only the contents were in any way singable!

General

  In the time I writ with him, I had the opportunity to observe somewhat more nearly of him than I had formerly done, when I had only a bare acquaintance with him: I found him then of so quick a fancy, that nothing was proposed to him, on which he could not suddenly produce a thought, extreamly pleasant and surprising: and those first thoughts of his, contrary to the old Latin proverb, were not always the least happy. And as his fancy was quick, so likewise were the products of it remote and new. He borrowed not of any other; and his imaginations were such as could not easily enter into any other man. His corrections were sober and judicious: and he corrected his own writings much more severely than those of another man, bestowing twice the time and labour in polishing, which he used in invention.

  ’Twas observ’d, that at his Funeral his Coffin wanted the Ornament of his Laureats Crown, which by the Law of Heraldry justly appertain’d to him: but this omission is sufficiently recompenc’d by an Eternal Fame, which will always accompany his Memory; he having been the first Introducer of all that is splendid in our English Opera’s, and ’tis by his means and industry, that our Stage at present rivals the Italian Theatre.

  He was amongst the first who refined our poetry, and did more for the interest of the drama, than any who ever wrote for the stage.

  Davenant was a sort of adventurer and wit, and in every manner worthy of the royal favour, to enjoy which dignity of character was never considered as a necessary requisite. He set himself to work in every way which the want of a rich theatrical repertory may render necessary; he made alterations of old pieces, wrote himself plays, operas, prologues, &c. But of all his writings nothing has escaped a merited oblivion.

  Devoid of all higher original genius, D’Avenant applied himself, in no vulgar spirit nor without taking full advantage of such lights as were vouchsafed to him, to the task of satisfying what to him was the supreme criterion of merit, viz. the most cultivated taste (or what appeared to him such) of his age…. As a dramatist, D’Avenant may, in the earlier series of his plays, be described as a limb of Fletcher.

  There is not a more hopelessly faded laurel on the slopes of the English Parnassus than that which once flourished so bravely around the grotesque head of Davenant. The enormous folio edition of his works, brought out in 1673 in direct emulation of Ben Jonson, is probably the most deplorable collection of verses anywhere to be found, dead and dusty beyond the wont of forgotten classics.

  Dryden’s practice shows clearly enough that his earlier critical creed was modelled on the teaching of his friend and predecessor, the inventor of the heroic play, the best exponent of heroic doctrine, Sir William Davenant.

  Of Davenant’s numerous plays it would be impossible to speak in detail. They are energetic and bold in construction, show novelty in imagery, and often originality in the analysis of character. They teem with philosophical reflections and condensed epigrams, and yet they lack passion and fire, and have not the exalted view of human nature and of the earnestness of human life which is shown in “Gondibert.” Even with Davenant the stage began to take its downward course. And this, in spite of the great and undeniable services he rendered it. With all his talent, Davenant had not the moral force to stem the tide of his age. He could not dictate to it like Jonson, nor was he unworldly enough, like Milton, to go serenely on, unmindful of its applause and its alluring rewards.

  His plays are full of incident and careless melody, but do not show any real power of drawing characters or developing situations.