1670
ENGLISH POETRY 1579-1830: SPENSER AND THE TRADITION
Sir William Davenant
Richard Flecknoe
, "On the Death of Sir William Davenant" Epigrams of all Sorts (1670) 67-68.
Commentary for
Sir William Davenant:
1629: Edward Hyde
1629: William Habington
1637: John Suckling
1638: John Suckling
1638: Thomas Carew
1638: William Habington
1650: Abraham Cowley
1650: Edmund Waller
1651: Samuel Sheppard
1652: Charles Cotton
1653: Sir John Denham
1659: Thomas Pecke
1670: Richard Flecknoe
1683: John Dryden
1690: Anthony Wood
1693: Rev. Samuel Wesley
1709: Thomas Hearne
1712: Anonymous
1734: Alexander Pope
1738: Anonymous
1764: David Erskine Baker
1766 ca.: Samuel Pegge
1779: Rev. Vicesimus Knox
1782: William Hayley
1789: Rev. Thomas Warton
1795: Dr. Robert Anderson
1800: Dr. Nathan Drake
1814: Isaac D'Israeli
1819: William Hazlitt
1819: Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe
1824: Bryan Waller Procter
1832: John Taylor Esq.
1837: Henry Hallam
1842: C. H. Timperley
1859: David Masson
1860: George Gilfillan
1880: Edmund Gosse
Commentary by
Richard Flecknoe:
1670: Sir William Cavendish
1670: Abraham Cowley
1670: Sir William Davenant
1670: John Dryden
1670: Edward Howard
1673: Edmund Waller
Now Davenant's dead the Stage will mourn,
And all to Barbarism turn;
Since he it was this latter age,
Who chiefly civiliz'd the Stage.
He knew's decorum, and the Art,
To fit his properties to's part,
His part unto the Actors, and
All to the drama h'ad in hand.
And if the Stage or Theater be
A little world, 'twas onely he,
Who Atlas-like supported it,
By force of Industry and Wit.
Not onely Dedalus arts he knew,
But even Prometheus's too;
And living Machines made of men,
As well as dead ones for the Scene.
All this, and more he did beside,
Which having finished he dy'd;
If he may properly be sed
To dye, whose Fame will ne'er be dead.