The
disfavour of the Court was also increased by his _Ode to Brutus_, wherein
he had extolled the genius of his hero, and praised liberty in language
too enthusiastic for the Court of Charles II. The spirit of melancholy
claimed Cowley for her own. Disappointment and disgust clouded his heart;
ill-health followed, and soon the poor poet breathed his last. As is not
unusual, the learned and the great mourned over and praised the dead poet
whom when alive they had so cruelly neglected.
Antoine Danchet was one of the most famous of French dramatic writers,
although his poetry was not of a very high order and lacked energy and
colour. He was born at Riom, in Auvergne, in 1671; he distinguished
himself at the college of the Oratorian fathers, and soon came to Paris to
become a teacher of youths and to finish his studies at the Jesuit
College. At a very early age he manifested a great love of poetry, and
when he used to recite the whole of Horace he was rewarded by a wealthy
patron with a present of thirty _louis d'ors_. He bore so noble a
character and had such a reputation for learning that a certain noble lady
on her death-bed entrusted him with the charge of her two sons, giving him
a pension of two hundred livres, on the condition that he should never
leave them. Soon after her death he was ordered to write some verses for a
ballet produced at Court; this led him to acquire a taste for the theatre,
and he produced in 1700 an opera entitled _Hesione_, which met with a
great success.
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