John Denham

Denham, Sir John, only son of Sir John Denham, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Ireland, born in Dublin, 1615, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. In 1641 he was made governor of Fareham Castle for Charles I., and subsequently attended Charles II. in his exile. At the Restoration he was rewarded for his devotion to the Crown, and created a Knight of the Bath. Died in London, 1668, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. His poem, Cooper's Hill, is well known. The manly energy and nervous force of his verse was much more popular with Pope and Johnson and the 18th century school, than it is at the present time. His Version of the Psalms was written about 1668, but not published until 1714.

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)