her to keep a kind of private court of her own, which, in our more fashionable aera, is known by the name of Drums, Routs, and Hurricanes.  Sir William afterwards removed into the family of Sir Fulk Greville, lord Brooke, who being himself a man of taste and erudition, gave the most encouraging marks of esteem to our rising bard.  This worthy nobleman being brought to an immature fate, by the cruel hands of an assassin, 1628, Davenant was left without a patron, though not in very indigent circumstances, his reputation having increased, during the time he was in his lordship’s service:  the year ensuing the death of his patron, he produced his first play to the world, called Albovino, King of the Lombards, which met with a very general, and warm reception, and to which some very honourable recommendations were prefixed, when it was printed, in several copies of verses, by men of eminence, amongst whom, were, Sir Henry Blount, Edward Hyde, afterwards earl of Clarendon, and the honourable Henry Howard.  Our author spent the next eight years of his life in a constant attendance upon court, where he was highly caressed by the most shining characters of the times, particularly by the earl of Dorset, Edward Hyde, and Lord Treasurer Weston:  during these gay moments, spent in the court amusements, an unlucky accident happened to our author, which not a little deformed his face, which, from nature, was very handsome.  Wood has affirmed, that this accident arose from libidinous dalliance with a handsome black girl in Axe-yard, Westminster.  The plain fact is this, Davenant was of an amorous complexion, and was so unlucky as to carry the marks of his regular gallantries in the depression of his nose; this exposed him to the pleasant raillery of cotemporary wits, which very little affected him, and to shew that he was undisturbed by their merriment, he wrote a burlesque copy of verses upon himself.  This accident happened pretty early in his life, since it gave occasion to the following stanzas in Sir John Suckling’s Sessions of the Poets, which we have transcribed from a correct copy of Suckling’s works.

  Will Davenant ashamed of a foolish mischance,
  That he had got lately travelling in France,
  Modestly hop’d the handsomness of his muse,
  Might any deformity about him excuse.

  Surely the company had been content,
  If they cou’d have found any precedent,
  But in all their records in verse, or prose,
  There was none of a laureat, who wanted a nose.

Suckling here differs from the Oxford historian, in saying that Sir William’s disorder was contracted in France, but as Wood is the highest authority, it is more reasonable to embrace his observation, and probably, Suckling only mentioned France, in order that it might rhime with mischance.