From the first his poem had come in contact with a few receptive
minds, and borne the blessed fruit of appreciation. Richardson
recounts that Sir John Denham, a poet and man of culture, one
morning brought a sheet of the great epic fresh from the press to
his friend Sir George Hungerford. "Why, what have you there?"
asked the latter. "Part of the noblest poem that was ever
written in any, language or in any age," said Sir John, as he
laid the pages before him. And a few weeks later my Lord
Dorset, looking over a bookstall in Little Britain, found a copy
of this work, which he opened carelessly at first, until he met
some passages which struck him with surprise and filled him with
admiration: observing which the honest bookseller besought him
to speak in favour of the poem, for it lay upon his hands like so
much waste-paper. My lord bought a copy, carried it home, read
and sent it to Dryden, who, in due time returning the volume,
expressed his opinion of its merits in flattering terms. "The
author," said he, "cuts us all out--aye, even the ancients too."
Such instances as these were, however, few in number. That the
work did not meet with wider appreciation and quicker sale is not
surprising when it is called to mind that from 1623 to 1664 but
two editions of Shakespeare's works, comprising in all about one
thousand copies, had been printed. In an age when learning was
by no means universal, and polite reading uncommon, it was indeed
a scource of congratulation, rather than a topic for
commiseration, that the work of a republican had in two years
reached a sale of thirteen hundred copies.
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