Dennis aspired to be a poet and dramatist. He wrote a bombastic poem in blank verse called _The Monument_, sacred to the immortal memory of 'the good, the great, the god-like, William III.'; a poem, also in blank verse, and still more 'tremendous,' to quote his favourite word, on the _Battle of Blenheim_, in which he frequently invokes his soul to say and sing a thousand things far beyond his soul's reach--and a poem equally laboured and grandiloquent, on the Battle of Ramillies, in which there are passages that read like a burlesque of Milton. Dennis observes in his _Grounds of Criticism in Poetry_ (1704) that 'poetry unless it pleases, nay, and pleases to a height, is the most contemptible thing in the world.' This is just criticism, but the writer did not recognize that his own verse was contemptible. In this essay, which contains many sound critical remarks and an appreciation of Milton seldom felt at that time, he has the bad taste to quote as an illustration of the sublime, a passage from his own paraphrase of the Te Deum: 'Where'er at utmost stretch we cast our eyes Through the vast frightful spaces of the skies, Ev'n there we find Thy glory, there we gaze On Thy bright Majesty's unbounded blaze; Ten thousand suns prodigious globes of light At once in broad dimensions strike our sight; Millions behind, in the remoter skies, Appear but spangles to our wearied eyes; And when our wearied eyes want farther strength To pierce the void's immeasurable length Our vigorous towering thoughts still further fly, And still remoter flaming worlds descry; But even an Angel's comprehensive thought Cannot extend so far as Thou hast wrought; Our vast conceptions are by swelling, brought, Swallowed and lost in Infinite, to nought.' It is significant of Dennis's judgment of his own verse that these inflated lines follow one of the loveliest passages contained in _Paradise Lost_. Milton describes the moon unveiling her peerless light; and the poet-critic exhibits in juxtaposition his 'vigorous towering thoughts' about the stars. The comparison forced upon the reader is unfortunate. His tragedies, _Iphigenia_ (1704), _Liberty Asserted_ (1704), _Appius and Virginia_ (1709), and a comedy called _A Plot and No Plot_ (1697) were brought upon the stage. _Liberty Asserted_, which was received with applause due to the violence of its attacks upon the French, although called a tragedy, does not end tragically. The heroine's patriotism is so fervid that she professes herself willing, while loving one man, to marry another whom she does not love, if her country deems him the more worthy.