with shame I speak't, and grief;
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v07 - Cic to Cuv
His prin-
cipal and most absorbing occupation, how-
ever, was carrying on the cipher correspondence that took place
between the King and the Queen. This, and duties allied to this,
were so engrossing that according to Sprat, his intimate friend and
first biographer, they "for some years together took up all his days
and two or three nights every week. "
ABRAHAM COWLEY
After the execution of Charles, Cowley remained in France until
1656. Then he returned to England, practically to play the part of a
spy, if the testimony of the authority already quoted can be trusted.
Once there, he was arrested and imprisoned, but subsequently was
allowed to go at liberty on bail. After the death of Cromwell he
went back to France. He returned at the Restoration, only to meet
with the neglect which was incurred by all the followers of the
exiled monarch who made the mistake of combining an objectionable
## p. 4090 (#464) ###########################################
4090
ABRAHAM COWLEY
sobriety and decency of life with loyalty to the house of Stuart.
Furthermore, certain things he had done had made him an object of
pretended suspicion. He had been created in 1657 a Doctor of Medi-
cine by the University of Oxford, in obedience to an order of the
government. There were passages also in the preface prefixed to the
edition of his works published in 1656, which were taken to imply
submissive acquiescence on his part in the new order of things.
These were satisfactory pretexts for disregarding claims which the
self-sacrificing service of years had established. The mastership of
the Savoy, which he expected and which he had a right to expect,
was given to another. But at last, more fortunate than many of his
fellow-sufferers, he received through the influence of the Earl of St.
Albans and the Duke of Buckingham a provision sufficient to main-
tain him in comfort. Withdrawing entirely from public life, he lived
successively at Barn Elms and at Chertsey in Sussex. At the latter
place he died on July 18th, 1667, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey.
Such is a brief outline of the career of the man who during his
lifetime was the most popular of English poets. In spite of occa-
sional intervals of good fortune, it is on the whole a melancholy
story. Such it seemed to Cowley himself. In the essay entitled
'Of Myself,' quoted below, and in The Complaint,' we get not only
further details of the author's personal fortunes, but an insight into
the feelings of disappointment and dejection which came over him,
as he contrasted the difference between what he had hoped and
expected and what he had succeeded in achieving or gaining. We
learn from the preface to the volume published in 1656, that long
before that time he had been eager to withdraw from the harassing
occupations in which much of his time had already been wasted, and
to spend the remainder of his days in seclusion and study. "My
desire," he then wrote, "has been for some years past (though the
execution has been accidentally diverted), and does still vehemently
continue, to retire myself to some of our American plantations; not
to seek for gold or to enrich myself with the traffic of those parts,
which is the end of most men that travel thither, . . . but to
forsake this world forever, with all the vanities and vexations of it,
and to bury myself in some obscure retreat there, but not without
the consolations of letters and philosophy. "
There seems no reason to doubt the genuineness of the feeling
thus expressed, and there is little difficulty in tracing it to its cause.
Unquestionably the political situation had a good deal to do with its
manifestation at that particular time; but the source of his dejection
lay deeper than any temporary overthrow of the side with which he
sympathized. Cowley's career, however successful, had not fulfilled
## p. 4091 (#465) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4091
the extraordinary promise of his youth. He made his appearance as
a man of letters long before he became a man. Of all authors in
our own tongue, perhaps in any tongue, he was the most precocious.
This is not to say that others have not written as early as he, but
that no one who wrote so early has written so well. In 1633, when
he was but fifteen years old, he brought out a little volume contain-
ing over a thousand lines and entitled 'Poetical Blossomes. ' It was
made up mainly of two productions, entitled respectively Constantia
and Philautus' and 'Pyramus and Thisbe. ' Of this work a second
edition appeared in 1636, with a number of additional poems. In
the epistle prefixed to this impression, he states that Pyramus and
Thisbe' was composed at ten years of age and Constantia and
Philautus' at thirteen. But much more important than either, ap-
peared in this volume of 1636 a poem entitled 'A Vote. ' It consists
of eleven stanzas, the last three of which, with a few slight verbal
alterations, were cited by Cowley in his essay upon himself. This
poetry, which he never surpassed, he there tells us was written when
he was thirteen years old. The early date given to its composition.
may have been due to a slip of memory; at any rate it was not
until 1636 that the piece appeared in print. But even were it not
written till the very year in which it was published, it must be re-
garded as a marvelous production for a boy, not alone for the poetic
ability displayed in it, but for the philosophic view it takes of life.
A third edition of 'Poetical Blossomes' appeared in 1637. In 1638
came out a pastoral comedy, written while he was king's scholar in
Westminster School, and called 'Love's Riddle. ' During that same
year a Latin comedy entitled 'Naufragium Joculare' had been acted
by the students of Trini College, and a little later was published.
All the works mentioned, it will be seen, had been produced by him
before he had completed, and most of them in fact before he had
reached, his twentieth year. For one further dramatic production he
is also responsible at a very early age. In 1641, when the King's
son Charles (afterwards Charles II. ) passed through Cambridge, Cow-
ley "made extempore," as he says, a comedy which was acted, for
the entertainment of the Prince, at Trinity College on March 12th.
It was called 'The Guardian,' and in 1650 it was published.
At a
later period it was rewritten by the author, and in 1661 was brought
out at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a fair degree of suc-
cess. It was then entitled 'Cutter of Coleman Street. '
From the time of leaving Cambridge, though he did not cease
writing, nothing of his was published for a long while, at least un-
der his own name. In 1647 appeared a volume entitled 'The Mis-
tress'; but even this the publisher professed to bring out wholly on
his own responsibility. The work consisted entirely of love poems,
## p. 4092 (#466) ###########################################
4092
ABRAHAM COWLEY
and the very doubtful assertion is steadily repeated in all notices of
Cowley's life that they became the favorite ones of the age.
If so,
the age must have been peculiarly frigid in its feelings. Whatever
excellences these pieces possess, they are not the excellences that
characterize love poetry. It is hardly possible to speak of them as
the transcript of any personal experiences. They are rather aca-
demic exercises, intellectual disquisitions upon the general subject of
love, than the impassioned utterances of a man whose feelings have
ever been profoundly stirred. The Greek scholar Joshua Barnes,
who flourished a little later, declared that in spite of the sentiments
expressed in these pieces, and in a subsequent poem called 'The
Chronicle,' Cowley was never in love but once in his life. It could
not be proved on the evidence of the verses contained in The Mis-
tress that he was ever in love at all. Still, if the poems lack
fervor, they often exhibit ingenuity and grace.
On his return to England during the Protectorate he brought out
a collected edition of his works in folio. It was published in 1656,
and amongst the matter which then appeared for the first time were
the odes written in professed imitation of Pindar. The composition
of these set a literary fashion which did not die out till the latter
half of the next century. To write so-called Pindaric odes became
one of the regular duties of all who were in doubt about their poetic
inspiration, and felt called upon to convince others as well as them-
selves of their possession of it. But Cowley introduced the term and
not the thing. He seems to have fancied that to produce lines with
a different number of feet, and stanzas with a different number of
lines, was the proper method of representing the measure. But Pin-
dar's verse, if it can be called irregular at all, was regularly irregular.
Cowley's imitation was irregular and nothing else. Still, so great
was his influence, that a plentiful crop of these spurious reproduc-
tions of an imaginary metrical form sprang up in the literature of the
hundred years following the Restoration. Among them can occasion-
ally be found genuine imitations of Pindar's measure, such as are the
odes of Congreve and of Gray; but of the countless number of all
kinds produced, those of the last-named author are the only ones
that can be said still to survive.
Another production that made its first appearance in the folio of
1656 was part of an epic poem, which Cowley had begun while he
was at the university. Its subject was the life and exploits of King
David, and his intention was to complete it in the orthodox number
of twelve books. It would appear from his preface that the theme
was chosen from a sense of duty as well as from inclination. Poetry,
he there tells us, should no longer be pressed into the service of
fable. The Devil had stolen it and alienated it from the service of
"
## p. 4093 (#467) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4093
the Deity; and it was time to recover it out of the tyrant's power
and restore it to the kingdom of God. If this doctrine be true, it
must be conceded that Cowley's hands were not the ones to effect
the restoration. From what he did towards bringing about the result
he deemed desirable, it looks rather as if the craft of the great
Adversary of mankind had been put forth to defeat the end in view
by instigating this particular poet to undertake this particular task.
The 'Davideis' is written in rhymed heroic verse, of which Cowley
never gained the full mastery. There is nothing in the matter to
make amends for the versification, which is rarely well finished and
is not unfrequently rough and inharmonious. In truth, the dis-
tinguishing characteristic of the work as a whole is its well-sustained
tediousness. Fortunately it was not completed beyond the fourth
book; it would not have lessened Cowley's reputation if the first had
never been begun.
Cowley continued to write after this volume was published; but a
good deal of his later production was in the Latin tongue, and has
in consequence been condemned to perpetual obscurity. Interest in
that could be least expected to survive the general decay of interest
which gradually overtook his writings. His fame stood highest in
his own century, and he is perhaps as much underestimated now as
he was overestimated then. His collected works passed through
edition after edition, and by 1681 had reached the seventh.
Such a
sale in those days of mighty folios and comparatively few readers
indicated great and general popularity. But by the end of the cen-
tury his influence had begun to decline. Dryden at the outset of his
literary career had been one of his most fervent admirers; but in the
preface to his last book, which appeared in 1700, he censured his
faults severely, and declared that he had so sunk in his reputation.
that for ten impressions which his works had had in so many suc-
cessive years, scarcely a hundred copies were purchased during a
twelvemonth at the time of his writing. This statement reflected
more the feelings of the critic than it represented the actual facts,
for between 1699 and 1721 four editions of Cowley's works appeared.
Still it is none the less true that Cowley's reputation was then
steadily sinking, and was destined to sink still lower. In 1737 Pope
directly referred to the fact in the following lines, which have been
repeatedly quoted in connection with it:-
"Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
It is his moral pleases, not his wit;
Forgot his epic, nay, Pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart. "
## p. 4094 (#468) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4094
Between 1721 indeed and 1802 not a single separate edition of his
works was published; though selections were edited by Bishop Hurd
in the interval, and of course his poems were included in the great
collections of the booksellers, and of Anderson and Chalmers. In
1881 an edition limited to one hundred copies of his works in verse
and prose, for the first time completely collected, was brought out
by Grosart as a part of the Chertsey Worthies' Library.
The reasons for the decay of Cowley's reputation are not hard to
find. It was due to what Pope called his wit, or what more specifi-
cally was criticized by Addison in No. 62 of the Spectator as his
false wit. "He could never," says Dryden, << forgive any conceit
which came in his way, but swept like a drag-net great and small. ”
There are accordingly but few poems of his that can be read with
unmixed pleasure. Even when the piece as a whole is admirable, the
reader is always in danger of finding somewhat to jar upon his taste
in details. A passage containing lofty thoughts nobly expressed is
liable to be followed by another, in which forced and unnatural
images or far-fetched conceits utterly destroy the impression wrought
by the majestic simplicity of what has preceded. This inequality
began early to lower him in general esteem. Even as far back as
the seventeenth century, Lord Rochester is reported by Dryden as
having said of him very pertinently, if somewhat profanely, that
"Not being of God, he could not stand. "
From this censure, which is too applicable to most of his work,
there are portions that are absolutely free. These are his transla-
tions and his prose pieces. In the former - especially in his versions
of Anacreon - the necessity of adhering to his original rendered it
impracticable for him to go straying after these meretricious beauties
of style. But for them in the latter he seems never to have had the
least inclination. Here his expression never suffered from the per-
version of his taste. He preceded Dryden in introducing into our
language that simple structure, that easy natural mode of expression
which is peculiarly adapted to the genius of our tongue, and forms.
the greatest possible contrast to the Latinized diction, the involved
constructions, the sometimes stately but frequently cumbrous sen-
tences of the men of the former age, like Hooker and Milton.
Cowley was in fact the first regular writer of modern prose. In
certain particulars his work in that line has rarely been surpassed.
It is simple and straightforward, never sinking into commonplace
when treating of the common, never lacking in dignity when occa-
sion demands it to rise. The longest and most important of these
prose pieces nearly all of which are interspersed with poetry-is
the one entitled 'A Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver
Cromwell. It was written shortly after the Protector's death, though
## p. 4095 (#469) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4095
not published until 1661. In spite of the fact that it is mainly an
elaborate attack upon that great ruler, the opening pages prove how
profound had been the impression produced upon Cowley by the per-
sonality of the man.
Cowley is perhaps the chief of the poets who for some inexplica-
ble reason have been termed metaphysical. The peculiarities of
style which led to this school being so designated, were exemplified
in passages taken from his works, in the elaborate criticism given of
him by Dr. Johnson in the biography he prepared. To most persons
that account is now better known than the productions of the man
who was its subject. It is not to be expected indeed that Cowley
will ever again be a popular author. But he will always be a favor-
ite to a certain extent of a small body of cultivated men, who will
overlook his faults for the sake of the lofty morality couched in
lofty diction that is scattered through his writings, and even more
for that undertone of plaintive tenderness which Pope aptly styled
"the language of his heart. " In literary history he will have a place
of his own, as having founded in the so-called Pindaric odes a tem-
porary fashion of wr
g; and a more exalted position for having
been the pioneer in the production of our present prose style.
Thomas R. Lounsbury.
OF MYSELF
I
T is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it
grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and
the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There
is no danger from me of offending him in this kind: neither my
mind nor my body nor my fortune allow me any materials for
that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment that they
have preserved me from being scandalous or remarkable on the
defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself
only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and
shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to
the estimation of most people.
As far as my memory can return back into my past life,
before I knew, or was capable of guessing, what the world or
the glories or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul
gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants
are said to turn away from others by an antipathy imperceptible
## p. 4096 (#470) ###########################################
4096
ABRAHAM COWLEY
to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even
when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running
about on holy-days and playing with my fellows, I was wont to
steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a
book, or with some one companion if I could find any of the
same temper. I was then too so much an enemy to all con-
straint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any per-
suasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common
rules of grammar; in which they dispensed with me alone,
because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out
of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the
same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder at, myself)
may appear by the latter end of an ode which I made when I
was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with
many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this
part, which I here set down (if a very little were corrected), I
should hardly now be much ashamed.
THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honor I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better, than ill known:
Rumor can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.
Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.
My garden painted o'er
With nature's hand, not art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabin field.
Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;
But boldly say each night,
"To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. "
I
## p. 4097 (#471) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4097
You may see by it, I was even then acquainted with the
poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace); and perhaps
it was the immature and immoderate love of them, which stampt
first, or rather engraved, these characters in me: they were like
letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree
still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be pro-
duced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe I can tell
the particular little chance that filled my head first with such
chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there: for I
remember, when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in
it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlor (I know not by
what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book
but of devotion), - but there was wont to lie Spenser's works:
this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with
the stories of the knights and giants and monsters and brave
houses, which I found everywhere there (though my understand-
ing had little to do with all this); and by degrees with the tink-
ling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; so that I think I
had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was
thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.
With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon
letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence
by that violent public storm, which would suffer nothing to
stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the
princely cedars to me the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as
could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it
into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of
one of the best princesses, of the world. Now, though I was
here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of
my life,— that is, into much company, and no small business,
and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant
(for that was the state then of the English and French courts),
yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only
added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but
natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind.
of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not
fall in love with when for aught I knew it was real, was not
like to bewitch or entice me when I saw that it was adulterate.
I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well; but
could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be
liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be
VII-257
## p. 4098 (#472) ###########################################
4098
ABRAHAM COWLEY
in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and
bravely in it: a storm would not agree with my stomach, if it
did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good
company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business
of great and honorable trust, though I ate at the best table, and
enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought
to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and pub-
lic distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old
school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:—
"Well then, I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree," etc.
And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage
from his Majesty's happy Restoration, but the getting into some.
moderately convenient retreat in the country; which I thought,
in that case, I might easily have compassed as well as some
others, who with no greater probabilities or pretenses have
arrived to extraordinary fortune: but I had before written a
shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me
in the truth though not in the elegance of it:—
"THOU neither great at court, nor in the war,
Nor at th' exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar.
Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which neglected verse does raise. "
She spake; and all my years to come
Took their unlucky doom.
Their several ways of life let others chuse,
Their several pleasures let them use;
But I was born for Love and for a Muse.
With Fate what boots it to contend?
Such I began, such am, and so must end.
The star that did my being frame
Was but a lambent flame,
And some small light it did dispense,
But neither heat nor influence.
No matter, Cowley; let proud Fortune see
That thou canst her despise no less than she does thee.
Let all her gifts the portion be
Of folly, lust, and flattery,
Fraud, extortion, calumny,
## p. 4099 (#473) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Murder, infidelity,
Rebellion and hypocrisy.
Do thou nor grieve nor blush to be,
As all th' inspired tuneful men,
And all thy great forefathers were, from Homer down to Ben.
However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected,
I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself
into it à corps perdu, without making capitulations, or taking
counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says to his
soul, "Take thy ease. " I met presently not only with many
little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness
(a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness
of an emperor as well as mine; yet I do neither repent nor alter
my course. "Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum;" nothing
shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long
and have now at last married; though she neither has brought
me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped
from her:
"Nec vos, dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos Musæ, Libertas, Otia, Libri,
Hortique Sylvæque, anima remanente, relinquam,»
(Nor by me e'er shall you,
You, of all names the sweetest and the best,
You, Muses, books, and liberty, and rest;
You, gardens, fields, and woods, forsaken be,
As long as life itself forsakes not me. )
4099
But this is a very pretty ejaculation; because I have concluded
all the other chapters with a copy of verses, I will maintain the
humor to the last.
ON THE DEATH OF CRASHAW
OET and Saint! to thee alone are given
POR
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the Muses banished slaves abide,
And build vain pyramids to mortal pride;
Like Moses, thou (though spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly home back to their holy land.
## p. 4100 (#474) ###########################################
4100
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou
Wert, living, the same poet which thou'rt now;
Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,
And joy in an applause so great as thine.
Equal society with them to hold,
Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old;
And they, kind spirits! shall all rejoice, to see
How little less than they exalted man may be.
Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell;
The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up hell;
Nor have we yet quite purged the Christian land;
Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand.
And though Pan's death long since all oracles broke,
Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke:
Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage, we
Vain men! the monster woman deify;
Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,
And paradise in them, by whom we lost it, place.
What different faults corrupt our Muses thus?
Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!
Thy spotless Muse, like Mary, did contain
The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain
That her eternal verse employed should be
On a less subject than eternity;
And for a sacred mistress scorned to take
But her, whom God himself scorned not his spouse to make.
It (in a kind) her miracle did do;
A fruitful mother was, and virgin too.
How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death,
And make thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great mistress's arms, thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto's shrine!
Where, like some holy sacrifice t' expire,
A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.
Angels, they say, brought the famed Chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air:
'Tis surer much they brought thee there; and they,
And thou their charge, went singing all the way.
Pardon, my Mother-Church, if I consent
That angels led him when from thee he went;
For ev'n in error seen no danger is,
When joined with so much piety as his.
## p. 4101 (#475) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Ah, mighty God!
with shame I speak't, and grief;
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right;
And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great Saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, bard triumphant, and some care bestow
On us, the poets militant below!
Oppressed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacked by envy and by ignorance;
Enchained by beauty, tortured by desires,
Exposed by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires.
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And like Elijah, mount alive the skies.
Elisha-like, but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness and my littleness,
Lo! here I beg - I, whom thou once didst prove
So humble to esteem, so good to love -
Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,
I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me:
And when my muse soars with so strong a wing,
'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee, to sing.
ON THE DEATH OF MR. WILLIAM HERVEY
T WAS a dismal and a fearful night;
Scarce could the moon disk on th' unwilling light,
When sleep, death's image, left my troubled breast,
By something liker death possest.
My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,
And on my soul hung the dull weight
Of some intolerable fate.
What bell was that? ah me! too much I know.
My sweet companion and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,
Thy end forever, and my life to moan?
Oh, thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body, where death's agony
Besieged around thy noble heart,
Did not with more reluctance part,
Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.
4101
## p. 4102 (#476) ###########################################
4102
ABRAHAM COWLEY
My dearest friend, would I had died for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be;
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do,
If once my griefs prove tedious too.
Silent and sad I walk about all day,
As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by,
Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas! my treasure's gone! why do I stay?
He was my friend, the truest friend on earth;
A strong and mighty influence joined our birth:
Nor did we envy the most sounding name
By friendship given of old to fame.
None but his brethren he and sisters knew,
Whom the kind youth preferred to me;
And ev'n in that we did agree,
For much above myself I loved them too.
Say for you saw us, ye immortal lights-
How oft unwearied have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledæan stars, so famed for love,
Wondered at us from above!
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
But search of deep philosophy,
—
Wit, eloquence and poetry;
Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?
Henceforth, ye gentle trees, forever fade;
Or your sad branches thicker join,
And into darksome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid!
Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing,
Till all the tuneful birds to your boughs they bring;
No tuneful birds play with their wonted cheer,
And call the learned youths to hear;
No whistling winds through the glad branches fly:
But all, with sad solemnity,
Mute and unmovèd be,
Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie.
To him my muse made haste with every strain,
Whilst it was new and warm yet from the brain:
## p. 4103 (#477) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4103
He loved my worthless rhymes, and like a friend,
Would find out something to commend.
Hence now, my Muse! thou canst not me delight:
Be this my latest verse,
With which I now adorn his hearse;
And this my grief, without thy help, shall write.
Had I a wreath of bays about my brow,
I should contemn that flourishing honor now,
Condemn it to the fire, and joy to hear
It rage and crackle there.
Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me;
Cypress, which tombs does beautify;
Not Phoebus grieved so much as I,
For him who first was near that mournful tree.
Large was his soul, as large a soul as e'er
Submitted to inform a body here;
High as the place 'twas shortly in heaven to have,
But low and humble as his grave:
So high, that all the Virtues there did come,
As to their chiefest seat,
Conspicuous and great;
So low, that for me too it made. a room.
He scorned this busy world below, and all
That we, mistaken mortals! pleasure call;
Was filled with innocent gallantry and truth,
Triumphant o'er the sins of youth.
He like the stars, to which he now is gone,
That shine with beams like flame,
Yet burn not with the same,
Had all the light of youth, of the fire none.
Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught,
As if for him knowledge had rather sought:
Nor did more learning ever crowded lie
In such a short mortality.
Whene'er the skillful youth discoursed or writ,
Still did the nations throng
About his eloquent tongue;
Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.
So strong a wit did nature to him frame,
As all things but his judgment overcame:
## p. 4104 (#478) ###########################################
4104
ABRAHAM COWLEY
His judgment like the heavenly moon did show,
Tempering that mighty sea below;
Oh! had he lived in learning's world, what bound
Would have been able to control
His overpowering soul!
We've lost in him arts that not yet are found.
His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
Yet never did his God or friends forget;
And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
Retired, and gave to them their due:
For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
Was so with notions written o'er,
As if wise nature had made that her book.
So many virtues joined in him, as we
Can scarce pick here and there in history;
More than old writers' practice e'er could reach;
As much as they could ever teach.
These did Religion, queen of virtues, sway;
And all their sacred motions steer,
Just like the first and highest sphere,
Which wheels about, and turns all heaven one way.
With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
He always lived, as other saints do die.
Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Wiping all debts out ere he slept:
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the sun's laborious light,
Which still in water sets at night,
Unsullied with his journey of the day.
Wondrous young man! why wert thou made so good,
To be snatched hence ere better understood?
Snatched before half of thee enough was seen!
Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green!
Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell;
But danger and infectious death
Maliciously seized on that breath
Where life, spirit, pleasure, always used to dwell.
But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
## p. 4105 (#479) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4105
A fitter time for heaven no soul e'er chose,
The place now only free from those.
There 'mong the blest thou dost forever shine,
And wheresoe'er thou cast thy view
Upon that white and radiant crew,
Seest not a soul clothed with more light than thine.
And if the glorious saints cease not to know
Their wretched friends who fight with life below,
Thy flame to me does still the same abide,
Only more pure and rarefied.
There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse,
Thou dost with holy pity see
Our dull and earthly poesy,
Where grief and misery can be joined with verse.
A
A SUPPLICATION
WAKE, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire
Though so exalted she,
And I so lowly be,
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark! how the strings awake;
And though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try,
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure.
Too weak, too, wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
## p. 4106 (#480) ###########################################
4106
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by;
Bid thy strings silent lie;
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
EPITAPH ON A LIVING AUTHOR
ERE, passenger, beneath this shed,
Lies Cowley, though entombed, not dead;
Yet freed from human toil and strife,
And all th' impertinence of life.
H
Who in his poverty is neat,
And even in retirement great,
With Gold, the people's idol, he
Holds endless war and enmity.
Can you not say, he has resigned
His breath, to this small cell confined?
With this small mansion let him have
The rest and silence of the grave:
Strew roses here as on his hearse,
And reckon this his funeral verse;
With wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn
The yet surviving poet's urn.
## p. 4106 (#481) ###########################################
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WILLIAM COWPER
## p. 4107 (#485) ###########################################
4107
WILLIAM COWPER
(1731-1800)
HE poet Cowper, who stands in the gap that separates Pope
from Wordsworth, belongs to the group that includes Thom-
son, Young, Goldsmith, and Crabbe. If he is unimportant
to-day in comparison with his importance to his own time, yet his
service to English poetry is great, for he dispersed the artificial
atmosphere which Pope had thrown around it. His moods and his
keys were alike limited, and he was soon overshadowed by Words-
worth. Cowper saw Nature; Wordsworth saw into Nature, and
touched chords undreamed of by the gentle poet of rural scenes and
fireside pleasures. Cowper's simplicity of diction was in his day
almost daring; and he broke away from all the sentimental Arcadian
figures with which Thomson's landscapes were peopled. Therefore
his value lies in the note of sincerity that he sounded. Singularly
enough, he has been admired by French critics. He has been com-
pared to Rousseau, and Sainte-Beuve calls him "the bard of domestic
life. »
His fame as a serious poet rests chiefly on 'The Task,'
which Hazlitt calls "a poem which, with its pictures of domestic
comfort and social refinement, can hardly be forgotten but with the
language itself. "
His life is briefly told. He was born at Berkhampstead, England,
November 26th, 1731. Through his mother he was descended from
the family of the poet John Donne. She died when he was but six
years of age, and he was sent to school in Hertfordshire and to
Westminster. For three years he studied law at the Temple, but
although called to the bar in 1754, he never practiced.
As a young
man he had an attack of madness, attempted suicide, and was con-
fined at St. Albans for two years. When released he retired to
Huntington, where he formed a friendship with the Unwins. On the
death of Rev. William Unwin, he and Mrs. Unwin removed to Olney,
where most of Cowper's poems were written, and afterward to Wes-
ton, where Mrs. Unwin died in 1796. Cowper survived her four years,
dying on April 25th, 1800.
At Olney, Cowper lived in seclusion, amusing himself with his
garden and greenhouse, raising pineapples, mending windows, writing,
reading, and playing with his pets. The chief of them were his
three hares, Puss, Tiny, and Bess, which formed the topic of an
essay in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1784. It is this simple
## p. 4108 (#486) ###########################################
4108
WILLIAM COWPER
parlor at Olney which Cowper describes in The Task,' where he
says:-
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in. "
In this retreat from the haunts of the worldly, whom he deemed
so trivial and sinful, the poet found happiness in watching the flicker-
ing fire and listening to the wild blasts of winter that swept the
panes with swirling snow. Here he sat in his easy-chair, while the
dog dozed at his feet, the hares gamboled, and the linnets twittered
until silenced by a quaint bit of music on the harpsichord. Cowper
would twine "silken thread round ivory reels," wind crewels, or
read aloud to his two devoted companions as they knitted, or
<< the well-depicted flower
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn. "
The one, Mrs. Unwin, was somewhat prim and puritanical; the other,
Lady Austen, a handsome woman of the world, was gay and viva-
cious, and banished Cowper's dark moods by her grace and charm.
To dispel his morbid fancies she told him the old story of the
London citizen riding to Edmonton, which,
says Hazlitt,
perhaps given as much pleasure to as many people as anything of
the same length that ever was written. »
<<< has
The
"Lady Austen," says his biographer Wright, "seeing his face
brighten, and delighted with her success, wound up the story with
all the skill at her command. Cowper could no longer control
himself, but burst out into a loud and hearty peal of laughter.
ladies joined in his mirth, and the merriment had scarcely subsided
by supper-time. The story made such an impression on his mind
that at night he could not sleep; and his thoughts having taken the
form of rhyme, he sprang from his bed and committed them to
paper, and in the morning brought down to Mrs. Unwin the crude
outline of John Gilpin. All that day and for several days he
secluded himself in the greenhouse, and went on with the task of
polishing and improving what he had written. As he filled his slips
of paper, he sent them across the market-place to Mr. Wilson, to the
great delight and merriment of that jocular barber, who on several
other occasions had been favored with the first sight of some of
Cowper's smaller poems. "
The portrait of John Gilpin was taken from John Beyer, a linen-
draper who lived at No. 3 Cheapside. John Gilpin' was
published
## p. 4109 (#487) ###########################################
WILLIAM COWPER
4109
anonymously in the Public Advertiser, and was received with
enthusiasm. Printed as a ballad, copies of it, with pictures of John
Gilpin flying past the "Bell" at Edmonton, were sold by hundreds;
but Cowper did not acknowledge the poem until 1785, when he
brought out The Task. '
This was also suggested by Lady Austen, who asked him to write
something in blank verse. Cowper replied that he lacked a subject.
"Subject—nonsense! " she said: "you can write on anything. Take
this sofa for a subject. " Following her command, the poet named
the first book of 'The Task' 'The Sofa. ' She suggested also the
verses on The Loss of the Royal George. '
At Weston Cowper appears to have enjoyed the society of the
county-side. His companions here were Puss, the last surviving
hare, and the Spaniel Beau, "a spotted liver-color and white, or
rather a chestnut" dog, the subject of several poems.
Cowper never married. His attachment to Theodora- the "Delia »
of his verses-the daughter of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, lasted
through his life, and her sister, Lady Hesketh, was one of his kind-
est and best friends. It was she who made for him those peculiar
muslin caps which he wears in his portraits. Many short poems
addressed to her attest his affection and gratitude for her friendship
and ministrations, and to Mrs. Unwin belong the verses and the
sonnet inscribed To Mary. '
Lives of Cowper are numerous. His old friend, John Newton,
attempted one immediately after his death, but this was not com-
pleted; and the first to appear was a life by Hayley (1803-6),
extended in the 'Life and Letters of Cowper,' by T. S. Grimshawe
(1835). There are also Cowper's own 'Memoirs' (a description of
his mental derangement and religious experiences), published in 1816;
'Life and Letters of Cowper' by Southey in 1835; and two books by
T. Wright, The Town of Cowper' (1886); and Life of Cowper'
(1892). An interesting biography has also been written by Goldwin
Smith, in the series of 'English Men of Letters,' in which he
says:-
-
"In all his social judgments Cowper is at a wrong point of view. He is
always deluded by the idol of his cave. He writes perpetually on the two-
fold assumption that a life of retirement is more favorable to virtue than a
life of action, and that God made the country and man made the town. '
His flight from the world was rendered necessary by his malady and
respectable by his literary work; but it was a flight and not a victory. His
misconception was fostered and partly produced by a religion which was
essentially ascetic, and which, while it gave birth to characters of the highest
and most energetic beneficence, represented salvation too little as the reward
of effort, too much as the reward of passion, belief, and of spiritual emotion. "
## p. 4110 (#488) ###########################################
4110
WILLIAM COWPER
Yet despite this gloom, Cowper possessed the humor which finds
admirable expression in many small poems, in 'John Gilpin' and in
his 'Letters. ' These are the real mirror of his life. Southey con-
siders his letters the most delightful in the language. They contain
nothing but the details of his daily life, and such happenings as the
flowering of pinks, the singing of birds in the apple-blossoms, the
falling of the dew on the grass under his window, the pranks of his
pets, the tricks of the Spaniel Beau, the frolics of the tortoise-shell
kitten, the flight of his favorite hare, and the excitements of a morn-
ing walk when the once nodding grass is "fledged with icy feathers. "
Their English is so easy and graceful, and their humor so spontane-
ous, that the reader feels a sense of friendship with the modest poet
of 'The Task,' who, despite his platitudes, wins a certain respectful
admiration.
THE CRICKET
ITTLE inmate, full of mirth,
on my kitchen hearth,
Wheresoe'er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat
With a song more soft and sweet;
In return thou shalt receive
Such a strain as I can give.
Thus thy praise shall be expressed,
Inoffensive, welcome guest!
While the rat is on the scout,
And the mouse with curious snout,
With what vermin else infest
Every dish, and spoil the best;
Frisking thus before the fire,
Thou hast all thine heart's desire.
Though in voice and shape they be
Formed as if akin to thee,
Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest grasshoppers that are;
Theirs is but a summer song-
Thine endures the winter long,
Unimpaired and shrill and clear,
Melody throughout the year.
## p. 4111 (#489) ###########################################
WILLIAM COWPER
4111
THE WINTER WALK AT NOON
From The Task>
HE night was winter in his roughest mood;
THE The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendor of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;
And through the trees I view the embattled tower
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though movable through all its length,
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed;
And intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
## p. 4112 (#490) ###########################################
4112
WILLIAM COWPER
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranced;
While sloth seduces them, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice
The total grist unsifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,-
Not shy, as in the world, and to be won
By slow solicitation,- seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE
WRITTEN WHEN THE NEWS ARRIVED
OLL for the brave-
TOLL
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
cipal and most absorbing occupation, how-
ever, was carrying on the cipher correspondence that took place
between the King and the Queen. This, and duties allied to this,
were so engrossing that according to Sprat, his intimate friend and
first biographer, they "for some years together took up all his days
and two or three nights every week. "
ABRAHAM COWLEY
After the execution of Charles, Cowley remained in France until
1656. Then he returned to England, practically to play the part of a
spy, if the testimony of the authority already quoted can be trusted.
Once there, he was arrested and imprisoned, but subsequently was
allowed to go at liberty on bail. After the death of Cromwell he
went back to France. He returned at the Restoration, only to meet
with the neglect which was incurred by all the followers of the
exiled monarch who made the mistake of combining an objectionable
## p. 4090 (#464) ###########################################
4090
ABRAHAM COWLEY
sobriety and decency of life with loyalty to the house of Stuart.
Furthermore, certain things he had done had made him an object of
pretended suspicion. He had been created in 1657 a Doctor of Medi-
cine by the University of Oxford, in obedience to an order of the
government. There were passages also in the preface prefixed to the
edition of his works published in 1656, which were taken to imply
submissive acquiescence on his part in the new order of things.
These were satisfactory pretexts for disregarding claims which the
self-sacrificing service of years had established. The mastership of
the Savoy, which he expected and which he had a right to expect,
was given to another. But at last, more fortunate than many of his
fellow-sufferers, he received through the influence of the Earl of St.
Albans and the Duke of Buckingham a provision sufficient to main-
tain him in comfort. Withdrawing entirely from public life, he lived
successively at Barn Elms and at Chertsey in Sussex. At the latter
place he died on July 18th, 1667, and was buried in Westminster
Abbey.
Such is a brief outline of the career of the man who during his
lifetime was the most popular of English poets. In spite of occa-
sional intervals of good fortune, it is on the whole a melancholy
story. Such it seemed to Cowley himself. In the essay entitled
'Of Myself,' quoted below, and in The Complaint,' we get not only
further details of the author's personal fortunes, but an insight into
the feelings of disappointment and dejection which came over him,
as he contrasted the difference between what he had hoped and
expected and what he had succeeded in achieving or gaining. We
learn from the preface to the volume published in 1656, that long
before that time he had been eager to withdraw from the harassing
occupations in which much of his time had already been wasted, and
to spend the remainder of his days in seclusion and study. "My
desire," he then wrote, "has been for some years past (though the
execution has been accidentally diverted), and does still vehemently
continue, to retire myself to some of our American plantations; not
to seek for gold or to enrich myself with the traffic of those parts,
which is the end of most men that travel thither, . . . but to
forsake this world forever, with all the vanities and vexations of it,
and to bury myself in some obscure retreat there, but not without
the consolations of letters and philosophy. "
There seems no reason to doubt the genuineness of the feeling
thus expressed, and there is little difficulty in tracing it to its cause.
Unquestionably the political situation had a good deal to do with its
manifestation at that particular time; but the source of his dejection
lay deeper than any temporary overthrow of the side with which he
sympathized. Cowley's career, however successful, had not fulfilled
## p. 4091 (#465) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4091
the extraordinary promise of his youth. He made his appearance as
a man of letters long before he became a man. Of all authors in
our own tongue, perhaps in any tongue, he was the most precocious.
This is not to say that others have not written as early as he, but
that no one who wrote so early has written so well. In 1633, when
he was but fifteen years old, he brought out a little volume contain-
ing over a thousand lines and entitled 'Poetical Blossomes. ' It was
made up mainly of two productions, entitled respectively Constantia
and Philautus' and 'Pyramus and Thisbe. ' Of this work a second
edition appeared in 1636, with a number of additional poems. In
the epistle prefixed to this impression, he states that Pyramus and
Thisbe' was composed at ten years of age and Constantia and
Philautus' at thirteen. But much more important than either, ap-
peared in this volume of 1636 a poem entitled 'A Vote. ' It consists
of eleven stanzas, the last three of which, with a few slight verbal
alterations, were cited by Cowley in his essay upon himself. This
poetry, which he never surpassed, he there tells us was written when
he was thirteen years old. The early date given to its composition.
may have been due to a slip of memory; at any rate it was not
until 1636 that the piece appeared in print. But even were it not
written till the very year in which it was published, it must be re-
garded as a marvelous production for a boy, not alone for the poetic
ability displayed in it, but for the philosophic view it takes of life.
A third edition of 'Poetical Blossomes' appeared in 1637. In 1638
came out a pastoral comedy, written while he was king's scholar in
Westminster School, and called 'Love's Riddle. ' During that same
year a Latin comedy entitled 'Naufragium Joculare' had been acted
by the students of Trini College, and a little later was published.
All the works mentioned, it will be seen, had been produced by him
before he had completed, and most of them in fact before he had
reached, his twentieth year. For one further dramatic production he
is also responsible at a very early age. In 1641, when the King's
son Charles (afterwards Charles II. ) passed through Cambridge, Cow-
ley "made extempore," as he says, a comedy which was acted, for
the entertainment of the Prince, at Trinity College on March 12th.
It was called 'The Guardian,' and in 1650 it was published.
At a
later period it was rewritten by the author, and in 1661 was brought
out at the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields with a fair degree of suc-
cess. It was then entitled 'Cutter of Coleman Street. '
From the time of leaving Cambridge, though he did not cease
writing, nothing of his was published for a long while, at least un-
der his own name. In 1647 appeared a volume entitled 'The Mis-
tress'; but even this the publisher professed to bring out wholly on
his own responsibility. The work consisted entirely of love poems,
## p. 4092 (#466) ###########################################
4092
ABRAHAM COWLEY
and the very doubtful assertion is steadily repeated in all notices of
Cowley's life that they became the favorite ones of the age.
If so,
the age must have been peculiarly frigid in its feelings. Whatever
excellences these pieces possess, they are not the excellences that
characterize love poetry. It is hardly possible to speak of them as
the transcript of any personal experiences. They are rather aca-
demic exercises, intellectual disquisitions upon the general subject of
love, than the impassioned utterances of a man whose feelings have
ever been profoundly stirred. The Greek scholar Joshua Barnes,
who flourished a little later, declared that in spite of the sentiments
expressed in these pieces, and in a subsequent poem called 'The
Chronicle,' Cowley was never in love but once in his life. It could
not be proved on the evidence of the verses contained in The Mis-
tress that he was ever in love at all. Still, if the poems lack
fervor, they often exhibit ingenuity and grace.
On his return to England during the Protectorate he brought out
a collected edition of his works in folio. It was published in 1656,
and amongst the matter which then appeared for the first time were
the odes written in professed imitation of Pindar. The composition
of these set a literary fashion which did not die out till the latter
half of the next century. To write so-called Pindaric odes became
one of the regular duties of all who were in doubt about their poetic
inspiration, and felt called upon to convince others as well as them-
selves of their possession of it. But Cowley introduced the term and
not the thing. He seems to have fancied that to produce lines with
a different number of feet, and stanzas with a different number of
lines, was the proper method of representing the measure. But Pin-
dar's verse, if it can be called irregular at all, was regularly irregular.
Cowley's imitation was irregular and nothing else. Still, so great
was his influence, that a plentiful crop of these spurious reproduc-
tions of an imaginary metrical form sprang up in the literature of the
hundred years following the Restoration. Among them can occasion-
ally be found genuine imitations of Pindar's measure, such as are the
odes of Congreve and of Gray; but of the countless number of all
kinds produced, those of the last-named author are the only ones
that can be said still to survive.
Another production that made its first appearance in the folio of
1656 was part of an epic poem, which Cowley had begun while he
was at the university. Its subject was the life and exploits of King
David, and his intention was to complete it in the orthodox number
of twelve books. It would appear from his preface that the theme
was chosen from a sense of duty as well as from inclination. Poetry,
he there tells us, should no longer be pressed into the service of
fable. The Devil had stolen it and alienated it from the service of
"
## p. 4093 (#467) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4093
the Deity; and it was time to recover it out of the tyrant's power
and restore it to the kingdom of God. If this doctrine be true, it
must be conceded that Cowley's hands were not the ones to effect
the restoration. From what he did towards bringing about the result
he deemed desirable, it looks rather as if the craft of the great
Adversary of mankind had been put forth to defeat the end in view
by instigating this particular poet to undertake this particular task.
The 'Davideis' is written in rhymed heroic verse, of which Cowley
never gained the full mastery. There is nothing in the matter to
make amends for the versification, which is rarely well finished and
is not unfrequently rough and inharmonious. In truth, the dis-
tinguishing characteristic of the work as a whole is its well-sustained
tediousness. Fortunately it was not completed beyond the fourth
book; it would not have lessened Cowley's reputation if the first had
never been begun.
Cowley continued to write after this volume was published; but a
good deal of his later production was in the Latin tongue, and has
in consequence been condemned to perpetual obscurity. Interest in
that could be least expected to survive the general decay of interest
which gradually overtook his writings. His fame stood highest in
his own century, and he is perhaps as much underestimated now as
he was overestimated then. His collected works passed through
edition after edition, and by 1681 had reached the seventh.
Such a
sale in those days of mighty folios and comparatively few readers
indicated great and general popularity. But by the end of the cen-
tury his influence had begun to decline. Dryden at the outset of his
literary career had been one of his most fervent admirers; but in the
preface to his last book, which appeared in 1700, he censured his
faults severely, and declared that he had so sunk in his reputation.
that for ten impressions which his works had had in so many suc-
cessive years, scarcely a hundred copies were purchased during a
twelvemonth at the time of his writing. This statement reflected
more the feelings of the critic than it represented the actual facts,
for between 1699 and 1721 four editions of Cowley's works appeared.
Still it is none the less true that Cowley's reputation was then
steadily sinking, and was destined to sink still lower. In 1737 Pope
directly referred to the fact in the following lines, which have been
repeatedly quoted in connection with it:-
"Who now reads Cowley? If he pleases yet,
It is his moral pleases, not his wit;
Forgot his epic, nay, Pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart. "
## p. 4094 (#468) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4094
Between 1721 indeed and 1802 not a single separate edition of his
works was published; though selections were edited by Bishop Hurd
in the interval, and of course his poems were included in the great
collections of the booksellers, and of Anderson and Chalmers. In
1881 an edition limited to one hundred copies of his works in verse
and prose, for the first time completely collected, was brought out
by Grosart as a part of the Chertsey Worthies' Library.
The reasons for the decay of Cowley's reputation are not hard to
find. It was due to what Pope called his wit, or what more specifi-
cally was criticized by Addison in No. 62 of the Spectator as his
false wit. "He could never," says Dryden, << forgive any conceit
which came in his way, but swept like a drag-net great and small. ”
There are accordingly but few poems of his that can be read with
unmixed pleasure. Even when the piece as a whole is admirable, the
reader is always in danger of finding somewhat to jar upon his taste
in details. A passage containing lofty thoughts nobly expressed is
liable to be followed by another, in which forced and unnatural
images or far-fetched conceits utterly destroy the impression wrought
by the majestic simplicity of what has preceded. This inequality
began early to lower him in general esteem. Even as far back as
the seventeenth century, Lord Rochester is reported by Dryden as
having said of him very pertinently, if somewhat profanely, that
"Not being of God, he could not stand. "
From this censure, which is too applicable to most of his work,
there are portions that are absolutely free. These are his transla-
tions and his prose pieces. In the former - especially in his versions
of Anacreon - the necessity of adhering to his original rendered it
impracticable for him to go straying after these meretricious beauties
of style. But for them in the latter he seems never to have had the
least inclination. Here his expression never suffered from the per-
version of his taste. He preceded Dryden in introducing into our
language that simple structure, that easy natural mode of expression
which is peculiarly adapted to the genius of our tongue, and forms.
the greatest possible contrast to the Latinized diction, the involved
constructions, the sometimes stately but frequently cumbrous sen-
tences of the men of the former age, like Hooker and Milton.
Cowley was in fact the first regular writer of modern prose. In
certain particulars his work in that line has rarely been surpassed.
It is simple and straightforward, never sinking into commonplace
when treating of the common, never lacking in dignity when occa-
sion demands it to rise. The longest and most important of these
prose pieces nearly all of which are interspersed with poetry-is
the one entitled 'A Discourse concerning the Government of Oliver
Cromwell. It was written shortly after the Protector's death, though
## p. 4095 (#469) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4095
not published until 1661. In spite of the fact that it is mainly an
elaborate attack upon that great ruler, the opening pages prove how
profound had been the impression produced upon Cowley by the per-
sonality of the man.
Cowley is perhaps the chief of the poets who for some inexplica-
ble reason have been termed metaphysical. The peculiarities of
style which led to this school being so designated, were exemplified
in passages taken from his works, in the elaborate criticism given of
him by Dr. Johnson in the biography he prepared. To most persons
that account is now better known than the productions of the man
who was its subject. It is not to be expected indeed that Cowley
will ever again be a popular author. But he will always be a favor-
ite to a certain extent of a small body of cultivated men, who will
overlook his faults for the sake of the lofty morality couched in
lofty diction that is scattered through his writings, and even more
for that undertone of plaintive tenderness which Pope aptly styled
"the language of his heart. " In literary history he will have a place
of his own, as having founded in the so-called Pindaric odes a tem-
porary fashion of wr
g; and a more exalted position for having
been the pioneer in the production of our present prose style.
Thomas R. Lounsbury.
OF MYSELF
I
T is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it
grates his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and
the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There
is no danger from me of offending him in this kind: neither my
mind nor my body nor my fortune allow me any materials for
that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment that they
have preserved me from being scandalous or remarkable on the
defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself
only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and
shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to
the estimation of most people.
As far as my memory can return back into my past life,
before I knew, or was capable of guessing, what the world or
the glories or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul
gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants
are said to turn away from others by an antipathy imperceptible
## p. 4096 (#470) ###########################################
4096
ABRAHAM COWLEY
to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even
when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running
about on holy-days and playing with my fellows, I was wont to
steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a
book, or with some one companion if I could find any of the
same temper. I was then too so much an enemy to all con-
straint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any per-
suasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common
rules of grammar; in which they dispensed with me alone,
because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out
of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the
same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder at, myself)
may appear by the latter end of an ode which I made when I
was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with
many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish; but of this
part, which I here set down (if a very little were corrected), I
should hardly now be much ashamed.
THIS only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honor I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
The unknown are better, than ill known:
Rumor can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.
Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace; and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.
My garden painted o'er
With nature's hand, not art's; and pleasures yield,
Horace might envy in his Sabin field.
Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear, nor wish, my fate;
But boldly say each night,
"To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have lived to-day. "
I
## p. 4097 (#471) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4097
You may see by it, I was even then acquainted with the
poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace); and perhaps
it was the immature and immoderate love of them, which stampt
first, or rather engraved, these characters in me: they were like
letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree
still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be pro-
duced in me so early, is a hard question: I believe I can tell
the particular little chance that filled my head first with such
chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there: for I
remember, when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in
it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlor (I know not by
what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book
but of devotion), - but there was wont to lie Spenser's works:
this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with
the stories of the knights and giants and monsters and brave
houses, which I found everywhere there (though my understand-
ing had little to do with all this); and by degrees with the tink-
ling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers; so that I think I
had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was
thus made a poet as immediately as a child is made an eunuch.
With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon
letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence
by that violent public storm, which would suffer nothing to
stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the
princely cedars to me the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as
could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it
into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of
one of the best princesses, of the world. Now, though I was
here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of
my life,— that is, into much company, and no small business,
and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant
(for that was the state then of the English and French courts),
yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only
added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but
natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind.
of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not
fall in love with when for aught I knew it was real, was not
like to bewitch or entice me when I saw that it was adulterate.
I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well; but
could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be
liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be
VII-257
## p. 4098 (#472) ###########################################
4098
ABRAHAM COWLEY
in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and
bravely in it: a storm would not agree with my stomach, if it
did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good
company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business
of great and honorable trust, though I ate at the best table, and
enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought
to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and pub-
lic distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old
school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:—
"Well then, I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree," etc.
And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage
from his Majesty's happy Restoration, but the getting into some.
moderately convenient retreat in the country; which I thought,
in that case, I might easily have compassed as well as some
others, who with no greater probabilities or pretenses have
arrived to extraordinary fortune: but I had before written a
shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me
in the truth though not in the elegance of it:—
"THOU neither great at court, nor in the war,
Nor at th' exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar.
Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which neglected verse does raise. "
She spake; and all my years to come
Took their unlucky doom.
Their several ways of life let others chuse,
Their several pleasures let them use;
But I was born for Love and for a Muse.
With Fate what boots it to contend?
Such I began, such am, and so must end.
The star that did my being frame
Was but a lambent flame,
And some small light it did dispense,
But neither heat nor influence.
No matter, Cowley; let proud Fortune see
That thou canst her despise no less than she does thee.
Let all her gifts the portion be
Of folly, lust, and flattery,
Fraud, extortion, calumny,
## p. 4099 (#473) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Murder, infidelity,
Rebellion and hypocrisy.
Do thou nor grieve nor blush to be,
As all th' inspired tuneful men,
And all thy great forefathers were, from Homer down to Ben.
However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected,
I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself
into it à corps perdu, without making capitulations, or taking
counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says to his
soul, "Take thy ease. " I met presently not only with many
little incumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness
(a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness
of an emperor as well as mine; yet I do neither repent nor alter
my course. "Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum;" nothing
shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long
and have now at last married; though she neither has brought
me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped
from her:
"Nec vos, dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos Musæ, Libertas, Otia, Libri,
Hortique Sylvæque, anima remanente, relinquam,»
(Nor by me e'er shall you,
You, of all names the sweetest and the best,
You, Muses, books, and liberty, and rest;
You, gardens, fields, and woods, forsaken be,
As long as life itself forsakes not me. )
4099
But this is a very pretty ejaculation; because I have concluded
all the other chapters with a copy of verses, I will maintain the
humor to the last.
ON THE DEATH OF CRASHAW
OET and Saint! to thee alone are given
POR
The two most sacred names of earth and heaven;
The hard and rarest union which can be,
Next that of Godhead with humanity.
Long did the Muses banished slaves abide,
And build vain pyramids to mortal pride;
Like Moses, thou (though spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly home back to their holy land.
## p. 4100 (#474) ###########################################
4100
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Ah, wretched we, poets of earth! but thou
Wert, living, the same poet which thou'rt now;
Whilst angels sing to thee their airs divine,
And joy in an applause so great as thine.
Equal society with them to hold,
Thou need'st not make new songs, but say the old;
And they, kind spirits! shall all rejoice, to see
How little less than they exalted man may be.
Still the old heathen gods in numbers dwell;
The heavenliest thing on earth still keeps up hell;
Nor have we yet quite purged the Christian land;
Still idols here, like calves at Bethel, stand.
And though Pan's death long since all oracles broke,
Yet still in rhyme the fiend Apollo spoke:
Nay, with the worst of heathen dotage, we
Vain men! the monster woman deify;
Find stars, and tie our fates there in a face,
And paradise in them, by whom we lost it, place.
What different faults corrupt our Muses thus?
Wanton as girls, as old wives fabulous!
Thy spotless Muse, like Mary, did contain
The boundless Godhead; she did well disdain
That her eternal verse employed should be
On a less subject than eternity;
And for a sacred mistress scorned to take
But her, whom God himself scorned not his spouse to make.
It (in a kind) her miracle did do;
A fruitful mother was, and virgin too.
How well, blest swan, did Fate contrive thy death,
And make thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great mistress's arms, thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto's shrine!
Where, like some holy sacrifice t' expire,
A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.
Angels, they say, brought the famed Chapel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air:
'Tis surer much they brought thee there; and they,
And thou their charge, went singing all the way.
Pardon, my Mother-Church, if I consent
That angels led him when from thee he went;
For ev'n in error seen no danger is,
When joined with so much piety as his.
## p. 4101 (#475) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Ah, mighty God!
with shame I speak't, and grief;
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were ev'n weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith, perhaps, in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right;
And I myself a Catholic will be,
So far at least, great Saint, to pray to thee.
Hail, bard triumphant, and some care bestow
On us, the poets militant below!
Oppressed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacked by envy and by ignorance;
Enchained by beauty, tortured by desires,
Exposed by tyrant Love to savage beasts and fires.
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And like Elijah, mount alive the skies.
Elisha-like, but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness and my littleness,
Lo! here I beg - I, whom thou once didst prove
So humble to esteem, so good to love -
Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,
I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me:
And when my muse soars with so strong a wing,
'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee, to sing.
ON THE DEATH OF MR. WILLIAM HERVEY
T WAS a dismal and a fearful night;
Scarce could the moon disk on th' unwilling light,
When sleep, death's image, left my troubled breast,
By something liker death possest.
My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,
And on my soul hung the dull weight
Of some intolerable fate.
What bell was that? ah me! too much I know.
My sweet companion and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,
Thy end forever, and my life to moan?
Oh, thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body, where death's agony
Besieged around thy noble heart,
Did not with more reluctance part,
Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.
4101
## p. 4102 (#476) ###########################################
4102
ABRAHAM COWLEY
My dearest friend, would I had died for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be;
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do,
If once my griefs prove tedious too.
Silent and sad I walk about all day,
As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by,
Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas! my treasure's gone! why do I stay?
He was my friend, the truest friend on earth;
A strong and mighty influence joined our birth:
Nor did we envy the most sounding name
By friendship given of old to fame.
None but his brethren he and sisters knew,
Whom the kind youth preferred to me;
And ev'n in that we did agree,
For much above myself I loved them too.
Say for you saw us, ye immortal lights-
How oft unwearied have we spent the nights,
Till the Ledæan stars, so famed for love,
Wondered at us from above!
We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
But search of deep philosophy,
—
Wit, eloquence and poetry;
Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.
Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say
Have ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know
The love betwixt us two?
Henceforth, ye gentle trees, forever fade;
Or your sad branches thicker join,
And into darksome shades combine,
Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid!
Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing,
Till all the tuneful birds to your boughs they bring;
No tuneful birds play with their wonted cheer,
And call the learned youths to hear;
No whistling winds through the glad branches fly:
But all, with sad solemnity,
Mute and unmovèd be,
Mute as the grave wherein my friend does lie.
To him my muse made haste with every strain,
Whilst it was new and warm yet from the brain:
## p. 4103 (#477) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4103
He loved my worthless rhymes, and like a friend,
Would find out something to commend.
Hence now, my Muse! thou canst not me delight:
Be this my latest verse,
With which I now adorn his hearse;
And this my grief, without thy help, shall write.
Had I a wreath of bays about my brow,
I should contemn that flourishing honor now,
Condemn it to the fire, and joy to hear
It rage and crackle there.
Instead of bays, crown with sad cypress me;
Cypress, which tombs does beautify;
Not Phoebus grieved so much as I,
For him who first was near that mournful tree.
Large was his soul, as large a soul as e'er
Submitted to inform a body here;
High as the place 'twas shortly in heaven to have,
But low and humble as his grave:
So high, that all the Virtues there did come,
As to their chiefest seat,
Conspicuous and great;
So low, that for me too it made. a room.
He scorned this busy world below, and all
That we, mistaken mortals! pleasure call;
Was filled with innocent gallantry and truth,
Triumphant o'er the sins of youth.
He like the stars, to which he now is gone,
That shine with beams like flame,
Yet burn not with the same,
Had all the light of youth, of the fire none.
Knowledge he only sought, and so soon caught,
As if for him knowledge had rather sought:
Nor did more learning ever crowded lie
In such a short mortality.
Whene'er the skillful youth discoursed or writ,
Still did the nations throng
About his eloquent tongue;
Nor could his ink flow faster than his wit.
So strong a wit did nature to him frame,
As all things but his judgment overcame:
## p. 4104 (#478) ###########################################
4104
ABRAHAM COWLEY
His judgment like the heavenly moon did show,
Tempering that mighty sea below;
Oh! had he lived in learning's world, what bound
Would have been able to control
His overpowering soul!
We've lost in him arts that not yet are found.
His mirth was the pure spirits of various wit,
Yet never did his God or friends forget;
And when deep talk and wisdom came in view,
Retired, and gave to them their due:
For the rich help of books he always took,
Though his own searching mind before
Was so with notions written o'er,
As if wise nature had made that her book.
So many virtues joined in him, as we
Can scarce pick here and there in history;
More than old writers' practice e'er could reach;
As much as they could ever teach.
These did Religion, queen of virtues, sway;
And all their sacred motions steer,
Just like the first and highest sphere,
Which wheels about, and turns all heaven one way.
With as much zeal, devotion, piety,
He always lived, as other saints do die.
Still with his soul severe account he kept,
Wiping all debts out ere he slept:
Then down in peace and innocence he lay,
Like the sun's laborious light,
Which still in water sets at night,
Unsullied with his journey of the day.
Wondrous young man! why wert thou made so good,
To be snatched hence ere better understood?
Snatched before half of thee enough was seen!
Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green!
Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell;
But danger and infectious death
Maliciously seized on that breath
Where life, spirit, pleasure, always used to dwell.
But happy thou, ta'en from this frantic age,
Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage!
## p. 4105 (#479) ###########################################
ABRAHAM COWLEY
4105
A fitter time for heaven no soul e'er chose,
The place now only free from those.
There 'mong the blest thou dost forever shine,
And wheresoe'er thou cast thy view
Upon that white and radiant crew,
Seest not a soul clothed with more light than thine.
And if the glorious saints cease not to know
Their wretched friends who fight with life below,
Thy flame to me does still the same abide,
Only more pure and rarefied.
There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse,
Thou dost with holy pity see
Our dull and earthly poesy,
Where grief and misery can be joined with verse.
A
A SUPPLICATION
WAKE, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire
Though so exalted she,
And I so lowly be,
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.
Hark! how the strings awake;
And though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try,
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.
Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure.
Too weak, too, wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to love.
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
## p. 4106 (#480) ###########################################
4106
ABRAHAM COWLEY
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by;
Bid thy strings silent lie;
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.
EPITAPH ON A LIVING AUTHOR
ERE, passenger, beneath this shed,
Lies Cowley, though entombed, not dead;
Yet freed from human toil and strife,
And all th' impertinence of life.
H
Who in his poverty is neat,
And even in retirement great,
With Gold, the people's idol, he
Holds endless war and enmity.
Can you not say, he has resigned
His breath, to this small cell confined?
With this small mansion let him have
The rest and silence of the grave:
Strew roses here as on his hearse,
And reckon this his funeral verse;
With wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn
The yet surviving poet's urn.
## p. 4106 (#481) ###########################################
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WILLIAM COWPER
## p. 4107 (#485) ###########################################
4107
WILLIAM COWPER
(1731-1800)
HE poet Cowper, who stands in the gap that separates Pope
from Wordsworth, belongs to the group that includes Thom-
son, Young, Goldsmith, and Crabbe. If he is unimportant
to-day in comparison with his importance to his own time, yet his
service to English poetry is great, for he dispersed the artificial
atmosphere which Pope had thrown around it. His moods and his
keys were alike limited, and he was soon overshadowed by Words-
worth. Cowper saw Nature; Wordsworth saw into Nature, and
touched chords undreamed of by the gentle poet of rural scenes and
fireside pleasures. Cowper's simplicity of diction was in his day
almost daring; and he broke away from all the sentimental Arcadian
figures with which Thomson's landscapes were peopled. Therefore
his value lies in the note of sincerity that he sounded. Singularly
enough, he has been admired by French critics. He has been com-
pared to Rousseau, and Sainte-Beuve calls him "the bard of domestic
life. »
His fame as a serious poet rests chiefly on 'The Task,'
which Hazlitt calls "a poem which, with its pictures of domestic
comfort and social refinement, can hardly be forgotten but with the
language itself. "
His life is briefly told. He was born at Berkhampstead, England,
November 26th, 1731. Through his mother he was descended from
the family of the poet John Donne. She died when he was but six
years of age, and he was sent to school in Hertfordshire and to
Westminster. For three years he studied law at the Temple, but
although called to the bar in 1754, he never practiced.
As a young
man he had an attack of madness, attempted suicide, and was con-
fined at St. Albans for two years. When released he retired to
Huntington, where he formed a friendship with the Unwins. On the
death of Rev. William Unwin, he and Mrs. Unwin removed to Olney,
where most of Cowper's poems were written, and afterward to Wes-
ton, where Mrs. Unwin died in 1796. Cowper survived her four years,
dying on April 25th, 1800.
At Olney, Cowper lived in seclusion, amusing himself with his
garden and greenhouse, raising pineapples, mending windows, writing,
reading, and playing with his pets. The chief of them were his
three hares, Puss, Tiny, and Bess, which formed the topic of an
essay in the Gentleman's Magazine for June, 1784. It is this simple
## p. 4108 (#486) ###########################################
4108
WILLIAM COWPER
parlor at Olney which Cowper describes in The Task,' where he
says:-
"Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer, but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in. "
In this retreat from the haunts of the worldly, whom he deemed
so trivial and sinful, the poet found happiness in watching the flicker-
ing fire and listening to the wild blasts of winter that swept the
panes with swirling snow. Here he sat in his easy-chair, while the
dog dozed at his feet, the hares gamboled, and the linnets twittered
until silenced by a quaint bit of music on the harpsichord. Cowper
would twine "silken thread round ivory reels," wind crewels, or
read aloud to his two devoted companions as they knitted, or
<< the well-depicted flower
Wrought patiently into the snowy lawn. "
The one, Mrs. Unwin, was somewhat prim and puritanical; the other,
Lady Austen, a handsome woman of the world, was gay and viva-
cious, and banished Cowper's dark moods by her grace and charm.
To dispel his morbid fancies she told him the old story of the
London citizen riding to Edmonton, which,
says Hazlitt,
perhaps given as much pleasure to as many people as anything of
the same length that ever was written. »
<<< has
The
"Lady Austen," says his biographer Wright, "seeing his face
brighten, and delighted with her success, wound up the story with
all the skill at her command. Cowper could no longer control
himself, but burst out into a loud and hearty peal of laughter.
ladies joined in his mirth, and the merriment had scarcely subsided
by supper-time. The story made such an impression on his mind
that at night he could not sleep; and his thoughts having taken the
form of rhyme, he sprang from his bed and committed them to
paper, and in the morning brought down to Mrs. Unwin the crude
outline of John Gilpin. All that day and for several days he
secluded himself in the greenhouse, and went on with the task of
polishing and improving what he had written. As he filled his slips
of paper, he sent them across the market-place to Mr. Wilson, to the
great delight and merriment of that jocular barber, who on several
other occasions had been favored with the first sight of some of
Cowper's smaller poems. "
The portrait of John Gilpin was taken from John Beyer, a linen-
draper who lived at No. 3 Cheapside. John Gilpin' was
published
## p. 4109 (#487) ###########################################
WILLIAM COWPER
4109
anonymously in the Public Advertiser, and was received with
enthusiasm. Printed as a ballad, copies of it, with pictures of John
Gilpin flying past the "Bell" at Edmonton, were sold by hundreds;
but Cowper did not acknowledge the poem until 1785, when he
brought out The Task. '
This was also suggested by Lady Austen, who asked him to write
something in blank verse. Cowper replied that he lacked a subject.
"Subject—nonsense! " she said: "you can write on anything. Take
this sofa for a subject. " Following her command, the poet named
the first book of 'The Task' 'The Sofa. ' She suggested also the
verses on The Loss of the Royal George. '
At Weston Cowper appears to have enjoyed the society of the
county-side. His companions here were Puss, the last surviving
hare, and the Spaniel Beau, "a spotted liver-color and white, or
rather a chestnut" dog, the subject of several poems.
Cowper never married. His attachment to Theodora- the "Delia »
of his verses-the daughter of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, lasted
through his life, and her sister, Lady Hesketh, was one of his kind-
est and best friends. It was she who made for him those peculiar
muslin caps which he wears in his portraits. Many short poems
addressed to her attest his affection and gratitude for her friendship
and ministrations, and to Mrs. Unwin belong the verses and the
sonnet inscribed To Mary. '
Lives of Cowper are numerous. His old friend, John Newton,
attempted one immediately after his death, but this was not com-
pleted; and the first to appear was a life by Hayley (1803-6),
extended in the 'Life and Letters of Cowper,' by T. S. Grimshawe
(1835). There are also Cowper's own 'Memoirs' (a description of
his mental derangement and religious experiences), published in 1816;
'Life and Letters of Cowper' by Southey in 1835; and two books by
T. Wright, The Town of Cowper' (1886); and Life of Cowper'
(1892). An interesting biography has also been written by Goldwin
Smith, in the series of 'English Men of Letters,' in which he
says:-
-
"In all his social judgments Cowper is at a wrong point of view. He is
always deluded by the idol of his cave. He writes perpetually on the two-
fold assumption that a life of retirement is more favorable to virtue than a
life of action, and that God made the country and man made the town. '
His flight from the world was rendered necessary by his malady and
respectable by his literary work; but it was a flight and not a victory. His
misconception was fostered and partly produced by a religion which was
essentially ascetic, and which, while it gave birth to characters of the highest
and most energetic beneficence, represented salvation too little as the reward
of effort, too much as the reward of passion, belief, and of spiritual emotion. "
## p. 4110 (#488) ###########################################
4110
WILLIAM COWPER
Yet despite this gloom, Cowper possessed the humor which finds
admirable expression in many small poems, in 'John Gilpin' and in
his 'Letters. ' These are the real mirror of his life. Southey con-
siders his letters the most delightful in the language. They contain
nothing but the details of his daily life, and such happenings as the
flowering of pinks, the singing of birds in the apple-blossoms, the
falling of the dew on the grass under his window, the pranks of his
pets, the tricks of the Spaniel Beau, the frolics of the tortoise-shell
kitten, the flight of his favorite hare, and the excitements of a morn-
ing walk when the once nodding grass is "fledged with icy feathers. "
Their English is so easy and graceful, and their humor so spontane-
ous, that the reader feels a sense of friendship with the modest poet
of 'The Task,' who, despite his platitudes, wins a certain respectful
admiration.
THE CRICKET
ITTLE inmate, full of mirth,
on my kitchen hearth,
Wheresoe'er be thine abode,
Always harbinger of good,
Pay me for thy warm retreat
With a song more soft and sweet;
In return thou shalt receive
Such a strain as I can give.
Thus thy praise shall be expressed,
Inoffensive, welcome guest!
While the rat is on the scout,
And the mouse with curious snout,
With what vermin else infest
Every dish, and spoil the best;
Frisking thus before the fire,
Thou hast all thine heart's desire.
Though in voice and shape they be
Formed as if akin to thee,
Thou surpassest, happier far,
Happiest grasshoppers that are;
Theirs is but a summer song-
Thine endures the winter long,
Unimpaired and shrill and clear,
Melody throughout the year.
## p. 4111 (#489) ###########################################
WILLIAM COWPER
4111
THE WINTER WALK AT NOON
From The Task>
HE night was winter in his roughest mood;
THE The morning sharp and clear. But now at noon
Upon the southern side of the slant hills,
And where the woods fence off the northern blast,
The season smiles, resigning all its rage,
And has the warmth of May. The vault is blue
Without a cloud, and white without a speck
The dazzling splendor of the scene below.
Again the harmony comes o'er the vale;
And through the trees I view the embattled tower
Whence all the music. I again perceive
The soothing influence of the wafted strains,
And settle in soft musings as I tread
The walk, still verdant, under oaks and elms,
Whose outspread branches overarch the glade.
The roof, though movable through all its length,
As the wind sways it, has yet well sufficed;
And intercepting in their silent fall
The frequent flakes, has kept a path for me.
No noise is here, or none that hinders thought.
The redbreast warbles still, but is content
With slender notes, and more than half suppressed:
Pleased with his solitude, and flitting light
From spray to spray, where'er he rests he shakes
From many a twig the pendent drops of ice
That tinkle in the withered leaves below.
Stillness, accompanied with sounds so soft,
Charms more than silence. Meditation here
May think down hours to moments. Here the heart
May give a useful lesson to the head,
And Learning wiser grow without his books.
Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one,
Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
## p. 4112 (#490) ###########################################
4112
WILLIAM COWPER
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells,
By which the magic art of shrewder wits
Holds an unthinking multitude enthralled.
Some to the fascination of a name
Surrender judgment, hoodwinked. Some the style
Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds
Of error leads them, by a tune entranced;
While sloth seduces them, too weak to bear
The insupportable fatigue of thought,
And swallowing therefore without pause or choice
The total grist unsifted, husks and all.
But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course
Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer,
And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs,
And lanes, in which the primrose ere her time
Peeps through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root,
Deceive no student. Wisdom there, and truth,-
Not shy, as in the world, and to be won
By slow solicitation,- seize at once
The roving thought, and fix it on themselves.
ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE
WRITTEN WHEN THE NEWS ARRIVED
OLL for the brave-
TOLL
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore!
