THE LIFE OF ABRAHAM COWLEY was born in London in the year 1618. His father, a reputable citizen, dying before his birth, left him to the care of his mother, but, in circumftances fo ftraitened, that with dif-, alty could the procure for him a literary education, which, from marking the early bloom of his ishat understanding, was an object she had much at heart: She lived however to enjoy the reward · of her folicitude, by seeing her fon eminent and profperous, and by receiving in her turn from him, the juft tribute of filial gratitude. Cowley, at a very early age, by an accidental perufal of Spencer's "Fairy Queen," difcovered his propenfity for the mufes. Such trivial occurrences not unfrequently indicate to a man the peculiar bect of his genius, and determine his future deftination in life. He was first fent to Westminster school, where it is recorded of him, that, unable to endure the dragery of acquiring the rules of grammar in the ufual manner, he obtained a perfect knowledge the learned languages without them. 25 While at school, he displayed a vernal maturity of intellectual powers, unequalled, perhaps, by any or at the fame period of life. Milton and Pope indeed gave early proofs of extraordinary mental but their juvenile pieces, it is almost certain, received the correction of their riper judgments, they were not published till fome years after they were compofed. The fpecimens which Cowley e of the maturity of his genius, are unequivocal; for, befides writing a comedy, called “ Love's Raidle," published afterwards when he was at college, he actually gave to the world, in the thirtrach year of his age, a volume of poems, cortaining, among other pieces, his tragical history of Pyramus and Thisbe," written in his tenth year, and his “Conftantia and Philetus," written two years after. In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where, notwithstanding the intenseness of his studies, he aid to have compofed the greater part of his “ Davideis;" a work, the very collecting of materi a for which, at so early an age, evinced a mind of uncommon ardour and application; but which, a fubject ill chofen, and woi fe conducted, was never in any esteem, and is now utterly neglected. The Prince of Wales paffing through Cambridge at the breaking out of the civil war, was enter-, ned by the scholars of the university, with a play called the "Guardian," sketched out for the ben by Cowley. This play, fome time after the restoration, the author brought on the stage, under the title of "the Cutter of Coleman-street:" it was however, to his no fmall disappointment, damned, ad, ftrange to add, for being a fuppofed fatire on the royalifts! The piece itself, though printed among his works, is now scarcely known; it is very entertaining, and has fomething of the rough vigorous it, and ftrong-marked character of the comedies of Ben Johnson. From Cambridge, he was neceffitated, by the prevalence of the parliament there, in 1643, to reBove to Oxford, which was the head quarters of the royalifts, whofe good graces he obtained, by the favity of his manners, and the unreferved warmth of his loyalty: The virtuous and accomplished Lord Falkland, in particular, honoured him with his entire friendship. From Oxford he followed the Queen to Paris, as fecretary to the Earl of St. Albans, where he was gaged in the highly confidential and honourable employment of cyphering and decyphering the ters that paffed between the king and queen. He was abfent from his native country about twelve years; during which time be had his share of the diftreffes of the royal party, and performed feveral nies to Holland, Flanders, Scotland, Jerfey, and elsewhere, as the cause he was engaged in re ged. In 1647, he published his " Mistress," an amorous effufion to an ideal Fair-one, where metaphyfical fubtlety and far-fetched conceit, ufurp the sentiments of paffion and of nature; how different from the elegant and pathetic fonnets of Petrarch, inspired by a real object! About the year 1656, he returned to his native country, his presence being judged more neceffary in England, to give occafional notice of the pofture of affairs in the kingdom. Here, notwithstanding his caution to remain concealed, he was arrested, having been mistaken for another, and after an examination, was put into confinement; from which however he was liberated, on finding fecurity for a thousand pounds, given by Doctor Scarborough. About this time he collected and published his poems, in the preface to which, he declares his refolution" to retire himself to fome of the American plantations, and to forfake this world for ever." In the viciffitudes of human events, poets were never remarkable for constancy or fortitude; and Cowley found it expedient to temporize with the ruling powers, to be permitted to live in peace. In the following year, the better to fereen himself from notice, he took out a Degree of Doctor of Phyfic at Oxford, in which profeffion it does not appear that he ever practised. He retired however to Kent, where he studied botany, and afterwards published in Latin verfe, fix books on Plants. Doctor Johnfon prefers Cowley's Latin performances to Milton's, because the latter was contented to think as the ancients might have done, and to express himself in their language; whereas Cowley, in language equally claffical, thinks for himself; but his conceptions are just the same in Latin as in English; and if thefe fcem exotic and uncouth in their native foil, how muft they appear in a foreign one? On the death of the protector, he went again to France, where he remained in the king's fuite till the restoration, reinftated in his former employment. At the restoration, after his long and faithful services, he found himself, like many others with equal pretenfions to favour, neglected; upon which he retired, querulous and disappointed, not indeed to America, but to Chertsey in Surrey, where, however, by the exertions of his friends-the Earl of St. Albans and the Duke of Buckingham-he foon obtained a plentiful income; but he did not long expe rience the tranquillity or irksomeness of folitude; his conftitution, previously weakened by a flow fever, taken on his first removal to the country, was unable to refist a severe defluxion on his lungs, occafioned by a neglected cold, which hurried him off, after a fortnight's confinement at the Porch House in Chertsey, in the year 1667, and the 49th of his age. His funeral was fumptuoufly attended to Weftminster Abbey, where his remains were deposited between thofe of Chaucer and Spencer. The countenance and deportment of Abraham Cowley were fweet and amiable, a real index of his mind; in his manners and perfon, there was nothing fingular or affected: He had the modesty of man of genius, and the humility of a chriftian: His wit, however great, never gave pain to another, and his learning, though profound and extensive, was ornamental not cumbersome to his mind. In fine, his culogy pronounced by Charles II, has never been contradicted by envy or faction, viz. "That Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England." The poetry of Cowley has had its full fhare of Praife during the life of its author. And the rambling measure of his odes, which was called Pindaric, inundated the regions of poetry for half a century after his death, in violation of taste, correctness, and nature. Though unable to recognize wit by any of its definitions, every one readily perceives where it is not; no one therefore can ever mistake the conceits of the metaphyfical poets (as Doctor Johnson terms them) for wit; of thefe, Cowley was the chief; he found their poetry the fashion of his day; and he preferred it to the pure models of antiquity, which he was fo well acquainted with. It is to be lamented, that so much learning and genius has been lavifhed, now, to fo little purpofe; for, thofe who read Cowley, must be contented to admire rather than to be pleafed. From this however, in his voluminous works, there are many exceptions, His anacreontics in particular, are peculiarly delightful, perhaps equal to their ancient models; and their diction is fo finely polished, that the ruft of time has not as yet been able to tarnish their lustre. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. gan to look it over, and changed it very much, ftriking out fome whole parts, as that of the Poet and the Soldier; but I have loft the copy, and dare not think it deferves the pains to write it again, which makes me omit it in this publication, though there be fome things in it which I am not afhamed of, taking the excufe of my age and small experience in human conversation when I made it. But as it is, it is only the hafty first fitting of a picture, and therefore like to resemble me accordingly. From this which has happened to myself, I began to reflect on the fortune of almost all writers, and efpecially poets, whofe works (commonly printed after their deaths) we find stuffed out either with counterfeit pieces, like falfe money put in to fill up the bag, though it add nothing to the fum, or with fuch, which, though of their own coin, they would have called in themselves for the bafenefs of the alloy. Whether this proceed from the indifcretion of their friends, who think a vast heap of ftones or rubbish a better monument than a little tomb of marble, or by the unworthy avarice of fome stationers, who are content to diminifh the value of the author, so they may increase the price of the book, and, like vintners with fophifticate mixtures, fpoil the whole veffels of wine to make it yield more profit. This hath been the cafe with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Johnson, and many others, part of whofe poems I fhould take the boldnefs to prune and lop away, if the care of replanting them in print did belong to me; neither would I make any fcruple to cut off from fome the unneceffary young fuckers, and from others the old withered branches; for a great wit is no more tied to live in a vaft volume than in a gigantic body; on the contrary, it is commonly more vigorous the lefs fpace it animates, and, as Statius fays of little Tydeus, Army return lately into England, I met, by great accident, (for fuch I account it to be, that any copy of it fhould be extant any where fo long, unless at his houfe who printed it) a book intitled, The Iron Age, and published under my name during the time of my abfence. I wondered very much how ose who could be fo foolish to write fo ill verfes, Could yet be fo wife to set them forth as another man's rather than his own; though perhaps he might have made a better choice, and not fathered the baftard upon such a person, whose stock of reputation is, I fear, little enough for maintenance of his own numerous legitimate offspring of that ked. It would have been much lefs injurious, if it had pleased the author to put forth fome of my writings under his own name, rather than his own under mine: he had been in that a more pardonable plagiary, and had done lefs wrong by robbery, than he does by fuch a bounty; for nobody can be juftified by the imputation even of another's merit; and our own coarse clothes are like to become us better than those of another man's, though never fo rich: but thefe, to fay the truth were fo beggarly, that I myself was ashamed to wear them. It was in vain for me that I avoided cenfure by the concealment of my own writ, if my reputation could be thus executed in egy; and impoffible it is for any good name to be in fafety, if the malice of witches have the power to confume and deftroy it in an image of making. This indeed was fo ill made, aad fo unlike, that I hope the charm took no effet; fo that I efteem myfelf lefs prejudiced by it than by that which has been done to me fince, amoft in the fame kind, which is the publication of fome things of mine without my confent or knowledge; and thofe fo mangled and imperfect, that I could neither with honour acknowledge, nor with honefty quite difavow them: of which fort was a comedy called the Guardian, printed in the year 1650, but made and acted before the Prince, in his paffage through Cambridge towards York, at the beginning of the late unhappy war; or rather neither made nor acted, but rough drawn enly, and repeated; for the hafte was fo great, that it could neither be revifed nor perfected by the Author, nor learned without book by the actry, nor fet forth in any measure tolerably by the oficers of the College. After the reprefentation (which I confefs was fomewhat of the lateft) 1 be their own ------Totos infufa per artus Major in exiguo regnabat corpore virtus. Stat. 1. 1. Theb. Iam not ignorant, that by saying this of others, I expofe myself to fome raillery, for not ufing the fame fevere difcretion in my own cafe, where it concerns me nearer; but though I publish here more than in ftrict wildom I ought to have done, yet I have fuppreffed and caft away more than I publifh; and for the eafe of myfelf and others, have loft, I believe too, more than both. And upon these confiderations I have been perfuaded to overcome all the just repugnances of my own modefty, and to produce thefe Poems to the light and view of the world, not as a thing that I approved of in itfelf, but as a lefs evil, which I chofe, rather than to ftay till it were done for me by fomebody elfe, either furreptitiously before, or avowedly after my death; and this will be the more excufable, when the reader fhall know in what refpects he may look upon me as a dead, or at leaft, a dying perfon, and upon my Mufe, in this action, as appearing like the Emperor Charles V. and affisting at her own funeral. For, to make myself abfolutely dead in a poetial capacity, my refolution at present is, never to exercife any more that faculty. It is, I confefs, but feldom feen that the poet dies before the man; for when we once fall in love with that bewitching art, we do not ufe to court it as a mistress, but marry it as a wife, and take it for better or worse, as an infeparable companion of our whole life: but as the marriages of infants do but rarely proffper, fo no man ought to wonder at the diminution or decay of my affection to poefy, to which I had contracted myfelf fo much under age, and fo much to my own prejudice, in regard of thofe more profitable matches which I might have made among the richer fciences. As for the portion which this brings of fame, it is an estate (if it be any, for men are not oftener deceived in their hopes of widows than in their opinion of exegi monumentum are perennius) that hardly ever comes in whilft we are living to enjoy it, but is a fantaftical kind of reverfion to our own felves; neither ought any man to envy poets, this pofthumous and imaginary happinefs, fince they find commonly fo little in prefent, that it may be truly applied to them which St. Paul fpeaks of the first Chriftians, "If their reward be in this life, they are of all "men the most miferable." And if in quiet and flourishing times they meet with fo fmall encouragement, what are they to expect in rough and troubled ones? If wit be fuch a plant that it scarce receives heat enough to preferve it alive even in the fummer of our cold climate, how can it choose, but wither in a long and fharp winter? A warlike, various, and a tragical age, is beft to write of, but worst to write in: and I may, though in a very unequal proportion, affume that to myfelf which was fpoken by Tully to a much better perfon, upon occafion of the civil wars and revolutions in his time, Sed in te intuens, Brute, doleo, cujus in adolefcentiam per medias laudes quafi quadrigis vehentem trarfverfa incurrit mifera fortuna Reipublica. Cic. de Clar. Orator. Neither is the prefent conftitution of my mind more proper than that of the times for this exercife, or rather divertisement; there is nothing that requires fo much ferenity and cheerfulness of spirit; it mult not be either overwhelmed with the cares of life, or overcaft with the clouds of melancholy and forrow, or fhaken and difturbed with the storms of injurious fortune: it must, Eke the halcyon, have fair weatherto breed in. The foul must be filled with bright and delightful ideas, when it undertakes to communicate delight to others, which is the main. end of poefy. One may fee through the style of Ovid.de Trift.the humbled and dejected condition of fpirit with which he wrote it; there scarce remains any footsteps of that genius. Quem nec Jovisa, nee ignes, &cc The cold of the country had ftrucken through all his faculties, and benumbed the very feet of his verfes. He is himfelf, methinks, like one of the ftories of his own Metomorphofes; and though there remains fome weak refemblances of Ovid at Rome, it is but, as he fays of Niobe, In vultu color eft fine fanguine, lumina mefi's The truth is, for a man to write well, it is neceffary to be in good humour. Neither is wit lefs echipied with the unquietness of mind, than beauty wh the indifpofition of body; so that it is almoft as hard a thing to be a port in defpight of Forture, as it is in defpight of Nature. For my own part, tions from them, are fo great, as that! fhould neither my obligations to the Mufes, nor expecta fuffer myself on no confiderations to be divorced, or that I fhould fay, like Horace, Vixi cameris nuper idoneus, Et militai non fine gloria, Nunc arma defaumy, bello Barbit on hic parie habebit. L. iii. Car. Ode 26. Vixit puellis, &c. And this refolution of mine does the more befit me, because my defire has been for fome years paft, (though the execution has been accidentally diverted) and does ftill vehemently continue, to retire myfelf to fome of our American plantations, not to feck for gold, or enrich myfelf with the traffic of thofe parts, (which is the end of moit men that travel thither) fo that of thefe Indies it is truer than it was of the former, Inmobus cx mos currit mercator ad Indos but to forfake this world for ever, with all the vanities and vexations of it, and to bury myfelf there, in fome obfcure retreat, (bat not without the confolation of letters and philofophy) Oblitatq; meorum, oblivifcendus et iilis. as my former author speaks too, who has enticed me here, I know not how, into the pedantry of this heap of Latin fentences. And I think Dr. Donne's Sun-dial in a Grave is not more ufelcts and ridiculous than poetry would be in that retirement. As this, therefore, is in a true fenfe a kind of death to the Mufes, and a real interal quitting of this world, fo, methinks, I may make a juft claim to the undoubted privilege of decad poets, which is to be read with more favour than the living: He profeffes too much the ufe of fables (though without the malice of deceiving) to have his teftimony taken even against himself. Neither would I here be misunderstood, as if I affected fo much gravity as to be ashamed to be thought really in love; on the contrary, I cannot have a good opiBe-nion of any man who is not at least capable of being fo; but I fpeak it to excufe fome expreffions (if fuch there be) which may happen to offend the severity of fupercilious readers; for much excefs is to be allowed in love, and even more in poetry, fo we avoid the two unpardonable vices in both, which are obscenity and profaneness, of which I am fure, if my words be ever guilty, they have ill reprefented my thoughts and intentions; and if, notwithstanding all this, the lightness of the matter here difplease any body, he may find wherewithal to content his more ferious inclinations in the weight and height of the enfuing argu home traces of me in the little footfters of a child; which, though they were then looked upon as commendable extravagances in a boy, (men fetting a value upon any kind of fruit before the ufual falon of it) yet I would be loath to be bound now to read them all over myfelf, and therefore fhould do ill to expect that patience from others ides, they have already paffed through several editions, which is a longer life than ufes to be enyed by infants that are born before the ordinary terms. They had the good fortune then to find the world fo indulgent (for, confidering the time of their production, who could be fo hardhearted to be fevere?) that I fcarce yet apprehend so much to be cenfured for them, as for not having made vances afterwards proportionable to the speed of Byfetting out, and am obliged too, in a manner by difcretion, to conceal and fupprefs them, as promes and inftruments under my own hand, whereby food engaged for more than I have been able to perform; in which truly, if I have failed, I have the real excufe of the honefleft fort of bankTepts, which is, to have been made infolvable, not much by their own negligence and ill husband, as by fome notorious accidents and public difrs. In the next place, I have caft away all ich pieces as I wrote during the time of the late tables, with any relation to the differences that d them; as, among others, three Books of the Civil War itfelf, reaching as far as the first battle at Newbury, where the fuccecding misfortures of the party stopped the work. As for the enfuing Book, it confifts of four parts. The firft is a Mifcellany of feveral fubjects, and fome of them made when I was very young, which it is perhaps fuperfluous to tell the reader; I know not by what chance I have kept copies of them, for they are but a very few in comparifon of thofe which I have loft, and I think they have to extraordinary virtue in them to deserve more are in prefervation than was bestowed upon their ethren, for which I am fo little concerned, that an afhamed of the arrogancy of the word, when Ifid, "I had loft them.' The fecond is called, the Miftrefs, or Loveveles; for fo it is, that poets are fcarce thought Fremen of their company, without paying fome ties, and obliging them felves to be true to Love. oner or later they must ali pafs through that ral, like fome Mahometan monks, that are bound heir order, once at least in their life, to make grimage to Mecca; In fuias ignemque ruuat: amor omnibus idem. But we must not always make a judgment of their manners from their writings of this kind, as the Romanifts uncharitably do of Beza for a few dovicus fonnets, compofed by him in his youth. It is not in this fenfe that poefy is faid to be a kind of painting; it is not the picture of the poet, but thungs and perfons imagined by him. He may be in his own practice and difpofition a philofoHer, nay, a ftoic, and yet fpeak fometimes with foftnefs of an amorous Sappho; Fatet et rubus afper an.minum. ments. For, as for the Pindarick Odes, (which is the third part) I am in great doubt whether they will be understood by most readers; nay, even by very many who are well enough acquainted with the common roads, and ordinary tracks of poefy. They either are, or at least were meant to be, of that kind of style which Dion. Halicarnaffeus calls Μεγαλοφυες καὶ ἡδυ μετα δεινοτητος, and which he attributes to Alceus. The digreflions are many, and fudden, and fometimes long, according to the fashion of all Lyricks, and of Pindar above all men living. The figures are unufual, and bold even to temerity, and fuch as I durft not have to do withal in any other kind of poetry. The numbers are various and irregular, and fometimes (eipecially fome of the long ones) seem harsh and uncouth, if the just measures and cadences be not obferved in the pronunciation: so that almost all their sweetness and numerofity (which is to be found, if I miftake not, in the rougheft, if rightly repeated) lies in a manner wholly at the mercy of the reader. I have briefly described the nature of thefe verfes in the ode intitled, The Refurrection; and though the liberty of them may incline a man to believe them eafy to be compofed, yet the undertaker will find it otherwife. I come now to the last part, which is Davideis, or an Heroical Poem of the Troubles of David which I defigned into twelve books, not for the Tribes' fake, but after the pattern of our master Virgil, and intended to clofe all with that most poetical and excellent elegy of David's on the death of Saul and Jonathan; for I had no mind to carry him quite on to his anointing at Hebron, because it is the custom of heroic poets (as we fee by the examples of Homer and Virgil, whom we fhould do ill to forfake to imitate others) never to come to the full end of their ftory, but only fo near, that every one may fee it, as men commonly play not out the game, when it is evident that they can win it, but lay downtheir cards, and take upwhat |