*i
 
 UNIVERsiTY^ofCALIFOi^^ 
 i-OS ANGELES 
 
 ubrary
 
 THE 
 
 WORKS 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 WITH 
 
 A PREFACE, BIOGRAPHICAL aXD CRITICAL, 
 BY SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL. D. 
 
 And Remarks, 
 BY J. A IK IN, M.D. 
 
 VOL. r.
 
 
 THB 
 
 WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 
 
 WITH A 
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, 
 
 BY 
 
 SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D. 
 
 Re-edited, 
 WITH NEW BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MATTER, 
 
 BY J. AIKIN, M.D. 
 
 Vol. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR G. KEARSLEY, FLEET-STREET. 
 1806. 
 
 9 W \? C Q 
 
 (Co .^ i) d
 
 V 1 o ;i 
 
 ,* ^
 
 33no 
 ^. 1 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Page 
 
 Life of Co'Wi.'EY, by Dr. Johnson i 
 
 Remarks, by J. Aihin, M.D c 
 
 Elegia dedicatoria, ad illustrissmam Academiam Cantabri- 
 
 giensem 1 
 
 Author'' s Preface to the Edition of 1656 5 
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 The Motto 27 
 
 Ode. Of Wit 28 
 
 To the Lord Falkland, for his safe Return from the Northern 
 
 Expedition against the Scots 31 
 
 On the Death of Sir Henry Woolton 33 
 
 On the Death of Mr. Jordan, Second Master at Westminster 
 
 School 34 
 
 On his Majesty^s Return out of Scotland 36 
 
 On the Death of Sir Anthony Vandyke, the famous Painter 39 
 
 Prometheus ill-painted 40 
 
 Ode 41 
 
 Friendship in Absence 42 
 
 To the Bishop of Lincoln, upon his Enlargement from the 
 
 Tower ; 44 
 
 To a Lady who made Posies for Rings 46 
 
 Prologue to the Guardian : before the Prince 4S 
 
 The Epilogue 49 
 
 On the Death of Mr. William Hervey 50
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Ode. hi imitation of Horace's Ode 56 
 
 In imitation of Martial's Epigram 57 
 
 The Chronicle. A Ballad 58 
 
 To Sir William Davenant, upon his two first Books of Gon- 
 
 dibert, finished before his Voyage to America 62 
 
 An Answer to a Copy uf Verses sent me to Jersey 63 
 
 The Tree of Knowledge, that there is no Knowledge. Against 
 
 the Dogmatists 65 
 
 Reason, the Use of it in divine Matters 67 
 
 On the Death of Mr. Crashaw 69 
 
 ANACREONTIQUES; OR, SOME COPIES OF VERSES, TRANS- 
 LATED PARAPHRASTICALLY OUT OF ANACREON. 
 
 /. Love 72 
 
 JI. Drinking 73 
 
 lU. Beauty 74 
 
 IV. The Duel 75 
 
 V. Age 76 
 
 17. The Account ib. 
 
 VII. Gold 78 
 
 yjll. The Epicure 79 
 
 IX, Another ib. 
 
 X. The Grasshopper 81 
 
 XI. The Swallow 82 
 
 Elegy upon Anacreon, who was choahed by a grape-stone . , 83 
 
 VERSES WRITTEN ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 Christ' i Passion, taken out of a Greek Ode, written by Mr. 
 
 Masters of New-college in Oxford PI 
 
 Ode on Orinda's Poems 94 
 
 Ode upon Occasio7i of' a Copy of Verses of my Lord Broghill's 97 
 Ode. Mr. Cowley's Book presenting itself to the University 
 
 Library of Oxford 101
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 Ode. Sitting and drinking in the Chair made out of the Re- 
 licks of Sir Francis Drake's Ship 104 
 
 Upon the Death of the Earl of Balcarres 1 OG 
 
 Ode. Upon Dr. Harvey 110 
 
 Ode, from Catullus. Acme and Septimius 113 
 
 Ode upon his Majesty's Restoration and Return 116 
 
 On the Queeji's repairing Somerset-howe . 132 
 
 The Complaint 136 
 
 On Colonel Tuke's Tragi-Cemedy, * The Adventures of Five 
 
 Hours" 142 
 
 On the Death of Mrs. Katharine Phillips 143 
 
 Hymn to Light 146 
 
 To the Royal Society 151 
 
 Upon the Chair made out of Sir Francis Drake's Ship, pre- 
 sented to the University Library of Oxford, by John Davis 
 
 of Deptford, Esquire 15S 
 
 Prologue to " The Cutter of Colman-street" ib.
 
 LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 COWLEY. 
 
 Jl H E Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the 
 penury of English biography, has been written 
 by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy of 
 ipiagination and elegance of language have de- 
 servedly set him high in the ranks of literature ; 
 but his zeal of friendship, or ambition of elo- 
 quence, has produced a funeral oration rather 
 than a history: he has given the character, not 
 the life, of Cowley j for he writes with so little 
 detail, that scarcely any thing is distinctly known, 
 but all is shewn confused and enlarged through ., 
 the mist of panegyrick. 
 
 .^ 
 Abkaha^ Cowley was bom in the year one 
 thousand six hundred and eighteen. His father 
 was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals 
 under the general appellation of a citizen ; and, 
 what would probably not have been less carefully 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
 * 
 
 ' #
 
 ii COWLEY. 
 
 suppressed, the omission of his name in the re- 
 gister of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to 
 suspect that his father was a sectary. Whoever 
 he was, he died before the birth of his son, and 
 consequently left him to the care of his mother ; 
 whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly 
 to procure him a literary education, and who, 
 as she lived to the age of eighty, had her solici- 
 tude rewarded by seeing her son eminent, and, 
 I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking 
 his prosperity. We know at least, from Sprat's 
 account, that he always acknowledged her care, 
 and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. 
 
 0.' 
 
 m the window of his mother's apartment lay 
 Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early 
 took delight to rrad, till, by feeling the charms 
 of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably 
 a poet. Such are the accidents, which, some- 
 times remembered, and perhaps sometimes for- 
 gotten, produce that particular designation of 
 mind, and propensity for some certain science or 
 employment, which is commonly called Genius. 
 The true Genius is a mind of large general 
 powers, accidentally determined to some particu-
 
 COWLEY. ill 
 
 lar direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great 
 Painter of the present age, had the first fondness 
 for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's 
 treatise.* X. 
 
 By his mother's soHcitation he was admitted 
 into Westminster-school, where he was soon di- 
 stinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to relate, 
 ** That he had this defect in his memory at that 
 ** time, that his teachers never could bring it to 
 ** retain the ordinary rules of grammar." 
 
 This is an instance of the natural desire of man 
 to propagate a wonder. It is surely very difficult 
 to tell any thing as it was heard, when Sprat 
 could not refrain from amplifying a commodious 
 incident, though the book, to which he prefixed 
 his narrative, contained its confutation. A memory 
 admitting some things, and rejecting others, an 
 intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of 
 learning, but refused the husks, had the appear- 
 ance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular 
 provisio'ft made by Nature for literary politeness. 
 But, in the author's own honest relation, the 
 marvel vanishes : he was, he says, such " an
 
 iv ' COWLEY. 
 
 ** enemy to all constraint, that his master never 
 ** could prevail on him to learn the rules without 
 ** book." He does not tell that he could not 
 leani the rules, but that, being able to perform 
 his exercises witliout them, att'd being an " enemy 
 ** to constraint," he spared himself the labour. 
 
 Among die English poets, Cowley, Milton, and 
 Pope, might be said *' to lisp in numbets ;" and 
 have given such early proofs, not only of powers 
 of language, but of comprehension of tilings, as 
 to more tardy minds seems scarcely credible. 
 But of the learned puerilities of Cowley there is 
 no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not 
 only written but printed in his thirteenth year* ; 
 containing, with other poettcal compositions, 
 ** The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe," 
 written when he was ten years old ; and *^'Con- 
 stanlaa and Philetus," written*two years after. 
 
 While he was yet at school he produced a 
 comedy called " Love's Riddle," thoudi it was 
 
 This is a mistake, as Cowley was at that time (1633) 
 fifteen years of age.
 
 COWLEY. V 
 
 not published till he had been some time at Cam- 
 bridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, 
 which requires no acquaintance with the living 
 world, and therefore the time at which it was 
 composed adds little to the wonders of. Cowley's 
 minority. 
 
 In 1636 he was removed to Cambridge, where 
 he continued his studies with great intenseness } 
 for he is said to have written, while he was yet a 
 young student, the greater part of his ** Davideis j" 
 a work of which the materials could not have been 
 collected without the study of many years, but by 
 a mind of the greatest vigour and activity. 
 
 Two years after his settlement at Cambridge he 
 published " Love's Riddle," with a poetical dedi- 
 cation to sir Kenelm Digby ; of whose acquaint- 
 ance all his contemporaries seem to have been 
 ambitious ; and " Naufragium Joculare," a comedy 
 written in Latin, but without due attention to the 
 ancient models j for it is not loose verse, but mere 
 prose. It was printed with a dedication in verse 
 to Dr. Comber, master of the college , but having 
 neither the facility of a popidar nor the accuracy
 
 vi - COWLEY. 
 
 of a learned work, it seems to be now universally 
 neglected. 
 
 At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince 
 passed through Cambridge in his way to York, he 
 was entertained with a representation of ** The 
 Guardian," a comedy, which Cowley says was 
 neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by 
 him, and repeated by the scholars. That this 
 comedy was printed during his absence from his 
 country, he appears to have considered as inju- 
 rious to his reputation ; though, during tlie sup- 
 pression of the theatres, it was sometimes privately 
 acted with sufficient approbation. 
 
 In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by 
 the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from 
 Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's 
 college in Oxford ; where, as is said by Wood, 
 he published a satire, called " The Puritan and 
 Papist," which was only inserted in the last 
 collection of his works ; and so distinguished 
 himself by the warmth of his loyalty, and the 
 elegance of his conversation, that he gained the 
 kindness and confidence of those who attended
 
 COWLEY. vli 
 
 the king, and amongst others of lord Falkland, 
 whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom it was 
 extended. -?t 
 
 About the time when Oxford was surrendered 
 to the parliament, he followed the queen to Paris, 
 where he became secretary to the lord Jermyn, 
 afterwards earl of St. Albans, and was employed 
 in such correspondence as the royal cause required, 
 and particularly in cyphering and decyphering the 
 letters that passed between the king and queen ; 
 an employment of the highest confidence and 
 honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, 
 that, for several years, it filled all his days and 
 two or three nights in the week. 
 
 In the year 1647 his *' Mistress" was pub- 
 lished ; for he imagined, as he declared in his pre- 
 face to a subsequent edition, that " poets are 
 ** scarce thought freemen of their company 
 " without paying some duties, or obliging them- 
 ** selves to be true to Love." 
 
 This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I be- 
 lieve, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who.
 
 viii COWLEY. 
 
 in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful 
 homage to his Laura refined the manners of the 
 lettered work'., and filled Europe with love and 
 poetry. But the basis of all excellence is truth : 
 he that professes love ought to feel its power. 
 Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless 
 deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley we are 
 told by Barnes *, who had means enough of in- 
 formation, that, whatever he may talk of his own 
 inflammability, and the variety of characters by 
 which his heart was divided, he in reality was in 
 love but once, .and then never had resolution to 
 tell his passion. 
 
 This consideration cannot but abate, in some 
 measure, the reader's esteem for the work and the 
 author. To love excellence is natural , it is na^ 
 tural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal re- 
 gard by an elaborate display of his own qualifica- 
 tions. The desire of pleasing has in different 
 men produced actions of heroism, and eflFusions 
 of wit ; but it seems as reasonable to appear the 
 champion as the poet of an " airy nothing," and 
 
 * Barnesii Anacreontem. Dr. J.
 
 COWLEY. ix 
 
 to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have 
 learned from his master Pindar to call the *' dream 
 ** of a shadow." 
 
 It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a 
 college, or in the bustle of the world, to find 
 Useful studies and serious employment. No man 
 needs to be so burthened with life as to squander 
 it in voluntary dreams of fictitious occurrences. 
 The man that sits down to suppose himself 
 charged with treason or peculation, and heats his 
 mind to an elaborate purgation of his character 
 from crimes which he was never within the pos- 
 sibility of committing, differs only by the infre- 
 quency of his folly from him who praises beauty 
 which he never saw ; complains of jealousy which 
 he never felt; supposes himself sometimes in- 
 vited, and sometimes forsaken j fatigues his fancy, 
 and ransacks his memory, for images which may 
 exhibit the gaiety of hope, or the gloominess of 
 despair, and dresses his imaginary Chloris or 
 Phyllis sometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, 
 and sometimes in gems lasting as her virtues. 
 
 At Paris, as secretary to lord Jermyn, he was 
 
 x/
 
 X COWLEY. 
 
 engaged in transacting things of real importance 
 with real men and real women, and at that time 
 did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms 
 of gallantry. Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, 
 afterwards earl of Arlington, from April to De- 
 cember in 1650, are preserved in " Miscellanea 
 Aulica," a collection of papers published by 
 Brown. These letters, being written like those 
 of other men whose mind is more on things than 
 words, contribute no othe' wise to his reputation 
 than as they shew him to have been above the af- 
 fectation of unseasonable elegance, and to have 
 known that the business of a statesman can be 
 little forwarded by flowers of rhetorick. 
 
 One passage, however, seems not unworthy of 
 some notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty then 
 in agitation : 
 
 " The Scotch treaty," says he, " is the only 
 ** thing now in which we are vitally concerned ; 
 " I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot 
 ** now abstain from believing that an agreement 
 ** will be made : all people upon the place incline 
 *' to that of union. The Scotch will moderate
 
 COWLEY. xi 
 
 " something of the rigour of their demands ; 
 ** the mutual necessity of an accord is visible, 
 ** the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you 
 " the truth (which I take to be an argument 
 ** above all the rest), Virgil has told the same 
 " thing to that purpose." 
 
 This expression from a secretary of the present 
 time vrould be considered as merely ludicrous, 
 or at most as an ostentatious display of scholar- 
 ship j but the manners of that time were so 
 tinged with superstition, that I cannot but suspect 
 Cowley of having consulted on this great occasion 
 the Virgilian Lots *, and to have given some credit 
 to the answer of his oracle. 
 
 * Virgilian Lots (Sortes Virgilianae) is a method of 
 divination by the opening of Virgil, and applying to- the 
 circumstanctj of the peruser the first passage in either of 
 the two pages that he accidentally fixes his eye on. King 
 Charles I. and lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian li- 
 brary, made this experiment of their future fortunes, 
 and met with passages equally ominous to each. That 
 of the king was the following : 
 
 At bello audacis populi vrxatus & armis, 
 Finibus cxtorris, complexu avulsus luli,
 
 xii COWLEY. 
 
 Some years afterwards, ** business," says Sprat, 
 " passed of course into other hands ;" and Cowley, 
 
 Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna suorum 
 Funcra, ncc, cum se sub leges pacis iniquae 
 Tradiderit, regno aut cptara luce fruatur : 
 Scd cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. 
 
 Mne\d, book IV. line 615. 
 
 Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes, 
 His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, 
 Opprcss'd with numbers in th' unequal field, 
 His men discourag'd, and himself expell'd : 
 Ltt him for succour sue from place to place, 
 Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. 
 First let him see his friends in battle slain. 
 And their untimely fate lament in vain ; 
 And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease, 
 On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; 
 Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, 
 But fall untimely by some hostile hand, 
 And lie unburied on the barren sand. 
 
 } 
 
 Dryden. 
 
 Lord Falkland's: 
 
 Non hsc, O Palla, dederas promissa parent!, 
 
 Cautius ut S3evo velles te credere Marti. 
 
 Hand ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis, 
 
 Et praedulce dccus primo ccrtaminc posset. 
 
 Primitise juvcnis miscrje, bcUique propinqui 
 
 Dura rudimenta, & nuHi cxaudita Deorum, 
 
 Vota prccesque meje ! iEneid, book XI. line 152. 
 
 Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy piighted word. 
 To fight with caution, not to t.mpt the sword; 
 
 1 warn'd thcc, but in vain, for well I knew 
 What perils youthful ardour would pursue ;
 
 COWLEY. xiii 
 
 being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656 sent 
 back into England, that, " under pretence of 
 ** privacy and retirement, he might take occasion 
 ** of giving notice of the posture of things in 
 ** this nation." 
 
 Soon after his return to London, he was seized 
 by some messengers of the usurping powers, who 
 were sent out in quest of another man ; and, being 
 examined, was put into confinement, from which 
 he was not dismissed without the security of a 
 thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough. 
 
 This year he published his poems, with a pre- 
 face, in which he seems to have inserted some- 
 
 That boiling blood would carry thee too far, 
 
 Young as thou wert, to dangers raw, to war. 
 
 O cuvst essay of arms, disastrous doom. 
 
 Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come; 
 
 Hard elements of unauspicious war. 
 
 Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care ! Dxydew. 
 
 Hoffman gives a very satisfactory account of this prac- 
 tice of seeking fates in books ; and says, that it was used 
 by the Pagans, the Jew^ish Rabbins, and even the early 
 Christians ; the latter taking the New Testament for 
 their oracle. 
 
 *
 
 xiv C O W L E Y. 
 
 thing, suppressed in subsequent editions, which 
 was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his 
 loyalty. In this preface he declares, that ** his 
 *' desire had been for some days past, and did still 
 " very vehemently continue, to retire himself to 
 " some of the American plantations, and to for- 
 ** sake this world for ever." 
 
 From the obloquy which the appearance of 
 submission to the usurpers brought upon him, his 
 biographer has been very diligent to clear him, and 
 indeed it does not seem to have lessened his repu- 
 tation. His wish for retirement we can easily 
 believe to be undissembled : a man harassed in 
 one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, 
 after a course of business that employed all his 
 days and half his nights in cyphering and decy- 
 phering, comes to his own country and steps into 
 a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some 
 place of quiet and of safety. Yet let neither 
 our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a 
 sufferer, dispose us to forget that, if his activity 
 V was virtue, his retreat was cowardice. 
 
 He then took upon himself the character of
 
 COWLEY. XV 
 
 physician, still, according to Sprat, with intention 
 ** to dissemble the main design of his coming 
 ** over :" and, as Mr. Wood relates, ** complying 
 " with the men then in power (which was much 
 ** taken notice of by the royal party), he ob- 
 " tained an order to be created doctor of physick ; 
 ** which being done to his mind (whereby he 
 ** gained the ill-will of some of his friends), he 
 ** went into France again, having made a copy of 
 **. verses on Oliver's deatli." 
 
 This is no favourable representation, yet even 
 in this not much wrong can be discovered. How 
 far he complied with the men in power, is to be 
 inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said 
 that he told them any secrets, or assisted them by 
 intelligence, or any other act. If he only pro- 
 mised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he 
 was might free him from confinement, he did 
 what no law of society prohibits. 
 
 The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has 
 put him in the power of his enemy may, without 
 any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, 
 or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality :
 
 xvi COWLEY. 
 
 for the stipulation gives the enemy nothing which 
 he had not before ; the neutrahty of a captive 
 may be always secured by his imprisonment or 
 death. He that is at the disposal of another may 
 not promise to aid him in any injurious act, be- 
 cause no power can compel active obedience. He 
 may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. 
 
 There is reason to think that Cowley promised 
 little. It does not appear that his compliance 
 gained him confidence enough to be trusted with- 
 out security, for the bond of his bail was never 
 cancelled j nor that it made him think himself 
 secure, for at that dissolution of government 
 which followed the death of Oliver he returned 
 into France, where he resumed his former station, 
 and staid till the Restoration. 
 
 ** He continued," says his biographer, " under 
 ** these bonds till the general deliverance :" it is 
 therefore to be supposed, that he did not go to 
 France, and act again for the king, without the 
 consent of his bondsman ; that he did not shew 
 his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his * 
 friend's permission.
 
 COWLEY. xvii 
 
 Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which 
 Wood's narrative seems to imply something enco- 
 miastick, there has been no appearance. 'There 
 is a discourse concerning his government, indeed, 
 with verses intermixed, but such as certainly 
 gained its author no friends among the abettors of 
 usurpation. 
 
 A doctor of physick however he was made at 
 Oxford, in December, 1657 ; and in the com- 
 mencement of the Royal Society, of which an 
 account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears 
 busy among the experimental philosophers with 
 the title of Dr. Cowley. 
 
 There is no reason for supposing that he ever 
 attempted practice ; but his preparatory studies 
 have contributed something to the honour of his 
 country. Considering botany as necessary to a 
 physician, he retired into Kent to gather plants ; 
 and as the predominance of a favourite study 
 affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, 
 botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poetry. 
 He composed in Latin several books on plants, of 
 which the first and second display the qualities of 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 xviii COWLEY. 
 
 herbs, in elegiac verse ; the third and fourth, the 
 beauties of flowers, in various measures j and in 
 the fifth and sixth, the uses of trees, in heroick 
 numbers. 
 
 At the same time were produced from the 
 same university the two great poets Cowley and 
 Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite princi- 
 ples j but concurring in the cultivation of Latin 
 poetry, in which the English, till their works and 
 May's poem appeared*, seemed unable to contest 
 the palm with any other of the lettered nations. 
 
 If the Latin performances of Cowley and 
 Milton be compared (for May I hold to be supe- 
 rior to both), the advantage seems to lie on the 
 side of Cowley. Milton is generally content to 
 express the thoughts of the ancients in their lan- 
 guage ; Cowley, without much loss of purity or 
 elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to 
 his own conceptions. 
 
 * Lucan's Pharsalia to the death of Julius Caesar, by 
 Thomas May, an eminent poet and historian, who flou- 
 rished in the reigns of James and Charles I.
 
 COWLEY. xix 
 
 At the Restoration, after all the diligence of 
 his long service, and with consciousness not only 
 of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of 
 great abilities, he naturally expected ample pre- 
 ferments ; and, that he might not be forgotten 
 by his own fault, wrote a Song of Triumph. 
 But this was a time of such general hope, that 
 great numbers were inevitably disappointed j and 
 Cowley found his reward very tediously delayed. 
 He had been promised by both Charles the First 
 and Second the mastership of the Savoy ; " but 
 ** he lost it," says Wood, " by certain persons, 
 " enemies to the Muses." 
 
 The neglect of the court was not his only mor- 
 tification. Having, by such alteration as he thought 
 proper, fitted his old comedy of " The Guardian" 
 for the stage, he produced it under the title of 
 ** The Cutter of Coleman-street." It was treated 
 on the stage with great severity, and was after- 
 wards censured as a satire on the king's party. 
 
 Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the 
 first exhibition, related to Mr. Dennis, ** that 
 ** when they told Cowley, how little favour had
 
 XX COWLEY. 
 
 " been shewn him, he received the news of his 
 ** ill success, not with so much firmness as might 
 * have been expected from so great a man." 
 
 What firmness they expected, or what weak- 
 ness Cowley discovered, cannot be known. He 
 that misses his end will never Be as much pleased 
 as he that attains it, even when he can impute no 
 part of his failure to himself ; and when the end 
 is to please the multitude, no man, perhaps, has 
 a right, in things admitting of gradation and 
 comparison, to throw the whole blame upon his 
 judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame 
 by a haughty consciousness of his own excellence. 
 
 For the rejection of this play it is difiicult 
 now to find the reason : it certainly has, in a very 
 great degree, the power of fixing attention and 
 exciting merriment. From the charge of dis- 
 affection he exculpates himself in his preface, by 
 observing how unlikely it is that, having followed 
 the royal family through all their distresses, " he 
 ** should chuse the time of their restoration to 
 " begin a quarrel with them." It appears, however, 
 from the Theatrical Register of Downes the
 
 COWLEY. xxi 
 
 prompter, to have been popularly considered as a 
 satire on the royalists. 
 
 That he might shorten this tedious suspense, 
 he published his pretensions and his discontent, in 
 an ode called " The Complaint;" in which he 
 styles himself the melancholy Cowley. This met 
 with the usual fortune of complaints, and seems 
 to have excited more contempt than pity. 
 
 These unlucky Incidents are brought, maliciously 
 enough, together in some stanzas, written about 
 that time, on the choice of a laureat ; a mode of 
 satire, by which, since it was first introduced by 
 Suckling, perhaps every generation of poets has 
 been teased : 
 
 Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court, 
 
 Making apologies for his bad play ; 
 Every one gave him so good a report, 
 
 That Apollo gave heed to all he could say : 
 
 Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke, 
 Unless he had done some notable folly ; 
 
 Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke, 
 Or printed his pitiful Melancholy. 
 
 His vehement desire of retirement now came
 
 xxii COWLEY. 
 
 again upon him. " Not finding," says the morose 
 Wood, " that preferment conferred upon him 
 ** which he expected, while others for their 
 ** money carried away most places, he retired 
 ** discontented into Surrey." 
 
 ** He was now," says the courtly Sprat, ** weary 
 ** of the vexations and formalities of an active 
 " condition. He had been perplexed with a long 
 " compliance to foreign manners. He was sa- 
 ** tiited with the arts of a court ; which sort of 
 ** life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, 
 ** yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were 
 ** the reasons that made him to follow the violent 
 " inclination of his own mind, which, in the 
 ** greatest throng of his former business, had still 
 ** called upon him, and represented to him the 
 ** true delights of solitary studies, of temperate 
 ** pleasures, and a moderate revenue below the 
 ** malice and flatteries of fortune." 
 
 So differently are things seen, and so differ- 
 ently are they shewn; but actions are visible, 
 though motives are secret. Cowley certainly re- 
 tired j first to Barn-elms, and afterwards to Chert-
 
 COWLEY. xxiii 
 
 sey, in Surrey. He seems, however, to have lost 
 part of his dread of the hum of men *. He thought 
 himself now safe enough from intrusion, without 
 the defence of mountains and oceans; and, in- 
 stead of seeking shelter in America, wisely went 
 only so far from the bustle of life as that he might 
 easily find his way back, when solitude should 
 grow tedious. His retreat was at first but slen- 
 derly accommodated ; yet he soon obtained, by the 
 interest of the earl of St. Albans and the duke of 
 Buckingham, such a lease of the queen's lands as 
 afforded him an ample income. 
 
 By the lover of virtue and of wit it will be so- 
 licitously asked, if he now was happy. Let them 
 peruse one of his letters accidentally preserved by 
 Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of 
 all that may hereafter pant for solitude. 
 
 To Dr. Thomas Sprat. 
 
 " Chertsey, ai May, 1665. 
 
 " The first night that I came hither I caught 
 
 ** so great a cold, with a defluxion of rheum, as 
 
 * L' Allegro of Milton. Dr. J,
 
 xxiv COWLEY. 
 
 ** made me keep my chamber ten days. And) 
 ** two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a 
 ** fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn my- 
 " self in my bed. This is my personal fortune 
 ** here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no 
 *' money from my tenants, and have my meadows 
 ** eaten up every night by cattle put in by my 
 ** neighbours. What this signifies, or may come 
 *' to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it 
 ** can end in nothing less than hanging. Another 
 **. misfortune has been, and stranger than all the 
 " rest, that you have broke your word with me 
 " and failed to come, even though you told Mr. 
 ** Bois that you would. This is what they call 
 ** Monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late 
 ** hurt so farre within five or six days (though it 
 ** be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) 
 ** as to walk about again. And then, methinks, 
 ** you and I and the Dean might be very merry 
 " upon S. Anne's Hill. You might very conve- 
 *' niently come hither the way of Hampton Town, 
 ** lying there one night. I write this in pain, and 
 ** can say no more : Verhum sapienti.^* 
 
 He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the
 
 COWLEY. XXV 
 
 uneasiness of solitude ; for he died at the Porch- 
 house * in Chertsey in 1667, in the 49th year of 
 his age. 
 
 He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer 
 and Spenser; and king Charles pronounced, 
 " That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a 
 ** better man in England." He is represented by 
 Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind ; and 
 this posthumous praise may safely be credited, as 
 it has never been contradicted by envy or by 
 faction. 
 
 Such are the remarks and memorials which I 
 have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat ; 
 who, writing when the feuds of the civil war 
 were yet recent, and the minds of either party 
 were easily irritated, was obliged to pass over 
 many transactions in general expressions, and to 
 leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he di^l 
 not tell, cannot however now be known. I must 
 therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to 
 
 * Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, chamberlain of 
 London.
 
 xxvi COWLEY. 
 
 which my narration can be considered only as a 
 slender supplement. 
 
 COWLEY, like other poets who hav6 written 
 with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intel- 
 lectual pleasures in the minds of man, paid their 
 court to temporary prejudices, has been at one 
 time too much praised, and too much neglected at 
 another. 
 
 "Wit, like all other things subject by their nature 
 to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, 
 and at different times takes different forms. About 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared 
 a race of writers that may be termed the meta- 
 physical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the 
 works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some 
 account. 
 
 The metaphysical poets were men of learning, 
 and to shew their learning was their whole en- 
 deavour ; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in 
 rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote
 
 COWLEY. xxvii 
 
 verses, and very often such verses as stood the 
 trial of the finger better than of the ear ; for the 
 modulation was so imperfect, that they were only 
 found to be verses by counting the syllables. 
 
 If the father of criticism has rightly denomi- 
 nated poetry rs'/yvj um.^Tixvif an imitative arty these 
 writers will, without great wrong, lose their right 
 to the name of poets ; for they cannot be said to 
 have imitated any thing i they neither copied na- 
 ture for life ; neither painted the forms of matter, 
 nor represented the operations of intellect. 
 
 Those however who deny them to be poets, 
 allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of 
 himself and his contemporaries, that they fall 
 below Donne in wit, but maintains that they sur- 
 pass him in poetry. 
 
 If wit be well described by Pope, as being 
 ** that which has been often thought, but was 
 ** never before so well expressed," they certainly 
 never attained, nor ever sought it ; for they en- 
 deavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and 
 were careless of their diction. But Pope's account
 
 xxvlii COWLEY. 
 
 of wit is undoubtedly erroneous : he depresses 
 it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from 
 strength of thought to happiness of language. 
 
 If, by a more noble and more adequate concep- 
 tion, that be considered as wit, which is at once 
 natural and new, that which, though not obvious, 
 is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be 
 just; if it be that, which he that never found 
 it wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind 
 the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their 
 thoughts are often new, but seldom natural ; they 
 are not obvious, but neither are they just ; and 
 the 'reader, far from wondering that he missed 
 them, wonders more frequently by what perverse- 
 ness of industry they were ever found. 
 
 But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the 
 hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophi- 
 cally considered as a kind of discordia concors ; a 
 combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of 
 occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. 
 Of wit, thus defined, they have more than 
 enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are 
 yoked by violence together ; nature and art are
 
 COWLEY. xxix 
 
 ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and al- 
 lusions ; their learning instructs, and their sub- 
 tility surprises ; but the reader commonly thinks 
 his improvement dearly bought, and, though he 
 sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. 
 
 From this account of their compositions it will 
 be readily inferred, that they were not successful 
 in representing or moving the affections. As they 
 were wholly employed on something unexpected 
 and surprising, they had no regard to that uni- 
 formity of sentiment which enables us to con- 
 ceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of 
 other minds : they never inquired what, on any 
 occasion, they should have said or done ; but wrote 
 rather as beholders than partakers of human na- 
 ture ; as beings looking upon good and evil, 
 impassive and at leisure ; as Epicurean deities 
 making remarks on the actions of men, and the 
 vicissitudes of life, without interest and without 
 emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, 
 and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish 
 was only to say what they hoped had been never 
 said before. 
 
 Nor was the sublime more within their reach
 
 XXX COWLEY. 
 
 than the pathetick i for they never attempted that 
 comprehension and expanse of thought which 
 at once fills the whole mind, 3nd-of which the 
 first effect is sudden astonishment, and the se- 
 cond rational admiration. Sublimity is produc- 
 ed by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. 
 Great thoughts are always general, and consist in 
 positions not limited by exceptions, and in de- 
 scriptions not descending to minuteness. It is 
 with great propriety that subtlety, which in its 
 original import means exility of particles, is taken 
 in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinc- 
 tion. Those writers who lay on the watch for 
 novelty could have little hope of greatness ; for 
 great things cannot have escaped former observa- 
 tion. Their attempts were always analytick ; they 
 broke every image into fragments ; and could no 
 more represent, by their slender conceits and la- 
 boured particularities, the prospects of nature, or 
 the scenes of life, than he who dissects a sun- 
 beam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulg- 
 ence of a summer noon. 
 
 "What they wanted however of the sublime, 
 they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole ; their 
 amplification had no limits j they left not only
 
 COWLEY. xmti 
 
 reason but fancy behind them ; and produced 
 combinations of confused magnificence, that not 
 only could not be credited, but could not be 
 imagined. 
 
 Yet great labour, directed by great abilities. Is 
 never wholly lost : if they frequently threw away 
 their wit upon false conceits, they likewise some- 
 times struck out unexpected truth : if their con- 
 ceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the 
 carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least 
 necessary to read and think. No man could be 
 born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity 
 of a writer by descriptions copied from descrip- 
 tions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by 
 traditional imagery, and hereditary similies, by 
 readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. 
 
 In perusing the works of this race of authors, 
 the mind is exercised either by recollection or 
 inquiry ; either something already learned is to 
 be retrieved, or sometliing new is to be exa- 
 mined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their 
 acuteness often surprises i if the imagination is 
 not always gratified, at least the powers of re-
 
 xxxii COWLEY. 
 
 flection and comparison are employed ; and in the 
 mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has 
 thrown together, genuine wit and useful know- 
 kdge may be sometimes found, buried perhaps in 
 grossness of expression, but useful to those who 
 know their value ; and such as, when they are 
 expanded to perspicuity, and polished to ele- 
 gance, may give lustre to works which have more 
 propriety though less copiousness of sentiment. 
 
 This kind of writing, which was, I believe, 
 borrowed from Marino and his followers, had 
 been recommended by the example of Donne, a 
 man of a very extensive and various knowledge ; 
 and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of 
 Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than 
 in the cast of his sentiments. 
 
 When their reputation was high, they had 
 undoubtedly more imitators than time has left 
 behind. Their immediate successors, of whom 
 any remembrance can be said to remain, were 
 Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, 
 and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another 
 way to fame, by improving the harmony of our
 
 COWLEY. xxxiii 
 
 numbers. Milton tried the metaphysick style 
 only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cow- 
 ley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, hav- 
 ing as much sentiment and more music. Suckling 
 neither improved versification, nor abounded in 
 conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly 
 with Cowley ; Suckling could not reach it, and 
 Milton disdained it. 
 
 Critical Remarks are not easily understood 
 without examples ; and I have therefore collected 
 instances of the modes of writing by which this 
 species of poets, for poets they were called by 
 themselves and their admirers, was eminently di- 
 stinguished. 
 
 As the authors of this race were perhaps more 
 desirous of being admired than understood, they^i 
 sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of 
 learning not very much frequented by commdn 
 readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Kmnuledge : 
 
 The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew ; 
 The phoenix Truth did on it rest, 
 And built his perfum'd nest, 
 That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic shew. 
 VOL. I. D
 
 xxxiv COWLEY. 
 
 Each leaf did learned notions give, 
 And th' apples were demonstrative : 
 So clear their colour and divine, 
 The very shade they cast did other lights outshine. 
 
 On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age : 
 
 Love was with thy life entwin'd, 
 
 Close as heat with fire is join'd, 
 
 A powerful brand prescrib'd the date 
 
 Of thine, like Meleager's fate. 
 
 Th* antiperistasis of age 
 
 More enflam'd thy amorous rage. 
 
 In the following verses we have an allusion to a 
 rabbinical opinion concerning manna : 
 
 Variety I ask not : give me one * 
 
 To live perpetually upon. 
 The person Love does to us fit. 
 Like manna, has the taste of all in it. 
 
 Thus Donne shews his medicinal knowledge in 
 some encomiastick verses : 
 
 In every thing there naturally grows 
 A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, 
 
 If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows j 
 Your youth and beauty are this balm in you-
 
 COWLEY. XXXV 
 
 But you, of learning and religion, 
 And virtue and such ingredients, have made 
 
 A mithridate, whose operation 
 Keeps off, or cures, what can be done or said. 
 
 Though the following lines of Donne, on the 
 last night of the year, have something in them 
 too scholastic, they are not inelegant : 
 
 This twilight of two years, not past nor next. 
 Some emblem is of me, or I of this, 
 
 Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form peiplext, 
 Whose what and where in disputation is, 
 If I should call me any thing, should miss. 
 
 I sum the years and me, and find me not 
 Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new, 
 
 That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot. 
 
 Nor trust I this with hopes ; and yet scarce tnie 
 This bravery is, since these times shew'd me you. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's re- 
 flection upon man as a microcosm : 
 
 If men be worlds, there is in every one 
 Something to answer in some proportion 
 All the world's riches : and in good men, this 
 Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul is. 
 
 O F thoughts so far fetched, as to be not only 
 unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full.
 
 xxxvi COWLEY. 
 
 To a Lady, who wrote poesies for rings. 
 
 They, who above do various circles find. 
 Say, like a ring th' aequator heaven does bind. 
 When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, 
 (Which then more heaven than 'tis, w^ill be) 
 *Ti8 thou must write the poesy there, 
 For it wanteth one as yet. 
 Then the sun pass through 't twice a year, 
 The un, which is esteem'd the god of wit. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 The difficulties which have been raised about 
 identity in philosophy, are by Cowley with still 
 more perplexity applied to Love : 
 
 Five years ago (says story) I lovM yon, 
 For which you call me most inconstant now ; 
 Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man ; 
 For I am not the same that I was then ; 
 No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, 
 And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see. 
 The same thoughts to retain still, and intents. 
 Were more inconstant far : for accidents 
 Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove. 
 If from one subject they t' another move : 
 My member* ihen, the father members were 
 From whence tliese take th^ir birth, which now are 
 here.
 
 COWLEY. xxxvU 
 
 If then this body love what th' other did, 
 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. 
 
 The love of different women is, in geographi- 
 cal poetry, compared to travels through different 
 countries : 
 
 Hast thou not found each woman's breast 
 
 (The land where thou hast travelled) ^ 
 Either by savages possest. 
 
 Or wild, and uninhabited ? 
 What joy couldst take, or what repose, 
 In countries so uncivilis'd as those ? 
 Lust, the scorching dog-star, here 
 
 Rages with immoderate heat ; 
 Whilst Pride, the rugged Northern Bear, 
 
 In others makes the cold too great. 
 And where these are temperate known. 
 The soil 's all barren sand, or rocky stone. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 A lover burnt up by his affection is compared 
 to Egypt : 
 
 The fate of Egypt I sustain. 
 And never feel the dew of rain 
 From clouds which in the head appear ; 
 But all my too much moisture owe 
 To overflowings of the heart below. 
 
 Cowley.
 
 xxxviii COWLEY. 
 
 The lover supposes his lady acquainted with 
 the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice : 
 
 And yet this death of mine, I fear. 
 Will ominous to her appear : 
 When sound in every other part. 
 Her sacrifice is found without an heart. 
 For the last tempest of my death 
 Shall sigh out that too, with my breath. 
 
 That the chaos was harmonised, has been re- 
 cited of old -, but whence the different sounds 
 arose rentiained for a modern to discover : 
 
 Th* ungovem'd parts no correspondence knew ; 
 An artless war from thwarting motions grew ; 
 Till they to number and fixt rules were brought. 
 Water and air he for the tenor chose, 
 Earth made the base ; the treble, flame arose. 
 
 CoWLEY 
 
 The tears of lovers are always of great poe- 
 tical account ; but Donne has extended them into 
 worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, 
 they may be read again : 
 
 On a round ball 
 A workman, that hath copies by, can lay 
 An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, 
 And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.
 
 COWLEY. xxxix 
 
 So doth each tear, 
 
 Which thee doth wear, 
 A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, 
 Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow 
 This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dis-^ 
 
 solved so. 
 
 On reading the following lines, the reader may 
 perhaps cry out Confusioti worse confounded. 
 
 Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here. 
 She gives the best light to his sphere. 
 Or each is both, and all, and so 
 
 They unto one another nothing owe. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 Who but Donne would have thought that a 
 good man is a telescope ? 
 
 Though God be our true glass through which we see 
 All, since the being of all things is he. 
 Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive 
 Things in proportion fit, by perspective 
 Deeds of good men ; for by their living here, 
 Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. 
 
 Who would imagine it possible that in a very 
 few lines so many remote ideas could be brought 
 together ?
 
 xl COWLEY, 
 
 Since *tis my doom, Love's undershricve. 
 
 Why this reprieve i 
 Why doth my she advowson fly 
 
 Incumbency ? 
 To sell thyself dost thou intend 
 
 By candle's end, 
 And hold the contrast thus in doubts 
 
 Life's taper out ? 
 Think but how soon the market fails. 
 Your sex lives faster than the males ; 
 And if to measure age's span. 
 The sober Julian were th' account of man, 
 Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. 
 
 Cleiveland. 
 
 Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these 
 may be examples : 
 
 By every wind that comes this way. 
 Send me at least a sigh or two, 
 Such and so many I '11 repay 
 As shall themselves make winds to get to you. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 In tears I'll waste these eyes. 
 By Love so vainly fed ; 
 lust of old the Deluge punished. 
 
 COWLEV.
 
 COWLEY. xli 
 
 All arm'd in brass the richest dress of war, 
 (A dismal glorious sight) he shone afar. 
 The sun himself started with sudden fright, 
 To see his beams return so dismal bright. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 An universal consternation : 
 
 His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws 
 
 Tear up the ground ; then runs he wild about. 
 
 Lashing his angry tail and roaring out. 
 
 Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there ; 
 
 Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear; 
 
 Silence and horror fill the place around : 
 
 Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. 
 
 COWLEV. 
 
 Their fictions were often violent and un- 
 natural. 
 
 Of his mistress bathing ; 
 
 The fish around her crowded, as they do 
 
 To the false light that treacherous fishers shew, 
 
 And all with as much ease might taken be. 
 
 As she at first took me : 
 
 For ne'er did light so clear
 
 xlii COWLEY; 
 
 Among the waves appear, 
 Though every night the sun himself set there. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass : 
 
 My name engrav'd herein 
 Doth contribute my firmness to this glass; 
 Which, ever since that charm, hath been 
 As hard as that which grav'd it was. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 Their conceits were sometimes slight and trifling. 
 
 On an inconstant woman : 
 
 He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, 
 
 And no breath stirring hears, 
 In the clear heaven of thy brow, 
 
 No smallest cloud appears. 
 
 He sees thee gentle, fair and gay. 
 And trusts the faithless April of thy May. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, 
 and read by the fire : 
 
 Nothing yet in thee is seen, 
 
 But when a genial heat warms thee within,
 
 COWLEY. xliu 
 
 A new-born wood of various lines there grows ; 
 
 Here buds An L, and there a B, 
 
 Here spouts a V, and there a T, 
 And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. 
 
 COWLEV. 
 
 As they sought only for novehy, they did not 
 much inquire whether their allusions were to 
 things high or low, elegant or gross; whether 
 they compared the little to the great, or the gr^at 
 to the little. 
 
 Physick and chlrurgery for a lover : 
 
 Gently, ah gently, madam, touch 
 The wound, which you yourself have made ; 
 
 That pain must needs be very much. 
 Which makes me of your hand afraid. 
 
 Cordials of pity give me now. 
 
 For I too weak of purgings grow- 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 ITie world and a clock : 
 
 Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face 
 Thro' all the turns of matter's maze did trace ; 
 Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took ; 
 On all the springs and smallest wheels did look 
 Of hfe and motion, and with equal art 
 Made up the whole again of every part. 
 
 Cowley.
 
 xliv COWLEY. 
 
 A coal-pit has not often found its poet ; but 
 that it may not want its due honour^ Cleiveland 
 has paralleled it with the sun : 
 
 The moderate value of our guiltless ore 
 
 Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore ; 
 
 Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine 
 
 Deserve more honour than a flaming mine ? 
 
 These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be, 
 
 Than a few embers, for a deity. 
 
 Had he our pits, the Persian would admire 
 
 No sun, but warm's devotion at our fire : 
 
 He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer 
 
 Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner. 
 
 For wants he heat, or light ? or would have store 
 
 Of both ? 'tis here : and what can suns give more ? 
 
 Nay, what's the sun but, in a diiFerent name, 
 
 A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame ? 
 
 Then let this truth reciprocally run. 
 
 The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun. 
 
 Death, a voyage : 
 
 No family 
 E'er rigg'd a soul for heaven's discovery. 
 With whom more venturers might boldly dare 
 Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share. 
 
 DOMNS.
 
 COWLEY. xlv 
 
 Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes 
 grossly absurd, and such as no figures or licence 
 can reconcile to the understanding. 
 
 A lover neither dead nor alive : 
 
 Then down I laid my head 
 
 Down on cold earth ; and for a while was dead. 
 
 And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled : 
 
 Ah, sottish soul ! said I, 
 
 When back to its cage again I saw it fly ; 
 
 Fool, to resume her broken chain ! 
 
 And row her galley here again ! 
 
 Fool, to that body to return 
 Whei'e it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn ! 
 
 Once dead, how can it be, 
 Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, 
 That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me ? 
 
 A lover's heart, a hand grenado : 
 
 Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come 
 
 Into the self-same room, 
 
 'Twill tear and blow up all within, 
 Like a grenado shot into a magazin. 
 Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts, 
 
 Of both our broken hearts : 
 
 Shall out of both one new one make : 
 From hers th' allay ; from mine, the metal take. 
 
 Cow LEV.
 
 xlvi COWLEY. 
 
 The poetical propagation of light : 
 
 The prince's favour is difFus'd o'er all. 
 From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall ; 
 Then from those wombs of stars, the bride's bright 
 eyes, 
 
 At every glance a constellation flies 
 And sowes the court with stars, and doth prevent 
 
 In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament : 
 First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes> 
 
 Then from their beams their jewels lustres rise ; 
 And from their jewels torches do take fire, 
 And all is warmth, and light, and good desire. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 They were in very little care to clothe their 
 notions with elegance of dress, and therefore 
 miss the notice and the praise which are often 
 gained by those, who think less, but are more 
 diligent to adorn their thoughts. 
 
 That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than 
 in reality, is by Cowley thus expressed : 
 
 Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand. 
 Than women can be plac'd by Nature's hand ; 
 And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be. 
 To change thee, as thou 'rt there, for very thee.
 
 COWLEY. xlvii 
 
 That prayer and labour should co-operate, are 
 thus taught by Donne : 
 
 'In none but us, are such mixt engines found, 
 As hands of double office ; for the ground 
 We till with them ; and them to heaven we raise ; 
 Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays. 
 Doth but one half, that's none. 
 
 By the same author, a common topick, the 
 danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated : 
 
 That which I should have begun 
 
 In my youth's morning, now late must be done ; 
 
 And I, as giddy travellers must do, 
 
 Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost 
 
 Light and strength, dark and tir'd, must then ride post. 
 
 All that man has to do is to live and die j the 
 sum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in 
 the following lines : 
 
 Think in iiow poor a prison thou didst lie ; 
 
 After enabled but to suck and cry. 
 
 Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn, 
 
 A province pack'd up in two yards of skin. 
 
 And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage 
 
 Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age. 
 
 But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee ; 
 
 Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty ;
 
 sdviii COWLEY. 
 
 Think, that a rusty piece discharg'd is flown 
 
 In pieces, and the bullet is his own, 
 
 And freely flies : this to thy soul allow. 
 
 Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but now. 
 
 They were sometimes indelicate and dis- 
 gusting. Cowley thus apostrophises Beauty : 
 
 Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free ! 
 
 Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be ! 
 Thou murtherer, which hast kill'd, and devil, which 
 wouldst damn me. 
 
 Thus he addresses his mistress : 
 
 Thou who, in many a propriety. 
 
 So truly art the sun to me. 
 
 Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, 
 
 And let me and my sun beget a man. 
 
 Thus he represents the meditations of a lover : 
 
 Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been 
 
 So much as of original sin. 
 
 Such charms thy beauty wears as might 
 
 Desires in dying confest saints excite. 
 
 Thou with strange adultery 
 Dost in each breast a brothel keep ; 
 
 Awake, all men do lust for thee. 
 And some enjoy thee when they sleep.
 
 COWLEY. xlix 
 
 The true taste of tears : 
 
 Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come. 
 And take my tears, wrhich are love's wine, 
 
 And try your mistress' tears at home ; 
 For all are false, that taste not just like mine. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 This is yet more indelicate : 
 
 As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, 
 
 As that which from chafd musk-cat's pores doth trill, 
 
 As the almighty balm of th' early East, 
 
 Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. 
 
 And on her neck her skin such lustre sets. 
 
 They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets : 
 
 Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles. 
 
 Donne. 
 
 Their expressions sometimes raise horror, 
 when they intend perhaps to be pathetic : 
 
 As men in hell are from diseases free. 
 
 So from all other ills am I, 
 
 Free from their known formality : 
 But all pains eminently lie in thee. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 I COWLEY. 
 
 Thet were not always strictly curious* 
 whether the opinions from which they drew their 
 illustrations were true ; it was enough that they 
 were popular. Bacon remarks, that some false- 
 hoods are continued by tradition, because they 
 supply commodious allusions. 
 
 It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke ; 
 In vain it something would have spoke : 
 The love within too strong for't was. 
 Like poison put into a Venice-glass. 
 
 Cowley. 
 
 In forming descriptions, they looked out not 
 for images, but for conceits. Night has been a 
 common subject, which poets have contended to 
 adorn. Dryden's Night is well known i Donne's 
 is as follows : 
 
 Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest : 
 Time's dead low-water ; when all minds divest 
 To-morrow's business, when the labourers have 
 Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave. 
 Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this, 
 Now when the client, whose last hearing is 
 To-morrow, sleeps ; when the condemned man. 
 Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them then
 
 COWLEY. li 
 
 Again by death, although sad watch he keep. 
 Doth practise dying by a little sleep, 
 Thou at this midnight seest me. 
 
 I T must be however confessed of these writers, 
 that if they are upon common subjects often un- 
 necessarily and unpoetically subtle ; yet where 
 scholastick speculation can be properly admitted, 
 their copiousness and acuteness may justly be 
 admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope, 
 shews an unequalled fertility of invention : 
 
 Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is, 
 
 Alike if it succeed, and if it miss ; 
 Whom good or ill does equally confound. 
 And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound. 
 
 Vain shadow, which dost vanish quite, 
 
 Both at full noon and perfect night ! 
 
 The stars have not a possibility 
 
 Of blessing thee ; 
 If things then from their end we happy call, 
 'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. 
 
 Hope, thou bold taster of delight, [quite ! 
 
 Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour' st it 
 
 Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor. 
 
 By clogging it with legacies before ! 
 
 The joys which we entire should wed. 
 
 Come deflower'd virgins to our bed j
 
 lii COWLEY. 
 
 Good fortunes without gain imported bCp 
 
 Such mighty custom's paid to thee : 
 For joy, like wine, kept close does better taste ; 
 If it take air before, its spirits waste. 
 
 To the following comparison of a man that 
 travels, and his wife that stays at home, with a 
 pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether 
 absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim : 
 
 Our two souls therefore, which are one, 
 
 Though I must go, endure not yet 
 A breach, but an expansion, 
 
 Like gold to airy thinness beat. 
 If they be two, they are two so 
 
 As stiff twin-compasses are two : 
 Thy soul, the fixt foot, makes no show 
 
 To move, but doth, if th' other do. 
 And though it in the centre sit. 
 
 Yet when the other far doth roam. 
 It leans, and hearkens after it. 
 
 And grows erect, as that comes home. 
 Such wilt thou be to me, who must 
 
 Like th* other foot obliquely ran. 
 Thy firmness makes my circle just. 
 
 And makes me end where I begun. 
 
 Donne.
 
 COWLEY. liii 
 
 In all these examples it is apparent, that what- 
 ever is improper or vicious is produced by a vo- 
 luntary deviation from nature in pursuit of some- 
 thing new and strange ; and that the writers fail 
 to give delight, by their desire of exciting admi- 
 ration. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a ge- 
 neral representation of the style and sentiments 
 of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to 
 examine particularly the works of Cowley, who 
 was almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly 
 the best. 
 
 His Miscellanies contain a collection of short 
 compositions, written some as they were dictated 
 by a mind at leisure, and some as they were 
 called forth by different occasions ; with great 
 variety of style and sentiment, from burlesque 
 levity to awful grandeur. Such an assemblage of 
 diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto 
 afforded. To choose the best, among many good, 
 is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticism.
 
 liv COWLEY. 
 
 I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuad- 
 ed many readers to join with him in his preference 
 of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in 
 his raptures at the value of a kingdom. I will 
 however venture to recommend Cowley's first 
 piece, which ought to be inscribed 'To my muse, 
 for want of which the second couplet is without 
 reference. When the title is added, there will 
 still remain a defect ; for every piece ought to 
 contain in itself whatever is necessary to make it 
 intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without 
 names ; which are therefore epitaphs to be lett, 
 occupied indeed for the present, but hardly ap- 
 propriated. 
 
 The ode on wit is almost without a rival. It 
 was about t^e time of Cowley that ivit, which 
 had been till then used for intellection, in contra- 
 distinction to %uil/, took the meaning, whatever it 
 be, which it now bears. 
 
 Of all the passages in which poets have exem- 
 plified their own precepts, none will easily be 
 found of greater excellence than that in which 
 Cowley condemns exuberance of wit :
 
 COWLEY. Iv 
 
 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part, 
 That shews more cost than art. 
 Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear ; 
 Rather than all things wit, let none be there. 
 
 Several lights will not be seen, 
 
 If there be nothing else between. 
 Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky. 
 If those be stars which paint the galaxy. 
 
 In his verses to lord Falkland, whom every 
 man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as 
 there must be in all Cowley's compositions, some 
 striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. 
 His elegy on sir Henry "Wotton is vigorous and 
 happy, the series of thoughts is easy and natural, 
 and the conclusion, though a little weakened by 
 the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible. 
 
 It may be remarked, that In this elegy, and in 
 most of his encomiastic poems, he has forgotten 
 or neglected to name his heroes. 
 
 In his poem on the death of Harvey, there is 
 much praise, but little passion, a very just and 
 ample delineation of such virtues as a studious 
 privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as
 
 Ivi COWLEY. 
 
 a mind not yet called forth to action can display. 
 He knew how to distinguish, and how to com- 
 mend the qualities of his companion ; but when 
 he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep 
 himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining how 
 his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in 
 the Jire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be 
 worse for being true. The bay-leaf crackles re- 
 markably as it bums ; as therefore this property 
 was not assigned it by chance, the mind must be 
 thought sufficiently at ease that could attend to 
 such minuteness of physiology. But the power 
 of Cowley is not so much to move the affections, 
 as to exercise the understanding. 
 
 The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and 
 alone : such gaiety of fancy, such facility of ex- 
 pression, such varied similitude, such a succession 
 of images, and such a dance of words, it is in 
 yain to expect except from Cowley. His strength 
 always appears in his agility, his volatility is not 
 the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic 
 mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind 
 it; the moralist, the politician, and the critick, 
 mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of
 
 COWLEY. Ivii 
 
 genius. To such a performance Suckling could 
 have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge ; 
 Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but 
 not the gaiety. 
 
 The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously 
 begun, and happily concluded, contain some hints 
 of criticism very justly conceived and happily ex- 
 pressed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been 
 sufficiently observed: the few decisions and re- 
 marks which his prefaces and his notes on the Da- 
 videis supply, were at that time accessions to 
 English literature, and shew such skill as raises 
 our wish for more examples. 
 
 The lines from Jersey are a very curious and 
 pleasing specimen of the familiar descending to 
 the burlesque. 
 
 His two metrical disquisitions ^or and against 
 Reason, are no mean specimens of metaphysical 
 poetry. The stanzas against knowledge produce 
 little conviction. In those which are intended to 
 exalt the human faculties, reason has its proper 
 task assigned it \ that of judging, not of things
 
 Iviii COWLEY. 
 
 revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the 
 verses for Reason is a passage which Bentley, in 
 the only English verses which he is known to have 
 written, seems to have copied, though with the 
 inferiority of an imitator. 
 
 The holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine 
 
 With thousand lights of truth divine. 
 So numberless the stars that to our eye 
 
 It makes all but one galaxy : 
 Yet Reason must assist too ; for in seas 
 
 So vast and dangerous as these. 
 Our course by stars above we cannot know 
 
 Without the compass too below. 
 
 After this, says Bentley : 
 
 Who travels in religious jars, 
 Truth mix'd with error, shade with rays, 
 Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars. 
 In ocean wide or sinks or strays. 
 
 Cowley seems to have had, what Milton is be- 
 lieved to have wanted, the skill to rate his own 
 performances by their just value, and has there- 
 fore closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon 
 Crashaw, which apparently excel all that have
 
 COWLEY. lix 
 
 gone before them, and in which there are beauties 
 which common authors may justly think not only 
 above their attainment, but above their ambition. 
 
 To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontiques^ 
 or paraphrastical translations of some little poems, 
 which pass, however justly, under the name of 
 Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated tojestivity 
 and gaiety, in which even the morality is volup- 
 tuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment 
 of the present day, he has given rather a pleasing 
 than a faithful representation, having retained 
 their spriteliness, but lost their simplicity. The 
 Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has 
 admitted the decoration of some modem graces, 
 by which he is undoubtedly more amiable to com- 
 mon readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly 
 declare their own perceptions, to far the greater 
 part of those whom courtesy and ignorance are 
 content to style the learned. 
 
 These little pieces will be found more finished 
 in their kind thaajiny other of Coad ey's wo rks. 
 The diction shews nothing of the mould of time, 
 and the sentiments are at no great distance from
 
 Ix COWLEY. 
 
 our present habitudes of thought. Real mirth 
 must be always natural, and nature is uniform. 
 Men have been wise in very different modes , but 
 they have always laughed the same way. 
 
 Levity of thought naturally produced familiarity 
 of language, and the familiar part of language 
 continues long the same : the dialogue of comedy, 
 when it is transcribed from popular manners and 
 real life, is read from age to age with equal plea- 
 sure. The artifices of inversion, by which the 
 established order of words is changed, or of in- 
 novation, by which new words or new meanings 
 of words are introduced, is practised, not by those 
 who talk to be understood, but by those who vnrite 
 to be admired. 
 
 The Anacreontiques therefore of Cowley give 
 now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If he 
 was formed by nature for one kind of writing 
 more than for another, his power seems to have 
 been greatest in the familiar and the festiver ^ 
 
 The next class of his poems is called The Mis- 
 iresSf of which it is not necessary to select any
 
 COWLEY. Ixi 
 
 particular pieces for praise or censure. They have 
 all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the 
 same proportion. They are written with exube- 
 rance of wit, and with copiousness of learning ; 
 and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that the plenitude 
 of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, 
 so thai the reader is commonly surprised into some 
 improvement. But, considered as the verses of a 
 lover, no man that has ever loved will much com- 
 mend them. They are neither courtly nor pathe- 
 tick, have neither gallantry nor fondness. His 
 praises are too far sought, and too hyperbolical, 
 either to express love, or to excite it ; every stanza 
 is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds 
 and death, with mingled souls, and with broken 
 hearts. 
 
 The principal artifice by which The Mistress Is 
 filled with conceits is very copiously displayed by 
 Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, 
 expressed metaphorically by flame and fire ; and 
 that which is true of real fire is said of love, or 
 figurative fire, the same word in the same sentence 
 retaining both significations. Thus, ** observing 
 " the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at
 
 Ixii COWLEY. 
 
 ** the same time their power of producing love in 
 ** him, he considers them as burning glasses made 
 ** of ice. Finding himself able to live in the 
 ** greatest extremities of love, he concludes the 
 ** torrid zone to be habitable. Upon the dying 
 ** of a tree, on which he had cut his loves, he 
 ** observes, that his flames had burnt up and 
 " withered the tree." 
 
 These conceits Addison calls mixed wit ; that 
 is, wit which consists of thoughts true in one 
 sense of the expression, and false in the other. 
 Addison's representation is sufficiently indulgent. 
 That confusion of images may entertain for a 
 moment; but, being unnatural, it soon grows 
 wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as 
 if he had invented it; but, not to mention the 
 ancients, he might have found it full-blown in 
 modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro : 
 
 Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis ! 
 
 Uror, & heu ! nostro manat ab igne liquor ; 
 Sum Nilus, sumque JEtna simul ; restringite flammas, 
 
 O lacrimx, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas. 
 
 One of the severe theologians of that time cen-
 
 COWLEY. kiii 
 
 sured him as having published a book of profane and 
 lascivious verses. From the charge of profaneness, 
 the constant tenour of his life, which seems to 
 have been eminently virtuous, and the general 
 tendency of his opinions, which discover no irre- 
 verence of religion, must defend him ; but that 
 the accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the 
 perusal of his works will sufficiently evince. 
 
 Cowley's Mistress has no power of seduction : 
 * she plays round the head, but reaches not the 
 ** heart." Her beauty and absence, her kindness 
 and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce 
 no correspondence of emotion. His poetical ac- 
 count of the virtues of plants, and colours of 
 flowers, is not perused with more sluggish frigi- 
 dity. The compositions are such as might have 
 been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire 
 by a philosophical rhymer who had only heard of 
 another sex -, for they turn the mind only on the 
 writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but 
 as the subject for his task, we sometimes esteem 
 as learned, and sometimes despise as trifling, al- 
 ways admire as ingenious, and always condemn 
 as unnatural.
 
 Ixiv COWLEY. 
 
 ThePindarique Odes are now to be considered ; 
 a species of composition, which Cowley thinks 
 Pancirolus might have counted in his list of the last 
 inventions of antiquity^ and which he has made a 
 bold and vigorous attempt to recover. 
 
 The purpose with which he has paraphrased an 
 Olympick and Nemaean ode, is by himself suffi- 
 ciently explained. His endeavour was, not to 
 shew precisely nuhat Pindar spoke, hut his manner of 
 speaking. He was therefore not at all restrained 
 to his expressions, nor much to his sentiments ; 
 nothing was required of him, but not to write as 
 Pindar would not have written. 
 
 Of the Olympick ode the beginning is, I think, 
 above the original in elegance, and the conclusion 
 below it in strength. The connection is supplied 
 with great perspicuity, and the thoughts, which 
 to a reader of less skill seem thrown together by 
 chance, are concatenated without any abruption. 
 Though the English ode cannot be called a trans- 
 lation, it may be very properly consulted as a 
 commentary.
 
 COWLEY. Ixv 
 
 The spirit of Pindar is indeed not every where 
 equally preserved. The following pretty lines are 
 not such as his deep mouth was used to pour : 
 
 Great Rhea's son, 
 If in Olympus' top, where thou 
 Sitt'bt to behold thy sacred show, 
 If in Alpheus' silver flight, 
 If in my verse thou take delight. 
 My verse, great Rhea's son, which is 
 Lofty as that, and smooth as this. 
 
 In the Nemsean ode the reader must, in mere 
 justice to Pindar, observe that whatever is said of 
 the original nenu mooti^ her tender forehead and her 
 hornSi is superadded by his paraphrast, who has 
 many other plays of words and fancy unsuitable 
 to the original, as. 
 
 The table, free for every guest. 
 No doubt will thee admit. 
 And feast more upon thee, than thou on it. ' 
 
 He sometimes extends his author's thoughts 
 without improving them. In the Olympionick an 
 oath is mentioned in a single word, and Cowley 
 spends three lines in swearing by the Castalian 
 stream. We are told of Theron's bounty, with a 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 Ixvi C O W L E Y. 
 
 hint that he had enemies, which Cowley thus en- 
 larges in rhyming proSe : 
 
 But in this thankless world the giver 
 
 Is envied even by the receiver ; 
 
 'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion 
 
 Rather to hide than own the obligation : 
 
 Nay, 'tis much worse than so ; 
 
 It now an artifice does grow 
 
 Wrongs and injuries to do, 
 
 Lest men should think we owe. 
 
 It is hard to conceive that a man of the first 
 rank in learning and wit, when he was dealing 
 out such minute morality in such feeble diction, 
 could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that 
 he imitated Pindar. 
 
 In the following odes, where Cowley chooses 
 his own subjects, he sometimes rises to dignity 
 truly Pindarick j and, if some deficiencies of lan- 
 guage be forgiven, his strains are such as those of 
 the Theban bard were to his contemporaries : 
 
 Begin the song, and strike the living lyre : 
 Lo how the years to come, a numerous and Well- 
 fitted quire,
 
 COWLEY. Ixvii 
 
 All hand in hand do decently advance> 
 And to my song with smooth and equal measure 
 
 dance : 
 While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be, 
 My musick's voice shall bear it company ; 
 
 Till all gentle notes be drown'd 
 
 In the last trumpet's dreadful sound. 
 
 After such enthusiasm, who will not lament to 
 find the poet conclude with lines like these ! 
 
 But stop, my muse 
 Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in, 
 
 Which does to rage begin 
 'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse 
 'Twill no unskilful touch endure. 
 But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure. 
 
 The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the 
 writers of the metaphysical race, is that of pur- 
 suing his thoughts to the last ramifications, by 
 which he loses the grandeur of generality ; for of 
 the greatest things the parts are little ; what is 
 little can be but pretty, and by claiming dignity 
 becomes ridiculous. Thus all the power of de- 
 scription is destroyed by a scrupulous enumera- 
 tion ; and the force of metaphors is lost, when the 
 mind by the mention of particulars is turned more
 
 Ixviii COWLEY. 
 
 upon the original than the secondary sense, more 
 upon that from which the illustration is drawn 
 than that to which it is applied. 
 
 Of this we have a very eminent example in the 
 ode intituled ^he Afusey who goes to take the air in 
 an intellectual chariot, to which he harnesses Fancy 
 and Judgement, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and 
 Invention. How he distinguished wit from fancy^ 
 or how memory could properly contribute to mo- 
 tion, he has not explained : we are however con- 
 tent to suppose that he could have justified his 
 own fiction, and wish to see the muse begin her 
 career ; but there is yet more to be done. 
 
 Let Xht postillion Nature mount, and let 
 
 The coachman Art be set ; 
 
 And let the airy footmen, running all beside, 
 
 Make a long row of goodly pride ; 
 
 Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences* 
 
 In a well-worded dress, 
 
 And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies, 
 
 In all their gaudy liveries. 
 
 Every mind is now disgusted with this cumber 
 of magnificence ; yet I cannot refuse myself the 
 four next lines :
 
 COWLEY, Ixix 
 
 Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne, 
 And bid it to put on ; 
 For long though cheerful is the way. 
 And life, alas ! allows but one ill winter's day. 
 
 In the same ode, celebrating the power of the 
 muse, he gives her prescience, or, in poetical lan- 
 guage, the foresight of events hatching in futu- 
 rity ; but having once an egg in his mind, he can- 
 not forbear to shew us that he knows what an egg 
 contains : 
 
 Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep, 
 
 And there with piercing eye 
 Through the firm shell and the thick white dost spy 
 
 Years to come a-forming lie. 
 Close in their sacred fecundine asleep. 
 
 The same thought is more generally, and there- 
 fore more poetically, expressed by Casimir, a 
 writer who has many of the beauties and faults 
 of Cowley : 
 
 Omnibus mundi Dominator horis 
 Aptat urgendas per inane pennas, 
 Pars adhuc nido latet, & futures 
 Crescit in annos. 
 
 Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to
 
 Ixx COWLEY. 
 
 have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the 
 light and the familiar, or to conceits which require 
 still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the 
 Red Sea neiv dyes the luaters' name ; and England, 
 during the civil war, was Albion no morey nor to he 
 named from ivhite. It is surely by some fascination 
 not easily surmounted, that a writer professing to 
 revive the noblest and highest writing in verse, makes 
 this address to the new year : 
 
 Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year, 
 
 Let not 8o much as love be there. 
 
 Vain fruitless love I mean ; for, gentle year, 
 
 Although I fear 
 There's of this caution little need, 
 
 Yet> gentle year, take heed 
 
 How thou dost make 
 
 Such a mistake ; 
 Such love I mean alone 
 As by thy cruel predecessors has been shewn ; 
 For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, 
 I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it. 
 
 The reader of this will be inclined to cry out 
 with Prior 
 
 Ye critics, say, 
 Haw poor to this was Pindar's style !
 
 COWLEY. Ixxi 
 
 Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isth- 
 mian or Nemaean songs what antiquity has disposed 
 them to expect, will at least see that they are ill 
 represented by such puny poetry ; and all will de- 
 termine that, if this be the old Theban strain, it 
 is not worthy of revival. 
 
 To the disproportion and incongruity of Cow- 
 ley's sentiments must be added the uncertainty 
 and looseness of his measures. He takes the li- 
 berty of using in any place a verse of any length, 
 from two syllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar 
 have, as he observes, very little harmony to a 
 modern ear; yet by examining the syllables we 
 perceive them to be regular, and have reason 
 enough for supposing that the ancient audiences 
 were delighted ^yith the sound. The imitator 
 ought therefore to have adopted what he found, 
 and to have added what was wanting ; to have 
 preserved a constant return of the same numbers, 
 and to have supplied smoothness of transition and 
 continuity of thought. 
 
 It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of 
 numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of
 
 Ixxii COWLEY. 
 
 poesy fit for all mantier of subjects. But lie should 
 have remembered, that what is fit for every thing 
 can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse 
 arises from the known measure of the lines, and 
 uniform structure of the stanzas, by which the 
 voice is regulated, and the memory relieved. 
 
 If the Pindarick style be, what Cowley thinks it, 
 the highest and noblest hind of writing in versCy it can 
 be adapted only to high and noble subjects ; and 
 it will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the 
 critick, or to conceive how that can be the highest 
 kind of writing in verse, which, according to Sprat, 
 7V chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to prose. 
 
 This lax and lawless versification so much con- 
 cealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flatter- 
 ed the laziness of the idle, that it immediately 
 overspread our books of poetry ; all the boys and 
 girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that 
 could do nothing else could write like Pindar. 
 The rights of antiquity wgre invaded, and disor- 
 der tried to break into the Latin : a poem * on the 
 
 " Carmen Pindaricum in Theatrum Sheldonianum 
 " in solennibus magnifici Operis Encceniis. Recitatum
 
 COWLEY. Ixxiil 
 
 Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse 
 are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the 
 Musa Anglicana. Pindarism prevailed above half 
 a century; but at last died gradually away, and 
 other imitations supply its place. 
 
 ITie Pindarique Odes have so long enjoyed the 
 highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am 
 not willing to dismiss them with unabated cen- 
 sure i and surely though the mode of their com- 
 position be erroneous, yet many parts deserve at 
 least that admiration which is due to great com- 
 prehension of knowledge, and great fertility of 
 fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often 
 striking ; but the greatness of one part is dis- 
 graced by the littleness of another; and total 
 negligence of language gives the noblest concep- 
 tions the appearance of a fabric august in the 
 plan, but mean in the materials. Yet surely 
 those verses are not without a just claim to 
 praise, of which it may be said with truth, that 
 no man but Cowley could have written them. 
 
 " Julii die 9, Anno 1669, aCorbetto Owen, A.B. -ffid. 
 " Chr. Alumno, Authore."
 
 Ixxiy COWLEY. 
 
 The Davideis now remains to be considered ; 
 a poem which the author designed to have ex- 
 tended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no 
 scruple of declaring, because the ^neid had that 
 number ; but he had leisure or perseverance only 
 to write the third part. Epick poems have been 
 left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and 
 Cowley. That we have not the whole Davideis 
 is, however, not much to be regretted; for in 
 this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at least, con- 
 fessed to have miscarried. There are not many 
 examples of so great a work, produced by an 
 author generally read, and generally praised, that 
 has crept through a century with so little regard. 
 Whatever is said of Cowley is meant of his 
 other works. Of the Davideis no mention is 
 made ; it never appears in books, nor emerges in 
 conversation. By the Spectator it has been once 
 quoted ; by Rymer it has once been praised ; and 
 by Drydertf in " Mac Flecknoe," it has once been 
 imitated ; nor do I recollect much other notice 
 from its publication till now, in the whole suc- 
 cession of English literature. 
 
 Of this silence and neglect if the reason be
 
 COWLEY. Ixxv 
 
 inquired, it will be found partly in the choice 
 of the subject, and partly in the performance of 
 the work. 
 
 Sacred History has been always read with sub- 
 missive reverence, and an imagination overawed 
 and controlled. "We have been accustomed to 
 acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the 
 authentic narrative, and to repose on its veracity 
 with such humble confidence as suppresses curi- 
 osity. We go with the historian as he goes, and 
 stop with him when he stops. All amplification 
 is frivolous and vain ; all addition to that which 
 is already sufficient for the purposes of religion, 
 seems not only useless, but in some degree pro- 
 fane. 
 
 Such events as were produced by the visible 
 interposition of Divine Power are above the 
 power of human genius to dignify. The miracle 
 of Creation, however it may teem with images, 
 is best described with little diffusion of language : 
 He spake the word, and they were made. 
 
 We are told that Saul was troubled with an evil
 
 Ixxvi COWLEY. 
 
 spirit ; from this Cowley takes an opportunity of 
 describing hell, and telling the history of Lucifer, 
 who was, he says, 
 
 Once general of a gilded host of sprites. 
 Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights ; 
 But down like lightning, which him struck, he came, 
 And roar'd at his jirst plunge into the flame. 
 
 Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents 
 of mischief, in which there is something of 
 heathenism, and therefore of impropriety ; and, 
 to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing 
 his breast with his long tail. Envy, after a pause. 
 Steps out, and among other declarations of her 
 zeal utters these lines : 
 
 Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, 
 And thunder echo to the trembling sky. 
 Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, 
 As shall the fire's proud element affright. 
 Th' old drudging Sun, from his long-beaten way. 
 Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. 
 The jocund orbs shall break their measur'd pace. 
 And stubborn poles change their allotted place. 
 Heaven's gilded troops shall flutter here and there. 
 Leaving their boasting songs tun'd to a sphere.
 
 COWLEY. Ixxvii 
 
 Every reader feels himself weary with this 
 useless talk of an allegorical Being. 
 
 It is not only when the events arc confessedly 
 miraculous, that fancy and fiction lose their 
 effect : the whole system of life, while the Theo- 
 cracy was yet visible, has an appearance so dif- 
 ferent from all other scenes of human action, that 
 tlie reader of the Sacred Volume habitually con- 
 siders it as the peculiar mode of existence of a 
 distinct species of mankind, that lived and acted 
 with manners uncommunicable ; so that it is dif- 
 ficult-even for imagination to place us in the state 
 of them whose story is related, and by conse- 
 quence their joys and griefs are not easily 
 adopted, nor can the attention be often inte- 
 rested in any thing that befalls them. 
 
 To the subject thus originally indisposed to 
 the reception of poetical embellishments, the 
 writer brought little that could reconcile impa- 
 tience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be 
 fnore disgusting than a narrative spangled with 
 conceits, and conceits are all that the Davideis 
 supplies.
 
 Ixxviii COWLEY. 
 
 One of the great sources of poetical delight is 
 description, or the power of presenting pictures 
 to the mind. Cowley gives inferences instead of 
 images, and shews not what may be supposed to 
 have been seen, but what thoughts the sight 
 might have suggested. When Virgil describes 
 the stone which Tumus lifted against -/Eneas, he 
 fixes the attention on its bulk and weight : 
 
 Saxum circumspicit ingens, 
 Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat 
 Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis. 
 
 Cowley says of the stone with which Cain 
 slew his brother, 
 
 I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant 
 At once his murther and his monument. 
 
 Of the sword taken from Goliah, he says, 
 
 A sword so great, that it was only fit 
 
 To cut off his great head that came with it. 
 
 Other poets describe death by some of its 
 common appearances. Cowley says, with a 
 learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real or fa- 
 bulous.
 
 COWLEY. Ixxix 
 
 'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious blade. 
 And open'd wide those secret vessels where 
 Life's light goes out, when first they let in air. 
 
 But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned. 
 In a visionary succession of kings : 
 
 Joas at first does bright and glorious show, 
 In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow. 
 
 Describing an undisciplined army, after hav- 
 ing said with elegance, 
 
 His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd 
 Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud, 
 
 he gives them a fit of the ague. 
 
 The allusions, however, are not always to 
 vulgar things : he offends by exaggeration as 
 much as by diminution : 
 
 The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head 
 
 A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. 
 
 Whatever he writes is always polluted with 
 some conceit: 
 
 Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, 
 Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, 
 Gold, which alone more infiuence has than be.
 
 Ixxx C O W L E Y. 
 
 In one passage he starts a sudden question, to 
 the confusion of philosophy : 
 
 Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, " 
 Why does that twining plant the oak embrace ? 
 The oak for courtship most of all unfit, 
 And rough as are the winds that fight with it. 
 
 His expressions have sometimes a degree of 
 meanness that surpasses expectation : 
 
 Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you 're in, 
 The story of your gallant friend begin. 
 
 In a simile descriptive of the Morning : 
 
 As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day, 
 Cashier'd by troops, at last drop all away. 
 
 The dress of Gabriel deserves attention : 
 
 He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright. 
 That e'er the midday sun pierc'd through with light ; 
 Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, 
 Wash'd from the moniing beauties deepest red ; 
 An harmless flattering meteor shone for hair. 
 And fell adown his shoulders with loose care ; 
 He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies. 
 Where the most sprightly azure pleas'd the eyes ; 
 This he with starry vapours sprinkles all. 
 Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall ;
 
 COWLEY. ixx%i 
 
 Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade. 
 
 The choicest piece cut out, a scarfe is made. 
 
 . This is a just specimen of Cowley's imagery : 
 what might in general expressions be great and 
 forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by 
 branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was 
 invested with the softest or brightest colours of 
 the sky, we might have been told, and been dis- 
 missed to improve the idea in our different pro- 
 portions of conception ; but Cowley could not let 
 us go till he had related where Gabriel got first 
 his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and 
 then his scarfe, and related it in the terms of the 
 mercer and taylor. 
 
 Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, 
 -always conceived with his natural exuberartce, 
 and commonly, even where it is not long, con- 
 tinued till it is tedious : 
 
 I' th' library a few choice authors stood, 
 
 Yet 'twas well stor'd, for that small store was good ; 
 
 Writing, man's spiritual physic, was not then 
 
 Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. 
 
 Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew ; 
 
 The common prostitute she lately grew, 
 
 VOL. I. G '
 
 Ixxxii COWLEY. 
 
 And with the spurious brood loads now the press ; 
 Laborious effects of idleness. 
 
 As the Davideis affords only four books, though 
 intended to consist of twelve, there is no oppor- 
 tunity for such criticisms as Epick poems com- 
 monly supply. The plan of the whole work is 
 very imperfectly shewn by the third part. The 
 duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. 
 Of characters either not yet introduced, or shewn 
 but upon few occasions, the full extent and the 
 nice discriminations cannot be ascertained. The 
 fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the 
 Odyssey than the Iliad : and many artifices of 
 diversification are employed, with the skill of a 
 man acquainted with the best models. The past 
 is recalled by narration, and the future anti- 
 cipated by vision : but he has been so lavish of 
 his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how 
 he could fill eight books more without practising 
 again the same modes of disposing his matter ; 
 and perhaps the perception of this growing in- 
 cumbrance inclined him to stop. By this abrup- 
 tion, posterity lost more instruction than delight. 
 If the continuation of the Davideis can be missed, 
 it is for the learning that had been diffused
 
 COWLEY. Ixxxiii 
 
 over it, and the notes in which it had been ex-. 
 plained. 
 
 Had not his characters been depraved like 
 every other part by improper decorations, they 
 would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives 
 Saul both the body and mind of a hero : 
 
 His way once chose, he forward thrust outright. 
 Nor turn'd aside for danger or deh'ght. 
 
 And the different beauties of the lofty Merah 
 and the gentle Michol are very justly conceived 
 and strongly painted. 
 
 Rymer has declared the Davidels superior to 
 the Jerusalem of Tassoy *' which," says he, " the 
 ** poet, with all his care, has not totally purged 
 " from pedantry." If by pedantry is meant that 
 minute knowledge which is derived from parti- 
 ciilar sciences and studies, in opposition to the 
 general notions supplied by a wide survey of life 
 and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing 
 pedantry far more frequently than Tasso. I know 
 not, indeed, why they should be compared ; for 
 the resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is
 
 Ixxxiv COWLEY. 
 
 only that they both exhibit the agency of celestial 
 and infernal spirits, in which however they differ 
 widely ; for Cowley supposes them commonly to 
 operate upon the mind by suggestion ; Tasso re- 
 presents them as promoting or obstructing events 
 by external agency. 
 
 Of particular passages that can be properly 
 compared, I remember only the description of 
 Heaven, in which the different manner of the 
 two writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowley's 
 is scarcely description, unless it be possible to 
 describe by negatives *, for he tells us only what 
 there is not In heaven. Tasso endeavours to re- 
 present the splendours and pleasures of the 
 regions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and 
 Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that 
 Tasso's description affords some reason for Ry- 
 mer's censure. He says of the Supreme Being, 
 
 Ha sotto i piedi e fate e la natura 
 Ministri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il misura. 
 
 The second line has in It more of pedantry 
 than perhaps can be found in any other stanza of 
 the poem.
 
 COWLEY. IxxxY 
 
 In the perusal of the Davideis, as of all Cow- 
 ley's works, we find wit and learning unprofitably 
 squandered. Attention has no relief j the affec- 
 tions are never moved ; we are sometimes sur-* 
 prised, but never delighted, and find much to 
 admire, but little to approve. Still however it is 
 the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by 
 nature, and replenished by study. 
 
 In the general review of Cowley's poetry it 
 will be found that he wrote with abundant fer- 
 tility, but negligent or unskilful selection; with 
 much thought, but with little imagery ; that he 
 is never pathetick, and rarely sublime, but always 
 either ingenious or learned, either acute or pro- 
 found. 
 
 It is said by Denham in his elegy. 
 
 To him no author was unknown ; 
 Yet what he writ was all his own. 
 
 This wide position requires less limitation, when 
 it is affirmed of Cowley, than perhaps of any 
 other poet. He read much, and yet borrowed 
 little. >
 
 Ixxxvi COWLEY. 
 
 His character of writing was indeed not liis 
 own : he unhappily adopted that which was pre- 
 dominant. He saw a certain way to present 
 praise, and not sufficiently inquiring by what 
 means the ancients have continued to delight 
 through all the changes of human manners, he 
 contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of 
 which the verdure in its spring was bright and 
 gay, but which time has been continually steal- 
 ing from his brows. 
 
 He was in his own time considered as of un- 
 rivalled excellence. Clarendon represents him 
 as having taken a flight beyond all that went 
 before him ; and Milton is said to have declared, 
 that the three greatest English poets were Spenser, 
 Shakspeare, and Cowley. 
 
 His manner he had in common with others : 
 but his sentiments were his own. Upon every 
 subject he tlaought for himself j and such was 
 his copiousness of knowledge, that sometliing at 
 once remote and applicable rushed into his mind ; 
 yet it is not likely that he always rejected a com- 
 modious idea merely because another had used it :
 
 COWLEY. Ixxxvii 
 
 his known wealth was so great, that he might 
 have borrowed without loss of credit. 
 
 In his elegy on sir Henry Wotton, the last 
 lines have such resemblance to the noble epigram 
 of Grotius upon the death of Scaliger, that I 
 cannot but^ think them copied from it, though 
 they are copied by no servile hand. 
 
 One passage in his Mistress is so apparently 
 borrowed from Donne, that he probably would 
 not have written it, had it not mingled with his 
 own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive 
 himself taking it from another : 
 
 Although I think thou never found wilt be, 
 
 Yet I 'm resolv'd to fearch for thee ; 
 
 The search itself rewards the pains. 
 So, though the chymic his great secret miss, 
 (For neither it in Art nor Nature is) 
 
 Yet things well worth his toil he gains ; 
 
 And does his charge and labour pay 
 With good unsought experiments by the way. 
 
 Cowley. 
 Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I, 
 Say, where his centric happiness doth lie : 
 
 I have lov'd, and got, and told ;
 
 Ixxxviii COWLEYi 
 
 But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, 
 I should not find, that hidden mystery ; 
 
 Oh, 'tis imposture all : 
 And as no chymic yet th' elixir got. 
 
 But glorifies his pregnant pot, 
 
 If by the way to him befal 
 Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal. 
 
 So lovers dream a rich and long delight. 
 
 But get a winter-seeming summer's night. 
 
 Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, 
 were then in the highest esteem. 
 
 It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always 
 acknowledges his obligation to the learning and 
 industry of Jonson ; but I have found no traces 
 of Jonson in his works : to emulate Donne, ap- 
 pears to have been his purpose ; and from Donne 
 he may have learned that familiarity with reli- 
 gious images, and that light allusion to sacred 
 things, by which readers far short of sanctity 
 are frequently offended ; and which would not 
 be borne in the present age, when devotion, per- 
 haps not more fervent, is more delicate. 
 
 Having produced one passage taken by Cowley
 
 COWLEY. Ixxxix 
 
 from Donne, I will recompense him by another 
 which Milton seems to have borrowed from him* 
 He says of Goliah, 
 
 His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree. 
 Which Nature meant some tall ship's mast should 
 be. 
 
 Milton of Satan : 
 
 His spear, to equal which the tallest pine 
 Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast 
 Of some great admiral, were but a wand. 
 He walked with. 
 
 His diction was in his own time censured as 
 negligent. He seems not to have known, or not 
 to have considered, that words being arbitrary 
 must owe their power to association, and have 
 the influence, and that only, which custom has 
 given them. Language is the dress of thought : 
 and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, 
 would be degraded and obscured by a garb ap-^ 
 propriated to the gross employments of rusticks 
 or mechanicks } so the most heroick sentiments 
 vtrill lose their efficacy, and the most splendid 
 ideas drop their magnificence, if they are con- 
 veyed by words used commonly upon low and
 
 xc COWLEY. 
 
 trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and 
 contaminated by inelegant applications. 
 
 Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is 
 always reason ; they have an intrinsick and un- 
 alterable value, and constitute that intellectual 
 gold which defies destruction : but gold may be 
 so concealed in baser matter, that only a chymist 
 can recover it ; sense may be so hidden in unre- 
 fined and plebeian words, that none but philoso- 
 phers can distinguish it; and both may be so 
 buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of 
 their extraction. 
 
 The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, 
 first presents itself to the intellectual eye ; and if 
 the first appearance offends, a further knowledge 
 is not often sought. Whatever professes to be- 
 nefit by pleasing, must please at once. The 
 pleasures of the mind imply something sudden 
 and unexpected; that which elevates must always 
 surprise. What is perceived by slow degrees 
 may gratify us with consciousness of improve- 
 . ment, but will never strike with the sense of 
 pleasure.
 
 COWLEY. xci 
 
 Of all this, Cowley appears to have been 
 without knowledge, or without care. He makes 
 no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of 
 phrase : he has no elegance either lucky or ela- 
 borate : as his endeavours were rather to impress 
 sentences upon the understanding than images on 
 the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scat- 
 tered without peculiar propriety of nice adapta- 
 tion. It seems to follow from the necessity of 
 the subject, rather than the care of the writer, 
 that the diction of his heroick poem is less fami- 
 liar than that of his slightest viritings. He has 
 given not the same numbers, but the same dic- 
 tion, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempestuous 
 Pindar. 
 
 His versification seems to have had very little 
 of his care ; and if what he thinks be true, that 
 his numbers are unmusical only when they are 
 ill read, the art of reading them is at present 
 lost; for they are commonly harsh to modem 
 ears. He has indeed many noble lines, such as 
 the feeble care of Waller never could produce. 
 The bulk of his thoughts sometimes swelled his 
 verse to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but
 
 xcii COWLEY. 
 
 his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous : 
 he sinks willingly down to his general careless* 
 ness, and avoids with very little care either mean- 
 ness or asperity. 
 
 His contractions are often rugged and harsh : 
 
 One flings a mountain, and its rivers too 
 Tom up with 't. 
 
 His rhymes are very often made by pronouns 
 or particles, or the like unimportant words, which 
 disappoint the ear, and destroy the energy of the 
 line. 
 
 His combination of different measures is some- 
 times dissonant and unpleasing ; he joins verses 
 together, of which the former does not slide 
 easily into the latter. 
 
 The words do and did^ which so much degrade 
 in present estimation the line that admits them, 
 were in the time of Cowley little censured or 
 avoided : how often he used them, and with how 
 bad an effect, at least to our ears, will appear by 
 a passage, in which every reader will lament to
 
 COWLEY. xciii 
 
 see just and noble thoughts defrauded of their 
 praise by inelegance of language ; 
 
 Where honour or where conscience does not blind 
 
 No other law shall shackle me ; 
 
 Slave to myself I ne'er will be ; 
 Nor shall my future actions be confin'd 
 
 By my own present mind. 
 Who by resolves and vows engag'd does stand 
 
 For days, that yet belong to fate. 
 Does like an unthrift mortgage his estate* 
 
 Before it falls into his hand. 
 
 The bondman of the cloister so, 
 All that he does receive does always owe. 
 And still as Time comes in, it goes away, 
 
 Not to enjoy, but debts to pay j 
 Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell ! 
 Which his hour's work as well as hours does tell : 
 Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell. 
 
 His heroick lines are often formed of mono* 
 syllables ; but yet they are sometimes sweet and 
 sonorous. 
 
 He says of the Messiah, 
 
 Round the whole earth his dreaded naiQe shall 
 
 sound. 
 And reach ti> worlds that must not jet be founds
 
 xcir COWLEY. 
 
 In another place, of David, 
 
 Yet bid him go securely, when he sends ; 
 'Tis Saul that is his foe ^ and zve his friends. 
 The man lubo has his God^ no aid can lack ; 
 And ive ivho bid him go, luill bring him back. 
 
 Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes at- 
 tempted an improved and scientific versification ; 
 of which it will be best to give his own account 
 subjoined to this line. 
 
 Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless 
 space. 
 
 ** I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish 
 ** the most part of readers, that it is not by 
 ** negligence that this verse is so loose, long, 
 ** and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the 
 ** number the nature of the thing which it de- 
 ** scribes, which I would have observed in divers 
 ** other places of this poem, that else will pass 
 ** for very careless verses : as before, 
 
 And over-runs the neighboring fields with violent course. 
 
 ** In the second book ; 
 
 Do<wh a precipice deepy down be casts them all,-^
 
 COWLET. xcv 
 
 " And^ 
 
 And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care, 
 
 " In the third, 
 
 Brass <was his helmety his boots irass, and o*er 
 His breast a thick plate of strong brass he luore. 
 
 " In the fourth. 
 
 Like some fair pine o^er-looking all th* ignobler ivood. 
 And, 
 
 Some from the rocks cast themselves doiun headlong, 
 
 ** And many more : but it is enough to instance 
 " in a few. The thing is, that the disposition 
 " of words and numbers should be such, as 
 " that, out of the order and sound of them, the 
 ** things themselves may be represented. This 
 ** the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind 
 ** themselves to j neither have our English poets 
 ** observed it, for aught I can find. The Latins 
 ** (qui musas colunt severiores) sometimes did it -, 
 ** and their prince, Virgil, always : in whom 
 ** the examples are innumerable, and taken no- 
 ** tice of by all judicious men, so that it is su- 
 ** perfluous to collect them."
 
 ten COWLEY. 
 
 I know not whether he has, In many of 
 these instances, attained the representation or 
 resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imi- 
 tate only sound and motion. A boundless verse, 
 a headlong verse, and a verse of brass or of 
 strong brass y seem to comprise very incongruous 
 and unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar 
 in the sound of the line expressing loose carey I 
 cannot discover ; nor why the pine is taller in an 
 Alexandrine than in ten syllables. 
 
 But, not to defraud him of his due praise, 
 he has given one example of representative ver- 
 sification, which perhaps no other English line 
 can equal : 
 
 Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise : 
 He, who defers this work from day to day, 
 Does on a river's bank exjjecting stay 
 Till the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be 
 gone. 
 Which runsy and as it runsy for ever shall rua on. 
 
 Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that 
 mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the com- 
 mon heroick of ten syllables, and from him
 
 COWLEY. xcvii 
 
 Drydcn borrowed the practice, whether orna- 
 mental or licentious. He considered the verse 
 of twelve syllables as elevated and majestick, 
 and has therefore deviated into that measure 
 when he supposes the voice heard of the Su- 
 preme Being. 
 
 The Author of the Davideis is commended by 
 Dryden for having written it in couplets, because 
 he discovered that any staff was too lyrical for 
 an heroick poem ; but this seems to have been 
 known before by May and Sandys^ the translators 
 of the Pharsalia and the Metamorphoses. 
 
 In the Davideis are some hemistichs, or verses 
 left imperfect by the author, in imitation of 
 Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intended 
 to complpte them : that this opinion is erroneous, 
 may be probably concluded, because this trun- 
 cation is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet; 
 because Virgil himself filled up one broken line 
 in the heat of recitation ; because in one the 
 sense is now unfinished ; and because all that 
 can be done by a broken verse, a line inter- 
 
 VOi. I. H 
 
 t 
 
 *
 
 t 
 
 xctiii COWLEY. 
 
 sected by a atsura and a full stop will equally 
 effect. 
 
 Of triplets in his Davideis he makes no use, 
 and perhaps did not at first think them allowa- 
 ble ; but he appears afterwards to have changed 
 his mind, for in the verses on the government of 
 Cromwell he inserts them liberally with great 
 happiness. 
 
 After so much criticism on his Poems, the 
 Essays which accompany them must not be for- 
 gotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversa- 
 tion, that no man could draw from it any su- 
 spicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied 
 to these compositions. No author ever kept his 
 verse and his prose at a greater distance from 
 each other. His thoughts are natural, and his 
 style has a smooth and placid equability, which 
 has never yet obtained its due commendation. 
 Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured -, but all 
 is easy without feebleness, and familiar without 
 grossness. 
 
 It has been observed by Felton, in his Essay 
 
 *
 
 COWLEY. xcix 
 
 on the Classicks, that Cowley was Beloved by 
 every Muse that he courted ; and that he has 
 rivalled the Ancients in every kind of poetry but 
 tragedy. 
 
 It may be affirmed, without any encomiaftick 
 fervour, that he brought to his poetick labours a 
 mind replete with learning, and that his pages 
 are embellished with all the ornaments which 
 books could supply ; that he was the first who 
 imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of 
 the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less ; that 
 he was equally qualified for spritely sallies, and 
 for lofty flights j that he was among those who 
 freed translation from servility, and, instead of 
 following his author at a distance, walked by his 
 side ; and that, if he left versification yet im- 
 provable, he left likewise from time to time 
 such specimens of excellence as enabled suc- 
 ceeding poets to improve it.
 
 * 
 
 21 E M A R K S 
 
 3. A I K I N, M.D. 
 
 Dr. Johnson in his observations upon Cow- 
 ley's poetry has put forth all his strength ^ and 
 It would be difficult in the whole compass of 
 critical writing to find an example of more acute- 
 ness and comprehension than he has displayed 
 in his account of the Metaphysical Poets. The 
 exact appropriation of the epithet (which he bor- 
 rowed from Dryden) may, however, be called 
 in question. Metaphysical notions exclusively 
 belong to intellect, and stand in opposition to 
 the images derived from sensible objects. But 
 these writers, although they made great use of 
 the abstract ideas and speculations of the schools 
 which was particularly the case with Donne, 
 **f the most learned of the class yet by no means 
 rejected any object of similitude or illustration 
 
 t
 
 COWLEY. ci 
 
 that came in their way, whencesoever derived. 
 Tlie perpetual search after such objects was, 
 indeed, their distinguishing characteristic, as Dr. 
 Johnson has well observed ; while he has at the 
 same time fully remarked the baneful effect of 
 this propensity in precluding every natural senti- 
 ment or image which their subjects might have 
 suggested. In this enumeration of these poets, 
 it seems extraordinary that the name of Milton 
 should be inserted merely on account of his 
 sportive lines upon Hobson. The catalogue 
 might easily have been enlarged ; and even 
 Dryden might with justice have been included, 
 since he was long under the dominion of a 
 fondness for dazzling conceits and far-fetched 
 imagery. 
 
 In his defence of Cowley from the charge 
 brought against him by a rigid theologian, of 
 having published " A book of profane and lasci- >./ 
 ** vious verses," the critic appears to have been 
 somewhat swayed by that spirit of contradiction 
 which at times influenced his argumentation. 
 For he himself has afterwards censured the poet ^ 
 for a " light allusion to sacred things, by which * *
 
 cii GOWLEY. 
 
 ^* readers far short of sanctity are frequently 
 " offended, and which would not be borne in 
 " the present age." This, surely, is justifying 
 the epithet profane in the sense in which that 
 writer probably used it. It may be added, that 
 if the amorous poems of Cowley are too subtle 
 and ingenious to be inflammatory, they are by 
 no means free from licentious ideas and expres- 
 sions. 
 
 The sentence Dr. Johnson has pronounced 
 concerning the unfitness of scripture subjects 
 for poetical embellishment, on account of the 
 awe and submissive reverence with which the 
 sacred writings are perused, seems rather to be 
 dictated by the spirit of scrupulous and mistaken 
 piety, than by just and philosophical thinking. 
 It evidently adopts for its principle the notion of 
 the full and equal divine inspiration of every part 
 of the writings composing the canon of scrip- 
 ture, whether historical, preceptive, or prophetic ; 
 a notion which few men of learning and liberal 
 inquiry can now be supposed to hold. That all 
 curiosity respecting these topics is suppressed, 
 because there is already what is " sufficient for 

 
 COWLEY. clii 
 
 ** the purposes of religion," is surely a very 
 singular and narrow sentiment. Who would not 
 rejoice at the recovery of some of those histo- 
 rical records which are expressly mentioned as 
 containing at large, facts only given in abridg- 
 ment by the extant Jewish writers ? And what 
 reader of the Bible, not destitute of common 
 feeling, will concur in the critic's assertion, that 
 the effect of the theocratical system is to prevent 
 us from readily sympathising in the joys and 
 griefs of those who lived under it ? That mind 
 must indeed be strangely impressed with the 
 character of theocracy, which is rendered inca- 
 pable of being interested '^ by the a^ra/ circum- 
 stances in the adventures of Joseph or David. 
 That the intermixture of poetical fiction in such 
 narrations is a matter of much delicacy, will 
 readily be acknowledged ; since if the additions 
 are not perfectly conformable to the original 
 ground-work, they will prove offensive to those 
 who are firm believers in the authenticity and 
 importance of ,Jthe scriptural records. But there 
 seems no reason why the amplifications and or- 
 naments usual in sober epick poetry should not 
 be as admissible in a subject of Jewish history, 
 
 t %
 
 civ COWLEY. 
 
 as in one of any other. Dr. Johnson was not, 
 perhaps, aware at the time of writing, what a 
 sweeping clause in critical legislation he was 
 propounding, and how many fine works were 
 involved in his condemnation. The particular 
 merit of the " Davideis" is quite another conside- 
 . ration ; and it appears to have been estimated by 
 
 the critic with his' usual perspicacity. Cowley's 
 geijius was, indeed, altogether unsuitable to the 
 epick. His place is among the ingenious poets^ and 
 he may justly rank the first in his class. 
 
 %
 
 a 
 
 ELEGIA DEDICATORIA, 
 
 AD 
 
 ILLUSTRISSIMAM ACADEMIAM 
 CANTABRIGIENSEM. 
 
 Hoc tibi de nato, ditissima mater, egeno 
 
 Exiguum immensi pignus amoris habe. 
 Heu, meliora tibi depromere dona volentes 
 
 Astringit gratas parcior area manus. 
 Tune tui poteris vocem hic agnoscere nati 
 
 Tarn male formatam, dissimilemque tuae I 
 Tune hic materni vestigia sacra decoris, 
 
 Tu speculum poteris hic reperire tuum ? .^ 
 
 Post longum, dices, Coulci, sic mihi tempus ? ^^ 
 
 Sic mihi speranti, pei-fide, multa redis ? 
 Quae, dices, Sagae Lemuresque Deaeque, nocentes,, 
 
 Hunc mihi in infantis supposuere loco > 
 At tu, sancta parens, crudelis tu quoque, nati 
 
 Ne tractes dextra vulnera cruda mdi. 
 Ilei mihi, quid fato genetrix accedis iniquo I 
 
 Sit sors, sed non sis, ipsa, noverca mihi.
 
 2 - ELEGIA 
 
 Si mihi natali Musarum adolescere in arvo. 
 * Si bene dilecto luxuriare solo. 
 Si mihi de docta licuisset plenius unda 
 
 Haurire, ingentera si satiare sitim, 
 Non ego degeneri dubitabilis ore redirem. 
 
 Nee legeres nomen fusa rubor^ meum. 
 Scis bene, scis quae rae tempestas pubKca mundi 
 
 Raptatrix vestro sustulit e gremio. 
 Nee pede adhuc firmo, nee firmo dente, oegati 
 
 Poscentem querulo murmure lactis opem. 
 Sic quondam, aerium vento bellante per aequor. 
 
 Cum gravidum autumnum saeva flagellat hyems, 
 Immatura sua velluntur ab arbore poma, 
 
 Et vi victa cadunt ; arbor & ipsa gemit. 
 Nondum succus inest terrae generosus avitae, 
 
 Nondum sol roseo reddilur ore pater. 
 O mihi jucundum Grantae super omnia nomen ! 
 
 O penitus toto corde receptus amor ! 
 O pulchrae sine luxu aedes, vitaeque beatae, 
 ^plendida paupertas, ingenuusque, decor ! 
 Ochara ante alias, magnorum nomine regum 
 
 Digna domus ! Trini nomine digna Dei ! 
 O nimium Cereris cumulati munere campi, 
 
 Posthabitis Ennae quos colit ilia jugis ! 
 O saeri fontes '. & sacrae vatibus umbrae, 
 
 Quas recreant avium Pieridumque chori ! 
 O Camus ! Phoebo nullus quo gratior aranis ? 
 
 Amnibus auriferis invidiosus inops ! 
 
 .
 
 DEDICATORIA. : 
 
 Ah mihi si vestrae reddat bona gandia sedis, 
 
 Detque Deus docti posse (juiete frui ! 
 Qualis eram, cum me tranquilla mente sedentem 
 
 Vidisti in ripa. Came serene, tua ; 
 Mulcentem audisti puerili flumina cantu ; 
 
 lUe quidem immerito, sed tibi gratus erat. 
 Nam, memjni ripa cum tu dignatus utraque, 
 
 Dignatum est totum verba referre nemus. 
 Tunc liquidis tacitisque simul mea vita diebus, 
 
 Et similis vestrae Candida fluxit aquae. 
 At nunc ccenosae luces, atque obicc multo 
 
 Rumpitur aetatis turbidus ordo meae. 
 Quid mihi Sequana opus, Tamesisve aut Thybridis 
 unda ? 
 
 Tu potis es nostram tollere. Came, sitim. 
 Felix, qui nunquam plus uno viderit amne ! 
 
 Quique eadem Salicis littora more colit I 
 Felix, qui non tentatus sordescere mundus, 
 
 Et cui pauperies nota nitere potest ! 
 Tempore cui nuUo misera experientia constat,, - 
 
 Ut res humanas sentiat esse nihil ! "^ 
 
 At nos exemplis fortuna instruxit opimis, 
 
 Et documentorum satque superque dedit. 
 Cum capite avulsum diadema, infractaque sceptra. 
 
 Contusasque hominum sorte minante minas, 
 Parcarum ludos, & non tractabile fatum, 
 
 Et versas fundo vidimus orbis opes. 
 

 
 4 ELEGIA DEDICATORIA. 
 
 Quis potent fragilem post talia credere puppim 
 
 Infami scopulis naufragiisque mari ? 
 Tu quoque in hoc terrae tremuisti, Academia, motu, 
 
 (Nee fnistra) atque aedes contiemuere tuae : 
 Contremuere ipsae pacatse Palladis arces ; 
 
 Et timuit fulmen laurea sancta novum. 
 Ah quanquam iratum, pestem hanc avertere numen. 
 
 Nee saltern bellis ista licere, velit ! 
 Nos, tua progenies, pereamus ; & ecce, perimus ! 
 
 In nos jus habeat : jus habet omne malum, 
 Tu stab ills brevium genus immortale nepotum 
 
 Fundes j nee tibi mors ipsa superstes erit : 
 Semper plena manens uteri de fonte perenni 
 
 Formosas mittes ad mare mortis aquas. 
 6ic Venus huraana quondam, Dea saucia dextrS, 
 
 (Namque solent ipsis bella nocere Deis) 
 Imploravit opem superura, questusque cievit, 
 
 Tinxit adorandus Candida membra cruor. 
 Quid quereris ? contemne breves secura dolores; 
 
 Nam tibi ferre necem vulnera nulla valent.
 
 THE 
 
 AUTHOR'S PR^EFACE 
 
 TO 
 
 His EDITION IN FOLIO, \656. 
 
 At my return lately into England *, I met by 
 great accident (for such I account it to be, that any 
 copy of it should be extant any where so long, un- 
 less at his house who printed it) a book intituled, 
 " The Iron Age," and published under my name, 
 during the time of my absence. I wondered very 
 much how one who could be so foolish to write so 
 ill verses, should yet be so wise 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 bastard upon such a person, whose stock of re- 
 putation is, I fear, litde enough for maintenance of 
 his own numerous legitimate offspring of that kind. 
 It would have been much less injurious, if it had 
 pleased tlie author to put forth some of my writings 
 under his own name, rather than his own under 
 
 * In \656.
 
 6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 mine : he had been in that a more pardonable pla- 
 giary, and had done less wrong by robbery, than he 
 does by such a bounty j for nobody can be justified 
 by the imputation even of another's merit ; and our 
 own coarse cloaths are like to become us better than 
 those of another man, though never so rich : but 
 these, to say the truth, were so beggarly, that I my- 
 self was ashamed to wear them. It was in vain for 
 me, that I avoided censure by the concealment of my 
 own writings, if my reputation could be thus executed 
 in effigie ; and impossible it is for any good name to 
 be in safety, if the malice of witches have the power 
 to consume and destroy it in an image of their own 
 making. This indeed was so ill made, and so unlike, 
 that I hope the charm took no effect. So that I 
 esteem myself less prejudiced by it, than by that 
 which has been done to me since, almost in the same 
 kind 3 which is, the publication of some things of 
 mine without my consent or knowledge, and those so 
 mangled and imperfect, that I could neither with 
 honour acknowledge, nor with honesty quite disa- 
 vow them. 
 
 Of which sort, was a comedy called " The Guar- 
 dian," printed in tlie year 1650; but made and 
 acted before the Prince, in his passage through Cam- 
 bridge towards York, at the beginning of the late 
 unhappy war ; or rather neither made or acted, but 
 
 u
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE, 7 
 
 rough-drawn only, and repeated ; for the haste vrag 
 so great, tliat it could neither be revised or perfected 
 by the author, nor learned without book by the actors, 
 nor set forth in any measure tolerably by the officers 
 of the college. After the representation (which, I 
 confess, was somewhat of the latest) I began to look 
 it over, and changed it very much, striking out some 
 whole parts, as that of the poet and the soldier j but 
 I have lost the copy, and dare not think it deserves 
 the pains to write it again, which makes me omit it 
 in this publication, though there be some things in it 
 which I am not ashamed of, taking the excuse of my 
 age and small experience in human conversation when 
 I made it. But, as it is, it is only tlie hasty first- 
 sitting of a picture, and therefore like to resemble 
 ine accordingly. 
 
 From this which has happened to myself, I began 
 to reflect on the fortune of almost all writers, and 
 especially poets, whose works (commonly printed 
 after their deaths) we find stuffed out, either with 
 counterfeit pieces, like false money put in to fill up 
 the bag, though it add nothing to the sum j or with 
 such, which, though of their own coin, they would 
 have called in themselves, for tJie baseness of the 
 allay : whether this proceed from tlie indiscretion of 
 their friends, who think a vast heap of stones or rub- 
 bish a better monument than a little tomb of marble ;
 
 8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 or by the unvi^orthy avarice of some stationers, who 
 are content to diminish the value of the author, so 
 they may increase the price of the book j and, like 
 vintners, with sophisticate mixtures, spoil the whole 
 vessel of wine, to make it yield, more profit. This 
 has been the case with Shakespeare, Fletcher, Jonson, 
 and many others ; part of whose poems I should take 
 the boldness to pnme and lop away, if the care of 
 Teplanting them in print did belong to me : neither 
 wovild I make any scruple to cut off from som the 
 unnecessary young suckers, and from others the old 
 withered branches ; for a great wit is no more tied to 
 live in a vast volume, than in a gigantic body } on the 
 contrary, it is commonly more vigorous, the less space 
 it animates, And, as Statins says of little Tydeus*, 
 
 " Totos infusa per artus 
 
 " Major in exiguo regnabat corpore virtus." 
 
 7 
 
 I am not ignorant, that, by saying this of others, I 
 expose myself to some raillery, for not using the 
 same severe discretion in my own case, where it con- 
 cerns me nearer : but though I publish here more 
 than in strict wisdom I ought to have done, yet I 
 have supprest and cast away more than I publish j 
 jmd, for the ease of myself and others, have lost, I 
 
 Stat. Theb. lib. i. 41 . 

 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. .9 
 
 believe too, more than both. And upon these con- 
 siderations I have been persuaded to overcome all the 
 just repugnances of my own modesty, and to pro- 
 duce these poems to the light and view of the world j 
 not as a thing that I approved of in itself, but as a 
 less evil, which I chose rather than to stay till it 
 were done for me by somebody else, either surrepti- 
 tiously before, or avowedly after, my death : and 
 this will be the more excusable, when the reader shall 
 know in what respects he may look upon me as a 
 dead, or at least a dying person, and upon my Muse 
 in this action, as appearing, like tlie emperor Charles 
 the fifth, and assisting at her own funeral. 
 
 For, to make mysfelf absolutely dead in a poetical 
 capacity, my resolution at present is, never to exercise 
 any more that faculty. It is, I confess, but seldom 
 seen that the poet dies before the man ; for, when 
 we once fall in love with that bewitching art, we do 
 not use to court it as a mistress, but marry it as a 
 wife, and take it for better or worse, as an insepa- 
 rable companion of our whole life. But, as tlie mar- 
 riages of infants do but rarely prosper, so no man 
 ought to wonder at tlie diminution or decay of my 
 affection to poesy; to which I had contracted myself 
 so much under age, and so much to my own preju- 
 
 VOL. I. J 
 
 l/'
 
 fO AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 dice in regard of those more profitable matches, 
 which I might have made among the richer sciences. 
 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 aere perennius ") that hardly 
 ever comes in whilst we are living to enjoy it> but is 
 a fantastical kind of reversion to our own selves : 
 neither ought any man to emy poets this posthumous 
 and imaginary happiness, since they find commonly 
 so little in present, that it may be truly applied to 
 them, which St. Paul speaks of the first Christians, 
 " If their reward be in this life, they are of all men 
 " the most miserable." 
 
 And, if in quiet and flourishing times they meet 
 with so small encouragement, what are they to expect 
 in rough and troubled ones ? If wit be such a plant, 
 tliat it scarce receives heat enough to preserve it alive 
 even in the summer of our cold climate, how can it 
 choose but wither in a long and a sharp winter ? A 
 warlike, various, and a tragical age is best to write of, 
 but worst to write in. And I may, though in a very 
 unequal proportion, assume that to myself, which was 
 spoken by TuUy to a much better j^rson, upon 
 occasion of the civil wars and revolutions in his time : 
 " Sedin te intuens. Brute, doleo: cujus in adolescen-
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 11 
 
 " tiam, per medias laudes, quasi cjuadrigis vehentem, 
 " transversa incurrit misera fortuna reipublicae *." 
 
 Neither is the present constitution of my mind 
 more proper than that of the times for this exercise, 
 or rather divertisement. There is nothing that re- 
 quires so much serenity and cheerfulness of spirit ; 
 it must not be either overwhelmed with the cares of 
 life, or overcast with the clouds of melancholy and 
 sorrow, or shaken and disturbed by the storms of in- 
 jurious fortune ; it must, like the halcyon, have fair 
 weatlier to breed in. The soul must be filled wiUi 
 bright and delightful ideas, when it undertakes to 
 communicate delight to others ; which is the main 
 end of poesy. One may see through the style of 
 Ovid de Trist. the humbled and dejected condition of 
 spirit with which he wrote it ; there scarce remains 
 any footstep of tliat genius> 
 
 " quem nee Jovis ira, nee ignesf, &:c. 
 
 The cold of the country had strucken through all his 
 faculties, and benumbed the very feet of his verses. 
 He is himself, methinks, like one of the stories of his 
 own Metamorphosis ; and, tliough there remain some 
 weak resemblances of Ovid at Rome, it is but^ as he 
 says of Niobe t, 
 
 * Cic. de Clnr. Orator. 331, f Metam. 1. xv. 871. 
 
 X Metam. 1. vi. 304.
 
 J2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 " In vultu color est sine sanguine : lumina mOEStis 
 " Stant immota genis : nihil est in imagine vivi. 
 " Ret tamen " 
 
 The truth is, for a man to write well, it is necessary 
 to be in good hvimour ; neither is wit less eclipsed 
 with the unquietness of mind, than beauty with the 
 indisposition of body. So that it is almost as hard a 
 thing to be a poet in despite of fortune, as it is in 
 despite of nature. For my own part, neither my 
 obligations to the Muses, nor expectations from them, 
 are so great, as that I should suffer myself on no 
 considerations to be divorced, or that I should say 
 like Horace*, 
 
 ** Quisquis erit vitae, scribam, color." 
 
 I shall rather use his words in another place f, 
 
 " Vixi Camenis nuper idoneus, 
 " Et militavi non sine gloria : 
 
 " Nunc arma, defunctumque bello 
 " Barbiton hie paries habebit." 
 
 And this resolution of mine does the more befit me, 
 because my desire has been for some years past (though 
 
 Hor. 2 Sat. i. 60. f 3 Carm. Ode xxvi. " Vixi puellis," &c.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 13 
 
 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 en- 
 rich myself with the traffic of those parts (which is the 
 end of most men tliat travel tliither ; so that of these 
 Indies it is truer than it was of the former, 
 
 " Impiger extremos currit mercator ad Indos, 
 " Per mare pauperiem fugiens *)" 
 
 but to forsake this world for ever, with all the vanities 
 and vexations of it, and to bury myself there in some 
 obscure retreat (but not without the consolation of let- 
 ters and philosophy) 
 
 " Oblitusque meorum, obliviscendus & illis f " 
 
 as my former author speaks too, who has enticed me 
 here, I know not how, into the pedantry of this heap 
 of Latin sentences. And I think Dr. Donne's Suii' 
 dt/al in a grave is not more useless and ridiculous, than 
 poetry would be in that retirement. As this tliere- 
 fore is in a true sense a kind of deatli to the Muses, 
 and a real literal quitting of this world j so, metliinks, 
 I may make a just claim to the undoubted privilege of 
 deceased poets, which is, to be read with more favour 
 than the living j 
 
 Hor. 1 Ep. i. 45. f Hor.' I Ep. xi. D.
 
 14 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 *' Tanti est ut placcam tibi, perire *." 
 
 Having been forced, for my own necessary justifica- 
 tion, to trouble the reader with this long discourse of 
 the reasons why I trouble him also witli all the rest of 
 the book ; I shall only add somewhat concerning the 
 several parts of it, and some other pieces, which I have 
 thought fit to reject in this publication : as, fiirst, all 
 those which I wrote at school, from the age of ten 
 years, till after fifteen j for even so far backward there 
 remain yet some traces of me in tlie little footsteps of a 
 child; which, though they were then looked up>on as 
 commendable extravagancies in a boy (men setting a 
 value upon any kind of fruit before the usual season of 
 it), yet I would be loth to be bound now to read them 
 all over myself j and therefore should do ill to expect 
 that patience from otliers. Besides, tliey have already 
 passed tlirough several editions, which is a longer life 
 than uses to be enjoyed by infants that are born before 
 the ordinary terms. They had the good fortune then 
 to find the world so indulgent (for, considering the 
 lime of their production, who could be so hard-hearted 
 to be severe ?) that I scarce yet apprehend so much to 
 be censured for them, as for not having made advances 
 afterwards proportionable to the speed of my setting 
 out j and am obliged too in a manner by discretion to 
 conceal and suppress them, as promises and instru- 
 
 * Martial, lib. viii. cp. 69.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 15 
 
 merits under my own hand, whereby I stood engaged 
 for more than I have been able to perform? in which 
 truly if I have failed, I have the real excuse of tlie 
 honestest sort of bankmpts, which is, to have been 
 made unsolvable not so much by their own negligence 
 and ill-husbandry, as by some notorious accidents and 
 public disasters. In the next place, I have cast away 
 all such pieces as I wrote during the time of tlie late 
 troubles, with any relation to the differences that 
 caused them ; as, among others, three books of tlie 
 civil war itself, reaching as far as the first battle of 
 Newbury, where the succeeding misfortunes of the 
 party stopped the work, 
 
 . As for the ensuing book, it consists of four parts. 
 The first is a Miscellany of several subjects, and some 
 of them made when I was very young, which it is per- 
 haps superfluous to tell the reader : I know not by 
 what chance I have kept copies of them ; for they are 
 but a very few in comparison of tliose which I have 
 lost ; and I tliink they have no extraordinary virtue in 
 them, to deserve more care in preservation than was 
 bestowed upon their brethren ; for which I am so little 
 concerned, that I am ashamed of the arrogancy of the 
 word, when I said I had lost them. 
 
 The second is called " The Mistress," or *' Love- 
 *' Verses j" for so it is, that poets are scarce thought
 
 10 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 freemen of their company, without paying someduties> 
 and obliging themselves to be true to love. Sooner or 
 later they must all pass through that trial, like some 
 Mahometan monks, that are bound by their order, 
 once at least in their life, to make a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca : 
 
 "In furias ignemque ruunt: amor omnibus idem*.'* 
 
 But we must not always make a judgment of their 
 manners from tlieir writings of this kind; as the Ro- 
 manists uncharitably do of Beza, for a few lascivious 
 sonnets composed by him in his youth. It is not in 
 this sense that poesy is said to be a kind of painting; 
 it IS not the picture of tlie poet, but of things and per- 
 sons imagined by him. He may be in his own prac- 
 tice and disposition a philosopher, nay a Stoic, and yet 
 speak sometimes with the softness of an araorom 
 Sappho, 
 
 " ferat & rubus asper amomumf." 
 
 He professes too much the use of fables (though with- 
 out tlie malice of deceiving) to have his testimony 
 taken even against himself. Neither would I here be 
 misunderstood, as if I aftected so much gravity as to 
 
 Virg. Gcorg. iii. 244. f Virg, Eel. iii. 89. ,
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 1/ 
 
 be ashamed to be thought really in love. On the con- 
 trary, I cannot have a good opinion of any man, who 
 is not at least capable of being so. But I speak it to 
 excuse some expressions (if such there be) which may 
 happen to offend the severity of supercilious readers : 
 for much excess is to be allowed in love, and even 
 more in poetry; so we avoid the two unpardonable 
 vices in both, which are obscenity and profaneness, of 
 which, I am sure, if my words be ever guilty, they 
 have ill represented my thoughts and intentions. And 
 if, notwithstanding all tliis, the lightness of the matter 
 here displease any body, he may find wherewitlial to 
 content his more serious inclinations in the weight and 
 height of the ensuing arguments. 
 
 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 poesy. They either are, 
 or at least were meant to be, of that kind of style 
 which Dion. Halicarnasseus calls Mi/iAo^s? kx) i^u 
 pra ^fwT>;Tej, and which he attributes to Alcaeus. The 
 digressions are many, and sudden, and sometimes 
 long, according to the fashion of all lyriques, and of 
 Pindar above all men living : the figures are unusual 
 and bold, even to temerity, and such as I durst not 
 have to do withal in any other kind of poetry: tlie
 
 18 AUTHOR'S . PREFACE. 
 
 numbers are various and irregular, and sometimes 
 (especially some of the long ones) seem harsh and un- 
 couth, if the just measures and cadences be not ob- 
 served in the pronunciation. So that almost all their 
 sweetness and numerosity (which is to be found, if I 
 mistake not, in the roughest, if rightly repeated) lies 
 in a manner wholly at tlie mercy of the reader. I have 
 briefly described the nature of these verses, in the Ode 
 intituled " The Resurrection :" and though the liberty 
 of them may incline a man to believe them easy to be 
 composed, yet tlie undertaker will find it otherwise 
 
 '^ Ut sibi quivis 
 *' Speret idem; sudet multum, frustraque laboret 
 " Ausus idem*." 
 
 I come now to the last part, which is " Davideis," 
 or an heroical poem of the troubles of David : which I 
 designed into twelve books ; not for the tribes' sake, 
 but after the pattern of our master Virgil ; and in- 
 tended to close all with that most poetical and excellent 
 elegy of David on the death of Saul and Jonathan : 
 for I had no mind to carry him quite on to his anoint- 
 ing at Hebron, because it is the custom of heroic poets 
 (as we see by the examples of Homer and Virgil, 
 whom we should do ill to forsake to imitate others) 
 
 * Hor. Ars. Poet. 240.
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 19 
 
 never to come to the full end of their story : but only 
 so near, that every one may see it ; as men commonly 
 play not out the game, when it is evident that they 
 can win it, but lay down their cards, and take up 
 what they have won. This, I say, was the whole 
 design : in which there are many noble and fertile ar- 
 guments behind ; as the barbarous cruelty of Saul to 
 the priests at Nob ; the several flights and escapes of 
 David, with the manner of his living in the Wilder- 
 ness ; the funeral of Samuel ) tlie love of Abigail ; 
 tlie sacking of Ziglag; the loss and recovery of David's 
 wives from the Amalekites ; the witch of Endor ; the 
 war with the Philistines ; and tlie battle of Gilboa : 
 all which I meant to interweave, upon several occa- 
 sions, with most of the illustrious stories of the Old 
 Testament, and to embellish with the most remark- 
 able antiquities of the Jews, and of otlier nations 
 before or at that age. 
 
 But I have had neither leisure hitherto, nor have ap- 
 petite at present, to finish the work, or so much as to 
 revise that part which is done, with that care which I 
 resolved to bestow upon it, and which the dignity of 
 the matter well deserves. For what worthier subject 
 could have been chosen, among all the treasuries of 
 past times, than the life of this young prince ; who, 
 from so small beginnings, through such infinite troubles 
 and oppositions, by such, miraculous virtues, and ex-
 
 20 AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 cellencies, and with such incomparable variety of won/- 
 derful actions and accidents, became the greatest mon- 
 arch that ever sat on the most famous throne of the 
 whole earth ? Whom should a poet more justly seek to 
 honour, than the highest person who ever honoured 
 his profession ? whom a Christian poet, rather than 
 the man after God's own heart, and the man who had 
 that sacred pre-eminence above all other princes, to 
 be the best and mightiest of that royal race from 
 whence Christ himself, according to the flesh, dis- 
 dained not to descend ? 
 
 When I consider this, and how many other bright 
 and magnificent subjects of the like nature the holy 
 Scripture affords and proffers, as it were, to poesy j in 
 the wise managing and illustrating whereof the glory 
 of Grt)d Almighty might be joined witli the singular 
 utility and noblest delight of mankind j it is not with- 
 out grief and indignation that I behold that divine 
 science employing all her inexhaustible riches of wit 
 and eloquence, either in the wicked and beggarly flat- 
 tery of great persons, or the unmanly idolizing of 
 foolish women, or the wretched affectation of scurril 
 laughter, or at best on the confused antiquated dreams 
 of senseless fables and metamorphoses. Amongst all 
 holy and consecrated things, which the devil ever stole 
 and alienated from the service of the Deity ; as altars, 
 temples, sacrifices, prayers, and the like 3 there is none
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. .51 
 
 that he so universally, and so long, usurped, as poetry. 
 It is time to recover it out of the tyrant's hands, and 
 to restore it to the kingdom of God, who is the father 
 oF it. It is time to baptize it in Jordan, for it will 
 never become clean by bathing in the water of Da-* 
 mascus. There wants, methinks, but the conversion 
 of that, and the Jews, for the accomplishment of the 
 kingdom of Christ, And as men, before their receiv- 
 ing of the faith, do not without some carnal reluctan- 
 cies apprehend the bonds and fetters of it, but find it; 
 afterwards to be the truest and greatest liberty : it will 
 fare no otherwise with this art, after the regeneration 
 of it; it will meet with wonderfbl variety of new, 
 more beautifiil, and more delightful objects ; neither 
 will it want room, by being confined to heaven. 
 
 There is not so great a lye to be found in any poet, 
 as the vulgar conceit of men, that lying is essential to 
 good poetry. Were there never so wholesome nourish- 
 ment to be had (but, alas ! it breeds nothing but dis- 
 eases) out of these boasted feasts of love and fables j 
 yet, metliinks, the unalterable continuance of the diet 
 should make us nauseate it : for it is almost impossible 
 to serve up any new dish of that kind. ..They are all 
 but the cold-meats of the ancients, new-heated, and 
 new set forth. I do not at all wonder that the old 
 poets made some rich crops out of tliese groimds j the 
 heart of the soil was not then wrought out with con-
 
 22 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 tinual tillage : but what can we expect now, who 
 come a-gleaning, not after the first reapers, but after 
 the very beggars ? Besides, though those mad stories 
 of the gods and heroes seem in themselves so ridicu 
 lous ; yet they were then the whole body (or rather 
 chaos) of the thet^ogy of those times. They were be- 
 lieved by all, but a few philosophers, and perhaps 
 some atheists ; and ser>'ed to good purpose among the 
 vulgar (as pitiful things as they are), in strengthening 
 the authority of law with the terrors of conscience, 
 and expectation of certain rewards and unavoidable 
 punishments. There was no other religion ; and there- 
 fore that was better than none at all. But to us, who 
 have no need of them } to us, who deride their folly, 
 and are wearied with their impertinencies j they ought 
 to appear no better arguments for verse, than those of 
 their worthy successors, the knights-errant. What 
 can we imagine more proper for the ornaments of wit 
 or learning in the story of Deucalion than in that of 
 Noah ? Why will not the actions of Sampson afford as 
 plentiful matter as the labours of Hercules ? Why is 
 not Jephtha's daughter as good a woman as Iphigenia ? 
 and the friendship of David and Jonathan more 
 worthy celebration than that of Theseus and Pirithous ? 
 Does not the passage of Moses and the Israelites into 
 the Holy Land yield incomparably more poetical va- 
 riety than the voyages of Ulysses or TEneas ? Are 
 the obsolete tlu-ead-bara tales of Thebes and Troy half
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 23 
 
 so stored with great, heroical, and supernatural actions 
 (since verse will needs find or make such), as the wars 
 of Joshua, of the Judges, of David, and divers others ? 
 Can all the transformations of the gods give such co- 
 pious hints to flourish and expatiate on, as the true 
 miracles of Christ, or of his prophets and apostles? 
 What do I instance in these few particulars ? All the 
 books of the Bible are either already most admirable 
 and exalted pieces of poesy, or are the best materials 
 in the world for it. 
 
 Yet, though they be in themselves so proper to be 
 made use of for this purpose ; none but a good artist 
 will know how to do it : neitlier must we think to cut 
 and polish diamonds with so little pains and skill as we 
 do marble. For, if any man design to compose a sa- 
 cred poem, by only turning a story of the Scripture, 
 like Mr. Quarles's, or some other godly matter, like 
 Mr, Heywood of angels, into rhyme ; he is so far from 
 elevating of poesy, that he only abases divinity. In 
 brief, he who can write a profane poem well, may 
 write a divine one better j but he who can do that but 
 ill, will do this much worse. The same fertility of 
 invention ; the same wisdom of disposition ; the same 
 judgment in observance of decencies j the same lustre 
 and vigour of elocution; the same modesty and ma- 
 jesty of number ; briefly, the same kind of habit, is 
 required to both: only this latter allows better stuff j
 
 24 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 nnd therefore would look more deformedly, ill drest 
 in it. I am far from assuming to myself to have ful- 
 filled the duty of this weighty undertaking : but sure 
 I am, there is nothing yet in our language (nor per- 
 haps in any) tliat is in any degree answerable to the 
 idea that I conceive of it. And I shall be ambitious 
 of no other fruit from this weak and imperfect attempt 
 of mine, but the opening of a way to the courage and 
 industry of some other persons, who may be better 
 able to perform it thoroughly and successfully.
 
 MISCELLANIES. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 THE MOTTO. 
 
 " Tentanda via est,- &c." 
 
 What shall I do to be for ever known, 
 
 And make the age to come my own ? 
 I shall, like beasts or common people, die, 
 
 Unless you write ray elegy ; 
 Whilst others great, by being born, are grown; 
 
 Their mothers' labour, not their own. 
 In this scale gold, in th' other fame does lie, 
 
 The weight of that mounts this so high. 
 These men are Fortune's jewels, moulded bright; 
 
 Brought forth with their own fire and light: 
 If I, her vulgar stone, for either look, 
 
 Out of myself it must be strook. 
 Yet I must on; What sound is't strikes mine ear? 
 
 Sure I Fame's trumpet hear : 
 It sounds like the last trumpet ; for it caij 
 
 Raise up the buried man. 
 Unpast Alps stop me; but I'll cut them all, 
 
 And march, the Muses' Hannibal. 
 Hence, all the flattering vanities that lay 
 
 Nets of roses in the way ! 
 Hence, the desire of honours or estate. 
 
 And all that is not above Fate ! 
 Hence, Love himself, that tyrant of my days ! 
 
 Which intercepts my coming praise.
 
 28 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Come, my best friends, my books ! and lead me on; 
 
 'T is time that I were gpne. 
 Welcome, great Stagyrite! and teach me now 
 
 All I was born to know : 
 Thy scholar's victories thou dost far out-do; 
 
 He conquer'd th'efirth, the whole world you. 
 Welcqmc, learn'd Cicero ! whose blest tongue and wit 
 
 Preserves Rome's greatness yet : 
 Thou art the first of Orators; only he 
 
 Who best can praise thee, next must be. 
 Welcome the jNIantuan swan, Virgil the wise ! 
 
 Whose verse walks highest, but not flies ; 
 Who brought green Poesy to her perfect age, 
 
 And made that Art which was a Rage. 
 Tell me, ye mighty Three ! what shall I do 
 
 To be like one of you ? 
 But you have climb'd the mountain's top, there sit 
 
 On the calm flourishing head of it, 
 And, whilst with wearied steps we upward go, 
 
 See us, and clouds, below. 
 
 ODE. 
 OF WIT. 
 
 Tell me, O tcll, what kind of thing is Wit, 
 
 Thou who master art of it ? 
 For the first matter loves variety less ; 
 Less women love't, either in love or dress.
 
 ODE. OF WIT. ,^9 
 
 A thousand difierent shapes it bears, 
 Comely in thousand shapes appears. 
 Yonder we saw it plain; and here 't is now, 
 Like spirits, in a place we know not how. 
 
 London, that vents of false ware so much store. 
 In no ware deceives us more; 
 
 For men, led by the colour and the shape, 
 
 Like Zeuxis' birds, fly to the painted grape. 
 
 Some things do through our judgment pass 
 As through a multiplying-glass ; 
 
 And sometimes, if the object be too far. 
 
 We take a falling meteor for a star. 
 
 Hence 't is a Wit, that greatest word of famc| 
 Grows such a common name; 
 
 And Wits by our creation they become, 
 
 Just so as titular bishops made at Rome, 
 "r is not a tale, 't is not a jest 
 Admir'd with laughter at a feast, 
 
 Nor florid talk, which can that title gain ; 
 
 The proofs of Wit for ever must remain. 
 
 'T is not to force some lifeless verses mefct 
 With their five gouty feet. 
 
 All, every-where, like man's, must be the soul. 
 
 And Reason the inferior powers control. 
 
 Such were the numbers which could call* 
 The stones into the Theban wall. 
 
 Such miracles arc ceas'd; and now we see 
 
 No^towns or houses rais'd by poetry.
 
 30 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part; 
 That shows more cost than art. 
 
 Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; 
 
 Rather than all things Wit, let none be there. 
 Several lights will not be seen, 
 If there be nothing else between. 
 
 Men doubt, because they stand so thick i'th'sky, 
 
 If those be stars which paint the Galaxy. 
 
 'Tis not when two like words make up one noise 
 
 (Jests for Dutch men and English boys)j 
 
 In which who finds out Wit, the same may see 
 
 In an'graras and acrostick poetry : 
 
 ISluch less can that have any place 
 At which a virgin hides her face ; 
 
 Such dross the fire must purge away: 't is just 
 
 The author blush there, where the reader must. 
 
 'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage 
 When Bajazet begins to rage ; 
 
 Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way ; 
 
 Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca; 
 Nor upon all things to obtrude 
 And force some odd similitude. 
 
 What is it then, which, like the Power Divine, 
 
 We only can by negatives define ? 
 
 In a true piece of Wit all things must be, 
 
 Yet all things there agree ; 
 As in the ark, join'd without force or strife. 
 All creatures dwelt ; all creatures that had life:
 
 TO LORD FALKLAND. 3i 
 
 Or, as the primitive forms orall 
 
 (If we compare great things with small) 
 
 Which, without discord or confusion, lie 
 
 In that strange mirror of the Deity. 
 
 But Love, that moulds one man up out of two, 
 
 Makes me forget, and injure you.: 
 I took you for myself, sure, when I thought 
 That you in any thing were to be taught. 
 Correct my error with thy pen ; 
 And, if any ask me then 
 What thing right Wit and height of Genius is, 
 I '11 only shew your lines, and say, 'T is this. 
 
 TO 'HiE LORD FALKLAND, 
 
 I'OR HIS SAFE RETURN FROM THE NORTHERN 
 EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SCOTS. 
 
 GllFAT is thy charge, O North! be wise and just, 
 
 England commits her Falkland to thy trust; 
 
 Return him safe; Learning would rather choose 
 
 Her Bodley or her Vatican to lose : 
 
 All things that are but writ or printed there, 
 
 In his unbounded breast engraven are. 
 
 There all the sciences together meet, 
 
 And every art does all her kindred greet,
 
 32 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Yet justle not, nor quarrel; but as well 
 
 Agree as in some common principle. 
 
 So, in an army govern'd right, we see 
 
 (Though out of several countries rais'd it be) 
 
 That all their order and their place maintain, 
 
 The English, Dutch, the Frenchman, and the Dane 
 
 So thousand divers species fill the air. 
 
 Yet neither crowd nor mix confus'dly there ; 
 
 Beasts, houses, trees, and men, together lie, 
 
 Y'^et enter undisturb'd into the eye. 
 
 And this great prince of knowledge is by Fate 
 Thrust into th' noise and business of a stale. 
 All virtues, and some customs of the court, 
 Other men's labour, are at least his sport ; 
 "Whilst we, who can no action undertake. 
 Whom idleness itself might learned make ; 
 Who hear of nothing, and as yet scarce know, 
 Whether the Scots in England be or no; 
 Pace dully on, oft tire, and often stay. 
 Yet see his nimble Pegasus fly away. 
 'T is Nature's fault, who did thus partial grow. 
 And her estate of wit on one bestow ; 
 Whilst we, like younger brothers, get at best 
 But a small stock, and must work out the rest. 
 How could he answer 't, should the state think fit 
 To question a monopoly of wit ? 
 
 Such is the man whom we require the same 
 We lent the North ; untouch'd, as is his fame. 
 He is too good for war, and ought to be 
 As far from danger, as from fear he 's free.
 
 SIR HlUNRY WOOTTON. 33 
 
 Tliose men alone (and those are useful too) 
 Whose valour is the only art they know, 
 Were for sad war and bloody battles born ; 
 Let them the state defend, and he adorn. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 SIR HENRY WOOTTON. 
 
 vATHAT shall we say, since silent now is he 
 Who when he spoke, all things would silent be ? 
 Who had so many languages in store, 
 That only fame shall speak of him in more; 
 Whom England now no more return'd must see; 
 He *s gone to heaven on his fourth embassy. 
 On earth he travell'd often ; not to say 
 H' had been abroad, or pass loose time away. 
 In whatsoever land he chanc'd to come, 
 He read the men and manners, bringing home 
 Their wisdom, learning, and their piety, 
 As if he went to conquer, not to see. 
 So well he understood the most and best 
 Of tongues, that Babel sent into the West ; 
 Spoke them so truly, that he had (you'd swear) 
 Not only liv'd, but been born every-where. 
 Justly each nation's speech to him was known. 
 Who for the world was made, not us alone ; 
 Nor ought the language of that man be less, 
 Who in his breast had all things to express*
 
 34 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 We -say that learning 's endless, and blame Fate 
 For not allowing life a longer date : 
 He did the utmost bounds of knowledge find, 
 He found them not so large as was his mind ; 
 But, like the brave Pellaean youth, did moan 
 Because that art had no more worlds than one ; 
 And, when he saw that he through all had past, 
 He dy'd, lest he should idle grow at last. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF 
 MR. JORDAN, 
 
 SECOND MASTER AT WESTMINSTER SCHOOL. 
 
 Hence, and make room for me, all you who come 
 Only to read the epitaph on this tomb ! 
 Here lies the master of my tender years, 
 The guardian of my parents' hope and fears ; 
 Whose government ne'er stood me in a tear ; 
 All weeping was reserv'd to spend it here. 
 Come hither, all who his rare virtues knew, 
 And mourn with me: he was your tutor too. 
 Let's join our sighs, till they fly far, and shew 
 His native Belgia what she's now to do. 
 The league of grief bids her with us lament ; 
 By her he was brought forth, and hither sent 
 In payment of all men we there had lost. 
 And all the English blood those wars have cost.
 
 ON MR. JORDAN. 35 
 
 Wisely did Nature this leam'd man divide ; 
 
 His birth was theirs, his death the mournful pride 
 
 Of England; and, t' avoid the envious strife 
 
 Of other lands, all Europe had his life, 
 
 But we in chief; our country soon was grown 
 
 A debtor more to him, than he to's own. 
 
 He pluckt from youth the follies and the crimes. 
 
 And built up men against the future times; 
 
 For deeds of age are in their causes then, 
 
 And though he taught but boys, he made the men. 
 
 Hence 't was a master, in those ancient days 
 
 When men sought knowledge first, and by it praise, 
 
 Was a thing full of reverence, profit, fame ; 
 
 Father itself was but a second name. 
 
 He scorn'd the profit; his instructions all 
 
 \Vere, like the science, free and liberal. 
 
 He deserv'd honours, but despis'd them too, 
 
 As much as those who have them others do. 
 
 He knew not that which compliment they call ; 
 
 Could Hatter none, but himself least of all. 
 
 So true, so faithful, and so just, as he 
 
 Was nought on earth but his own memory ; 
 
 His memory, where all things written were, 
 
 As sure and fixt as in Fate's books they are. 
 
 Thus he in arts so vast a treasure gain'd, 
 
 Whilst still the use came in, and stock remain'd : 
 
 And, having purchas'd all that man can know, 
 
 He labour'd with't to enrich others now; 
 
 Did thus a new and harder task sustain, 
 
 Like those that work in mines for others' gain :
 
 56 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 He, though more nobly, had much more to do, 
 To search the vein, dig, purge, and mint it too. 
 Though my excuse would be, I must confess. 
 Much better had his diligence been less; 
 But, if a Muse hereafter smile on me. 
 And say, "Be thou a poet !" men shall see 
 That none could a more grateful scholar have; 
 For what I ow'd his life I '11 pay his grave. 
 
 ox 
 HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN OUT OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 Welcome, great sir! with all the joy that's due 
 To the return of peace and you ; 
 
 Two greatest blessings which this age can know ! 
 
 For that to Thee, for thee to Heaven we owe. 
 Others by war their conquests gain, 
 
 You like a God your ends obtain ; 
 
 Who, when rude Chaos for his help did call. 
 
 Spoke but the word, and sweetly order'd all. 
 
 This happy concord in no blood is writ, 
 
 None can grudge Heaven full thanks for it: 
 No mothers here lament their children's fate. 
 And like the peace, but think it comes too late. 
 No widows hear the jocund bells. 
 And take them for their husbands' knells:
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RETURN. 37 
 
 No drop of blood is spilt, which might be said 
 To mark our joyful holiday with red. 
 
 'T was only Heaven could work this wondrous thing, 
 
 And only work 't by such a king. 
 Again the northern hinds may sing and plough, 
 And fear no harm but from the weather now ; 
 Again may tradesmen love their pain, 
 By knowing now for whom they gain ; 
 The armour now may be hung up to sight. 
 And only in their halls the children fright. 
 
 The gain of civil wars will not allow 
 Bay to the conqueror's brow: 
 At such a game what fool would venture in. 
 Where one must lose, yet neither side can win? 
 How justly would our neighbours smile 
 At these mad quarrels of our isle ; 
 Swell'd with proud hopes to snatch the whole away, 
 Whilst we bett all, and yet for nothing play ! 
 
 How was the silver Tine frighted before, 
 
 And durst not kiss the armed shore ! 
 
 His waters ran more swiftly than they use. 
 
 And hasted to the sea to tell the news : 
 The sea itself, how rough soe'er, 
 Could scarce believe such fury here. 
 
 How could the Scots and we be enemies grown ? 
 
 That, and its master Charles, had made us one.
 
 38 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 No blood so loud as that of civil war : 
 It calls for dangers from afar. 
 
 Let *s rather go and seek out them and fame ; 
 
 Thus our fore-fathers got, thus left, a name : 
 
 All their rich blood was spent with gains, 
 But that which swells their children's veins. 
 
 Why sit we still, our spirits wrapt in lead ? 
 
 Not like them whilst they liv'd, but now they 're dead. 
 
 The noise at home was but Fate's policy, 
 
 To raise our spirits more high : 
 So a bold lion, ere he seeks his prey. 
 Lashes his sides and roars, and then away. 
 
 How would the German Eagle fear 
 
 To see a new Gustavus there ! 
 How would it shake, though as't was wont to do 
 For Jove of old, it now bore thunder too ! 
 
 Sure there arc actions of this height and praise 
 Deslin'd to Charles's days! 
 
 What will the triumphs of his battles be, 
 
 Whose very peace itself is victory ! 
 
 When Heaven bestows the best of kings. 
 It bids us think of mighty things : 
 
 His valour, wisdom, offspring, speak no less ; 
 
 And we, the prophets' sons, write not by guess.
 
 C 39 3 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF 
 SIR ANTHONY VANDYKE, 
 
 THE FAMOUS PAINTER. 
 
 Vandyke is dead; but what bold Muse shall dare 
 (Though poets in that word with painters share) 
 T' express her sadness ? Poesy must become 
 An art like Painting here, an art that 's dumb. 
 Let's all our solemn grief in silence keep. 
 Like some sad picture which he made to weep, 
 Or those who saw 't; for none his works could view 
 Unmov'd with the same passions which he drew. 
 His pieces so with their live objects strive, 
 That both or pictures seem, or both alive. 
 Nature herself, amaz'd, does doubting stand, 
 Which is her own and which the painter's hand; 
 And does attempt the like with less success. 
 When her own work in twins she would express. 
 His all-resembling pencil did out-pass 
 The mimic imagery of looking-glass. 
 Nor was his life less perfect than his art. 
 Nor was his hand less erring than his heart. 
 There was no false or fading colour there. 
 The figures sweet and well-proportion'd were. 
 Most other. men, set next to him in view, 
 Appear'd more shadows than the men he drevr.
 
 40 COWLEY'S POEMS'. 
 
 Thus still he liv'd, till Heav'n did for him call ; 
 Where reverend Luke salutes him first of all ; 
 Where he beholds new sights, divinely fair, 
 And could almost wish for his pencil there ; 
 Did he not gladly see how all things shine, 
 Wondrously painted in the Mind Divine, 
 Whilst he, for ever ravish'd with the show, 
 Scorns his own art, which we admire below. 
 
 Only his beauteous lady still he loves 
 (The love of heavenly objects Heaven improves) ; 
 He sees bright angels in pure beams appear, 
 And thinks on her he left so like them here. 
 And you, fair widow ! who stay here alive, 
 Since he so much rejoices, cease to grieve: 
 Your joys and griefs were wont the same to be ; 
 Begin not now, blest pair! to disagree. 
 No wonder death mov'd not his generous mind ; 
 You, and a new-born You, he left behind : 
 Ev'n Fate express'd his love to his dear wife, 
 And let him end your picture with his life. 
 
 PROMETHEUS ILL-PAINTED. 
 
 How wretched does Prometheus' state appear, 
 Whilst he his second misery suffers here ! 
 Draw him no more; lest, as he tortur'd stands. 
 He blame great Jove's less than the painter's hands.
 
 ODE. 41 
 
 It would the Vul^re's cruelty outgo, 
 
 If once again his liver thus should grow. 
 
 Pity hira, Jove ! and his bold theft allow ; 
 
 The flames he once stole from thee grant him now ! 
 
 ODE. 
 
 Here 's to thee, Dick; this whining love despise; 
 Pledge me, my friend; and drink till thou be'st wise. 
 
 It sparkles brighter far than she : 
 
 'T is pure and right, without deceit ; 
 
 And such no woman ere will be : 
 
 No ; they are all sophisticate. 
 
 With all thy servile pains what canst thou win, 
 
 But an ill-favour'd and uncleanly sin ? 
 
 A thing so vile, and so short-liv'd. 
 That Venus' joys, as well as she, 
 With rcasbn may be said to be 
 From the neglected foatn deriv'd. 
 
 Whom would that painted toy a beauty move ; 
 
 Whom would it e'er persuade to court and love ; 
 Could he a woman's heart have seen 
 (But, oh ! no light does thither come). 
 And view'd her per ectly within. 
 When he lay shbt up in her womb ?' 
 
 VOL. I. L '
 
 42 COWLEY'S POEM$. 
 
 Follies they have so numberless in store, 
 That only he who loves them can have more. 
 Neither their sighs nor tears are true j 
 Those idly blow, these idly fall. 
 Nothing like to ours at all : 
 But sighs and tears have sexes too. 
 
 Here's to thee again ; thy senseless sorrows drown; 
 Let the glass walk, till all things too go round ! 
 
 Again, till these two lights be four ; 
 
 No error here can dangerous prove : 
 
 Thy passion, man, deceiv'd thee more ; 
 
 None double see like men in love. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP IN ABSENCE. 
 
 When chance or cruel business parts us two, 
 What do our souls, I wonder, do ? 
 Whilst sleep does our dull bodies tie, 
 Methinks at home they should not stay, 
 Content with dreams, but boldly fly 
 
 Abroad, and meet each other half the way. 
 
 Sure they do meet, enjoy each other there. 
 And mix, I know not how nor where ! 
 Their friendly lights together twine. 
 Though we perceive 't not to be so ! 
 Like loving stars, which oft combine. 
 
 Yet not themselves their own conjunctions know.
 
 FRIENDSHIP IN ABSENCE. 48 
 
 *r were an ill world, I '11 swear, for every friend, 
 If distance could their union end : 
 But Love itself does far advance 
 Above the power of time and space ; 
 It scorns such outward circumstance, 
 
 His time 's for ever, every-whcre his place. 
 
 1 'm there with thee, yet here with me thou ait, 
 
 Lodg'd in each other's heart : 
 
 Miracles cease not yet in love. 
 
 When he his mighty power will try, 
 
 Absence itself does bounteous prove, 
 And strangely ev'n our presence multiply. 
 
 Pure is the flame of Friendship, and divine. 
 
 Like that which in Heaven's sun does shine : 
 
 He in the upper air and sky 
 
 Does no effects of heat bestow ; 
 
 But, as his beams the farther fly, 
 He begets warmth, life, beauty, here below. 
 
 Friendship is less apparent when too nigh, 
 Like objects if they touch the eye. 
 Less meritorious then is love ; 
 For when we friends together see 
 So much, so much both one do prove, 
 
 That their love then seems but self-love to be. 
 
 Each day think on me, and each day I shall 
 For thee make hours canonical.
 
 44 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 By every wind that comes this way, 
 Send me, at least, a sigh or two; 
 Such and so many I '11 repay. 
 As shall themselves make winds to get to you. 
 
 A thousand pretty ways we '11 think upon, 
 To mock our separation. 
 Alas ! ten thousand will not do : 
 My heart will thus no longer stay ; 
 No longer 't will be kept from you, 
 
 But knocks against the breast to get away. 
 
 And, when no art affords me help or ease, 
 
 I seek with verse my griefs t' appease ; 
 Just as a bird, that flies about 
 And beats itself against the cage, 
 Finding at last no passage out. 
 
 It sits and sings, and so o'ercomes its rage. 
 
 THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 
 
 UPON HIS ENLARGEMENT OUT OF THE TOWER. 
 
 Pardon, my lord, that I am come so late 
 T' express my joy for your return of fate ! 
 So, when injurious Chance did you deprive 
 Of liberty, at first I could not grieve ;
 
 TO THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN. 45 
 
 My thoughts awhile, like you, imprison'd lay ; 
 
 Great joys, as Well as sorrows, make a stay ; 
 
 They hinder one another in the crowd, 
 
 And none are heard, whilst all would speak aloud. 
 
 Should every man's officious gladness haste. 
 
 And be afraid to shew itself the last, 
 
 The throng of gratulations now would be 
 
 Another loss to you of liberty. 
 
 When of your freedom men the news did hear. 
 
 Where it was wish'd-for, that is every-where, 
 
 'T was like the speech which from your lips does fall; 
 
 As soon as it was heard, it ravish'd all. 
 
 So eloquent TuUy did from exile come ; 
 
 Thus long'd-for he return'd, and cherish'd Rome ; 
 
 Which could no more his tongue and counsels miss; 
 
 Rome, the world's head, was nothing without his. 
 
 Wrong to those sacred ashes I should do. 
 
 Should I compare any to him but you ; 
 
 You, to whom Art and Nature did dispense 
 
 The consulship of wit and eloquence. 
 
 Nor did your fate differ from his at all. 
 
 Because the doom of exile was his fall ; 
 
 For the whole world, without a native home. 
 
 Is nothing but a prison of larger room. 
 
 But like a melting woman suffer'd he, 
 
 He who before out-did humanity ; 
 
 Nor could his 5pirit constant and stedfast prove. 
 
 Whose art 't had been, and greatest end, to move. 
 
 You put ill-fortune in so good a dress, 
 
 That it out-shone other men's happiness :
 
 45 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Had your prosperity always clearly gone, 
 As your high merits would have led it on, 
 You 'ad half beon lost, and an example then 
 But for the happy the least part of men. 
 Your very sufi'erings did so graceful shew, 
 That some strait cnvy'd your affliction too ; 
 For a clear conscience and heroic mind 
 In ills their business and their glory find. 
 So, though less worthy stones are drown'd in night. 
 The faithful diamond keeps his native light, 
 And is oblig'd to darkness for a ray. 
 That would be more oppress'd than help'd by day. 
 Your soul then most shew'd her unconquer'd power, 
 Was stronger and more armed than the Tower. 
 Sure unkind Fate will tempt your spirit no more ; 
 Sh' has try'd her weakness and your strength before. 
 T' oppose him still, who once has conquer'd so, 
 Were now to be your rebel, not your foe ; 
 Fortune henceforth will more of providence have. 
 And rather be your friend than be your slave. 
 
 TO A LADY 
 
 WHO MADE POSIES FOR RINGS. 
 
 I LITFLE thought the time would ever be. 
 That I should wit in dwarfish posies see. 
 As all words in few letters live, 
 Thou to few words all sense dost give.
 
 TO A LADY. 47 
 
 *T was Nature taught you this rare art, 
 In such a little much to shew ; 
 Who, all the good she did impart 
 To womankind, epitomiz'd in you. 
 
 If, as the ancients did not doubt to sing. 
 The turning years be well compar'd to' a ring, 
 
 We'll write whate'er from you we hear; 
 
 For that 's the posy of the year. 
 
 This difference only will remain 
 
 That Time his former face does shew, 
 
 Winding into himself again ; 
 But your unweary'd wit is always new. 
 
 'Tis said that conjurers have an art found out 
 To carry spirits confin'd in rings about : 
 The wonder now will less appear. 
 When we behold your magic here. 
 You, by your rings, do prisoners take. 
 And chain them with your mystic spells, 
 And, the strong witchcraft full to make. 
 Love, the great devil, charm'd to those circles, dwells. 
 
 They who above do various circles find, 
 Say, like a ring th' Equator heaven does bind. 
 When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee 
 (Which then more Heaven than 't is will be), 
 'T is thou must write the posy there ; 
 For it wanteth one as yet. 
 Though the sun pass through 't twice a year; 
 The sun, who is esteem'd the god of wit,
 
 48 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Happy the hands which wear thy sacred rings, 
 They '11 teach those hands to write mysterious things. 
 
 Let other rings, with jewels bright, 
 
 Cast around their costly light ; 
 
 Let them want no noble stone, 
 
 By nature rich and art refin'd ; 
 
 Yet shall thy rings give place to none, 
 But only that which must thy marriage bind. 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE GUARDIAN : 
 
 BEFORE THE PRINCE. 
 
 Who says the times do learning disallow ? 
 
 'T is false; 'twas never honour'd so as now. 
 
 When you appear, great Prince ! our night is done; 
 
 You are our morning-star, and shall be' our sun. 
 
 But our scene 's London now ; and by the rout 
 
 We perish, if the Round-heads be about : 
 
 For now no ornament the head must wear, 
 
 No bays, no mitre, not so much as hair. 
 
 How can a play pass safely, when ye know 
 
 Cheapside-cross falls for making but a show ? 
 
 Our only hope is this, that it may be 
 
 A play may pass too, made extempore. 
 
 Though other arts poor antl neglected grow, 
 
 They '11 admit Poesy, which was always so. 
 
 But we contemn the fury of these days. 
 
 And scorn no less their censure than their praise ;
 
 THE EPILOGUE. 49 
 
 Our Muse, blest Prince ! does only' on you rely ; 
 Would gladly live, but not refuse to die. 
 Accept our hasty zeal ! a thing that's play'd 
 Ere 't is a play, and acted ere 'tis made. 
 Our ignorance, but. our duty too, we show ; 
 I would all ignorant people would do so ! 
 At other times expect our wit or art ; 
 This comedy is acted by the heart. 
 
 THE EPILOGUE. 
 
 The play, great Sir! is done; yet needs must fear, 
 Though you brought all your father's mercies here, 
 It may offend your Highness ; and we 'ave now 
 Three hours done treason here, for aught we know. 
 But power your grace can above Nature give, 
 It can give power to make abortives live ; 
 In which, if our bold wishes should be crost, 
 'T is but the life of one poor week 't has lost : 
 Though it should fall beneath your mortal scorn. 
 Scarce could it die more quipkly than 't was born.
 
 [ 50 ] 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 MR. WILLIAM HERVEY. 
 
 *' Immodicis brevis est cBtas, Sf rara senectus." Mart. 
 
 It was a dismal and a fearful night, ['ight, 
 
 Scarce could the morn drive on th' unwilling 
 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, o 
 Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here, o- 
 Thy end for ever, and my life, to moan i ^ 
 O, thou hast left me all alone ! %* 
 
 Thy soul and body, when Death's agony 
 Besicg'd around thy noble heart, 
 Did not with more reluctance part, 
 Than I, my dearest friend ! do part from thee* 
 
 My dearest friend, would I had dy'd 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.
 
 ON MR. HERVEY'S DEATH. 51 
 
 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 join'd our birth j 
 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 preferr'd to me ; 
 
 And ev'n in that we did agree, 
 For much above myself I lov'd them too. 
 
 Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights, 
 How oft unweary'd have we spent the nights, 
 Till the Ledaean stars, so fam'd for love, 
 
 Wonder'd 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 lov'd, 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, for ever fade; 
 Or your sad branches thicker join. 
 And into darkesome shades combine. 
 
 Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid i
 
 52 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Henceforth, no learned youths beneath you sing, 
 Till all the tuneful birds to' your boughs they bring ; 
 No tuneful birds play with their wonted chear, 
 
 And* call the learned youths to hear ; 
 No whistling winds through the glad branches fly: 
 
 But all, with sad solemnity, 
 
 Mute and unmoved 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 : 
 He lov'd 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 L a wreath of bays about my brow, 
 
 I should conteran'that flourishing honour 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 Phccbus griev'd, so much as I, 
 
 For him who first was made that moumful tree. 
 
 Large was his soul ; as large a soul as e'er 
 Submitted to inform a body here ; 
 High as the place 't was shortly' in heaven to have, 
 Biff low and humble as, his grave :
 
 ON MR. HERVEY'S DEATH. 53 
 
 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 scorn'd this busy world below, and all 
 That we, mistaken mortals ! pleasure call ; 
 Was fill'd 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 skilful youth discoursed or writ, 
 
 Still did the notions throng 
 
 About his eloquent tongue. 
 Nor could his ink flow faster than his Vfit. 
 
 So strong a wit did Nature to him firame. 
 As all things but his judgment overcame ; 
 His judgment like the heavenly moon did show^"-- 
 
 Tempering that mighty sea below. 
 Oh ! had he liv'd in Learning's world, what bound. 
 
 Would have been able to control 
 
 His over-powering soul ! 
 We 'ave lost ia him arts that not yet are found.
 
 54 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 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, 
 
 Retir'd, 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 
 .^s if wise Nature had made that her book. 
 
 So many virtues join'd 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 waj'. 
 
 With as much zeal, devotion, piety, 
 He always liv'd, as other saints do die. 
 Still with his soul severe account he kept. 
 
 Weeping 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 snatch'd hence ere better understood ? 
 Snatch'd before half of thee enough was seen ! 
 Thou ripe, and yet thy life but green !
 
 ON JNIR. HERVEY'S DEATH. 55 
 
 Nor could thy friends take their last sad farewell ; 
 
 But danger and infectious death 
 
 Maliciously seiz'd on that breath 
 Where life, spirit, pleasure, always us'd to dwell. 
 
 But happy thou, ta'cn from this frantic agC, 
 
 Where ignorance and hypocrisy does rage ! 
 
 A fitter time for heaven no soul ere chose, 
 The place now only free from those. 
 
 There 'mong the blest thou dost for ever shine, 
 And, wheresoe'er thou casts'st thy view, 
 Upon that white and radiant crew, 
 
 See'st not a soul cloth'd 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 rarefy'd. 
 There, whilst immortal hymns thou dost rehearse, 
 
 Thou dost with holy pity see 
 
 Our dull and earthly poesy, 
 Where grief and misery can be join'd with verse.
 
 [ 56 ] 
 
 ODE. 
 IN IMITATION OK Horace's ode, 
 
 " Quis multd gracilis te pucr in rosd 
 
 *' Perfusus," SfC. Uh. I. Od. 5. 
 
 To whom now, Pyrrha, art thou kind ? 
 
 To what heart-ravish'd lover 
 Dost thou thy golden locks unbind, 
 
 Thy hidden sweets discover. 
 
 And with large bounty open set 
 All the bright stores of thy rich cabinet ? 
 
 Ah, simple youth ! how oft will he 
 
 Of thy chang'd faith complain ! 
 And his own fortunes find to be 
 
 So airy and so vain, 
 
 Of so cameleon-like an hue, 
 That still their colour changes with it too! 
 
 How oft, alas ! will he admire 
 
 The blackness of the skies ! 
 Trembling to hear the wind sound higher, 
 
 And see the billows rise ! 
 
 Poor unexperienc'd he. 
 Who ne'er, alas ! before had been at sea !
 
 IMITATION OF MARTIAL. 57 
 
 He' enjoys thy calmy sun-shine now, 
 
 And no breath stirring hears ; 
 In the clear heaven of thy brow 
 
 No smallest cloud appears. 
 
 He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay. 
 And trusts the faithless April of thy May. 
 
 Unhappy, thrice unhappy, he, 
 
 T' whom thou untry'd dost shine ! 
 
 But there 's no danger now for me, 
 Since o'er Loretto's shrine, 
 In witness of the shipwreck past 
 
 My consecrated vessel hangs at last. 
 
 IN IMITATION OF 
 
 MARTIAL'S EPIGRAM, 
 
 " Si tecum mihi, chare Martialis" &c. L. 5. Ep. 21. 
 
 If, dearest friend, it my good fate might be 
 T' enjoy at once a quiet life and thee ; 
 If we for happiness could leisure find, 
 And wandering time into a method bind ; 
 \V^e should not sure the great-men's favour need, 
 Nor on long hopes, the court's thin diet, feed,; 
 We should not patience find daily to hear 
 The calumnies and flatteries sppk^n there j 
 
 TOL. I. M
 
 58 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 We should not the lords' tables humbly use. 
 
 Or talk in ladies' chambers love and news ; 
 
 But books, and wise discourse, gardens and fields. 
 
 And all the joys that unmixt Nature yields; 
 
 Thick summer shades, where winter still does lie. 
 
 Bright winter fires, that summer's part supply ; 
 
 Sleep, not control'd by cares, confin'd to night. 
 
 Or bound in any rule but appetite ; 
 
 Free, but not savage or ungracious mirth. 
 
 Rich wines, to give it quick and easy birth ; 
 
 A few companions, which ourselves should chuse, 
 
 A gentle mistress, and a gentler Muse. 
 
 Such, dearest friend! such, without doubt, should be 
 
 Our place, our business, and our company. 
 
 Now to himself, alas ! does neither live, 
 
 But sees good suns, of which we are to give 
 
 A strict account, set and march thick away : 
 
 Knows a man how to live, and does he stay ? 
 
 THE CHRONICLE. 
 
 A BALLAD. 
 
 Margarita first possest. 
 
 If I remember well, my breast, 
 Margarita first of all ; 
 But when awhile the wanton maid 
 With my restless heart had play'd, 
 Martha took the flying ball.
 
 THE CHRONICLE. 59 
 
 Martha soon did it resign 
 
 To the beauteous Catharine. 
 
 Beauteous Catharine gave place 
 (Though loth and angry she to part 
 With the possession of my heart) 
 
 To Eliza's conquering face. 
 
 Eliza till this hour might reign, 
 
 Had she not evil counsels ta'en. 
 Fundamental laws she broke. 
 
 And still new favourites she chose, 
 
 Till up in arms my passions rose, 
 And cast away her yoke. 
 
 Mary then, and gentle Anne, 
 
 Both to reign at once began ; 
 Alternately they sway'd ; 
 And sometimes Mary was the fair, 
 And sometimes Anne the crown did wear, 
 And sometimes both I' obey'd. 
 
 Another Mary then arose. 
 
 And did rigorous laws impose ; 
 A mighty tyrant she ! 
 
 Long, alas ! should I have been 
 
 "Under that iron-scepter'd queen, , 
 Had not Rebecca set me free. 
 
 When fair Rebecca set me free, 
 
 'T was then a golden time with me : 
 But soon those pleasures fled ;
 
 60 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 For the gracious princess dy'd, 
 In her youth and beauty's pride, 
 
 And Judith reigned in her stead. 
 
 One month, three days, and half an hour, 
 Judith held the sovereign power : 
 Wondrous beautiful her face ! 
 
 But so weak and small her wit. 
 
 That she to govern was unfit, 
 
 And so Susanna took her place. 
 
 But when Isabella caftie, 
 
 Arm'd with a resistless flame. 
 And th' artillery of her eye ; 
 
 Whilst she proudly march'd about, 
 
 Greater conquests to find out, 
 
 She beat out Susjtn by the bye. 
 
 But in her place I then obey'd 
 
 Black-ey'd Bess, her viceroy-maid ; 
 
 To whom ensued a vacancy : 
 Thousand worse passions than possest 
 The interregnum of my breast ; 
 
 Bless me from such an anarchy ! 
 
 Gentle Henrietta then, 
 
 And a third Mary, next began ; 
 
 Then Joan, and Jane, and Audria; 
 And then a pretty Thomasine, 
 And then another Kathariije, 
 
 And then a long et catera.
 
 THE CHRONICLE. 61 
 
 But should I now to you relate, 
 
 The strength and riches of their state ; 
 
 The powder, patches, and the pins, 
 The ribbons, jewels, and the rings, 
 The lace, the paint, and warlike things, 
 
 That make up all their magazines ; 
 
 If I should tell the politic arts 
 
 To take and keep men's hearts ; 
 The letters, embassies, and spies, 
 
 The frowns, and smiles, and flatteries. 
 
 The quarrels, tears, and perjuries 
 
 (Numberless, nameless, mysteries !) 
 
 And all the little lime-twigs laid, 
 
 By Machiavel the waiting-maid ; 
 I more voluminous should grow 
 
 (Chiefly if I like them should tell 
 
 All change of weathers that befell) 
 Than Holinshed or Stow. 
 
 But I will briefer with them be, 
 
 Since few of them were long with me. 
 
 An higher and a nobler sti'ain 
 My present Emperess does claim, 
 Heleonora, first o* th' name ; 
 
 Whom God grant long to reign i
 
 [ 62 ] 
 
 TO 
 SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT, 
 
 UPON HIS TWO FIRST BOOKS OF GONDlfiERT, 
 FINISHED BEFORE HIS VOYAGE TO AMERICA. 
 
 MeTHINKS heroick poesy till now, 
 Like some fantastick fairy-land did show ; 
 Gods, devils, nymphs, witches, and giants' race, 
 And all but man, in man's chief work had place. 
 Thou, like some worthy knight with sacred arms, 
 Dost drive the monsters thence, and end the charms: 
 Instead of those dost men and manners plant, 
 The things which that rich soil did chiefly want. 
 Yet ev'n thy Mortals do their Gods excel, 
 Taught by thy Muse to fight and love so well. 
 
 By fatal hands whilst present empires fall, 
 Thine from the grave past monarchies recall ; 
 So much more thanks from human-kind does merit 
 The Poet's fury than the Zealot's spirit : 
 And from the grave thou mak'st this empire rise. 
 Not like some dreadful ghost, t' affright our eyes, 
 But with more lustre and triumphant state, 
 Than when it crown'd at proud Verona sate. 
 So will our God rebuild man's perish'd frame, 
 And raise him up much better, yet the same : 
 So God-like poets do past things rehearse. 
 Not change, but heighten, Nature by their verse. 
 
 With shame, methinks, great Italy must see 
 Her conquerors rais'd to life again by thee :
 
 ANSWER TO A COPY OF VERSES. 63 
 
 Rais'd by such powerful verse, that ancient Rome 
 IVIay blush no less to see her wit o'ercome. 
 Some men their fancies, like their faith, derive, 
 And think all ill but that which Rome does give ; 
 The marks of Old and Catholick would find ; 
 To the same chair would truth and fiction bind. 
 Thou in those beaten paths disdain'st to tread. 
 And scorn'st to live by robbing of the dead. 
 Since time does all thingschangc, thouthink'st not fit 
 This latter age should see all new but wit ; 
 Thy fancy, like a flame, its way does make, 
 And leave bright tracks for following pens to take.. 
 Sure 't was thivS noble boldness of the jNIuse 
 Did thy desire to seek new worlds infuse ; 
 And ne'er did Heaven so much a voyage bless, 
 If thou canst plant but there with like success. 
 
 AN ANSWER TO 
 A COPY OF VERSES 
 
 SENT ME TO JERSEY. 
 
 As to a northern people (whom the sun 
 Uses just as the Romish church has done 
 Her prophane laity, and does assign 
 Bread only both to serve for bread and wine) 
 A rich Canary fleet welcome arrives ; 
 Such comfort to us here your letter gives,
 
 64 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Fraught with brisk racy verses ; in which we 
 
 The soil from whence they came taste, smell, and 
 
 see : 
 Such is your present to us ; for you must know, 
 Sir, that verse does not in this island grow, 
 No more than sack : one lately did not fear 
 (Without the Muses' leave) to plant it here ; 
 But it produc'd such base, rough, crabbed, hedge- 
 Rhymes, as ev'n set the hearers' ears on edge : 
 
 Written by Esquire, the 
 
 Year of our Lord six hundred thirty-three. 
 
 Brave Jersey Muse ! and he 's for this high style 
 
 Call'd to this day the Homer of the Isle. 
 
 Alas ! to men here no words less hard be 
 
 To rhyme with, than * Mount Orgueil is to fne ; 
 
 Mount Orgueil ! which, in scorn o' th* Muses' law. 
 
 With no yoke-fellow word will deign to draw. 
 
 Stubborn Mount Orgueil ! 't is a work to make it 
 
 Come into rhyme, more hard than 't were to take it. 
 
 Alas ! to bring your tropes and figures here. 
 
 Strange as to bring camels and elephants were ; 
 
 And metaphor is so unknown a thing, 
 
 T would need the preface of " God save the King." 
 
 Yet this I '11 say, for th' honour of the place, 
 
 That, by God's extraordinary grace 
 
 (Which shows the people have judgment, if not wit) 
 
 The land is undefil'd with Clinches yet ; 
 
 Which, in my poor opinion, I confess, 
 
 Is a most singular blessing, and no less 
 
 The name of one of the castles in Jersey.
 
 THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 65 
 
 Than Ireland's wanting spiders. And, so far 
 From th' actual sin of bombast too they are, 
 (That other crying sin o' th' English Muse) 
 That even Satan himself can accuse 
 None here (no not so much as the divines) 
 For th' motus primo primi to strong lines. 
 Well, since the soil then does not naturally bear 
 Verse, who (a devil) should import it here ? 
 For that to me would seem as strange a thing 
 As who did first wild beasts into' islands bring j 
 Unless you think that it might taken be 
 As Green did Gondibert, in a prize at sea : 
 But that 's a fortune falls not every day ; 
 'T is true Green was made by it; for they say 
 The parliament did a noble bounty do, 
 And gave him the whole prize, their tenths and fif- 
 teens too. 
 
 THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 THAT THERE IS NO KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Against the Dogmatists. 
 
 The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew ; 
 
 The Phoenix truth did on it rest. 
 
 And built his perfum'd nest ; 
 That right Porphyrian tree which did true Logick 
 shew. 
 
 Each leaf did learned notions give, 
 
 And th' apples were demonstrative ;
 
 66 COVVLErs POEMS. 
 
 So clear their colour and divine, 
 The very shade they cast did other lights out-shine. 
 
 " Taste not, "said God; " 't is mine and angels' meat; 
 
 " A certain death doth sit, 
 
 " Like an ill worm, i' th* core of it. 
 ^' Ye cannot know and live, nor live or know and eat.'' 
 
 Thus spoke God, yet man did go 
 
 Ignorantly on to know ; 
 
 Grew so more blind, and she 
 Who tempted him to this, grew yet more blind than he. 
 
 The only science man by this did get, 
 
 Was but to know he nothing knew : 
 
 He strait his nakedness did view. 
 His ignorant poor estate, and wa* asham'd of it. 
 
 Yet searches probabilities. 
 
 And rhctorick, and fallacies. 
 
 And seeks by useless pride. 
 With slight and withe ring leaves that nakedness to hide. 
 
 " Henceforth," said God, "the wretched sons of earth 
 
 " Shall sweat for food in vain, 
 
 " That will not long sustain ; 
 " And bring with labour forth each fond abortive 
 birth. 
 
 " That serpent too, their pride, 
 
 " Which aims at things deny'd ; 
 
 ** That learn'd and eloquent lust ; 
 " Instead of mounting high, shall creep upon the 
 dust."
 
 i 67 ] 
 REASON, 
 
 THE USE OF IT IN DIVINE MATTERS. 
 
 Some blind themselves, 'cause possibly they may 
 
 Be led by others a right way ; 
 They build on sands, which if unmov'd they find, 
 
 'T is but because there was no wind. 
 Less hard 't is, not to err oureelves, than know 
 
 If our forefathers err'd or no. 
 When we trust men concerning God, wc then 
 
 Trust not God concerning men. 
 
 Visions and inspirations some expect 
 
 Their course here to direct ; 
 Like senseless chemists their own wealth destroy, 
 
 Imaginary gold t' enjoy : 
 So stars appear to drop to us from sky, 
 
 And gild the passage as they fly ; 
 But when they fall, and meetth' opposing ground, 
 
 What but a sordid slime is found ? 
 
 Sometimes their fancies they 'bove reason set. 
 
 And fast, that they may dream of meat ; 
 Sometimes ill spirits their sickly souls delude, 
 
 And bastard forms obtrude : 
 So Endor's wretched sorceress, although 
 
 She Saul through his disguise did know, 
 Yet, when the devil comes up disguis'd, she cries, 
 
 " Behold ! the Gods arise."
 
 68 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 In vain, alas ! these outward hopes are try'd ; 
 
 Reason within 's our only guide ; 
 Reason, which (God be prais'd !) still walks, for all 
 
 Its old original fall : 
 And, since itself the boundless Godhead join'd 
 
 With a reasonable mind, 
 It plainly shows that mysteries divine 
 
 May with our reason join. 
 
 The holy book, like the eighth sphere, does shine 
 
 With thousand lights of truth divine : 
 So numberless the stars, that to the eye 
 
 It makes but all one galaxy. 
 Yet Reason must assist too ; for, in seas 
 
 So vast and dangerous as these. 
 Our course by stars above we cannot know, 
 
 Without the compass too below. 
 
 Though Reason cannot through Faith's mysteries see. 
 
 It sees that there and such they be ; 
 Leads to heaven's door, and there does humbly keep. 
 
 And there through chinks and key-holes peep: 
 Though it, like Moses, by a sad command. 
 
 Must not come into th' Holy Land, 
 Yet thither it infallibly does guide. 
 
 And from afar 't is all descry'd.
 
 i 69 -] 
 
 ON THE 
 DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW. 
 
 Poet and Saim ! to thee alone are given 
 The two most sacred names of Earth and Heaven j 
 The hard and rarest union which can be, 
 Next that of Godhead with humanity. 
 Long did the Muses' banish'd slaves abide, 
 And built vain pyramids to mortal pride ; 
 Like Moses thou (though spells and charms with- 
 stand) 
 Hast brought them nobly home back to their holy 
 land. 
 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 purg'd 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 j
 
 70 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 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 employ 'd should be 
 On a less subject than eternity ; 
 And for a sacred mistress scorn'd to take. 
 But her whom God himself scorn'd 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 made thee render up thy tuneful breath 
 In thy great mistress' arras, 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 fam'd chapel there, 
 And bore the sacred load in triumph through the air: 
 'T is 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 cv'n in error sure no danger is, 
 W^hen join'd with so much piety as his. 
 
 * Mr. Crashaw died of a fever at Lorettp, being newly chosen 
 canon of that churcli.
 
 ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASH AW. 7l 
 
 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 Catholick 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 ! 
 Oppos'd by our old enemy, adverse Chance, 
 Attack'd by Envy and by Ignorance ; 
 Enchain'd by Beauty, tortur'd by Desires, 
 Expos'd 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 double be, 
 I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me : 
 And, when my Muse soars with so strong a wing, 
 'T will learn of things divine, and first of thee, to 
 sing.
 
 [ 7^ ] 
 ANACREONTIQUES: 
 
 SOME COPIES OF VERSES, 
 
 TRAr/sLATED PARAPHRASTICALL Y OUT OF ANACREOV. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 I XL sing of heroes and of kings, 
 In mighty numbers, mighty things. 
 Begin, my Muse! but lo! the strings 
 To my great song rebellious prove ; 
 The strings will sound of nought but love. 
 I broke them all, and put on new; 
 'T is this or nothing sure will do. 
 These sure (said I) will me obey; 
 These, sure, heroick notes will play. 
 Strait I began with thundering Jove, 
 And all th'immortal powers; but Love, 
 Love smil'd, and from my' enfeebled lyre 
 Came gentle airs, such as inspire 
 Melting love and soft desire. 
 Farewell then, heroes ! farewell, kings 1 
 And mighty numbers, mighty things ! 
 Love tunes my heart just to my strings. 
 
 } 
 
 }
 
 [ 73 ] 
 
 II. 
 
 DRINKING. 
 
 The thirsty earth soaks up the rain, 
 And drinks, and gapes for drink again. 
 The plants suck-in the earth, and are 
 With constant drinking fresh and fair ; 
 The sea itself (which one would think 
 Should have but little need of drink) 
 Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, 
 So fiU'd that they o'erflow the cup. 
 The busy sun (and one would guess 
 By 's drunken fiery face no less) 
 Drinks up th? sea, and, when he 'as done, 
 The moon and stars drink up the sun : 
 They drink and dance by their own light ; 
 They drink and revel all the night. 
 Nothing in nature 's sober found, 
 But an eternal health goes round. 
 Fill up the bowl then, fill it high, 
 Fill all the glasses there ; for why 
 Should every creature drink but I j 
 Why, man of morals, tell me why ? 
 
 TOL. I.
 
 74 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 III. 
 
 BEAUTY. 
 
 Liberal Nature did dispense 
 
 To all things arms for their defence ; 
 
 And some she arms with sinewy force, 
 
 And some with swiftness in the course ; 
 
 Some with hard hoofs or forked claws, 
 
 And some with horns or tusked jaws; 
 
 And some with scales, and some with wings, 
 
 And some with teeth, and some with stings. 
 
 Wisdom to man she did afford, 
 
 Wisdom for shield, and wit for sword. 
 
 What to beauteous womankind, 
 
 What arms, what armour, has she' assign'd ? 
 
 Beauty is both; for with the fair 
 
 What arms, what armour, can compare ? 
 
 What steel, what gold, or diamond. 
 
 More impassible is found ? 
 
 And yet what flame, what lightning, e'er 
 
 So great an active force did bear ? 
 
 They are all weapon, and they dart 
 
 Like porcupines from every part. 
 
 Who can, alas! their strength express, 
 
 Arm'd, when they themselves undress, 
 
 Cap-a-pie with nakedness ? 
 
 }
 
 [ 75 ] 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE DUEL. 
 
 1 ES, I will love then, I will love ; 
 
 I will not now Love's rebel prove, 
 
 Though I was once his enemy ; 
 
 Though ill-advis'd and stubborn I, 
 
 Did to the combat him defy. 
 
 An helmet, spear, and mighty shield. 
 
 Like some new Ajax, I did wield. 
 
 Love in one hand his bow did take, 
 
 In th' other hand a dart did shake ; 
 
 But yet in vain the dart did throw, 
 
 In vain he often drew the bow ; 
 
 So well my armour did resist, 
 
 So oft by flight the blow I mist: 
 
 But, \dien I thought all danger past. 
 
 His quiver empty'd quite at last, 
 
 Instead of arrow or of dart 
 
 He shot himself into my heart. 
 
 The living and the killing arrow 
 
 Ran through the skin, the flesh, the blood, 
 
 And broke the bones, and scorch'd the marrow, 
 
 No trench or work of life withstood. 
 
 In vain I now the walls maintain ; 
 
 I set out guards and scouts in vain ; 
 
 Since th'enemv does within remain.
 
 76 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 In vain a breast-plate now I wear, 
 Since in my breast the foe I bear ; 
 In vain my feet their swiftness try ; 
 For from the body can they fly ? 
 
 V. 
 
 AGE. 
 
 Oft am I by the women told, 
 Poor Anacreon ! thou grow'st old ; 
 Look how thy hairs are falling all ; 
 Poor Anacreon, how they fall ! 
 Whether I grow old or no, 
 By th' effects I do not know ; 
 This I know, without being told, 
 *T is time to live, if I grow old ; 
 'T is time short pleasures now to take, 
 Of little life the best to make. 
 And manage wisely the last stake. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE ACCOUNT. 
 
 When all the stars are by thee told 
 (The endless sums of heavenly gold) ; 
 Or when the hairs are reckon'd all. 
 From sickly autumn's bead that fall ; 
 
 }
 
 THE ACCOUNT. 17 
 
 Or when the drops that make the sea, 
 
 Whilst all her sands they counters be ; 
 
 Thou then, and thou alone, may'st prove 
 
 Th* arithmetician of my love. 
 
 An hundred loves at Athens score, 
 
 At Corinth write an hundred more: 
 
 Fair Corinth does such beauties bear, 
 
 So few, is an escaping there. 
 
 Write then at Chios seventy-three ; 
 
 Write then at Lesbos (let me see) 
 
 Write me at Lesbos ninety down, 
 
 Full ninety loves, and half a one. 
 
 And, next to these, let me present 
 
 The fair Ionian regiment ; 
 
 And next the Carian company ; 
 
 Five hundred both effectively. 
 
 Three hundred more at Rhodes and Crete ; 
 
 Three hundred 't is, I 'm sure, complete ; 
 
 For arms at Crete each face does bear, 
 
 And every eye's an archer there. 
 
 Go on : this stop why dost thou make ? 
 
 Thou think'st, perhaps, that I mistake. 
 
 Seems this to thee too great a sum ? 
 
 Why many thousands are to come ; 
 
 The mighty Xerxes could not boast 
 
 Such different nations in his host. 
 
 On ; for my love, if thou be'st weary, 
 
 Must find some better secretary. 
 
 I have not yet my Persian told. 
 
 Nor yet my Syrian loves enroU'd,
 
 75 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Nor Indian, nor Arabian ; 
 Nor Cyprian loves, nor African ; 
 Nor Scythian nor Italian flames ; 
 There 's a whole map behind of names 
 Of gentle loves i' th' temperate zone, 
 And cold ones in the frigid one, 
 Cold frozen loves, with which I pine. 
 And parched loves beneath the Line. 
 
 VII. 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 A MIGHTY pain to love it is, 
 And 't is a pain that pain to miss ; 
 But, of all pains, the greatest pain 
 It is to love, but love in vain. 
 Virtue now, nor noble blood. 
 Nor wit, by Love is understood ; 
 Gold alone does passion move, 
 Gold monopolizes love ; 
 A curse on her, and on the man 
 Who this traflick first began ! 
 A curse on him who found the ore ! 
 A curse on him who digg'd the store ! 
 A curse on him who did refine it ! 
 A curse on him who first did coin it ! 
 A curse, all curses else above, 
 On him who us'd it first in love ! 
 Gold begets in brethren hate ; 
 Gold in families debate ;
 
 THE EPICURE. 79 
 
 Gold does /riendships separate ; 
 Gold does civil wars create. 
 These the smallest harms of it ! 
 Gold, alas ! does love beget. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE EPICURE. 
 
 r ILL the bowl with rosy wine ! 
 Around our temples roses twine ! 
 And let us chearfully awhile, 
 Like the wine and roses, smile. 
 Crown'd with roses, we contemn 
 Gyges' wealthy diadem. 
 To-day is ours ; what do we fear ? 
 To-day is ours ; we have it here : 
 Let's treat it kindly, that it may 
 Wish, at least, with us to stay. 
 Let 's banish business, banish sorrow ; 
 To the Gods belongs to-morrow. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ANOTHER. 
 
 Underneath this myrtle shade, 
 On flowery beds supinely laid. 
 With odorous oils my head o'er-flowing, 
 And around it roses growing,
 
 so COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 What should I do but drink away 
 The heat and troubles of the day ? 
 In this more than kingly state 
 Love himself shall on me wait. 
 - Fill to me, Love, nay fill it up ; 
 And mingled cast into the cup 
 Wit, and mirth, and noble fires, 
 Vigorous health and gay desires. 
 The wheel of life no less will stay 
 In a smooth than rugged way : 
 Since it equally doth flee, 
 Let the motionpleasant be 
 . Why do we precious ointments shower ? 
 Nobler wines why do we pour i 
 Beauteous flowers why do we spread, 
 Upon the monuments of the dead i 
 Nothing they but dust can show, 
 Or bones that hasten to be so. 
 Crown me with roses whilst I live, 
 Now your wines and ointments give ; 
 After death I nothing crave. 
 Let me alive my pleasures have, 
 All are Stoicks in the grave. 
 
 }
 
 [ 81 ] 
 
 THE GRASSHOPPER. 
 
 Happy insect ! what can be 
 
 In happiness compar'd to thee ? 
 
 Fed with nourishment divine, 
 
 The dewy morning's gentle wine ! 
 
 Natare waits upon thee still, 
 
 And thy verdant cup does fill ; 
 
 'T is fill'd wherever thou dost tread, 
 
 Nature's self's thy Ganymede. 
 
 Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing; 
 
 Happier than the happiest king ! 
 
 All the fields which thou dost see, 
 
 All the plants, belong to thee ; 
 
 All that summer-hours produce, 
 
 Fertile made with early juice. 
 
 Man for thee does sow and plow ; 
 
 Farmer he, and landlord thou ! 
 
 Thou dost innocently joy; 
 
 Nor does thy luxury destroy ; 
 
 The shepherd gladly heareth thee. 
 
 More harmonious than he. 
 
 Thee country hinds with gladness bear, 
 
 Prophet of the ripen'd year ! 
 
 Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire ; 
 
 Phoebus is himself thy sire. 
 
 To thee, of all things upon earth, 
 
 Life is no longer than thy mirth.
 
 82 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Happy insect, happy thou ! 
 
 Dost neither age nor winter know ; 
 
 But, when thou'st drunk, and danc'd, and sung 
 
 Thy fill, the flowery leaves among 
 
 (Voluptuous, and wise withal, 
 
 Epicurean animal !) 
 
 Sated with thy summer feast, 
 
 Thou retir'st to endless rest. 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE SWALLOW. 
 
 Foolish prater, what dost thou 
 So early at my window do, 
 With thy tuneless serenade ? 
 Well 't had been had Tereus made 
 Thee as dumb as Philomel ; 
 There his knife had done but well. 
 In thy undiscover'd nest 
 Thou dost all the winter rest. 
 And dreamest o'er thy summer joys, 
 Free from the stormy seasons' noise : 
 Free from th'ill thou'st done to me; 
 Who disturbs or seeks-out thee ? 
 Hadst thou all the charming notes 
 Of the wood's poetic throats. 
 All thy art could never pay 
 What thou'st ta'en from me away. 
 Cruel bird ! thou'st ta'en away 
 A dream out of ray arms to-day ;
 
 ELEGY UPON ANACREON. 83 
 
 A dream, that ne'er must equall'd be 
 By all that waking eyes may see. 
 Thou, this damage to repair, 
 Nothing half so sweet or fair, 
 Nothing half so good, caijst bring. 
 Though men say thou bring'st the spring. 
 
 ELEGY UPON ANACREON, 
 
 WHO WAS CHOAKED BY A GKAP-STONE. 
 
 Spoken by the God of Love. 
 
 How shall I lament thine end, 
 
 My best servant, and my friend ? 
 
 Nay, and, if from a Deity 
 
 So much deified as I, 
 
 It sound not too profane and odd, 
 
 Oh, my master and my god ! 
 
 For 't is true, most mighty poet! 
 
 (Though I like not men should know it) 
 
 I am in naked nature less, 
 
 Less by much, than in thy dress. 
 
 All thy verse is softer far 
 
 Than the downy feathers are 
 
 Of my wings, or of my arrows, 
 
 Of my mother's doves or sparrows.
 
 84 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Sweet as lovers' freshest kisses, 
 
 Or their riper following blisses, 
 
 Graceful, cleanly, smooth, and round, 
 
 All with Venus' girdle bound ; 
 
 And thy life was all the while 
 
 Kind and gentle as thy style. 
 
 The smooth-pac'd hours of every day 
 
 Glided numerously away. 
 
 Like thy verse each hour did pass ; 
 
 Sweet and short, like that, it was. 
 
 Some do but their youth allow me, 
 Just what they by nature owe me. 
 The time that 's mine, and not their own, 
 The certain tribute of my crown : 
 When they grow old, they grow to be 
 Too busy, or too wise, for me. 
 Thou wert wiser, and didst know 
 None too wise for Love can grow ; 
 Love was with thy life entwin'd, 
 Close as heat with fire is join'd ; 
 A powerful brand prescrib'd the date 
 Of thine, like Meleager's, fate. 
 Th'antiperistasis of age 
 More enflam'd thy amorous rage; 
 Thy silver hairs yielded me more 
 Than even golden curls before. 
 
 Had I the power of creation, 
 As I have of generation, 
 Where I the matter must obey, 
 And cannot work plate out of clay,
 
 ELEGY UPON ANACREON. 83 
 
 My creatures should be all like thee, 
 
 'T is thou shouldst their idea be: 
 
 They, like thee, should throughly hate 
 
 Busmeisj^lionoiif, title, state; 
 
 Other wealth they should not know. 
 
 But what my living mines bestow ; 
 
 TKe pomp of kings, they should confess, 
 
 At their crownings, to be less 
 
 Than a lover's humblest guise, 
 
 When at his mistress' feet he lies. 
 
 Rumour they no more should mind 
 
 Than men safe-landed do the wind ; 
 
 Wisdom itselT the y should not hear, \ 
 
 When it presumes to be severe : \ 
 
 Beauty alone tHeyiKoulcTadmire, 
 
 Nor look at Fortune's vain attire, 
 
 Nor ask what parents it can shew ; 
 
 With dead or old 't has nought to do. 
 
 They should not love yet all or any. 
 
 But very much and very many : 
 
 All their life should gilded be 
 
 With mirth, and wit, and gaiety ; 
 
 Well remembering and applying 
 
 The necessity of dying. 
 
 Their chearful heads should always wear 
 
 All that crowns the flowery year : 
 
 They should always laugh, and sing, 
 
 And dance, and strike th' harmonious string ; 
 
 Verse should from their tongue so flow. 
 
 As if it in the mouth did grow,
 
 66 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 As swiftly answering their command, 
 As tunes obey the artful hand. 
 And whilst I do thus discover 
 Th' ingredients of a happy lover, 
 'T is, my Anacreon! fojthy^ake 
 I ofjh& ^rape no m entionmake. 
 Till my Anacreon by thee fell, 
 Cursed plant ! I lov'd thee well ; 
 And 't was oft my wanton use 
 To dip my arrows in thy juice. 
 Cursed plant ! 't is true, I see, 
 Th' old report that goes of thee 
 That, with giants' blood the earth 
 Stain'd and poison'd, gave thee birth ; 
 And now thou wreak'st thy ancient spite 
 On men in whom the gods delight. 
 Thy patron Bacchus, *t is no wonder. 
 Was brought forth in flames and thunder; 
 In rage, in quarrels, and in fights, 
 Worse than his tigers, he delights ; 
 In all our heaven I think there be 
 No such ill-natur'd God as he. 
 Thou pretendest, traiterous Wine ! 
 Tone the Muses' friend and mine : 
 Witli love and wit thou dost begin, 
 False fires, alas ! to draw us in ; 
 Which, if our course we by them keep, 
 ftlisguide to madness or to sleep : 
 Sleep were well ; thou 'ast learnt a way 
 To death itself now to betray.
 
 ELEGY UPON ANACREON. 87 
 
 It grieves me when I see what fate 
 Does on the best of mankind wait. 
 Poets or lovers let them be, 
 'T is neither love nor poesy 
 Can arm, against death's smallest dart, 
 The poet's head or lover's heart ; 
 But when their life, in its decline, 
 Touches th' inevitable line, 
 All the world 's mortal to them then. 
 And wine is aconite to men; o- ^c^'-'-';^- /^^ 
 Nay, in death's hand, the grape-stone proves 
 As strong as thunder is in Jove's.
 
 VERSES 
 
 ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS. 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 CHRIST'S PASSION, 
 
 TAKEN OUT OF A GREEK ODE, WRITTEN BY 
 MR. MASTERS, OF NEW-COLLEGE, IN OXFORD. 
 
 Enough, my Muse ! of earthly things, 
 And inspirations but of wind ; 
 
 Take up thy lute, and to it bind 
 
 Loud and everlasting strings ; 
 
 And on them play, and to them sing, 
 
 ITie happy mournful stories. 
 
 The lamentable glories. 
 
 Of the great crucified King. 
 Mountainous heap of wonders ! which dost rise 
 
 Till earth thou joinest with the skies ! 
 Too large at bottom, and at top too high. 
 
 To be half seen by mortal eye ! 
 
 How shall I grasp this boundless thing ? 
 
 What shall I play ? what shall I sing ? 
 I *11 sing the mighty riddle of mysterious love, 
 Which neither wretched men below, nor blessed 
 spirits above. 
 
 With all their comments can explain ; 
 How all the whole world's life to die did not disdain ! 
 
 y\\ sing the searchless depths of the compassion Divine, 
 The depths unfathom'd yet 
 By reason's plummet, and the line of wit ; 
 Too light the plummet, and too short the line !
 
 92 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 How the eternal Father did bestow 
 His own eternal Son as ransom for his foe, 
 I 'U sing aloud, that all the world may hear 
 The triumph of the buried Conqueror. 
 How hell was by its prisoner captive led, 
 And the great slayer, Death, slain by the dead, 
 
 Methinks I hear of murdered men the voice, 
 Mixt with the murderers' confused noise, 
 
 Sound from the top of Calvary ; 
 My greedy eyes fly up the hill, and see 
 Who 't is hangs there the midmost of the three ; 
 Oh, how unlike the others He ! 
 Look, howhebendshisgentle head with blessings from 
 the tree ! 
 His gracious hands, ne'er stretch'd but to do good, 
 Are nail'd to the infamous wood ; 
 And sinful man does fondly bind 
 The arms, which he extends t' embrace all human- 
 kind. 
 
 Unhappy man ! canst thou stand by and see 
 All this as patient as he ? 
 Since he thy sins does bear, 
 IVIake thou his sufferings thine own, 
 And weep, and sigh, and groan, 
 And beat thy breast, and tear 
 Thy garments and thy hair, 
 And let thy grief, and let thy love, 
 Through all thy bleeding bowels move.
 
 CilRISrS PASSION. 9S 
 
 Dost thou not see thy Prince in purple clad all o'er, 
 Not purple brought from the Sidonian shore, 
 
 But made at home with richer gore ? 
 Dost thou not see the roses which adorn 
 
 The thorny garland by him worn i 
 
 Dost thou not see the livid traces 
 
 Of the sharp scourges' rude embraces ? 
 
 If yet thou feelest not the smart 
 
 Of thorns and scourges in thy heart ; 
 
 If that be yet not crucify'd ; 
 Look on his hands, look on his feet, look on his side ! 
 
 Open, oh ! open wide the fountains of thine eyes. 
 And let them call 
 Their stock of moisture forth where'er it lies I 
 
 For this will ask it all. 
 'T would all, alas ! too little be. 
 Though thy salt tears come from a sea. 
 Canst thou deny him this, when he 
 Has open'd all his vital springs for thee ? 
 Take heed ; for by his side's mysterious flood 
 
 May well be understood. 
 That he will still require some waters to his blood 
 
 }
 
 ^ COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ODE 
 
 ON orinda's poems. 
 
 We allow'd you beauty, and we did submit 
 
 To all the tyrannies of it ; 
 Ah ! cruel sex, will you depose us too in wit ? 
 
 Orinda* does in that too reign ; 
 Does man behind her in proud triumph draw, 
 And cancel great Apollo's Salique law. 
 
 We our old title plead in vain, 
 Man may be head, but woman 's now the brain. 
 
 Verse was love's fire-arms heretofore. 
 
 In Beauty's camp it was not known ; 
 Too many arms besides that conqueror bore : 
 
 'T was the great cannon wB brought down 
 
 T' assault a stubborn town ; 
 Orinda first did a bold sally make, 
 
 Our strongest quarter take, 
 
 And so successful prov'd, that she 
 Tum'd upon Love himself his own artillery. 
 
 Woman, as if the body were their whole, 
 
 Did that, and not the soul, 
 
 Transmit to their posterity ; 
 
 If in it sometime they conceiv'd, 
 
 Th' abortive issue never liv'd. 
 *T were shame and pity', Orinda, if in thee 
 
 * Mrs. Catharine Philips. 
 
 }
 
 ON ORINDAS POEMS. 95 
 
 A spirit so rich, so noble, and so high, 
 Should unmanur'd or barren lie. 
 But thou imlustriously hast sow'd and till'd 
 
 The fair and fruitful field ; 
 And 't is a strange increase that it does yield. 
 As, when the happy Gods above 
 Meet altogether at a feast, 
 A secret joy unspeakable does move 
 In their great mother Cybele's contented breast : 
 With no less pleasure thou, methinks, should se 
 This thy no less immortal progeny ; 
 And in their birth thou no one touch dost find 
 Of th' ancient curse to woman-kind : 
 Thou bring'st not forth with pain ; 
 It neither travail is nor labour of the brain : 
 So easily they from thee come, 
 And there is so much room 
 In th' unexhausted and unfathom'd womb, 
 That, like the Holland Countess, thou may'st bear 
 A child for every day of all the fertile year. 
 
 Thou dost my wonder, wouldst my envy, raise, 
 If to be prais'd I lov'd more than to praise : 
 
 Where'er I see an excellence, 
 I must admire to see thy well-knit sense. 
 Thy numbers gentle, and thy fancies high ; 
 Those as thy forehead smooth, these sparkling as thine 
 eye. 
 'T is solid, and 't is manly all, 
 Or rather 't is angelical ;
 
 96 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 For, as in angels, we 
 Do in thy verses see 
 Both improv'd sexes eminently meet ; 
 They are than man more strong, and more than woman 
 sweet. 
 
 They talk of Nine, I know not who, 
 Female chimeras, that o'er poets reign ; 
 
 I ne'er could find that fancy true, 
 But have invok'd them oft, I 'm sure, in vain : 
 They talk of Sappho ; but, alas ! the shame ! 
 Ill-manners soil the lustre of her fame ; 
 Orinda's inward virtue is so bright, 
 That, like a lantern's fair inclosed light, 
 It through the paper shines where she does write. 
 Honour and friendship, and the generous scorn 
 
 Of things for which we were not born 
 (Things that can only by a fond disease. 
 Like that of girls, our vicious stomachs please) 
 Are the instructive subjects of her pen : 
 
 And, as the Roman victory 
 Taught our rude land arts and civility. 
 At once she overcomes, enslaves, and betters, men. 
 
 But Rome with all her arts could ne'er inspire 
 
 A female breast with such a fire : 
 
 The warlike Amazonian train. 
 Who in Elysium now do peaceful reign, 
 And Wit's mild empire before arms prefer, 
 Hope 't will be settled in their sex by her.
 
 ON LORD BROGHILL'S VERSES. 97 
 
 Merlin the seer (and sure he would not lye 
 In such a sacred company) 
 Docs prophecies of learn'd Orinda show, 
 Which he had darkly spoke so long ago ; 
 
 Ev'n Boadicia's angry ghost 
 Forgets her own misfortune and disgrace, 
 
 And to her injur'd daughters now does boast, 
 That Rome 's o'ercomc at last by a woman of her 
 race. 
 
 ODE 
 
 UPOX OCCASION OF A COPY OF VERSES OF 
 MY LORD BROGHILl's. 
 
 Be gone (said I), ingrateful Muse ! and see 
 What others thou canst fool, as well as me. 
 Since I grew man, and wiser ought to be, 
 IMy business and my hopes I left for thee : 
 For thee (which was more hardly given away) 
 
 I left, even when a boy, my play. 
 
 But say, ingrateful mistress ! say, 
 What for all this, what didst thou ever pay ? 
 
 Thou 'It say, perhaps, that riches arc 
 Not of the growth of lands where thou dost trade, 
 And I as well my country might upbraid 
 
 Because I have no vineyard there.
 
 flS COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Well : but in love thou dost pretend to reign ; 
 
 There thine the power and lordship is ; 
 Thou bad'st me write, and write, and write again ; 
 
 'T was such a way as could not miss. 
 
 I, like a fool, did thee obey : 
 I wrote, and wrote, but still I wrote in vain ; 
 For, after all my expence of wit and pain, 
 A rich, unwriting hand carried the prize away. 
 
 Thus I complain'd, and straight the Muse reply'd, 
 
 That she had given me fame. 
 Bounty immense ! and that too must be try'd 
 W^hen I myself am nothing but a name. 
 
 Who now, what reader does not strive 
 T' invalidate the gift whilst we 're alive ? 
 For, when a poet now himself doth show, 
 
 As if he were a common foe, 
 
 All draw upon him, all around. 
 
 And every part of him they wound, 
 Happy the man that gives the deepest blow : 
 And this is all, kind Muse T to thee we owe. 
 
 Then in rage I took, 
 
 And out at window threw, 
 Ovid and Horace, all the chiming crew; 
 
 Homer himself went with them too ; 
 Hardly escap'd the sacred Mantuan book : 
 I my own offspring, like Agave, tore, 
 And I resolv'd, nay, and I think I swore. 
 That I no more the ground would till and sow. 
 Where only flowery weeds instead of corn did grow.
 
 ON LORD BROGHILL'S VERSES. 99 
 
 When (see the subtle ways "which Fate does find 
 
 Rebellious man to bind 
 Just to the work for which he is assign'd !) 
 The Muse came in more cheerful than before, 
 And bade me quarrel with her now no more : 
 
 " Lo ! thy reward ! look here, and see 
 
 *' What I have made" (said she), 
 " My lover and bclov'd, my Broghill, do for thee ! 
 " Though thy own verse no lasting fame can give, 
 " Thou shalt at least in his for ever live. 
 ** What criticks, the great Hectors now in wit, 
 *' Who rant and challenge all men that have writ, 
 
 " Will dare t* oppose thee, when 
 " Broghill in thy defence has drawn his conquering 
 " pen ?" 
 
 I rose, and bow'd my head. 
 And pardon ask'd for all that I had said : 
 
 Well satisfy'd and proud, 
 I straight resolv'd, and solemnly I vow'd, 
 That from her service now I ne'er would part ; 
 So strongly large rewards work on a grateful heart ! 
 
 Nothing so soon the drooping spirits can raise 
 As praises from the men whom all men praise : 
 *T is the best cordial, and which only those 
 Who have at home th' ingredients can compose ; 
 A cordial that restores our fainting breath, 
 
 And keeps up life e'en after death ! 
 The only danger is, lest it should be 
 
 Too strong a remedy ;
 
 100 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Lest, in removing cold, it should beget 
 
 Too violent a heat ; 
 And into madness turn the lethargy. 
 
 Ah ! gracious God ! that I might see 
 A time when it were dangerous for me 
 
 To be o'er-heat with praise ! 
 But I within me bear, alas ! too great allays. 
 
 'T is said, Apelles, when he Venus drew, 
 Did naked women for his pattern view. 
 And with his powerful fancy did refine 
 Their human shapes into a form divine ; 
 None who had sat could her own picture see, 
 
 Or say, one part was drawn for me : 
 So, though this nobler painter, when he writ, 
 Was pleas'd to think it fit 
 That my book should before him sit. 
 Not as a cause, but an occasion, to his wit ; 
 Yet what have I to boast, or to apply 
 To my advantage out of it ; since I, 
 Instead of my own likeness, only find 
 The bright idea there of the great writer's mind i
 
 [ 101 ] 
 
 / 
 
 ODE. 
 MR. Cowley's book presenting itself to 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OF OXFORD. 
 
 Hail, Learning's Pantheon ! Hail, the sacred ark 
 Where all the world of science does embai'k ! [stood. 
 Which ever shall withstand, and hast so long with- 
 
 Insatiate Time's devouring flood. 
 Hail, tree of knowledge ! thy leaves fruit! which well 
 Dost in the midst of paradise arise, 
 
 Oxford ! the Muses' paradise, 
 From which may never sword the bless'd expel ! 
 Hail, bank of all past ages ! where they lie 
 T' enrich with interest posterity ! 
 
 Hail, Wit's illustrious Galaxy ! 
 Where thousand lights into one brightness spread j 
 Hail, living University of the dead ! 
 
 Unconfus'd Babel of all tongues ! which e'er 
 
 The mighty linguist Fame, or Time, the mighty tra- 
 
 That could speak, or this could hear, [veller, 
 Majestick monument and pyramid ! 
 Where still the shades of parted souls abide 
 F,mbalm'd in verse ; exalted souls which now 
 Enjoy those arts they woo'd so well below ; 
 
 Which now all wonders plainly see, 
 
 That have been, are, or are to be. 
 
 In the mysterious library. 
 The beatifick Bodlcy of the Deity ! . . . .
 
 102 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Will you into your sacred throng admit 
 
 The meanest British Wit ? 
 You, general-council of the priests of Fame, 
 
 Will you not murmur and disdain, 
 
 That I a place among you claim, 
 
 The humblest deacon of her train ? 
 Will you allow me th' honourable chain ? 
 
 The chain of ornament, which here 
 
 Your noble prisoners proudly wear ; 
 A chain which will more pleasant seem to me 
 Than all my own Pindarick liberty ! 
 Will ye to bind me with those mighty names submit, 
 
 Like an Apocrypha with holy Writ ? 
 Whatever happy book is chained here. 
 No other place or people need to fear ; 
 His chain 's a passport to go every-where. 
 
 } 
 
 As when a seat in heaven 
 Is to an unmalicious sinner given. 
 
 Who, casting round his wondering eye. 
 Does none but patriarchs and apostles there espy j 
 
 Martyrs who did their lives bestow. 
 
 And saints, who martyrs liv'd below ; 
 With trembling and amazement he begins 
 To recollect his frailties past and sins ; 
 
 He doubts almost his station there ; 
 His soul says to itself, " How came I here Y' 
 It fares no otherwise with me. 
 When I myself with conscious wonder see 
 Amidst this purify'd elected company. 
 
 }
 
 ON MR. COWLEY'S BOOK. 105 
 
 With hardship they, and pain, 
 
 Did to this happiness attain : 
 No labour I, nor merits, can pretend ; 
 J think predestination only was my friend. 
 
 Ah, that my author had been ty'd like me 
 To such a place and such a company ! 
 Instead of several countries, several men. 
 
 And business, which the Muses hate, 
 He might have then improv'd that small estate 
 Which Nature sparingly did to him give ; 
 
 He might perhaps have thriven then, 
 And settled upon me, his child, somewhat to live. 
 
 'T had happier been for him, as well as me ; 
 
 For when all, alas ! is done. 
 We books, I mean. You books, will prove to be 
 The best and noblest conversation : 
 
 For, though some errors will get in, 
 
 Like tinctures of original sin ; 
 
 Y'"et sure we from our fathers' wit 
 
 Draw all the strength and spirit of it, 
 Leaving the grosser parts for conversation. 
 As the best blood of man *s employ'd in generation.
 
 104 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 SITTING AND DRINKING IN THE CHAIR MADE 
 OUT OF THE RELICKS OF SIR FRANCIS DRAKe's 
 SHIP, 
 
 Cheer up, my mates, the wind does fairly blow, 
 
 Clap on more sail, and never spare ; 
 
 Farewell all lands, for now we are 
 
 In the wide sea of drink, and merrily we go. 
 Bless me, 't is hot! another bowl of wine, 
 
 And we shall cut the burning Line : 
 Hey, boys! she scuds away, and by my head I know 
 
 We round the world are sailing now. 
 What dull men are those that tarry at home. 
 When abroad they might wantonly roam, 
 
 And gain such experience, and spy too 
 
 Such countries and wonders, as I do ! 
 But pr'ythee, good pilot, take heed what you do, 
 
 And fail not to touch at Peru ! 
 
 With gold there the vessel we '11 store, 
 
 And never, and never be poor. 
 
 No, never be poor any more. 
 
 } 
 
 What do I mean ? What thoughts do me misguide ? 
 As well upon a staff may witches ride 
 
 Their fancy'd journeys in the air. 
 As I sail round the ocean in this chair ! 
 
 'T is true ; but yet this chair which here you see, 
 For ajl its quiet now, and gravity,
 
 ODE. 105 
 
 Has wander'd and has travell'd more 
 Than ever beast, or fish, or bird, or ever tree, before : 
 In every air and^every sea 't has been, ['t has seen, 
 'T has compass'd all the earth, and all the heavens 
 Let not the Pope's itself with this compare. 
 This is the only universal chair. 
 
 The pious wanderer's fleet, sav'd from the flame 
 (Which still the relicks did of Troy pursue. 
 
 And took them for its due), 
 A squadron of immortal nymphs became : 
 Still with their arms they row about the seas, 
 And still make new and greater voyages : 
 Nor has the first poetick ship of Greece 
 (Though now a star she so triumphant show, 
 And guide her sailing successors below, 
 Bright as her ancient freight the shining fleece) 
 Yet to this day a quiet harbour found ; 
 The tide of heaven still carries her around. 
 Only Drake's sacred vessel (which before 
 
 Had done and had seen more 
 
 Than those have done or seen, 
 Ev'n since they Goddesses and this a Star has been). 
 As a reward for all her labour past, 
 
 Is made the scat of rest at last. 
 
 Let the case now quite alter'd be. 
 And, as thou went'st abroad the world to see, 
 
 Let the world now come to see thee ! 
 The world will do 't ; for curiosity 
 l)oes, no less than devotion, pilgrims make ; 
 
 VOL. I. P
 
 100 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 And I myself, who now love quiet too, 
 As much almost as any chair can do, 
 
 Would yet a journey take, 
 An old wheel of that chariot to see. 
 
 Which Phaeton so rashly brake : [Drake ? 
 Yet what could that say more than these remains of 
 Great relick ! thou too, in this port of ease. 
 Hast still lone way of making voyages; 
 The breath of Fame, like an auspicious gale 
 
 (The great trade-wind which ne'er does fail) 
 Shall drive thee round the world, and thou shalt run 
 
 As long around it as the sun. 
 The streights of Time too narrow are for thee ; 
 Launch forth into an undiscover'd sea. 
 And steer the endless- course of vast Eternity ! 
 Take for thy sail this verse, and for thy pilot me ! 
 
 UPON THE DEATH OF 
 
 THE EARL OF BARCARRES. 
 
 'T IS folly all that can be said 
 By living mortals of th' immortal dead. 
 And I 'm afraid they laugh at the vain tears we shed. 
 'T is as if we, who stay behind 
 In expectation of the wind, 
 Should pity those who pass'd this streight before 
 
 And touch the universal shore. 
 Ah, happy man! who art to sail no more ! 
 
 }
 
 ON THE EARL OF BAECARRES. ICfT 
 
 And, if it seem'd ridiculous to grieve 
 
 Because our friends are newly come from sea, 
 Though ne'er so fair and calm it be ; 
 What would all sober men believe, 
 If they should hear us sighing say, 
 ** Balcarres, who but th' other day 
 
 *' Did all our love and our respect command ; 
 
 " At whose great parts we all amaz'd did stand 
 ** Is from a storm, alas ! cast suddenly on land ? 
 
 !} 
 
 If you will say Few persons upon earth 
 Did, more than he, deserve to have 
 A life exempt from fortune and the grave; 
 
 Whether you look upon his birth 
 And ancestors, whose fame 's so widely spread-^ 
 Bat ancestors, alas ! who long ago are dead 
 Or whether you consider more 
 The vast increase, as sure you ought, 
 Of honour by his labour bought. 
 And added to the former store : 
 All I can answer, is. That I allow 
 The privilege you plead for; and avow 
 That, as he well deserv'd, he doth enjoy it now. 
 
 J 
 
 Though God, for great and righteous ends. 
 Which his unerring Providence intends 
 Erroneous mankind should not understand, 
 Would not permit Balcarres' hand 
 (That once with so much industry and art 
 Had clos'd the gaping wounds of every part)
 
 108 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 To perfect his distracted nation's cure, 
 Or stop the fatal bondage 't was t' endure ; 
 Yet for his pains he soon did him remove, 
 
 From all th' oppression and the woe 
 
 Of his frail body's native soil below, 
 To his soul's true and peaceful country above : 
 So Godlike kings, for secret causes, known 
 
 Sometimes but to themselves alone. 
 One of their ablest ministers elect. 
 And send abroad to treaties which they' intend 
 
 Shall never take effect ; 
 But, though the treaty wants a happy end, 
 The happy agent wants not the reward, 
 For which he labour'd faithfully and hard ; 
 His just and righteous master calls him home, 
 And gives him, near himself, some honourable room. 
 
 Noble and great endeavours did he bring 
 To save his country, and restore his king ; 
 And, whilst the manly half of him (which those 
 Who know not Love, to be the whole suppose) 
 Perform'd all parts of virtue's vigorous life; 
 
 The beauteous half, his lovely wife, 
 Did all his labours and his cares divide; 
 Nor was a lame nor paralytic side : 
 In all the turns of human state. 
 And all th* unjust attacks of Fate, 
 She bore her share and portion still, 
 And would not suffer any to be ill. 
 Unfortunate for ever let me be. 
 If I believe that such was he,
 
 ON THE EARL OF BALCARRES. l^ 
 
 Whom, in the storms of bad success, 
 And all that Error calls unhappiness, 
 His virtue and his virtuous wife did still accompany \ 
 
 With these companions 't was not strange 
 
 That nothing could his temper change. 
 His own and country's union had not weight 
 
 Enough to crush his mighty mind I 
 He saw around the hurricanes of state, 
 Fixt as an island 'gainst the waves and wind. 
 
 Thus far the greedy sea may reach ; 
 
 All outward things are but the beach ; 
 A great man's soul it doth assault in vain ! 
 Their God himself the ocean doth restrain 
 
 With an imperceptible chain, 
 
 And bid it to go back again. 
 His wisdom, justice, and his piety, 
 His courage both to suffer and to die. 
 
 His virtues, and his lady too. 
 
 Were things celestial. And we see, 
 In spite of quarrelling philosophy, 
 
 How in this case 't is certain found. 
 That Heav'n stands still, and only earth goes round.
 
 110 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ODE. 
 
 UPON DR. HARVEY. 
 
 Coy Nature (which remain'd, though aged grown, 
 A beauteous virgin still, enjoy'd by none, 
 
 Nor seen unveil'd by any one), 
 When Harvey's violent passion she did see. 
 Began to tremble and to flee ; 
 Took sanctuary, like Daphne, in a tree: 
 There Daphne's lover stopp'd, and thought it much 
 
 The very leaves of her to touch : 
 But Harvey, our Apollo, stopp'd not so ; 
 Into the bark and root he after her did go ! 
 
 No smallest fibres of a plant. 
 For which the eye-beams' point doth sharpness want, 
 
 His passage after her withstood. 
 What should she do ? Through all the moving wood 
 Of lives endow'd with sense she took her flight ; 
 Harvey pursues, and keeps her still in sight. 
 But, as the deer, long-hunted, takes a flood, 
 She leap'd at last into the winding streams of blood; 
 Of man's masander all the purple reaches made. 
 
 Till at the heart she stay'd ; 
 
 Where turning head, and at a bay. 
 Thus by well-purged ears was she o'erheard to say: 
 
 " Here sure shall I be safe" (said she), 
 " None will be able sure to see
 
 UPON DR. HARVEY. Ill 
 
 ** This my retreat, but only He 
 " Who made both it and me. 
 " The heart of man what art can e'er reveal ? 
 " A wall impervious between 
 " Divides the very parts within, [ceal." 
 
 " And doth the heart of man ev'n from itself con- 
 She spoke : but, ere she was aware, 
 Harvey was with her there ; 
 And held this slippery Proteus in a chain. 
 Till all her mighty mysteries he descry'd ; 
 Which from his wit th'attempt before to hide 
 Was the first thing that Nature did in vain. 
 
 He the young practice of new life did see, 
 
 Whilst, to conceal its toilsome poverty, 
 It for a living wrought, both hard and privately. 
 
 Before the liver understood 
 
 The noble scarlet dye of blood ; 
 
 Before one drop was by it made. 
 Or brought into it, to set up the trade ; 
 Before the untaught heart began to beat 
 The tuneful march to vital heat ; 
 From all the souls that living buildings rear, 
 Whether imply'd for earth, or sea, or air ; 
 Whether it in the womb or egg be wrought ; 
 A strict account to him is hourly brought 
 
 How the great fabrick does proceed, 
 
 What time, and what materials, it does need : 
 He so exactly does the work survey, 
 As if he hir'd the workers by the day.
 
 112 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Thus Harvey sought for Truth in Truth's own book, 
 
 The creatures which by God himself was writ; 
 , And wisely thought 't was fit, 
 Not to read comments only upon it, 
 But on th' original itself to look. 
 JVIethinks in Art's great circle others stand 
 
 Lock'd-up together, hand in hand ; 
 
 Every one leads as he is led ; 
 
 The same bare path they tread, 
 And dance, like fairies, a fantastick round. 
 But neither change their motion nor their ground : 
 Had Harvey to this road confin'd his wit, [yet. 
 
 His noble circle of the blood had been untrodden 
 Great Doctor ! th'art of curing 's cur'd by thee ; 
 
 "We now thy patient, Physick, see 
 From all inveterate diseases free, 
 
 Purg'd of old errors by thy care. 
 New dieted, put forth to clearer air; 
 
 It now will strong and healthful prove; 
 Itself before lethargick lay, and could not move ! 
 
 These useful secrets to his pen we owe ! 
 And thousands more 't was ready to bestow; 
 Of which a barbarous war's unlearned rage 
 
 Has robb'd the ruin'd age : 
 O Cruel loss ! as if the golden fleece. 
 
 With so much cost and labour bought, 
 And from afar by a great hero brought. 
 
 Had sunk ev'n in the ports of Greece. 
 O cursed war ! who can forgive thee this ?
 
 ODE FROM CATULLUS. 113 
 
 Houses and towns may rise again ; 
 And ten times easier 't is 
 To rebuild Paul's, than any work of his : 
 That mighty task none but himself can do, 
 
 Nay, scarce himself too, now ; 
 For, though his wit the force of age withstand, 
 His body, alas! and time, it must command ; 
 And Nature now, so long by him surpass'd. 
 Will sure have her revenge on him at last. 
 
 ODE, 
 
 FROM CATULLUS. 
 
 ^CME and SEPTIMIUS. 
 
 Whilst on Septimius' panting breast 
 (Meaning nothing less than rest) 
 Acme lean'd her loving head. 
 Thus the pleas'd Septimius said : 
 
 My dearest Acme, if I be 
 
 Once alive, and love not thee 
 
 With a passion far above 
 
 All that e'er was called love ; 
 
 In a Libyan desert may 
 
 I become some lion's prey ; 
 
 Let him, Acme, let him tear 
 
 ISIy breast, when Acme is not there.
 
 114 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 The God of Love, who stood to hear hita 
 (The God of Love was always near him), 
 Pleas'd and tickled with the sound, 
 Sneez'd aloud ; and all around 
 The little Loves, that waited by, 
 Bow'd, and blest the augury. 
 Acme, enflam'd with what he said, 
 Rear'd her gently-bending head ; 
 And, her purple mouth with joy 
 Stretching to the delicious boy, 
 Twice (and twice could scarce suffice) 
 She kiss'd his drunken rolling eyes. 
 
 My little life, my all ! (said she) 
 
 So may we ever servants be 
 
 To this best God, and ne'er retain 
 
 Our hated liberty again ! 
 
 So may thy passion last for me. 
 
 As I a passion have for thee. 
 
 Greater and fiercer much than can 
 
 Be conceiv'd by thee a man ! 
 
 Into my marrow is it gone, 
 
 Fixt and settled in the bone ; 
 
 It reigns not only in my heart, 
 
 But runs, like life, through every part. 
 
 She spoke ; the God of Love aloud 
 
 Sneez'd again ; and all the crowd 
 
 Of little Loves, that waited by, 
 
 Bow'd, and blest the augury.
 
 ODE FJIOM CATULLUS. 115 
 
 This good omen thus from heaven 
 
 Like a happy signal given, 
 
 Their loves and lives (all four) embrace, 
 
 And hand in hand run all the race. 
 
 To poor Septimius (who did now 
 
 Nothing else but Acme grow) 
 
 Acme's bosom was alone 
 
 The whole world's imperial throne ; 
 
 And to faithful Acme's mind 
 
 Septimius was all human-kind. 
 
 If the Gods would please to be 
 But advis'd for once by me, 
 I 'd advise them, when they spy 
 Any illustrious piety, 
 To reward her, if it be she 
 To reward him, if it be he 
 With such a husband, such a wife ; 
 With Acme's and Septimius' life.
 
 116 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ODE 
 
 UPOK HIS majesty's RESTORATION AND 
 RETURN. 
 
 " -r-Quod optanti divum protnittere nemo 
 ' Auderet, volvenda dies, en, attulit ultra." 
 
 VIRG* 
 
 Now blessings on you all, ye peaceful stars, 
 Which meet at last so kindly, and dispense 
 Your universal gentle influence 
 To calm the stormy world, and still the rage of WM^! 
 
 Nor, whilst around the continent 
 Plenipotentiary beams ye sent, 
 
 Did your pacifick lights disdain 
 
 In their large treaty to contain 
 The world apart, o'er which do reign 
 Your seven fair brethren of great Charles's-wain ; 
 No star amongst ye all did, I believe, 
 
 Such vigorous assistance give. 
 
 As that which, thirty years ago, 
 
 At * Charles's birth, did, in despite 
 
 Of the proud sun's meridian light, 
 His future glories and this year foreshow. 
 
 The star that appeared at noon, the day of the king's birth, 
 just as the kiqg his father was riding to St. Paul's to give thanks 
 to God for that blessing.
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 1 17 
 
 No less effects than these we may 
 Be assur'd of from that powerful ray, 
 NVhich could outface the sun, and overcome the 
 day. 
 
 } 
 
 Auspicious star ! again arise. 
 And take thy noon-tide station in the skies. 
 
 Again all heaven prodigiously adorn ; 
 
 For, lo ! thy Charles again is bom. 
 
 He then was born with and to pain 1 
 
 With and to joy he 's born again. 
 
 And, wisely for this second birth, 
 
 By which thou certain wert to bless 
 The land with full and flourishing happiness, 
 
 Thou mad'st of that fair month thy choice, 
 
 In which heaven, air, and sea, and earth. 
 And all that 's in them, all, does smile and does re- 
 joice. 
 'T was a right season ; and the very ground 
 Ought with a face of paradise to be found, 
 
 Then, when we were to entertain 
 Felicity and innocence again. 
 
 Shall we again (good Heaven!) that blessed pair 
 
 behold, 
 Which the abused people fondly sold o 
 For the bright fruit of the forbidden tree, ' 
 
 By seeking all like Gods to be ? 
 Will Peace her halcyon nest venture to build 
 
 Upon a shore with shipwrecks fiU'd,
 
 118 COWLEY'S POEMS, 
 
 And trust that sea, where she can hardly say 
 She 'as known these twenty years one calmy day ? 
 
 Ah ! mild and gall-less dove, 
 Which dost the pure and candid dwellings love, 
 
 Canst thou in Albion still delight ? 
 
 Still canst thou think it vvhite i 
 Will ever fair Religion appear 
 In these deformed ruins ? will slie clear 
 Th' Augean stables of her churches here ? 
 
 Will Justice hazard to be seen 
 Where a High Court of Justice e'er has been ? 
 Will not the tragick scene, 
 And Bradshaw's bloody ghost, affright her there, 
 
 Her, who shall never fear ? 
 Then may Whitehall for Charles's seat be fit. 
 If Justice shall endure at Westminster to sit. 
 
 Of all, methinks, we least should see 
 The cheerful looks again of Liberty. 
 That name of Cromwell, which does freshly still 
 The curses of so many sufferers fill, 
 
 Is still enough to make her stay, 
 
 And jealous for a while remain, 
 Lest, as a tempest carried him away, 
 Some hurricane should bring him back again. 
 
 Or, she might justlier be afraid 
 Lest that great serpent, which was all a tail 
 (And in his poisonous folds whole nations prisoneiN 
 made), 
 
 Should a third time perhaps prevail
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 119 
 
 To join again, and with worse sting arise, 
 
 As it had done when cut in pieces twice. 
 Return, return, ye sacred Four ! 
 
 And dread your perish'd enemies no more. 
 Your fears are causeless all, and vain, 
 Whilst you return in Charles's train ; 
 
 For God does him, that he might you, restore, 
 
 Nor shall the world him only call 
 
 Defender of the faith, but of you all. 
 
 Along with you plenty and riches go, 
 
 With a full tide to every port they flow, 
 
 With a warm fruitful wind o'er all the country 
 
 blow. 
 Honour does as ye march her trumpet s6und, 
 
 The Arts encompass you around, 
 
 And, against all alarms of Fear, , 
 
 Safety itself brings up the rear ; 
 And, in the head of this angelick band, 
 Lo ! how the goodly Prince at last does stand 
 (O righteous God !) on his own happy land : 
 'T is happy now, which could with so much ease 
 Recover from so desperate a disease ; 
 
 A various complicated ill, 
 Whose every symptom was enough to kill" ; 
 In which one part of three phrensy possest. 
 
 And lethargy the rest : 
 'T is happy, which no bleeding does endure, 
 
 A surfeit of such blood to cure ; 
 
 'T is happy, which beholds the flame 
 In which by hostile hands it ought to burn. 
 
 I
 
 120 * COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Or that which, if from Heaven it came, 
 It did but well deserve, all into bonfire turn. 
 
 We fear'd (and almost touch'd the black degree 
 
 Of instant expectation) 
 
 That the three dreadful angels we. 
 Of famine, sword, and plague, should here establish'd 
 
 see 
 (God's great triumvirate of desolation !) 
 To scourge and to destroy the sinful nation. 
 Justly might Heaven Protectors such as those. 
 And such Committees for their Safety, impose 
 Upon a land which scarcely better chose. 
 
 We fear'd that the Fanatick war, 
 Which men against God's houses did declare. 
 Would from th' Almighty enemy bring down 
 
 A sure destruction on our own. 
 We read th' instructive histories which tell 
 Of all those endless mischiefs that befel 
 The sacred town which God had lov'd so well, 
 After that fatal curse had once been said, 
 " His blood be uponoursand on our children's head!" 
 We know, though there a greater blood was spilt, 
 
 'T was scarcely done with greater guilt. 
 We know those miseries did befal 
 Whilst they rebell'd against that Prince, whom all 
 The rest of mankind did the love and joy of man- 
 kind call. 
 
 Already was the shaken nation 
 Into a wild and deform'd chaos brought, 
 
 }
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 121 
 
 And it was hasting on (we thought) 
 Even to the last of ills annihilation : 
 When, in the midst of this confused night, 
 Lo ! the blest Spirit mov'd, and there was light; 
 For, in the glorious General's previous ray, 
 
 We saw a new-created day : 
 We by it saw, though yet in mists it shone. 
 The beauteous work of Order moving on. 
 Where are the men who bragg'd that God did bless^ 
 
 And with the marks of good success 
 Sign his allowance of their wickedness ? 
 Vain men! who thought the Divine Power to find / 
 In the fierce thunder and the violent wind : 
 
 God came not till the storm was past ; ' 
 
 In the still voice of Peace he came at last ! 
 The cruel business of destruction 
 May by the claws of the great fiend be done ; 
 Here, here we see th' Almightj''s hand indeed, 
 Both by the beauty of the work we see't, and by thO 
 speed. 
 
 He who had seen the noble British heir, 
 
 Even in that ill, disadvantageous light 
 
 With which misfortune strives t' abuse our sight 
 
 He who had seen him in his cloud so bright 
 
 He who had seen the double pair 
 Of brothers, heavenly good ! and sisters, heavenly 
 fair ! 
 
 Might have perceiv'd, methinks, with ease 
 (But wicked men see only what they please) 
 VOL. I. <i
 
 } 
 
 132 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 That God had no intent t' extinguish quite 
 
 The pious king's eclipsed right. 
 He who had seen how by the Power Divine 
 All the young branches of this royal line 
 Did in their fire, without consuming, shine 
 How through a rough Red-sea they had been led, 
 By wonders guarded, and by wonders fed 
 How many years of trouble and distress 
 They 'd wander'd in their fatal wilderness, 
 And yet did never murmur or repine ; 
 
 Might, methinks, plainly understand, 
 That, after all these conqucr'd trials past, 
 
 Th' Almighty mercy would at last 
 Conduct them with a strong unerring hand 
 
 To their own Promis'd Land : 
 
 For all the glories of the earth 
 
 Ought to be entail'd by right of birth ; 
 
 And all Heaven's blessings to come down 
 Upon his race, to whom alone was given 
 The double royalty of earth and heaven ; 
 Who crown'd the kingly with the martyrs' crown. 
 
 The martyrs' blood was said of old to be 
 
 The seed from whence the Church did grow. 
 
 The royal blood which dying Charles did sow 
 
 Becomes no less the seed of royalty : 
 "T was in dishonour sown ; 
 We find it now in glory grown, 
 
 The grave could but the dross of it devour ; 
 
 " 'T was sown in weakness, and 't is rais'd in power."
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 123 
 
 We now the question well decided see, 
 
 Which eastern Wits did once contest, 
 At the great Monarch's feast, 
 
 " Of all on earth what things the strongest be i^ 
 
 And some for women, some for wine, did plead ; 
 That is, for Folly and for Rage, 
 
 Two things ^vhich we have known indeed 
 Strong in this latter age ; 
 But, as 't is prov'd by Heaven, at length, 
 The King and Truth have greatest strength, 
 When they their sacred force unite, 
 And twine into one right : 
 
 No frantick commonwealths or tyrannies ; 
 No cheats, and perjuries, and lyes ; 
 No nets of human policies ; 
 
 No stores of arms or gold (though you could join 
 
 Those of Peru to the great London mine) ; 
 
 No towns ; no fleets by sea, or troops by land ; 
 
 No deeply-enlrench'd islands, can withstand, 
 Or any small resistance bring 
 
 Against the naked Truth and the unarmed King. 
 
 The foolish lights which travellers beguile 
 End the same night when they begin ; 
 
 No art so far can upon nature win 
 
 As e'er to put-out stars, or long keep meteors in. 
 
 Where 's now that Ignusfatuus, which ere-while 
 INIisled our wandering isle ? 
 Where 's the impostor Cromwell gone ? 
 
 Where 's now that Falling-star, his son ? 
 
 }
 
 124 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Where 's the large Comet now, whose raging 
 
 flame 
 So fatal to our monarchy became ; 
 Which o'er our heads in such proud horror stood, ' 
 Insatiate with our ruin and our blood ? 
 The fiery tail did to vast length extend ; 
 And twice for want of fuel did expire. 
 
 And twice renew'd the dismal fire : 
 Though long the tail, we saw at last its end. 
 
 The flames of one triumphant day, 
 
 Which, like an anti-comet here, 
 
 Did fatally to that appear. 
 
 For ever frighted it away : 
 Then did th' allotted hour of dawning right 
 
 First strike our ravish'd sight ; 
 Which malice or which art no more could stay, 
 Than witches' charms can a retardment bring 
 To the resuscitation of the day. 
 
 Or resurrection of the spring. 
 We welcome both, and with improv'd delight 
 Bless the preceding winter, and the night I 
 
 Man ought his future happiness to fear, 
 
 If he be always happy here 
 
 He wants the bleeding marks of grace. 
 The circumcision of the chosen race. 
 
 If no one part of him supplies 
 
 The duty of a sacrifice. 
 
 He is, we doubt, reserv'd intiro 
 
 As a whole victim for the fire.
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 125 
 
 } 
 
 Besides, ev'n in this world below. 
 
 To those who never did ill-fortune know, 
 The good does nauseous or insipid grow. 
 Consider man's whole life, and you '11 confess 
 The sharp ingredient of some bad success 
 Is that which gives the taste to all his happiness. 
 But the true method of felicity 
 Is, when the worst 
 
 Of human life is plac'd the first. 
 And when the child's correction proves to be 
 
 The cause of perfecting the man: 
 
 Let our weak days lead up the van ; 
 Iiet the brave Second and Triarian band 
 
 Firm against all impression stand : 
 
 The first we may defeated see ; 
 The virtue and the force of these are sure of victory. 
 
 Such are the years, great Charles ! which now we see 
 
 Begin their glorious march with thee : 
 Long may their march to heaven, and still tri- 
 umphant, be ! 
 
 Now thou art gotten once before, 
 Ill-fortune never shall o'ertake thee more. 
 To see 't again, and pleasure in it find. 
 
 Cast a disdainful look behind ; 
 Things which offend when present, and affright^ 
 In memory well-painted move delight. 
 
 Enjoy, then all thy' afflictions now 
 
 Thy royal father's came at last ; 
 
 Thy martyrdom 's already past : 
 
 And different crowns to both y,e owe. 
 
 }
 
 126 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 No gold did e'er the kingly temples bind, 
 
 Than thine more try'd and more refin'd. 
 As a choice medal for Heaven's treasury 
 God did stamp first upon one side of thee 
 The image of his suffering humanity : 
 On th' other side, turn'd now to sight, does shine 
 The glorioufj image of his power divine 1 
 
 } 
 
 So, when the wisest poets seek 
 
 In all their liveliest colours to set forth 
 
 A picture of heroic worth 
 (The pious Trojan or the prudent Greek) ; 
 They choose some comely prince of heavenly birth 
 
 (No proud gigantic son of earth, 
 Who strives t' usurp the gods' forbidden seat) ; 
 They feed him not with nectar, and the meat 
 
 That cannot without joy be eat ; 
 But,in the cold of want, and storms of adverse chance, 
 They harden his young virtue by degrees : 
 The beauteous drop first into ice does freeze, 
 And into solid crystal next advance* 
 His murder'd friends and kindred he does see, 
 
 And from his flaming country flee : 
 Much is he tost at sea, and much at land ; 
 Does long the force of angry gods withstand : 
 He does long troubles and long wars sustain, 
 
 Ere he his fatal birth-right gain. 
 
 With no less time or labour can 
 
 Destiny build up such a man. 
 
 Who 's with sufticient virtue fiU'd 
 
 His ruin'd country to rebuild.
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 127 
 
 Nor without cause are arms from Heaven 
 To such a hero by the poets given : 
 J>Jo human metal is of force t' oppose 
 
 So many and so violent blows. 
 
 Such was the helmet, breast-plate, shield, 
 
 Which Charles in all attacks did wield : 
 And all the weapons malice e'er could try, 
 Of all the several makes of wicked policy, 
 Against this armour struck, but at the stroke, 
 Like swords of ice, in thousand pieces broke. 
 To angels and their brethren spirits above. 
 No show on earth can sure so pleasant prove. 
 
 As when they great misfortunes see 
 
 With courage borne, and decency. 
 So were they borne when Worcester's dismal day 
 Did all the terrors of black Fate display ! 
 So were they borne when no disguises' cloud 
 
 His inward royalty could shrowd ; 
 And one of th' angels whom just God did send 
 
 To guard him in his noble flight 
 (A troop of angels did him then attend !) 
 Assur'd me in a vision th' other night. 
 That he (and who could better judge than he ?) 
 
 Did then more greatness in him Sjee, 
 
 More lustre and more majest)', 
 Than all his coronation-pomp can shew to human eye. 
 
 Him and his royal brothers when I saw 
 New marks of honour and of glory 
 From their affronts and sufferings draw. 
 
 And look like heavenly saints e'en in their purgatory ;
 
 128 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Methoughts I saw the three Judean Youths 
 (Three unhurt martyrs for the noblest truths J) 
 
 In the Chaldean furnace walk ; 
 How cheerfully and unconcern'd they talk ! 
 No hair is singe'd, no smallest beauty blasted ! 
 
 Like painted lamps they shine unwasted ! 
 The greedy fire itself dares not be fed 
 With the blest oil of an anointed head. 
 
 The honourable flame 
 (Which rather light we ought to name) 
 Does like a glory compass them around, 
 
 And their whole body 's crown'd. 
 What are those two bright creatures which we see 
 
 Walk with the royal Three 
 
 In the same ordeal fire, 
 
 And mutual joys inspire ? 
 
 Sure they the beauteous sisters are. 
 
 Who, whilst they seek to bear their share. 
 Will suffer no affliction to be there ! 
 Less favour to those Three of old was shown. 
 
 To solace with their company 
 The fiery trials of adversity ! 
 Two Angels join with these, the others had but one. 
 
 Come forth, come forth, ye men of God belov'd ! 
 
 And let the power now of that flame, 
 Which against you so impotent became, 
 
 On all your enemies be prov'd. 
 Come, mighty Charles ! desire of nations ! come; 
 
 Come, you triumphant exile ! home.
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 129 
 
 1 
 
 He 's come, he 's safe at shore ; I hear the noise 
 Of a whole land which does at once rejoice, 
 I hear th' united people's sacred voice. 
 
 The sea, which circles us around, 
 
 Ne'er sent to land so loud a sound ; 
 The mighty shout sends to the sea a gale. 
 
 And swells up every sail : 
 The bells and guns are scarcely heard at all ; 
 The artificial joy 's drown'd by the natural. 
 All England but one bonfire seems to be. 
 One ^tna shooting flames into the sea; 
 The starry worlds, which shine to us afar, 
 
 Take ours at this time for a star. 
 With wine all rooms, with wine the conduits, flow ; 
 And we, the priests of a poetic rage. 
 
 Wonder that in this golden age 
 
 The rivers too should not do so. 
 There is no Stoick, sure, who would not now 
 
 Ev'n some excess allow ; 
 And grant that one wild fit of cheerful folly 
 Should end our twenty years of dismal melancholy. 
 
 Where 's now the royal mother, where. 
 
 To take her mighty share 
 
 In this so ravishing sight, 
 And, with the part she takes, to add to the delight ? 
 
 Ah ! why art thou not here. 
 Thou always best, and now the happiest Queen ! 
 To see our joy, and with new joy be seen ?
 
 130 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 God has a bright example made of thee, 
 
 To shew that woman-kind may be 
 Above that sex which her superior seems. 
 In wisely managing the wide extremes 
 Of great affliction, great felicity. 
 How well those different virtues thee become, 
 Daughter of triumphs, wife of martyrdom ! 
 Thy princely mind with so much courage bore 
 Affliction, that it dares return no more ; 
 With so much goodness us'd felicity, 
 That it cannot refrain from coming back to thee 
 'T is come, and seen to-day in all its bravery ! 
 
 I 
 
 Who 's that heroic person leads it on. 
 
 And gives it like a glorious bride 
 
 (Richly adom'd with nuptial pride) 
 
 Into the hands now of thy son ? 
 *T is the good General, the man of praise. 
 
 Whom God at last, in gracious pity. 
 
 Did to th' enthralled nation raise, 
 
 Their great Zerubbabel to be ; 
 To loose the bonds of long captivity, 
 And to rebuild their temple and their city ! 
 For ever blest may he and his remain, 
 Who, with a vast, though less-appearing, gain, 
 Preferr'd the solid Great above the Vain, 
 And to the world this princely truth has shown 
 That more 't is to restore, than to usurp a crown ! 
 Thou worthiest person of the British story ! 
 
 (Though 't is not small the British glory)
 
 ON HIS MAJESTY'S RESTORATION. 131 
 
 Did I not know my humble verse must be 
 But ill-proportion'd to the height of thee, 
 
 Thou and the world should see 
 How much my Muse, the foe of flattery, 
 Does make true praise her labour and design ; 
 Ad Iliad or an iEneid should be thine. 
 
 And ill should we deserve this happy day, 
 
 If no acknowledgments we pay 
 
 To you, great patriots of the two 
 
 Most truly Other Houses now ; 
 Who have rcdeem'd from hatred and from shame 
 A Parliament's once venerable name ; 
 And now the title of a House restore. 
 To that which was but Slaughter-house before. 
 If my advice, ye worthies ! might be ta'en, 
 
 Within those reverend places, 
 
 Which now your living presence graces, 
 Your marble-statues always should remain, 
 To keep alive your useful memory. 
 And to your successors th' example be 
 Of truth, religion, reason, 103'alty : 
 
 For, though a firmly -settled peace 
 May shortly make your publick labours cease, 
 The grateful nation will with joy consent 
 
 That in this sense you should be said 
 (Though yet the name sounds with some dread) 
 To be the Long, the Endless, Parliament,
 
 132 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ON THE 
 
 -QUEEN'S REPAIRING SOMERSET-HOUSE. 
 
 WHEN God (the cause to me and men unknown) 
 Forsook the royal houses, and his own, 
 And both abandon'd to the common foe ; 
 How near to ruin did my glories go ! 
 Nothing remain'd t' adorn this princely place 
 Which covetous hands could take, or rude deface. 
 In all my rooms and galleries I found 
 The richest figures torn, and all around 
 Dismember'd statues of great heroes lay ; 
 Such Naseby's field seem'd on the fatal day ! 
 And me, when nought for robbery was left. 
 They starv'd to deaths the gasping walls were cleft. 
 The pillars sunk, the roofs above me wept, 
 No sign of spring, or joy, ray garden kept ; 
 Nothing was seen which could content the eye. 
 Till dead the impious tyrant here did lie. 
 
 See how my face is chang'd ! and what I am 
 Since my true mistress, and now foundress, came I 
 It does not fill her bounty to restore 
 Me as I was (nor was I small before) : 
 She imitates the kindness to her shown; 
 She does, like Heaven (which the dejected throne 
 At once restores, fixes, and higher rears), 
 Strengthen, enlarge, exalt, what she repairs.
 
 ON REPAIRING SOMERSET-HOUSE. 133 
 
 Aixl now I dare (though proud I must not be, 
 M'hilst my great mistress I so humble see 
 In all her various glories) now I dare 
 Ev'n with the proudest palaces compare. 
 My beauty and convenience will, I 'm sure, 
 So just a boast with modesty endure ; 
 And all must to me yield, when I shall tell 
 How I am plac'd, and who does in me dwell. 
 
 Befbre my gate a street's broad channel goes, 
 Which still with waves of crowding people flows; 
 And every day there passes by my side, 
 Up to its western reach, the London tide. 
 The spring-tides of the term ; my front looks down 
 On all the pride and business of the town j 
 JNIy other front (for, as in kings we see 
 The liveliest image of the Deity, 
 We in their houses should heaven's likeness find. 
 Where nothing can be said to be Behind) 
 My other fair and more majestic face 
 (Who can the fair to more advantage place ?) 
 For ever gazes on itself below, 
 In the best mirror that the world can show. 
 
 And here behold, in a long bending row, 
 How two joint-cities make one glorious bow ! 
 The midst, the noblest place, possest by me, 
 Best to be seen by all, and all o'er-see ! 
 Which way soe'er I turn my joyful eye. 
 Here the great court, there the rich town, I spy ; 
 On either side dwells safety and delight ; 
 Wealth on the left, and power upon the right*
 
 134 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 T' assure yet my defence, on either hand, 
 
 Like mighty forts, in equal distance stand 
 
 Two of the best and stateliest piles which e'er 
 
 Man's liberal piety of old did rear ; 
 
 Where the two princes of th' Apostles' band, 
 
 My neighbours and my guards, watch and command. 
 
 My warlike guard of ships, which farther lie. 
 Might be ray object too, were not the eye 
 Stopt by the houses of that wondrous street 
 Which rides o'er the broad river like a fleet. 
 The stream's eternal siege they fixt abide, 
 And the swoln stream's auxiliary tide. 
 Though both their ruin with joint power conspire ; 
 Both to out-brave, they nothing dread but fire. 
 And here my Thames, though it more gentle be 
 Than any flood so strengthen'd by the sea, 
 Finding by art his natural forces broke. 
 And bearing, captive-like, the arched yoke, 
 Does roar, and foam, and rage, at the disgrace, 
 But re-composes straight, and calms his face ; 
 Is into reverence and submission strook. 
 As soon as from afar he does but look 
 Tow'rds the white palace, where that king does reign 
 Who lays his laws and bridges o'er the main. 
 
 Amidst these louder honours of my seat, 
 And two vast cities, troublesomely great, 
 In a large various plain the country too 
 Opens her gentler blessings to my view : 
 In me the active and the quiet mind, 
 By different ways, equal content may find.
 
 ON REPAIRING SOMERSET-HOUSE. 13i 
 
 If any prouder virtuoso's sense 
 At that part of my prospect take offence. 
 By which the meaner cabins are descry'd, 
 Of my imperial river's humbler side 
 If they call that a blemish let them know, 
 God, and my godlike mistress, think not so ; 
 For the distress'd and the afflicted lie 
 Most in their care, and always in their eye. 
 
 And thou, fair river ! who still pay'st to me 
 Just homage, in thy passage to the sea, 
 Take here this one instruction as thou go'st 
 When thy mixt waves shall visit every coast ; 
 When round the world their voyage they shall make, 
 And back to thee some secret channels take ; 
 Ask them what nobler sight they e'er did meet. 
 Except thy mighty mastei-'s sovereign fleet, 
 Which now triumphant o'er the main does ride, 
 The terror of all lands, the ocean's pride. 
 
 From hence his kingdoms, happy now at last, 
 (Happy, if wise by their misfortunes past !) 
 From hence may omens take of that success 
 Which both their future wars and peace shall bless. 
 The peaceful mother on mild Thames does build ; 
 With her son's fabricks the rough sea is fill'd.
 
 136 COWLEYS POEMS. 
 
 THE COMPLAINT. 
 
 In a deep vision's intellectual scene, 
 Beneath a bower for sorrow made, 
 Th' uncomfortable shade 
 
 Of the black yew's unlucky green, 
 Mixt with the mourning willo\v's careful grey, 
 Where reverend Cham cuts out his famous way, 
 
 The melancholy Cowley lay : 
 And lo ! a Muse appear'd to 's closed sight, 
 (The Muses oft in lands of vision play) 
 Body'd, array 'd, and seen, by an internal light. 
 A golden harp with silver strings she bore ; 
 A wondrous hieroglyphick robe she wore, 
 In which all colours and all figures were, 
 That nature or that fancy can create. 
 
 That art can never imitate ; 
 And with loose pride it wanton'd in the air. 
 In such a dress, in such a well-cloth'd dream. 
 She us'd, of old, near fair Ismenus' stream, 
 Pindar, her Theban favourite, to meet ; 
 A crown was on her head, and wings were on her feet. 
 
 She touch'd him with her harp, and rais'd him from 
 
 the ground ; 
 The shaken strings melodiously resound. 
 
 " Art thou retum'd at last," said she, 
 
 ** To this forsaken place and me I
 
 Ciii^laau C. 6 . 
 
 m.I.p.236 . 
 
 v^/ 
 

 
 THE COiMPLAINT. 137 
 
 " Thou prodigal ! who didst so loosely waste 
 " Of all thy youthful years the good estate ; 
 " Art thou return'd here, to repent too late, 
 " And gather husks of learning up at last, 
 " Now the rich harvest-time of life is past, 
 
 " And winter marches on so fast ? 
 " But, when I meant t' adopt thee for my son, 
 " And did as learn'd a portion assign, 
 " As ever any of the mighty Nine 
 
 " Had to their dearest children done ; 
 " When 1 resolv'd t' exalt thy' anointed name, 
 " Among the spiritual lords of peaceful fame; 
 " Thou changeling ! thou, bewitch'd with noise and 
 
 " show 
 " Wouldst into courts and cities from me go ; 
 " Wouldst see the world abroad, and have a share 
 " In all the follies and the tumults there : 
 " Thou wouldst, forsooth, be something in a state,- 
 " And business thou wouldst find, and wouldstcreate: 
 
 " Business ! the frivolous pretence 
 " Of human lusts, to shake off innocence ; 
 
 " Business ! the grave impertinence; 
 " Business ! the thing which I of all things hate ; 
 " Business ! the contradiction of thy fate. 
 
 " Go, renegado ! cast up thy account, 
 " And see to what amount 
 " Thy foolish gains by quitting me : 
 " The sale of Knowledge, Fame, and Liberty, 
 *' The fruits of thy unlearn'd apostacy. 
 VOL. I. n
 
 138 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 " Thou thought'st, if once the publick storm were past, 
 " All thy remaining life should sun-shine be : 
 " Behold ! the publick storm is spent at last, 
 " The sovereign 's tost at sea no more, 
 " And thou, with all the noble company, 
 
 " Art got at last to shore. 
 " But, whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see 
 " All march'd up to possess the promis'd land, 
 " Thou still alone, alas ! dost gaping stand 
 '' Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand ! 
 
 " As a fair morning of the blessed spring, 
 
 ** After a tedious stormy night, 
 " Such was the glorious entry of our king ; 
 *' Enriching moisture dropp'd on every thing ; 
 " Plenty he sow'd below, and cast about him light ! 
 
 " But then, alas '. to thee alone 
 " One of old Gideon's miracles was shown ; 
 " For every tree and every herb around 
 
 " With pearly dew was crown'd, 
 " And upon all the quicken'd ground 
 " The fruitful seed of heaven did brooding lie, 
 " And nothing but the Muse's fleece was dry. 
 
 " It did all other threats surpass, 
 " When God to his own people said [led) 
 
 " (The men whom through long wanderings he had 
 
 " That he would give them ev'n a heaven of brass 
 " They look'd up to that heaven in vain, 
 " That bounteous heaven, which God did not re- 
 
 " strain 
 " Upon the most unjust to shine and rain. 
 
 }
 
 THE COMPLAINT. isg 
 
 " The Rachel, for which twice seven years and 
 " more 
 
 " Thou didst with faith and labour serve, 
 '* And didst (if faith and labour can) deserve, 
 
 " Though she contracted was to thee, 
 
 " Given to another, who had store 
 " Of fairer and of richer wives before, 
 " And not a Leah left, th}' recompence to be ! 
 *' Go on : twice seven years more thy fortune try; 
 " Twice seven years more God in his bounty may 
 
 '" Give thee, to fling away 
 " Into the court's deceitful lottery : 
 
 " But think how likely 't is that thou, 
 " With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough, 
 " Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive, 
 
 " Should even able be to live ; 
 " Thou, to whose share so little bread did fall, 
 " In the miraculous year when manna rain'd on all.' 
 
 Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile. 
 
 That seem'd at once to pity and revile. 
 
 And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head, 
 The melancholy Cowley said 
 " Ah, wanton foe ! dost thou upbraid 
 *' The ills which thou thyself hast made ? 
 '* When in the cradle innocent I lay, 
 
 " Thou, wicked spirit ! stolest me away, 
 " And my abused soul didst bear 
 
 " Into thy new-found worlds, I know not where 
 " Thy golden Indies in the air; 
 
 }
 
 140 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 " And ever since I strive in vain 
 " My ravish'd freedom to regain; 
 
 " Still I rebel, still thou dost reign ; 
 
 " Lo ! still in verse against thee I complain. 
 ** There is a sort of stubborn weeds, 
 
 " Which, if the earth but once, it ever, breeds ; 
 " No wholesome herb can near them thrive, 
 " No useful plant can keep alive : 
 
 " The foolish sports I did on thee bestow, 
 
 ** Make all my art and labour fruitless now ; 
 
 " Where once such fairies dance, no grass dotl 
 " ever grow. 
 
 . 1 
 
 ioth j 
 
 " When my new mind had no infusion known, 
 
 " Thou gav'st so deep a tincture of thine own, 
 " That ever since I vainly try 
 " To wash away th' inherent dye : 
 
 *' Long work perhaps may spoil thy colours quite, 
 
 " But never will reduce the native white : 
 " To all the ports of honour and of gain 
 ** I often steer my course in vain ; 
 
 " Thy gale comes cross, and drives me back again 
 
 " Thou slacken'st all my nerves of industry, 
 " By making them so oft to be 
 
 " The tinkling strings of thy loose minstrelsy. 
 
 " Whoever this world's happiness would see, 
 " Must as entirely cast-off thee, 
 *' As they who only heaven desire 
 ** Do from the world retire. 
 
 " This was my error, this my gross mistake, 
 
 " Myself a dcmi-votary to make. 
 
 }
 
 THE COMPLAINT. 141 
 
 *' Thus, with Sapphira and her husband's fate 
 " (A fault which I, like them, am taught too late), 
 " For all that I gave up I nothing gain, 
 " And perish for the part which I retain. 
 
 " Teach me not then, O thou fallacious Muse ! 
 
 " The court, and better king, t' accuse; 
 " The heaven under which I live is fair, 
 *' The fertile soil will a full harvest bear : 
 " Thine, thine is all the barrenness; if thou 
 " Mak'st me sit still and sing, when I should plough. 
 " When I but think how many a tedious year 
 
 " Our patient sovereign did attend 
 
 " His long misfortunes' fatal end ; 
 " How cheerfully, and how exempt from fear, 
 " On the Great Sovereign's will he did depend ; 
 " I ought to be accurst, if I refuse 
 ** To wait on his, O thou fallacious Muse ! 
 " Kings have long hands, they say; and, though I be 
 " So distant, they may reach at length to me. 
 
 *' However, of all princes, thou 
 ." Shouldst not reproach rewards for being small or 
 
 " slow ; 
 " Thou ! who rewardest but with popular breath, 
 " And that too after death."
 
 142 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 ON COLONEL TUKE'S TRAGI-COMEDY, 
 
 THE ADVENTURES OF FIVE HOURS. 
 
 As when our kings (lords of the spacious main) 
 Take in just wars a rich plate-fleet of Spain, 
 The rude unshapen ingots they reduce 
 Into a form of beauty and of use ; 
 On which the conqueror's image now does shine, 
 Not his whom it bclong'd to in the mine : 
 So, in the mild contentions of the Muse 
 (The war which Peace itself loves and pursues) 
 So have you home to us in triumph brought 
 This Cargazon of Spain with treasures fraught. 
 You have not basely gotten it by stealth, 
 Nor by translation borrow'd all its wealth ; 
 But by a powerful spirit made it your own ; 
 Metal before, money by you 't is grown. 
 'T is current now, by your adorning it 
 With the fair stamp of your victorious wit. 
 
 But, though we praise this voyage of your mind^ 
 And though ourselves enrich'd by it we find ; 
 We 're not contented yet, because we know 
 What greater stores at home within it grow. 
 We 've seen how well you foreign ores refine ; 
 Produce the gold of your own nobler mine : 
 The world shall then our native plenty view, 
 And fetch materials for their wit from you ; 
 They all shall watch the travails of your pen. 
 And Spain on you shall make reprisals then.
 
 t 143 ] 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF 
 
 MRS. KATHARINE PHILIPS. 
 
 Cruel Disease ! ah, could not it suffice 
 Thy old and constant spite to exercise 
 Against the gentlest and the fairest sex, 
 Which still thy depredations most do vex ? 
 
 Where still thy malice most of all 
 (Thy malice or thy lust) does on the fairest fall ? 
 And in them most assault the fairest place, 
 The throne of empress Beauty, ev'n the face ? 
 There was enough of that here to assuage 
 (One would have thought) either thy lust or rage. 
 Was 't not enough, when thou, profane Disease ! 
 
 Didst on this glorious temple seize ? 
 Was 't not enough, like a wild zealot, there, 
 All the rich outward ornaments to tear, 
 Deface the innocent pride of beauteous images ? 
 Was 't not enough thus rudely to defile, 
 But thou must quite destroy, the goodly pile ,? 
 And thy unbounded sacrilege commit 
 On th' inward holiest holy of her wit ? 
 Cruel Disease ! there thou mistook'st thy power ; 
 
 No mine of death can that devour; 
 On her embalmed name it will abide 
 
 An everlasting pyramid. 
 As high as heaven the top, as earth the basis wide 
 
 All ages past record, all countries now 
 In various kinds such equal beauties show, 
 
 }
 
 144 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Tliat ev'n judge Paris would not know 
 On w horn the golden apple to bestow ; 
 Though Goddesses t' his sentence did submit, 
 Women and lovers would appeal from it : 
 Nor durst he say, of all the female race, 
 
 This is the sovereign face. 
 And some (though these be of a kind that 's rare,- 
 That's much, ah, much less fi*equent than the 
 
 fair) 
 So equally renown'd for virtue are, 
 That it the mother of the Gods might pose, 
 When the best woman for her guide she chose. 
 
 But if Apollo should design 
 
 A woman Laureat to make. 
 Without dispute he would Orinda take, 
 
 Though Sappho and the famous Nine 
 Stood by, and did repine. 
 
 To be a princess, or a queen, 
 Is great ; but 't is a greatness always seen : 
 The world did never but two women know, 
 Who, one by fraud, th' other by wit, did rise 
 To the two tops of spiritual dignities; 
 One female pope of old, one female poet now. 
 
 Of female poets, who had names of old. 
 
 Nothing is shown, but only told, 
 And all we hear of them perhaps may be 
 Male-flattery only, and male-poetry. 
 Few minutes did their beauty's lightning waste, % 
 The thunder of their voice did longer last, V 
 
 But' that too soon was past. J
 
 ON THE DEATH OF MRS. PHILIPS. 145 
 
 The certain proofs of our Orinda's wit 
 In her own lasting characters are writ, 
 And they will long my praise of them survive, 
 
 Though long perhaps, too, that may live. 
 The trade of glory, manag'd by the pen, 
 Though great it be, and every-whcre is found. 
 Does bring in but small profit to us men; 
 'T is, by the number of the sharers, drovvn'd, 
 Orinda, on the female coasts of Fame, 
 Ingrosses all the goods of a poetick name ; 
 
 She does no partner with her see ; 
 Does all the business there alone, which we 
 Are forc'd to carry on by a whole company. 
 
 fruit I 
 
 But wit 's like a luxuriant vine ; 
 
 Unless to virtue's prop it join, 
 
 Firm and erect towards heaven bound; 
 Though it with beauteous leaves and pleasant 
 
 be crown'd. 
 It lies, deform'd and rotting, on the ground. 
 
 Now shame and blushes on us all, 
 
 Who our own sex superior call '. 
 Orinda does our boasting sex out-do, 
 Not in wit only, but in virtue too : 
 She does above our best examples rise, 
 In hate of vice and scorn of vanities. 
 Never did spirit of the manly make, -% 
 
 And dipp'd all o'er in Learning's sacred lake, V 
 
 A temper more invulnerable take. - 
 
 No violent passion could an entrance find 
 Into the tender goodness of her mind :
 
 346 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Through walls of stone those furious bullets may- 
 Force their impetuous way ; 
 When her soft breast they hit, powerless and dead 
 they lay ! 
 
 The fame of Friendship, which so long had told 
 Of three or four illustrious names of old, 
 Till hoarse and weary with the tale she grew. 
 
 Rejoices now t* have got a new, 
 
 A new and more surprising story, 
 Of fair Lucasia's and Orinda's glory. 
 As when a prudent man does once perceive 
 That in some foreign country he must live, 
 The language and the manners he does strive 
 
 To understand and practise here. 
 
 That he may come no stranger there : 
 So well Orinda did herself prepare, 
 In this much different clime, for her remove 
 To the glad world of Poetry and Love. 
 
 HYMN TO LIGHT. 
 
 FlRST-born of Chaos, who so fair didst come 
 From the old negro's darksome womb ! 
 Which, when it saw the lovely child, 
 
 The melancholy mass put on kind looks and srail'd ; 
 
 Thou tide of glory, which no rest dost know, 
 But ever ebb and ever flow !
 
 HYMN TO LIGHT. 14/ 
 
 Thou goldea shower of a true Jove ! [love! 
 Who does in thee descend, and heaven to earth make 
 
 Hail, active Nature's watchful life and health ! 
 
 Her joy, her ornament, and wealth ! 
 
 Hail to thy husband Heat, and thee ! [he ! 
 
 Thou the world's beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom 
 
 Say from what golden quivers of the sky 
 
 Do all thy winged arrows fly ? 
 
 Swiftness and power by birth are thine : 
 From thy great sire they came, thy sire the Word 
 Divine. 
 
 'T is, I believe, this archery to show, 
 
 That so much cost in colours thou, 
 And skill in painting, dost bestow. 
 
 Upon thy ancient arms, the gaudy heavenly bow. 
 
 Swift as light thoughts their empty career run, 
 
 Thy race is finish'd when begun ; 
 
 Let a post-angel start with thee, 
 And thou the goal of earth shalt reach as soon as he. 
 
 Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay, 
 Dost thy bright wood of stars survey ; 
 And all the year dost with thee bring 
 
 Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring. 
 
 Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above 
 The sun's gilt tents for ever move,
 
 148 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 And still, as thou in pomp dost go, 
 The shining pageants of the world attend thy show. 
 
 Nor amidst all these triumphs dost thou scorn 
 The humble glow-worms to adorn, 
 And with those living spangles gild 
 
 (O greatness without pride '.) the bushes of the field. 
 
 Night, and her ugly subjects, thou dost fright, 
 
 And Sleep, the lazy owl of night; 
 
 Asham'd, and fearful to appear, [sphere. 
 
 They skreen their horrid shapes with the black hemi- 
 
 With them there hastes, and wildly takes th' alarm, 
 
 Of painted dreams a busy swarm : 
 
 At the first opening of thine eye 
 The various clusters break, the antick atoms fly. 
 
 The guilty serpents, and obscener beasts. 
 Creep, conscious, to their secret rests : 
 Nature to thee does reverence pay, 
 
 111 omens and ill sights removes out of thy way. 
 
 At thy appearance. Grief itself is said 
 
 To shake his wings, and rouse his head : 
 And cloudy Care has often took 
 
 A gentle beamy smile, reflected from thy look. 
 
 At thy appearance, Fear itself grows bold ; 
 Thy sun-shine melts away his cold.
 
 HYMN TO LIGHT. 140 
 
 Encourag'd at the sight of thee, 
 To the choek colour comes, and firmness to the knee. 
 
 Ev'n Lust, the master of a harden'd face, 
 
 Blushes, if thou be'st in the place, 
 
 To Darkness' curtains he retires ; 
 In sympathizing night he rolls his smoky fires. 
 
 When, Goddess ! thou lift'st up thy wakcn'd head. 
 Out of the morning's purple bed, 
 Thy quire of birds about thee play. 
 
 And all the joyful world salutes the rising day. 
 
 The ghosts, and monster-spirits, that did presume 
 
 A body's privilege to assume, 
 
 Vanish again invisibly, 
 And bodies gain again their visibility. 
 
 All the world's bravery, that delights our eyes, 
 
 Is but thy several liveries ; 
 
 Thou the rich dye on them bestow'st. 
 Thy nimble pencil paints this landscape as thou go'st. 
 
 A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st ; 
 
 A crown of studded gold thou bear'st ; 
 
 The virgin-lilies, in their white. 
 Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light. 
 
 The violet. Spring's little infant, stands 
 Girt in thy purple swaddling-bands :
 
 150 COWLEY'S P0E3IS. 
 
 On tbe fair tulip thou dost doat ; 
 Thou cloth 'st it in a gay and parti-colour'd coat. 
 
 With flame condens'd thou dost thy jewels fix, 
 
 And solid coloufs in it mix : 
 
 Flora herself envies to see 
 flowers fairer than her own, and durable as she. 
 
 Ah, Goddess! would thou couldst thy hand withhold, 
 
 And be less liberal to gold ! 
 
 Didst thou less value to it give, 
 Of how much care, alas ! might'st thou poor man re- 
 lieve ! 
 
 To me the sun is more delightful far, 
 
 And all fair days much fairer are. 
 
 But few, ah ! wondrous few, there be, 
 Who do not gold prefer, O Goddess ! ev'n to thee. 
 
 Tkrough the soft ways of heaven, and air, and sea, 
 Which open all their pores to thee. 
 Like a clear river thou dost glide. 
 
 And with thy living stream through the close chan- 
 nels slide. 
 
 But, where firm bodies thy free course oppose, 
 Gently thy source the land o'erflows ; 
 Takes there possession, and does make, 
 
 Of colours mingled light, a thick and standing lake.
 
 TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. Ul 
 
 But the vast ocean of unbounded day 
 In th' empyraean heaven does stay. 
 Thy rivers, lakes, and springs, below, 
 
 From thence took first their rise, thither at last must 
 
 flow. 
 
 TO 
 
 THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 
 
 Philosophy, the great and only heir 
 Of all that human knowledge which has been 
 Unforfeited by man's rebellious sin, 
 
 Though full of years he do appear 
 (Philosophy, I say, and call it He ; 
 For, whatsoe'er the painter's fancy be, 
 
 It a male-virtue seems to me). 
 Has still been kept in nonage till of late, 
 Nor manag'd or enjoy'd his vast estate. 
 Three or four thousand years, one would have thought, 
 To ripeness and perfection might have brought 
 
 A science so well bred and nurst, 
 And of such hopeful parts too at the first : 
 But, oh ! the guardians and the tutors then 
 (Some negligent and some ambitious men) 
 
 Would ne'er consent to set him free, > 
 
 Or his own natural powers to let him see, V 
 
 Lest that should put an end to their authority. J 
 
 That his own business he might quite forget, 
 They amus'd him with the sports of wanton wit ;
 
 152 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 With the desserts of poetry they fed him, 
 Instead of solid meats t' increase his force ; 
 Instead of vigorous exercise, they led him 
 Into the pleasant labyrinths of ever-fresh discourse ; 
 
 Instead of carrying him to see 
 The riches which do hoarded for him lie 
 
 In Nature's endless treasury, 
 
 They chose his eye to entertain 
 
 (His curious but not covetous eye) 
 With painted scenes and pageants of the brain. 
 Some few exalted spirits this latter age has shown, 
 That labour'd to assert the liberty 
 (From guardians who were now usurpers grown) 
 Of this old minor still, captiv'd Philosophy ; 
 
 But 't was rebellion call'd, to fight 
 
 For such a long-oppressed right. 
 Bacon at last, a mighty man, arose 
 
 (Whom a wise king, and Nature, chose, 
 
 Lord chancellor of both their laws), 
 And boldly undertook the injur'd pupil's cause. 
 
 Authority which did a body boast, 
 
 Though 't was but air condens'd, and stalk'd about, 
 
 Like some old giant's more gigantick ghost. 
 To terrify the learned rout 
 
 With the plain magick of true Reason's light- 
 He chac'd out of our sight ; 
 
 Nor suffer'd living men to be misled 
 By the vain shadows of the dead ; 
 
 Tograves, from whence it rose, the conquer'd phan- 
 tom fled.
 
 TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 153 
 
 He broke that monstrous God which stood 
 In midst of th' orchard, and the whole did claim ; 
 
 Which with a useless scythe of wood, 
 
 And something else not worth a name 
 
 (Both vast for show, yet neither fit 
 
 Or to defend, or to beget ; 
 
 Ridiculous and senseless terrors !) made 
 Children and superstitious men afraid. 
 
 The orchard 's open now, and free. 
 Bacon has broke the scare-crow deity : 
 
 Come, enter, all that will, 
 Behold the ripen'd fruit, come gather now your fill 
 
 Yet still, methinks, we fain would be 
 
 Catching at the forbidden tree 
 
 We would be like the Deity 
 When truth and falsehood, good and evil, we. 
 Without the senses' aid, within ourselves would see ; 
 
 For 't is God only who can find 
 
 All Nature in his mind. 
 
 From words, which are but pictures of the thought 
 (Though weourthoughts from them perversely drew) 
 To things, the mind's right object, he it brought : 
 Like foolish birds, to painted grapes we flew ; 
 He sought and gather'd for our use the true j 
 And, when on heaps the chosen bunches lay^ 
 He press'd them wisely the mechanick way, 
 Till all their juice did in one vessel join> 
 Ferment into a nourishment divine, 
 The thirsty soul's refreshing wiiie* 
 
 VOL. I, S 
 
 } 
 
 }
 
 154 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Who to the life an exact piece would make, 
 Must not from others' work a copy take ; 
 
 No, not from Rubens or Vandyke ; 
 Much less content himself to make it like 
 Th' ideas and the images which lie 
 In his own fancy or his memory. 
 
 No, he_ before his sight must place 
 
 The natural and living face ; 
 
 The real object must command 
 Each judgment of his eye and motion of his hand. 
 
 From these and all long errors of the way, 
 In which our wandering predecessors went, 
 And, like th' old Hebrews, many years did stray. 
 
 In deserts but of small extent, 
 Bacon, like Moses, led us forth at last : 
 
 The barren wilderness he past ; 
 
 Did on the very border stand 
 
 Of the blest promis'd land ; 
 And from the mountain's top of his exalted wit, 
 
 Saw it himself, and shew'd us it. 
 But life did never to one man allow 
 Time to discover worlds and conquer too ; 
 Nor can so short a line sufiicient be 
 To fathom the vast depths of Nature's sea. 
 
 The work he did we ought t' admire ; 
 And were unjust if we should more require 
 From his few years, divided 'twixt th' excess 
 Of low affliction and high happiness : 
 For who on things remote can fix his sight, 
 That 's always in a triumph or a fight ?
 
 TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 155 
 
 From you, great champions ! we expect to get 
 These spacious countries, but discovcr'd yet ; 
 Countries, where yet, instead of Nature, we 
 Her images and idols worshipp'd see : 
 These large and wealthy regions to subdue. 
 Though Learning has whole armies at command, 
 
 Quarter'd about in every land, 
 A better troop she ne'er together drew : 
 
 Methinks, like Gideon's little band, 
 
 God with design has pick'd out you, 
 To do those noble wonders by a few : 
 When the whole host he saw, " They are" (said he) 
 
 " Too many to o'ercome for me ;" 
 
 And now he chooses out his men, 
 
 INluch in the way that he did then ; 
 
 Not those many whom he found 
 
 Idly' extended on the ground. 
 
 To drink with their dejected head 
 The stream, just so as by their mouths it fled : 
 
 No ; but those few who took the waters up, 
 And made of their laborious hands the cup. 
 
 Thus 30U prepar'd, and in the glorious fight 
 Their wondrous pattern too you take; 
 
 Their old and empty pitchers first they brake, 
 
 And with their hands then lifted up the light, 
 lo ! sound too the trumpets here ! 
 
 Already your victorious lights appear ; 
 
 New scenes of heaven already we espy. 
 
 And crowds of golden worlds on high.
 
 } 
 
 156 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Which from the spacious plains of earth and sea 
 
 Could never yet discover'd be, 
 By sailors' or Chaldeans' watchful eye. 
 Nature's great works no distance can obscure, 
 No smallness her near objects can secure ; 
 
 Y' have taught the curious sight to press n 
 
 Into the privatest recess > 
 
 Of her imperceptible littleness ! J 
 
 Y' have learn'd to read her smallest hand. 
 And well begun her deepest sense to understand ! 
 
 Mischief and true dishonour fall on those 
 Who would to laughter or to scorn expose 
 So virtuous and so noble a design, 
 So human for its use, for knowledge so divine. 
 The things which these proud men despise, and 
 call 
 
 Impertinent, and vain, and small. 
 Those smallest things of nature let me know, 
 Rather than all their greatest actions do ! 
 Whoever would deposed Truth advance 
 
 Into the throne usurp'd from it. 
 Must feel at first the blows of Ignorance, 
 
 And the shap points of envious Wit. 
 So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance, 
 
 In many thousand years 
 
 A star, so long unknown, appears, 
 Though heaven itself more beauteous by it grow, 
 It troubles and alarms the world below ; 
 Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show 
 
 :}
 
 TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY. 157 
 
 With courage and success you the bold work begin ; 
 
 Your cradle has not idle been : 
 None e'er, but Hercules and you, would be 
 At five years age worthy a history. 
 
 And ne'er did Fortune better yet 
 Th' historian to the story fit : 
 
 As you from all old errors free 
 And purge the body of Philosophy; 
 
 So from all modern follies he 
 Has vindicated Eloquence and Wit. 
 His candid style like a clean stream does slide, 
 
 And his bright fancy, all the way, 
 
 Does like the sun-shine in it play ; 
 It does, like Thames, the best of rivers ! glide. 
 Where the God does not rudely overturn, 
 
 But gently pour, the crystal urn, 
 And with judicious hand does the whole current 
 
 guide : 
 *T has all the beauties Nature can impart, 
 And all the comely dress, without the paint, of Art,
 
 158 . COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 UPON 
 
 THE CHAIR 
 
 MADE OUT OF 
 
 SIR FRANCIS DRAKE'S SHIP, 
 
 Presented to the University Library of Oxford by 
 John Davis, of Deptford, Esquire. 
 
 To this great ship, which round the globe has run> 
 
 And match'd in race the chariot of the sun, 
 
 This Pythagorean ship (for it may claim 
 
 Without presumption so dcserv'd a name, 
 
 By knowledge once, and transformation now) 
 
 In her new shape, this sacred port allow. 
 
 Drake and his ship could not have wish'd from Fate 
 
 A more blest station, or more blest estate ; 
 
 For, lo ! a seat of endless rest is given 
 
 To her in Oxford, and to him in heaven. 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 CUTTER OF COLMAN STREET, 
 
 As, when the midland sea is no-where clear 
 From dreadful fleets of Tunis and Argier 
 Which coast about, to all they meet with foes, 
 And upon which nought can be got but blows
 
 PROLOGUE. 159 
 
 The merchant-ships so much their passage doubt, 
 That, though full-freighted, none dares venture out, 
 And trade decays, and scarcity ensues: 
 Just so the timorous wits of late refuse, 
 Though laded, to put forth upon the stage, 
 Affrighted by the criticks of this age. 
 It is a party numerous, watchful, bold ; 
 They can from nought, which sails in sight, with- 
 hold ; 
 Nor do their cheap, though mortal, thunder spare; 
 They shoot, alas ! with wind-guns chaig'd with air. 
 But yet, gentleraen-criticks of Argier, 
 For your own interest I 'd advise ye here. 
 To let this little forlorn-hope go by 
 Safe and untouch'd, " That must not be" (you 
 
 cry). 
 If ye be wise, it must ; I '11 tell you why. 
 There are seven, eight, nine stay there are be- 
 hind 
 Ten plays at least, which wait but for a wind, 
 And the glad news that we the enemy miss ; 
 And those are all your own, if you spare this. 
 Some are but new trimra'd up, others quite new ; 
 Some by known shipwrights built, and others too 
 By that great author made, whoe'er he be, 
 That styles himself " Person of Quality :" 
 All these, if we miscarry here to-day, 
 Will rather till they rot in th' harbour stay; 
 Nay, they will back again, though they were come 
 Ev'n to their last safe road, the tyring-room. 
 
 1
 
 1(50 COWLEY'S POEMS. 
 
 Therefore again I say, If you be wise, 
 Let this for once pass free ; let it suffice 
 That we, your sovereign power here to avow. 
 Thus humbly, ere we p^s, strike sail to you, 
 
 ADDED AT COURT. 
 
 STAY, gentlemen ; what I have said was all 
 But forc'd submission, which I now recall. 
 Ye 're all but pirates now again ; for here 
 Does the true sovereign of the seas appear. 
 The sovereign of these narrow seas of wit ; 
 'T is his own Thames ; he knows and governs it, 
 *T is his dominion and domain ; as he 
 Pleases, 't is either shut to us, or free. 
 Not only, if his passport we obtain. 
 We fear no little rovers of the main ; 
 But, if our Neptune his calm visage show, 
 No wave shall dare to rise or wind to blow. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 Printed by T. Davison, White-friara.
 
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