In the year 1647, his " Miftrefs" was published. We do not find any thing worth relating during his ftay in Paris, from which place he was fent back into England in 1656, that (according to Sprat), under pretence of privacy and retirement, he might take occafion of giving notice of the posture of things in this country. Soon after his return to London he was feized by fome meffengers of the ufurping powers, who had been fent out in queft of another man; and being examined, he was put into confinement, from which he was not difmiffed without the fecurity of a thousand pounds, which was given by Dr. Scarborow. This year he published his poems, and afterwards took upon himself the character of a phyfician, though with no intention, as is fuppofed, of ever attempting to practise. He now began to ftudy botany, and retired into Kent to gather plants; but his inclination for poetry foon abforbed all other confiderations, and he compofed feveral Latin verfes on the qualities of herbs. and the beauties of flowers. At the Restoration, after all his diligence and long fervice, he naturally expected ample preferments; but found his reward very tedioufly delayed, owing, as it was fuppofed, to a fufpicion that his loyalty at one time experienced fome relaxation. The neglect of the Court, however, was not his only mortification. Having newly fitted his old comedy of "the Guardian” for the ftage, he brought it forward under the title of "the Cutter of Coleman-ftreet," and it was badly received; which il fuccefs he did not bear, as Dryden fays, with fo much firmness as might have been expected from fo great a man." In confequence of the rejection of his play, and his not enjoying much of the confidence of the royal party, his vehement defire of retirement once more came upon him, and he fettled at Chertsey, in Surrey. His retreat B 2 Was was at first but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the Earl of St. Alban's and the Duke of Buckingham, fuch a lease of the Queen's lands, as afforded him an ample income. He did not, however, long enjoy the pleasure of folitude, for he died at the Porchhoufe (late in the poffeffion of Alderman Clark) in Chertsey, in 1667, in the 49th year of his age, and was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser. King Charles is faid to have pronounced, "that Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England." "In the general review of Cowley's poetry," fays Dr. Johnson, "it will be found, that he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unfkilful selection; with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetick, and rarely fublime; but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or profound. "It is faid by Denham in his elegy, "To him no Author was unknown; "Yet what he writ was all his own." "This wide pofition requires lefs limitation when it is affirmed of Cowley than perhaps of any other poet. He read much, and yet borrowed little. "His character of writing was indeed not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He faw a certain way to prefent praife, and, not fufficiently enquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight in all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous* laurel, of which the verdure in its fpring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows. "He was in his own time confidered as of unrivalled excellence. Clarendon reprefents him as having * Falling, not perennial. ken taken a flight beyond all that went before him; and Milton is faid to have declared, that the greatest English poets were "Spenfer, Shakespeare and Cowley. "His manner he had in common with others, but his fentiments were his own. Upon every fubject he thought for himfelf; and fuch was his copioufness of knowledge, that fomething at once remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea, merely becaufe another had ufed it: his known wealth was fo great, that he might have borrowed without lofs of credit." Dr. Johnson gives it as his opinion, that the last lines of Cowley's elegy on Sir Henry Wotton were copied from the noble epigram of Grotius upon the death of Scaliger, and that a particular paffage from the poem of the "Miftrefs" is borrowed from Donne. He then proceeds thus: "It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his obligation to the learning and induftry of Jonfon, but I have found no traces of Jonfon in his works; to emulate Donne appears to have been his purpofe; and from Donne he may have learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allufion to facred things, by which readers far fhort of fanctity are frequently offended; and which would not be borne in the prefent age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate." "His diction was, in his own time, cenfured as negligent. He feems not to have known, or not to have confidered, that words being arbitrary muft owe. their power to affociation, and have the influence, and that only, which cuftom has given them. Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obfcured by a garb appropriated to the grofs employments of rufticks or mechanicks, fo the most heroick fentiments will lofe their efficacy, and the moft fplendid ideas drop B 3 their their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occafions, by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by vulgar applications." "He makes no felection of words, nor feeks any neatness of phrafe. He has no elegancies either lucky or elaborate; as his endeavours were rather to imprefs fentences upon the understanding, than images on the fancy, he has few epithets, and thofe fcattered without peculiar propriety or nice adaptation. It feems to follow from the neceffity of the fubject, rather than the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is lefs familiar than that of his flighteft writings. He. has given not the fame numbers, but the fame diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempeftuous Pindar. "His verfification feems to have had very little of his care; and, if what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmufical only when they are ill read, the art of reading them is, at prefent, loft, for they are commonly harsh to modern ears. He has, indeed, many noble lines, fuch as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts fometimes fwelled his verfe to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he finks willingly down to his general careleffness, and avoids with very little care either meannefs or afperity. "His contractions are often rugged and harsh One flings a mountain, and its river too Torn up with't--. "His rhymes are very often made by pronouns or particles, or the like unimportant words which difappoint the ear, and deftroy the energy of the line. "His combination of different measures is fometimes diffonant and unpleafing; he joins verfes together, of which the former does not flide easily into the latter. "The "The words do and did, which fo much degrade in prefent estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley little cenfured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad an effect, at leaft to our ears, will appear by a paffage, in which every reader will lament to fee juft and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance of language." The acute Critic produces the paffage alluded to, of which, however, it may be fufficient in this Abridgement to say, that it confifts of fixteen lines, and that the word does occurs no lefs than fix times, in the awkward manner on which the doctor has so justly beftowed cenfure. 66 "His heroic lines," he goes on to fay, are often formed of monofyllables, but yet they are fometimes fweet and fonorous. "He fays of the Meffiah, Round the whole earth his dreaded name fhall found, "In another place, of David : Yet bid him go fecurely, when he fends; The Critic remarks on Cowley's own account of his attempts to paint in the number the nature of the thing which it defcribes, and thus proceeds: 66 Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroick of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He confidered the verfe of twelve fyllables as elevated and majestic, and has therefore deviated into that meafure, when he fup poses the voice heard of the Supreme Being." |