books out of twelve were published; the specimen given shows how well Cowley could handle the heroic couplet. It is evident that Milton had read this neglected poem. Cowley's few prose essays entitle him to rank with Addison and Goldsmith as master of a simple and graceful prose.

The Wish.

Well then; I now do plainly see,
This busie world and I shall nere agree;
The very honey of all earthly joy

Does of all meats the soonest cloy.

And they, methinks, deserve my pity,

Who for it can endure the stings,
The croud, and buz, and murmurings

Of this great hive, the city.

Ah, yet, ere I descend to th' grave, May I a small house and large garden have! And a few friends, and many books; both true, Both wise, and both delightfull too!

And since Love neer wil from me flee,

A mistresse moderately fair,

And good as guardian-angels are,

Onely beloved, and loving me!

Oh, founts! Oh when in you shall I

My selfe, eas'd of unpeaceful thoughts, espy?

Oh fields! Oh woods! when, when shall I be made The happy tenant of your shade?

Here's the spring-head of pleasure's flood;

Where all the riches lye, that she

Has coin'd and stampt for good.

Pride and ambition here,

Onely in far-fetcht metaphors appear;

Here nought but winds can hurtfull murmurs scatter, And nought but eccho flatter.

The gods, when they descended, hither
From heaven, did alwaies chuse their way;

And therefore we may boldly say,
That 'tis the way too thither.

How happy here should I,

And one dear she, live, and embracing, dye?
She who is all the world, and can exclude
In desarts, solitude.

I should have then this only fear,

Lest men, when they my pleasures see,
Should all come im'itate mee

And so make a city here.

From the Poem 'On the Death of Mr Crashaw.' Poet and Saint! to thee alone are given

The two most sacred names of earth and heaven,
The hard and rarest union which can be
Next that of Godhead with humanitie.
Long did the Muses, banisht slaves abide,
And built vain pyramids to mortal pride;
Like Moses thou (though spells and charms withstand)
Hast brought them nobly home back to their holy land....
How well (blest swan) did Fate contrive thy death,
And made thee render up thy tuneful breath
In thy great mistress arms? thou most divine
And richest offering of Loretto's shrine!
Where like some holy sacrifice t' expire,

A fever burns thee, and Love lights the fire.

Angels (they say) brought the famed chappel there,
And bore the sacred load in triumph thro' the aire.
'Tis surer much they brought thee there, and they,
And thou, their charge, went singing all the way.
Pardon, my mother church, if I consent
That angels led him when from thee he went ;
For ev'n in error sure no danger is

When joyn'd with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God, with shame I speak 't, and grief,

Ah that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were even weaker yet,
Rather then thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith perhaps in some nice tenents might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right.
And I my self 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!

Opposed by our old enemy, adverse chance,
Attacqu'ed by envy, and by ignorance,
Exchain'd by beauty, tortured 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. . . .

Heaven and Hell-from the 'Davideis.'
Sleep on, rest quiet as thy conscience take,
For tho' thou sleep'st thy self, thy God's awake.
Above the subtle foldings of the sky,
Above the well-set orbs' soft harmony,

Above those petty lamps that gild the night,
There is a place o'erflown with hallowed light;
Where heav'n, as if it left it self behind,

Is stretcht out far, nor its own bounds can find:
Here peaceful flames swell up the sacred place,
Nor can the glory contain it self in th' endless space.
For there no twilight of the sun's dull ray
Glimmers upon the pure and native day.
No pale-fac'd moon does in stoln beams appear,
Or with dim taper scatters darkness there.
On no smooth sphear the restless seasons slide,
No circling motion doth swift time divide;
Nothing is there to come, and nothing past,
But an eternal now does always last.

Beneath the silent chambers of the earth,
Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth;
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see,
Gold which above more influence has than he.
Beneath the dens where unfletcht tempests lye,
And infant winds their tender voices try,
Beneath the mighty ocean's wealthy caves,
Beneath th' eternal fountain of all waves,
Where their vast court the mother-waters keep,
And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep;
There is a place, deep, wondrous deep below,
Which genuine Night and Horror does o'erflow;
No bound controls th' unwearied space, but hell
Endless as those dire pains that in it dwell.
Here no dear glimpse of the sun's lovely face,
Strikes through the solid darkness of the place;
No dawning morn does her kind reds display ;
One slight weak beam would here be thought the day.
No gentle stars with their fair gems of light
Offend the tyr'anous and unquestion'd night.
Here Lucifer the mighty captive reigns
Proud, 'midst his woes, and tyrant in his chains.

In imitation of Horace (Odes I. v.).

To whom now, Pyrrha, art thou kinde?
To what heart-ravisht lover

Dost thou thy golden locks unbinde,
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 changed faith complain?
And his own fortunes find to be
So airy and so vain,

Of so camæleon-like an hew,

That still their colour changes with it too? How oft, alas, will he admire

The blackness of the skies?
Trembling to hear the winds sound higher
And see the billows rise;
Poor unexperienc'd he,

Who ne're, alas, before had been at sea!
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 untryed dost shine! But there's no danger now for me, Since o're Loretto's shrine,

In witness of the shipwrack past My consecrated vessel hangs at last.

Anacreontics. 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 faire.
The sea it self, which one would think
Should have but little need of drink,
Drinks ten thousand rivers up,
So fill'd that they oreflow the cup.
The busie sun (and one would guess
By's drunken firy face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and when he has don,
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,
Why, man of morals, tell me why?
The Epicure.

Fill the bowl with rosie wine,
Around our temple 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 feare?
To day is ours; we have it here.
Let's treat it kindely, that it may
Wish, at least, with us to stay.
Let's banish business, banish sorrow;
To the gods belongs to morrow.
The Grashopper.

Happy insect, what can bee

In happiness compared to thee?
Fed with nourishment divine,
The dewy morning's gentle wine!
Nature waits upon thee still,
And thy verdant cup does fill ;
'Tis fill'd where-ever thou dost tread,
Nature selfe's thy Ganimed.
Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing;
Happier then 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 plough;
Farmer he, and land-lord thou!
Thou dost innocently joy;
Nor does thy luxury destroy;
The shepherd gladly heareth thee,
More harmonious then he.

Thee countrey hindes with gladness hear,
Prophet of the ripened year!

Thee Phoebus loves, and does inspire;
Phoebus is himself thy sire.

To thee of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer then thy mirth.
Happy insect, happy thou,

Dost neither age nor winter know.

Then all the wide-extended sky,
And all th' harmonious worlds on high,

And Virgil's sacred work shall die;

And he himself shall see in one fire shine

Rich Nature's ancient Troy, though built by hands divine.

Whom thunder's dismal noise,

And all that prophets and apostles louder spake,

And all the creatures' plain-conspiring voice,

Could not, whilst they liv'd, awake,
This mightier sound shall make
When dead t' arise,

And open tombs, and open eyes;

To the long sluggards of five thousand years.
This mightier sound shall make its hearers ears.
Then shall the scatter'd atoms crowding come
Back to their ancient home;

Some from birds, from fishes some,
Some from earth, and some from seas,
Some from beasts, and some from trees.
Some descend from clouds on high,
Some from metals upwards fly,

And where th' attending soul naked and shivering stands,
Meet, salute, and join their hands.

As disperss'd soldiers at the trumpet's call
Haste to their colours all.

Unhappy most, like tortur'd men,

Their joints new set, to be new rackt again.

To mountains they for shelter pray,

The mountains shake, and run about no less confus'd

than they.

The Chronicle, a Ballad.

Margarita first possest,

If I remember well, my brest,
Margarita first of all;

But when a while the wanton maid
With my restless heart had plaid,
Martha took the flying ball.

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 Elisa's conqu'ring face. Elisa 'till this hour might raign,

Had she not evil counsels ta'ne. Fundamental laws she broke, And still new favorites she chose, 'Till up in arms my passions rose, And cast away her yoke.

Mary then and gentle Ann

Both to reign at once began;
Alternately they sway'd,

And sometimes Mary was the fair,

And sometimes Ann 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,

'Twas then a golden time with mee. But soon those pleasures fled, For the gracious princess dy'd In her youth and beautie's pride,

And Judith reigned in her sted.

One month, three days and half an hour
Judith held the soveraign 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 came

Arm'd with a resistless flame, And th' artillery of her eye, Whilst she proudly marcht about Greater conquests to find out,

She beat out Susan by the by.

But in her place I then obey'd

Black-ey'd Besse her vice-roy maid, To whom ensu'd a vacancy. Thousand worse passions then possest The inter-regnum of my brest.

Bless me from such an anarchy !

Gentle Henrietta than

And a third Mary next began, Then Jone, and Jane, and Audria. And then a pretty Thomasine, And then another Katharine,

And then a long et cætera.

But should I now to you relate

The strength and riches of their state, The powder, patches, and the pins, The ribbans, jewels, and the rings, The lace, the paint, and warlike things That make up all their magazins :

If I should tell the politick 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 Matchavil the waiting-maid; I more voluminous should grow, (Chiefly if I like them should tell All change of weathers that befell) Then Holinshead or Stow.

But I will briefer with them be,

Since few of them were long with me.
An higher and a nobler strain

My present emperess does claime,
Heleonora, first o' th' name,

Whom God grant long to reign.

Lord Bacon-from 'Ode to the Royal Society.'
From these and all long errors of the way,

In which our wandring predecessors went,
And like th' old Hebrews many years did stray,
In desarts 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 mountains 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 sufficient be
To fadome 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?

From the Elegy 'On the Death of Mr William Hervey.'

It was a dismal and a fearful night;

Scarce could the morn drive on th' unwilling light, When sleep, death's image, left my troubled brest 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 peere,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindely here,
Thy end for ever, and my life to moan?
O thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body, when death's agonie
Besieged around thy noble heart,

Did not with more reluctance part
Then I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.

My dearest friend, would I had dyed for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be.
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do

If once my griefs prove tedious too.
Silent and sad I walk about all day,

As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by
Where their hid treasures ly;
Alas, my treasure's gone, why do I stay?
He was my friend, the truest friend on earth :
A strong and mighty influence joyn'd our birth.
Nor did we envy the most sounding name

By friendship given of old to fame.
None but his brethren he, and sisters knew,
Whom the kind youth preferr'd to me ;
And even in that we did agree,

For much above my self I lov'd them too.

Say, for you saw us, ye immortal lights,
How oft unwearied have we spent the nights?
'Till the Ledæan stars so famed for love,
Wondred at us from above.

We spent them not in toys, in lusts, or wine;
But search of deep philosophy,

Wit, eloquence, and poetry;

Arts which I loved, for they, my friend, were thine.

Ye fields of Cambridge, our dear Cambridge, say,
Have
ye not seen us walking every day?
Was there a tree about which did not know

The love betwixt us two?

Henceforth, ye gentle trees, for ever fade;

Or your sad branches thicker joyne, And into darksome shades combine; Dark as the grave wherein my friend is laid. Henceforth no learned youths beneath you sing, 'Till all the tuneful birds to your bows 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 solemnitie,

Mute and unmoved be,

Mute as the grave wherein my friend does ly.

Epitaph on the Living Author. Here, stranger, in this humble nest, Here Cowley sleeps; here lies, 'Scaped all the toils that life molest, And its superfluous joys.

Here, in no sordid poverty,

And no inglorious ease,

He braves the world, and can defy
Its frowns and flatteries.

The little earth he asks, survey :

Is he not dead, indeed?

'Light lie that earth,' good stranger, pray,

'Nor thorn upon it breed!'

With flowers, fit emblem of his fame,

Compass your poet round;

With flowers of every fragrant name, Be his warm ashes crowned!

Hymn-To Light.

First-born of chaos, who so fair didst come

From the old negro's darksome womb!
Which when it saw the lovely child,

The melancholly mass put on kind looks and smil'd.

Thou tide of glory, which no rest dost know,
But ever ebb, and ever flow!

Thou golden shower of a true Jove!

Who does in thee descend, and heav'n to earth make love! . . .

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.

Swift as light, thoughts their empty carrere run,

Thy race is finisht, when begun ;

Let a post-angel start with thee,

And thou the goal of earth shall reach as soon as he. . . .

When, goddess, thou liftst up thy wakened head, Out of the morning's purple bed,

Thy quire of birds about thee play,

And all the joyful world salutes the rising day.

A crimson garment in the rose thou wear'st;
A crown of studded gold thou bear'st;
The virgin lillies in their white
Are clad but with the lawn of almost naked light.

The violet, spring's little infant, stands,
Girt in thy purple swadling-bands :
On the fair tulip thou dost dote;
Thou cloath'st it in a gay and party-colour'd coat.
Through the soft wayes of heav'n, 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 channels slide.

But where firm bodies thy free course oppose,
Gently thy source the land oreflowes;
Takes there possession, and does make,

Of colours mingled, light, a thick and standing lake.

But the vast ocean of unbounded day

In th' empyrean heaven does stay. Thy rivers, lakes, and springs below, From thence took first their rise, thither at last must flow.

Cowley holds a distinguished position among the prose writers of this age; he has been placed at the head of those who cultivated that clear, easy, and natural style which was subsequently employed and improved by Dryden, Tillotson, Sir William Temple, and Addison. Johnson exaggerated the contrast between the excellence of Cowley's prose and the many defects of his poetry-for Johnson bore hard on Cowley as 'almost the last' of the metaphysical poets, though 'undoubtedly the best,' but addicted to artificial conceits and 'lax and lawless versification.' 'No author,' says he, '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.' There is also wit and humour, with an occasional touch of satire; the writer's longing for peace and retirement is a too frequently recurring theme. The prose works of Cowley extend to but sixty folio pages, and consist of Essays (appended to the collected edition of the works in 1668), which treat of Liberty, Solitude, Obscurity, Agriculture, The Garden, Greatness, Avarice, The Dangers of an Honest Man in much Company, The Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches, The Danger of Procrastination, Of My Self, &c. He wrote also (apparently in the year of the Protector's death, though the earliest known printed copy dates from 1661) a Discourse, by way of Vision, concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell, and a Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy (1661).

Of My Self.

It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself. It grates his own heart to say any thing of disparagement, and the reader's ears to hear any thing of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune, allow me any materials for that vanity. It is sufficient for my own contentment that

they have preserv'd me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of my self only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holy-days, and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them, and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then too so much an enemy to all constraint that my masters could never prevail on me by any persuasions or encouragements to learn without book the common rules of grammar; in which they dispens'd with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which, I confess, I wonder at my self) may appear by the latter end of an ode, which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish, but of this part which I here set down (if a very little were corrected) I should hardly now be much asham'd.

This only grant me, that my means may lye
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have

Not from great deeds, but good alone.
The unknown are better than ill known.
Rumour can ope the grave.
Acquaintance I would have, but when't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light;
And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.
My house a cottage more
Than palace, and should fitting be
For all my use, no luxury.

My garden painted o'er
With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space;
For he that runs it well, runs twice his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,

To morrow let my sun his beams display,

Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to day.

You may see by it, I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace); and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which stamp'd first, or rather engrav'd these characters in me: they were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably. But, how this love came to be produc'd in me so early is a hard question: I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such chimes of verse, as have never since left ringing