Part 31 (1/2)

ll. 14 ff. At the instance of Jermyn, Cowley had been promised by both Charles I and Charles II the masters.h.i.+p of the Savoy Hospital, but the post was given in 1660 to Sheldon, and in 1663, on Sheldon's promotion to the Archbishopric of Canterbury, to Henry Killigrew: see W.J.

Loftie, _Memorials of the Savoy_, 1878, pp. 145 ff., and Wood, _Fasti Oxonienses_, ed. Bliss, part I, col. 494. In the _Calendar of State Papers_, Domestic Series, 1661-2, p. 210, there is the statement of the case of Abraham Cowley, 'showing that the place may be held by a person not a divine, and that Cowley ... having seen all preferments given away, and his old University companions advanced before him, is put to great shame by missing this place'. He is called 'Savoy missing Cowley' in the Restoration _Session of the Poets_, printed in _Poems on State Affairs_.

l. 21. _Thou, neither_. In the ode ent.i.tled 'Destinie', _Pindarique Odes_, 1656 (ed. 1668, p. 31, 'That neglected').

l. 28. _A Corps perdu_, misprinted _A Corps perdi_, edd. 1668, 1669, _A Corpus perdi_, 1672, 1674, &c.; _Perdue_, Errata, 1668.

Page 202, l. 1. St. Luke, xii. 16-21.

ll. 3-5. 'Out of hast to be gone away from the Tumult and Noyse of the City, he had not prepar'd so healthful a situation in the Country, as he might have done, if he had made a more leasurable choice. Of this he soon began to find the inconvenience at _Barn Elms_, where he was afflicted with a dangerous and lingring _Fever_.... Shortly after his removal to _Chertsea_ [April 1665], he fell into another consuming Disease. Having languish'd under this for some months, he seem'd to be pretty well cur'd of its ill Symptomes. But in the heat of the last Summer [1667], by staying too long amongst his Laborers in the Medows, he was taken with a violent Defluxion, and Stoppage in his Breast, and Throat. This he at first neglected as an ordinary Cold, and refus'd to send for his usual Physicians, till it was past all remedies; and so in the end after a fortnight sickness, it prov'd mortal to him'

(Sprat). In the Latin life prefixed to Cowley's _Poemata Latina_, 1668, Sprat is more specific: 'Initio superioris Anni, inciderat in _Morb.u.m_, quem Medici _Diabeten_ appellant.'

l. 6. _Non ego_. Horace, _Odes_, ii. 17. 9, 10.

ll. 11 ff. _Nec vos_. These late Latin verses may be Cowley's own, but they are not in his collected Latin poems. Compare Virgil, _Georgics_, ii. 485-6. 'Syluaeq;' = 'Sylvaeque': 'q;' was a regular contraction for _que_: cf. p. 44, l. 6.

61.

The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, 1668.--'An Account of the Life and Writings of M'r Abraham Cowley'. (pp. [18]-[20].)

Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), author of _The History of the Royal-Society_, 1667, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, 1684, was entrusted by Cowley's will with 'the revising of all his Works that were formerly printed, and the collecting of those Papers which he had design'd for the Press'; and as literary executor he brought out in 1668 a folio edition of the English works, and an octavo edition of the Latin works. To both he prefixed a life, one in English and the other in Latin. The more elaborate English life was written partly in the hope that 'a Character of Mr. _Cowley_ may be of good advantage to our Nation'. Unfortunately the ethical bias has injured the biography.

In Johnson's words, 'his zeal of friends.h.i.+p, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life of Cowley; 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.' Similarly Coleridge asks 'What literary man has not regretted the prudery of Sprat in refusing to let his friend Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing-gown?'

(_Biographia Literaria_, ch. iii). His method is the more to be regretted as no one knew Cowley better in his later years. His greatest error of judgement was to suppress his large collection of Cowley's letters. But with all its faults Sprat's Life of Cowley occupies an important place at the beginning of English biography of men of letters. It is the earliest substantial life of a poet whose reputation rested on his poetry. Fulke Greville's life of Sir Philip Sidney was the life of a soldier and a statesman of promise; and to Izaak Walton, Donne was not so much a poet as a great Churchman.

In the edition of 1668 the life of Cowley runs to twenty-four folio pages. The pa.s.sage here selected deals directly with his character.

Page 203, ll. 25-7. It is evidently the impression of a stranger at first sight that Aubrey gives in his short note: 'A.C. discoursed very ill and with hesitation' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 190).

62.

A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections. By George Savile, Marquis of Halifax. London: MDCCL.

Halifax's elaborate and searching account of Charles II was first published in 1750 'from his original Ma.n.u.scripts, in the Possession of his Grand-daughter Dorothy Countess of Burlington'. It consists of seven parts: I. Of his Religion; II. His Dissimulation; III. His Amours, Mistresses, &c.; IV. His Conduct to his Ministers; V. Of his Wit and Conversation; VI. His Talents, Temper, Habits, &c.; VII.

Conclusion. Only the second, fifth, and sixth are given here. The complete text is reprinted in Sir Walter Raleigh's _Works of Halifax_, 1912, pp. 187-208.

For other characters of Charles, in addition to the two by Burnet which follow, see Evelyn's _Diary_, February 4, 1685; Dryden's dedication of _King Arthur_, 1691; 'A Short Character of King Charles the II' by John Sheffield, Earl of Mulgrave, Duke of Buckingham, 'Printed from the Original Copy' in _Miscellaneous Works Written by George, late Duke of Buckingham_, ed. Tho. Brown, vol. ii, 1705, pp.

153-60, and with Pope's emendations in _Works_, 1723, vol. ii, pp.

57-65; and James Welwood's _Memoirs Of the Most Material Transactions in England, for the Last Hundred Years, Preceding the Revolution_, 1700, pp. 148-53.

For Halifax himself, see No. 72.

Page 208, l. 12. An allusion to the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, which a.s.sumed prominence in England with the publication in 1690 of Sir William Temple's _Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning_. Compare Burnet, p. 223, l. 11 and note.

PAGE 209, l. 29. _Ruelle_. Under Louis XIV it was the custom for ladies of fas.h.i.+on to receive morning visitors in their bedrooms; hence _ruelle_, the pa.s.sage by the side of a bed, came to mean a ladies'

chamber. Compare _The Spectator_, Nos. 45 and 530.