COWLEY AND HIS MISFORTUNES. 



171 



commanding, more versatile, more 

 acute, but I never saw any one so 



exquisitely feminine H?r 



birth, her education, but, above all, 

 the genius with which she was 

 gifted, combined to inspire a passion 

 for the ethereal, the tender, the im- 

 aginative, theheroic, in one word the 

 beautiful. It was in her faculty di- 

 vine, and yet of daily life ; it touched 

 all things, but, like a sun-beam, 

 touched them with a golden finger. 



" Any thing abstract or scientific 

 was unintelligible or distasteful to 

 her. Her knowledge was extensive 

 and various ; but, true to the first 

 principle of her nature, it was poetry 

 that she sought in history, scenery, 

 character, and religious belief 

 poetry that guided all her studies, 

 governed all her thoughts, coloured 

 all her imaginative conversation. 

 Her nature was at once simple and 

 profound ; there was no room in 

 her mind for philosophy, nor in her 

 heart for ambition. The one was 

 filled by imagination, the other en- 

 grossed by tenderness. 



" She had a passive temper, but 

 decided tastes ; any one might in- 

 fluence, but very few impressed her. 

 Her strength and her weakness lay 

 alike in her affections : these would 

 sometimes make her weep, at others 

 imbue her with courage ; so that she 

 was, alternately, 'a falcon-hearted 

 dove,' and a ' reed broken with the 

 wind.' Her voice was a sweet, sad 

 melody, and her spirits reminded 

 me of an old poet's description of 

 the orange-tree, with its 

 4 Golden lumps, hid in a nielit of green,' 

 or of those Spanish gardens where 

 the pomegranate blossoms beside 

 the cypress. Her gladness was like 

 a burst of sunlight ; and if in her 

 sadness she resembled night, it was 

 night wearing her stars. I might 

 describe and describe forever, but 

 I should never succeed in portray- 

 ing Egeria. She was a Muse, a 

 Grace, a variable child, a dependent 

 woman, the Italy of human beings." 



COWLEY AND HIS MISFORTUNES. 



Cowley, in an ode, had com- 

 memorated the genius of Brutus, 

 with all the enthusiasm of a votary 

 of liberty. After the king's return, 

 when Cowley solicited some reward 

 for his sufferings and services in 

 the royal cause, the chancellor is 

 said to have turned on him with a 

 severe countenance, saying, "Mr. 

 Cowley, your pardon is your re- 

 ward." 



It seems that the ode was then 

 considered to be of a dangerous 

 tendency among half the nation ; 

 Brutus would be the model of en- 

 thusiasts, who were sullenly bend- 

 ing their necks under the yoke of 

 royalty. Charles II. feared the 

 attempt of desperate men ; and he 

 might have forgiven Rochester a 

 loose pasquinade, but not Cowley a 

 solemn invocation. 



This fact, then, is said to have 

 been the true cause of the despon- 

 dency so prevalent in the latter 

 poetry of "the melancholy Cowley." 

 And hence the indiscretion of the 

 Muse, in a single flight, condemned 

 her to a painful, rather than a volun- 

 tary, solitude, and made the poet 

 complain of " barren praise " and 

 " neglected verse." 



No wonder, therefore, that he 

 thus expresses himself in the pre- 

 face to his Cutter of Colcman 

 Street : 



" We are, therefore, wonderfully 

 wise men, and have a fine business 

 of it ; we, who spend our time in 

 poetry. I do sometimes laugh, and 

 am often angry with myself, when 

 I think on it ; and if I had a son 

 inclined to the same folly by nature, 

 I believe I should bind him from it 

 by the strictest conjurations of a 

 parental blessing. For what can 

 be more ridiculous than to labour 

 to give men delight, whilst they 

 labour, on their jwirt, most earnestly, 

 to take offence ?" 



And thus Lo closes the preface, 



