raw goat. I am gone to hell: and when I went thither, I neither carried gold, nor horse, nor silver chariot. I, that wore a mitre. am now a little heap of dust."1 ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667. ABRAHAM COWLEY is the first, in order of time, of the list of English poets whose works were edited, and whose lives were written by Doctor Johnson. He was born in London in 1618. His father, who was a grocer by trade, died before his birth; but his mother succeeded in procuring his admission into Westminster School as a king's scholar, where he became distinguished for correct classical scholarship. He very early imbibed a taste for poetry— it is said from Spenser's Faerie Queene being thrown in his way; and in his sixteenth year he published a collection of verses under the appropriate title of Poetical Blossoms. In 1636 he was elected a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, where he continued to reside till 1643, when he removed to Oxford. From this time he took a very active part in the royal cause, and was employed on some missions of 'trust; and when, in the progress of the civil war, the queen was compelled to quit the kingdom, Cowley accompanied her to France, and was of material assistance to her, in managing the secret correspondence between herself and her royal consort. In 1656 he returned to England, and soon after his arrival published an edition of his poems, containing most of those which now appear in his works. When the Restoration came, he naturally looked for some reward for his long services in the royal cause. But alas! "how wretched is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors." Cowley was destined to much bitter disappointment. At length he obtained the lease of a farm at Chertsey, by which his income was raised to about £300 a year. But he did not live long to enjoy his retirement; for, taking a severe cold and fever by exposure, he died on July 28, 1667. At the time of his death, Cowley certainly ranked as the first poet in England, though the Comus of Milton and some of his exquisite minor poems had been published nearly thirty years before. But what could be expected of an age that was stamped with the licentiousness of such a court as that of Charles II.? Still, though Cowley has nothing of the reputation he once had, he has sufficient merit to give him a considerable rank among British poets. Dr. Johnson says, "It may be affirmed that he brought to his poetic labors 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 gayety of the less, and that he was equally qualified for sprightly sallies and for lofty flights." His poetical works are divided into four parts Miscellanies," "Love Verses," "Pindaric Otes," and the "Davidies, a heroical poem of the Troubles of David." Of all these his Anacreontics are the most natural and pleasing.2 1 "He who wrote in this manner also wore a mitre, and is now a heap of dust; but when the name of Jeremy Taylor is no longer remembered with reverence, genius will have become a mockery, and virtue an empty shade !"-Hazlitt. 2 The best edition of Cowley is that by Bishop Hurd, in three volumes: read also, Johnson's Life of Cowley in his "Lives of the British Poets." GOLD. A mighty pain to love it is, A curse on her and on the man A curse on him who found the ore! A curse, all curses else above, On him who used it first in love! THE GRASSHOPPER. Happy insect! what can be Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing, Nor does thy luxury destroy. The shepherd gladly heareth thee, More harmonious than he. Thee country hinds with gladness hear Prophet of the ripen'd year! Thee Phœbus loves, and does inspire; Phœbus is himself thy sire. To thee, of all things upon earth, Dost neither age nor winter know: The following are four stanzas of one of his best pieces, entitled HYMN TO LIGHT. Hail! active Nature's watchful life and health! Her joy, her ornament, and wealth! Hail to thy husband, Heat, and thee! Thou the world's beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom hel 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 come, thy Sire, the Word Divine. 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 tent for ever move, And still, as thou in pomp uost go, The shining pageants of the world attend thy show. Cowley's prose essays are much better than his poetry. Dr. Johnson, in speaking of them, says, "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-labored; but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness:" and Dr. Drake, one of the most judicious of modern critics, remarks, that "to Cowley we may justly ascribe the formation of a basis on which has since been constructed the present correct and admirable fabric of our language. His words are pure and well chosen, the collocation simple and perspicuous, and the members of his sentences distinct and harmonious." ON MYSELF. 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 preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defec tive side. 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 a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to the selves, and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school, instead of running about on holidays, 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. That I was then of the same mind as I am now, (which, I confess, I wonder at myself,) may appear at 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 ashamed. This only grant me, that my means may lie Not from great deeds, but good alone; Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends Books should, not business, entertain the light, 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, Thus would I double my life's fading space, These unbought sports, that happy state, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them; I have lived 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 stamped first, or rather engraved, the characters in me. They were like letters cut in the bark of a young tree, which, with the tree, still grow proportionably. But how this love came to be produced 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 nave never since left ringing there: for I remember when I began to read, and take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour, (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion;) but there was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and life; was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there, (though my understanding had little to do with all this ;) and by degrees, with the tinkling of the rhyme, and dance of the numbers; so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university; but was soon torn from thence by that public violent storm, which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses in the world. Now, though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant, (for that was the state then of the English and the French courts ;) yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with, when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it was adulterate. I met with several great persons whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage; though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business of great and honorable trust, though I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition, in banishment and public distresses; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old schoolboy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect: Well, then, I now do plainly see This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c. And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, who, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. THE PLEASURES OF A COUNTRY LIFE. The first wish of Virgil was, o be a good philosopher; the second, a good husbandman; and God (whom he seemed to |