If Pope in his time could ask, "Who now reads Cowley?" and if Cowper, at
a later period, could lament that his "splendid wit" should have been
"entangled in the cobwebs of the schools," it may be in our day, when
most good people who cultivate poetry, either as readers or writers,
swear by Wordsworth or Tennyson, that the bare mention of Cowley's name,
in some circles, would be resented as a kind of impertinence. But Pope's
answer to his own question is as apposite now as when the question was
first put. If Cowley--
"----pleases yet,
His _moral_ pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his _heart_."
The _Davideis_ and the _Herbs and Plants_ find few readers beyond those
who resort to them for special purposes; but poets of more recent times,
even whilst contemning his "conceits," have (as your volumes have
frequently shown) often borrowed his ideas without improving upon the
phraseology in which they have been clothed. Witness, for instance,
Cowper's transmutation of his noble line:
"God the first garden made--the first city, Cain,"
into his own smooth generality of--
"God made the country, and man made the town."
And Cowley's love of Nature, and his beautiful lyrics in praise of a
country life, will always keep his name before us. However, to desist
from this "nothing-if-not-critical" strain, let me beg of you to lay the
accompanying transcript [_see the next page_] of a manuscript in my
possession before your readers--that is, if you deem it of sufficient
interest.
The verses themselves, evidently of a date not long subsequent to the
erection of the Cowley monument in Westminster Abbey, are written on the
back of a damaged copy of Faithorne's engraved portrait of him. They
comprise a not very correct transcript of the Latin inscription on the
monument, a translation and paraphrase of the same, and what is styled a
"burlesque," in which one of the chief features of the monument itself
is ludicrously associated with the profession of Sir Charles
Scarborough, Cowley's friend. The "Per Carolum Scarborough, Militem,
Med. Doctorem," implies, it may be presumed, that Sir Charles was the
author of the Latin epitaph, of which it has always been understood, and
indeed it is so stated in the later biographies of the poet, that
Cowley's close friend and literary executor Sprat, Bishop of Rochester,
was the author. Scarborough published an elegy to Cowley's memory, of
which I am informed there is no copy in the British Museum library; and
being unable to refer to it in any other collection, I have no means of
ascertaining whether this elegy discloses the fact of the authorship of
the epitaph. This is not an unimportant point, since it will be
recollected that Dr. Johnson expends a considerable amount of
indignation upon the epitaph, not on account of its Latinity, but on
account of what he considers as the false sentiments of which it is made
the vehicle.
The value of the manuscript depends of course upon the possibility of
the chief item of its contents being unpublished. Whatever respect the
writer may have entertained towards Cowley, he certainly seems inclined
to be merry at the expense of Sir Charles Scarborough. The unwieldy urn
which surmounts the monument, is variously designated as a "whimwham urn
as broad as sawcer," and as "the surgeon's gally-pot." These are not
very complimentary epithets, it is true; but if they ever met the
courtly physician's eye he could afford to laugh with the laughers.
Cowley's lack of success in his attempt to obtain the mastership of the
Savoy is not forgotten; but the satirist speaks of the dead poet very
goodhumouredly, and may be said to concur in opinion with those of his
admirers who predicted for his writings an enduring immortality. But
"sugar-candy Cowley," as the burlesquer terms him, is now obliged to be
content with a few pages in the _Selections from British Poets_, where
indeed he is entitled to a very eminent position; whilst "dull Chaucer,"
as he is irreverently called, with whom the writer quietly prays that
Cowley may quietly "sleep in beggar's limbo," seems to live almost
bodily amongst us; and his vivid pictures and naïve descriptions are so
acceptable, that it may safely be predicted that an edition of the
_Canterbury Tales_ will always be a more profitable venture for a
publisher than a speculation in a new edition of the _Davideis_.
But, after all, Cowley's acceptance amongst those who immediately
survived him, is perhaps due quite as much to the recollection of his
amiable personal qualities, as to his poetic abilities; and when Charles
II., "who never _said_ a foolish thing," declared, on being informed of
the poet's death, that "Mr. Cowley had not left a better _man_ behind
him in England," the merry monarch may have intended exactly what he
said, and no more. With these rambling remarks I leave the matter, only
trusting, if I shall be found to have called attention to what may
possibly be an old acquaintance of some of your learned readers, that my
desire to contribute an occasional mite to the pages of a periodical,
from which I gather so much information, will be accepted as an apology.
The words in brackets are supplied, conjecturally, in consequence of the
manuscript being faulty in those places.