"_Barn Elms, March 23, 1663._
"SIR,--There is nothing more pleasant than to see kindness
in a person for whom we have great esteem and respect: no,
not the sight of your garden in May, or even the having
such an one; which makes me more obliged to return you my
most humble thanks for the testimonies I have lately
received of you, both by your letter and your presents. I
have already sowed such of your seeds as I thought most
proper upon a hot-bed; but cannot find in all my books a
catalogue of these plants which require that culture, nor
of such as must be set in pots; which defects, and all
others, I hope shortly to see supplied, as I hope shortly
to see your work of Horticulture finished and published;
and long to be in all things your disciple, as I am in all
things now,
"Sir, your most humble and most obedient Servant,
"A. COWLEY."
[Barn Elms, from whence this letter is dated, was the first
country residence of Cowley. It lies low on the banks of the
Thames, and here the poet was first seized with a fever, which
obliged him to remove; but he chose an equally improper
locality for a man of his temperament, in Chertsey, where he
died from the effects of a severe cold.]
Such were the ordinary letters which passed between two men
whom it would be difficult to parallel for their elegant
tastes and gentle dispositions. Evelyn's beautiful retreat at
Sayes Court, at Deptford, is described by a contemporary as
"a garden exquisite and most boscaresque, and, as it were,
an exemplar of his book of Forest-trees." It was the
entertainment and wonder of the greatest men of those times,
and inspired the following lines of Cowley, to Evelyn and
his lady, who excelled in the arts her husband loved; for she
designed the frontispiece to his version of Lucretius--
"In books and gardens thou hast placed aright
(Things well which thou dost understand,
And both dost make with thy laborious hand)
Thy noble innocent delight;
And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet
Both pleasures more refined and sweet;
The fairest garden in her looks,
And in her mind the wisest books."
[28] A term the French apply to those _botches_ which bad poets use
to make out their metre.
[29] This comedy was first presented very hurriedly for the amusement
of Prince Charles as he passed through Cambridge to York.
Cowley himself describes it, then, as "neither _made_ nor
_acted_, but _rough-drawn_ by him, and _repeated_ by his
scholars" for this temporary purpose. After the Restoration he
endeavoured to do more justice to his juvenile work, by
remodelling it, and producing it at the Duke of York's
theatre. But as many of the characters necessarily retained
the features of the older play, and times had changed; it was
easy to affix a false stigma to the poet's pictures of the old
Cavaliers; and the play was universally condemned as a satire
on the Royalists. It was reproduced with success at the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, as long afterwards as the
year 1730.--ED.
[30] The anecdote, probably little known, may be found in "The
Judgment of Dr. Prideaux in Condemning the Murder of
Julius Caesar by the Conspirators as a most villanous act,
maintained," 1721, p. 41.