It is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of himself; it grates
his own heart to say anything of disparagement, and the reader's ears
to hear anything 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 defective side. But besides that, I shall here
speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent
discourses, and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt,
than rise up to the estimation of most people. 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 themselves, 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. I
was then, too, so much an enemy to constraint, that my masters could
never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn,
without book, the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed
with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual
exercise out of my own reading and observation. 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
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have,
Not from great deeds, but good alone;
Th' unknown are better than ill-known.
Rumour can ope the grave;
Acquaintance I would have; but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.
Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage, more
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,
Horace might envy in his Sabine field.
Thus would I double my life's fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,
These unbought sports, that happy state,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,
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 have 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 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
life; 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 honourable 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 school-boy'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. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself,
and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the
elegance of it--
Thou neither great at court, nor in the war,
Nor at the Exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar;
Content thyself with the small barren praise
Which thy neglected verse does raise, &c.
However, by the failing of the forces which I had expected, I did not
quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it a
_corpus perditum_, without making capitulations, or taking counsel of
fortune. But God laughs at man, who says to his soul, Take thy ease: I
met presently not only with many little incumbrances and impediments,
but with so much sickness--a new misfortune to me--as would have
spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither
repent nor alter my course; _Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum_.[3]
Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long,
and have now at last married; though she neither has brought me a rich
portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her.
[Footnote 3: I have not falsely sworn.]
_Nec vos dulcissima mundi
Nomina, vos musae, libertas, otia, libri,
Hortique, sylvaeque, anima remanente relinquam_.
Nor by me e'er shall you,
You of all names the sweetest and the best,
You muses, books, and liberty, and rest;
You gardens, fields, and woods forsaken be,
As long as life itself forsakes not me.
_Cowley._