As Cowley's name has been brought before the public in the disquisition
on his monument by MR. H. CAMPKIN ("N. & Q." Vol. v., pp. 267-8.), may I
be allowed, now that his character and merits are revived, to direct
attention to his prose works in preference to his poetical; although, as
MR. CAMPKIN remarks, "his beautiful lyrics in praise of a country life
will always keep his name before us."
Miss Mitford, in her recent publication, _Recollections of a Literary
Life_, has done good service to Cowley's character, and her criticisms
will doubtless direct attention, as they have done to the septuagenarian
who is now writing, to a _re-perusal_ of his prose works. With my
school-fellow Charles Lamb, and his sister, Cowley's prose essays were
always especial favourites, and were esteemed by them as some of the
best specimens of the "well of English undefiled." A tyro in literature
could not, I am persuaded, form a better style of composition, than by
taking Cowley's prose essays for his model. I consider the prose
writings both of Cowley and Dryden master-pieces. "Praised in his day as
a great poet, the head of the school of poets called metaphysical,
Cowley will now be chiefly known," says Miss Mitford, "by those prose
essays, all too short and all too few, which, whether for thought or for
expression, have rarely been excelled by any writer in any language.
They are eminently distinguished for the grace, the finish, and the
clearness which his verse too often wants." "His thoughts," also says
Dr. Johnson, "are natural; and his style has a smooth and placid
equability, _which has never yet obtained its due commendation_."
As the columns of "N. & Q." do not admit of long quotations, I would
respectfully direct attention to the beautiful essays, "Of Obscurity,"
"The Garden," "Of Solitude," and "Of Liberty." Southey and Cobbett, as
writers of pure English, are, in my opinion, the only two modern authors
who can be compared with Cowley.