John Cowley

“ He had married in 1833 Olivia Cecilia (d. 1885) , daughter of Charlotte, baroness de Ros and Lord Henry Fitzgerald, by whom he had three sons and two daughters, and was succeeded in his titles by his eldest son, William Henry, 2nd Earl Cowley (1834-1895) , father of Henry Arthur Mornington, 3rd earl (b. 1866) .
COWLEY FATHERS, the name commonly given to the members of the Society of Mission Priests of St John the Evangelist, an Anglican religious community, the headquarters of which are in England, at Cowley St John, close to Oxford. The society was founded in 1865 by the Rev. ”

“ A similar sum was paid to John Hemynges and Richard Cowley, 31 March 1601 (–2) , and entries of the kind continue until 1618. That his duties were largely financial may be gathered, too, from the fact that he is associated with comparatively few characters. ”

“ Johnson, in his Life of Cowley, says: ‘Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson, the carrier.’ ‘Aggregation of ideas.’ ‘Sublimity,’ says Johnson (Life of Cowley) , ‘is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion.’ 493‘Inimitable on earth,’ etc. Paradise Lost, III. 508-9. Suckling. Sir John Suckling (1609-1642) . Johnson refers to him in his Life of Cowley as one of the ‘immediate successors’ of the metaphysical poets, but adds: ‘Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley ”

“ Perhaps nowhere does a more beautiful treatise of the kind exist. The good sense and wisdom of the thoughts, the delicacy of the feelings, and the charm of the style, are, throughout, equally conspicuous. Yet the Author, selecting among the Poets of his own country those whom he deems most worthy of his son's perusal, particularizes only Lord Rochester, Sir John Denham, and Cowley. Writing about the same time, Shaftesbury, an author at present unjustly depreciated, describes the English Muses as only yet lisping in their cradles. ”

“ Human nature is not such as to maintain known errors with such unwavering integrity and consistency against the bitter opposition of the world from boyhood to the grave. Yet with all his increasing trials and persecutions, which rolled upon him all his life like the angry waves of the ocean, driven by the winds against the peaceful shore, he never faltered. His testimony never wavered. He testified that he saw God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, and received of the ministrations of John the Baptist, Peter, James and John, Elijah and other prophets who lived in bygone ages. ”

“ Cowley's ‘Runaway,’ and on 7 March the original Eliza in Colman's ‘Spleen, or Islington Spa.’ During the following season she played at Drury Lane Sylvia in the ‘Old Bachelor;’ was the original Kitty Sprightly in Jackman's ‘All the World's a Stage,’ and, 8 May 1777, the original Maria in the ‘School for Scandal.’ Other parts followed: Bridget in ‘Every Man in his Humour,’ Arabella in the ‘Committee,’ Mademoiselle in the ‘Provoked Wife,’ and Fanny in the ‘Clandestine Marriage,’ played for the benefit of ‘the Miss Hopkins's,’ 1 May 1778. ”

“ While the revelator John, who was the last remaining member of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles on the Eastern Hemisphere, was in banishment upon the Isle of Patmos, he saw the image of a beast, representing a power that should arise in the earth, make war upon the Saints and overcome them. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast, and they worshiped the beast, saying, "Who is like unto the beast? ”

“ Cowley's ‘Who's the Dupe?’ Mariana in the ‘Miser,’ Perdita, Amanda in the ‘Trip to Scarborough,’ Fidelia in the ‘Foundling,’ Angelina in ‘Love makes a Man,’ Rose in the ‘Recruiting Officer,’ Maria in ‘Twelfth Night,’ Donna Viola (an original part) on 25 Nov. 1786 in Mrs. Cowley's ‘School for Greybeards,’ Margaret in ‘A New Way to Pay Old Debts,’ and many other parts, original and other, chiefly secondary. ”

“ Cowley's ‘Which is the Man?’ On 17 Jan. 1783 he was the first Younger Loveless in the ‘Capricious Lady,’ an adaptation of the ‘Scornful Lady;’ 25 Feb. 1783 Don Julio in Mrs. Cowley's ‘Bold Stroke for a Husband;’ 14 Dec. ”

“ A commendatory preface by Daniel Featley, D.D., is succeeded by eulogistic verses by E. Benlowes, his brother William, Francis Quarles (two poems) , Lodowick Roberts, and A. C., who has been identified with Cowley. ‘The Piscatory Eclogs and other Poeticall Miscellanies’ has a separate title-page. The seven ‘Eclogs’ contain much autobiographical matter, but the names of the author's friends are disguised. Thelgon is the poet's father, Thyrsil himself, and Thomalin is John Tomkins. The ‘Miscellanies’ include epithalamia in honour of the author's cousins, ‘Mr. ”

“ ABRAHAM COWLEY. The 'melancholy' and musical Cowley was born in London in the year 1618. He was the posthumous son of a worthy grocer, who lived in Fleet Street, near the end of Chancery Lane, and who is supposed, from the omission of his name in the register of St Dunstan's parish, to have been a Dissenter. His mother was left poor, but had a strong desire for her son's education, and influence to get him admitted as a king's scholar into Westminster. ”

“ For when his Brother (teares for him I'de spill,
But they're all challeng'd by the greater ill)
Strugled for life with the rude waves, he too
Leapt in, and when hope no faint beame could show,
His charitie shone most ; thou shalt, said hee,
Live with me, Brother, or Ile dye with thee ;
And so he did : Had he beene thine, ô Rome,
Thou wouldst have call'd this death a Martyrdome,
And Saynted him ”

“ But think how likely 'tis that thou,
With the dull work of thy unwieldy plough,
Shouldst in a hard and barren season thrive,
Shouldst even able be to live;
Thou! to whose share so little bread did fall
In the miraculous year, when manna rain'd on all.'
Thus spake the Muse, and spake it with a smile,
That seemed at once to pity and revile:
And to her thus, raising his thoughtful head,
The melancholy Cowley said:
'Ah, wanton foe! dost thou upbraid
The ills which thou thyself hast made? ”

“ But of the lyrical depth and passion of the great Revolution poets Cowper is wholly devoid. His soul was stirred by no movement so mighty, if it were even capable of the impulse. Tenderness he has, and pathos as well as playfulness; he has unfailing grace and ease; he has clearness like that of a trout-stream. Fashions, even our fashions, change. The more metaphysical poetry of our time has indeed too much in it, besides the metaphysics, to be in any danger of being ever laid on the shelf with the once admired conceits of Cowley ”

“ And Beasts henceforth afraid to drinke of thee.
What have I said? my pious rage hath beene
Too hot, and acts whilst it accuseth sinne.
Thou'rt innocent I know, still cleare, and bright,
Fit whence so pure a soule should take it's flight. ”

“ Cowley, distinguished as a loyalist and as a man of letters, raised his voice courageously against the immorality which disgraced both letters and loyalty. A mightier poet, tried at once by pain, danger, poverty, obloquy, and blindness, meditates, undisturbed by the obscene tumult which raged all around him, a song so sublime and so holy that it would not have misbecome the lips of those ethereal Virtues whom he saw, with that inner eye which no calamity could darken, flinging down on the jasper pavement their crowns of amaranth and gold. ”

“ The “Chronicle” is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influence even in this airy frolic of genius. To such a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge ”

“ It was, perhaps, ordained by Providence, to hinder us from tyrannizing over one another, that no individual should be of such importance, as to cause, by his retirement or death, any chasm in the world. And Cowley had conversed to little purpose with mankind, if he had never remarked, how soon the useful friend, the gay companion, and the favoured lover, when once they are removed from before the sight, give way to the succession of new objects. ”

“ No author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. 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-laboured; but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness.
It has been observed by Felton, in his essay on the Classicks, that Cowley was beloved by every muse that he courted; and that he has rivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. ”

“ Such intentions and such a life produce and indicate less a poet, that is, a seer, a creator, than a literary man; I mean a man who can think and speak, and who therefore ought to have read much, learned much, written much, ought to possess a calm and clear mind, to be accustomed to polite society, sustained conversation, pleasantry. In fact, Cowley is an author by profession, the oldest of those who in England deserve the name. His prose is as easy and sensible as his poetry is contorted and unreasonable. ”

“ What is perceived by slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness of improvement, but will never strike with the sense of pleasure.
Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of phrase: he has no elegancies, either lucky or elaborate: as his endeavours were rather to impress sentences upon the understanding than images on the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar propriety or nice adaptation. ”

“ Are you, really—yet I cannot doubt it—are you, really, Donna Olivia, the daughter of Don Cæsar, to whom Don Garcia and Don Vincentio had lately the honour of paying their addresses?
Min. Am I Donna Olivia! ha! ha! ha! what a question! Pray, sir, is this my father's house?—Are you Don Julio?
Julio. I beg your pardon; but, to confess, I had heard you described as a lady who had not quite so much sweetness, and——
Min. Oh! what, you had heard that I was a termagant, I suppose.—'Tis all slander, sir: there is not in Madrid, though I say it, a sweeter temper than my own ”

“ To love excellence is natural; it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reciprocal regard by an elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and effusions of wit; but it seems as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet of an airy “nothing,” and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have learned from his master Pindar to call “the dream of a shadow.”
It is surely not difficult, in the solitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He met a severe fall when he first came to Chertsey, of which he says, half in jest and half in earnest—'What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging.' Robert Hall said of Bishop Watson that he seemed to have wedded political integrity in early life, and to have spent all the rest of his days in quarrelling with his wife. So Cowley wedded his long- sought-for bride, Solitude, and led a miserable life with her ever after. ”

“ It will now be seen that even the “metaphysical verse” of Cowley is no more than evidence of the straight-forward simplicity and single-heartedness of the man. And he was in all this but a type of his school—for we may as well designate in this way the entire class of writers whose poems are bound up in the volume before us, and throughout all of whom runs a very perceptible general character. They used but little art in composition. Their writings sprang immediately from the soul—and partook intensely of the nature of that soul. ”

“ What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered, cannot be known. He that misses his end will never be as much pleased as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part of his failure to himself; and, when the end is to please the multitude, no man, perhaps, has a right, in things admitting of gradation and comparison, to throw the whole blame upon his judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame by a haughty consciousness of his own excellence. ”

“ The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.
The next class of his poems is called “The Mistress,” of which it is not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or censure. They have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the same proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of learning ”