Her youngest child entered Westminster School about 1628; here he showed a

Sr

of vor gardix in May, or even the haveing
such a one / so

to return
zeta

your

the

you my most hum the shanks, for
the stamonis & Law lately received of
book by apt Lethe & aft Presents. I
have already sowid such of a seans
thought most proper, upon a Stot bed, but
books a Catalogin
cannot find in all my
of this. ~ plants in th regains oft caltun, nor
of such as most bee set in pots, toth defirts
and all others, I hope shortly to see supplyst,
at id I hope to see shortly of work of Hr.
siculton finisht and published, and
tony to bee in all things as Discipt, as I
am in all things

now.

"most humble and "most obedient Sirvant A lowlay

Letter from Cowley to John Evelyn

BARNS, March 29, 1663

There is nothing more pleasant than to see kindnes in a person for whom wee have great esteem and respect (noe not the sight of yr garden in May, or even the haveing such a one) weh maks me the more obliged to return you my most humble thanks for the testimonies I have lately received of yours both by yr Letter and yr Presents. I have already sowed such of yr seeds as I thought most proper, upon a Hot bed, but cannot find in all my books a Catalogue of those plants weh require yt culture nor of such as must bee set in pots, weh defects and all others I hope shortly to see supplyd, yt as I hope to see shortly yr work of Horticulture finished and published, and long to bee in all things yr Disciple, as I am in all things now.

or in labouring in their affairs." Cowley made dangerous journeys, on the king's business, into Jersey, Scotland, Flanders, Holland, and elsewhere. The private correspondence between the king and queen was entrusted to his discretion. 1656 he could endure exile no longer, and came over to London; he was arrested,

In

and for some time closely imprisoned. On being released, Cowley returned to the prac tice of literature. In 1647 had been published, in his absence, his famous and long-admired miscellany of lyrics, The Mistress; he found himself, ten years later, the most popular living English poet. In order to conceal his political intentions, Cowley went to Oxford and there took the degree of M.D., pretending that he was about to practise as a physician; and he even wrote a poetical treatise Plantarum. In 1656 he published the folio of his Works, in which first appeared his sacred epic, the Davideis, and his celebrated Pindaric Cdes, in which Cowley introduced into. the garden of English literature a coarse metrical weed which throve apace for the next halfcentury. At the death of Cromwell, Cowley returned to France, and stayed there till the Restoration, when he published an Ode. He was one of the original members of the Royal Society. In 1661 he published two prose works, The Advancement of Experimental Philosophy and A Discourse Concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell. A supplementary volume of his poems appeared in 1663. Charles II. behaved to Cowley with striking ingratitude; for all his self-sacrifice and his long laborious services the poet received no reward. The Mastership of the Savoy had been promised him, but it was given to a brother of one of the king's mistresses. Cowley took his cue; he retired instantly and conclusively from public life and from the agitations of a court; he was weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition." He was saved by the bounty of two old friends-Lord St. Albans and the Duke of Buckingham-from anything like penury, and he bought an agricultural estate on the Thames at Chertsey. "Con

66

cealed in his beloved obscurity," he tried to farm his own land; he seems to have been unlucky in the enterprise. One summer evening in 1667, he stayed out in his fields, superintending his haymakers, too late, and became soaked with the dew. He caught a severe cold, of

which he died on the 28th of July. Charles II., in tardy recognition, exclaimed, "Mr. Cowley has not left behind him a better man in England!" He was buried by the side of Chaucer and Spenser in in Westminster Abbey. Cowley was a very honest man, beloved by his friends, faultless in his public and private conduct; he was consumed, as few men have been, by the burning ambition for a sound literary reputation. If his life had not been broken into and ravaged by political events which destroyed all his leisure through the best years of his youth, Cowley would probably have made very substantial contributions to literature. His Essays (published in 1668) proved his rare command of simple prose.

Dedicatory Verses to Cowley's Poetical Blossoms

But the root of the matter was not quite in him, and it is doubtful

whether we have lost much by the enforced disturbance of his plans.

FROM "ON THE DEATH OF MR. CRASHAW."

Pardon, my mother church, if I consent

That angels led him when from thee he went,

For even in error sure no danger is,

When join'd with so much piety as his.

Ah, mighty God, with shame I speak't and grief,
Ah, that our greatest faults were in belief!
And our weak reason were even weaker yet,
Rather than thus our wills too strong for it.
His faith perhaps in some nice tenets might
Be wrong; his life, I'm sure, was in the right;

And I myself a Catholic will be,

So far at least, great saint, to pray to thee!

Hail, bard triumphant! and some care bestow

On us, the poets militant below!

Opposed by our old enemy, adverse chance,

Attacked by envy, and by ignorance,

Enchain'd by beauty, tortured by desires,

Expos'd by tyrant-love to savage beasts and fires.
Thou from low earth in nobler flames didst rise,
And like Elijah, mount alive the skies.
Elisha-like (but with a wish much less,
More fit thy greatness, and my littleness)

Lo, here I beg (I whom thou once didst prove

So humble to esteem, so good to love)

Not that thy spirit might on me doubled be,

I ask but half thy mighty spirit for me;

And when my muse soars with so strong a wing,

'Twill learn of things divine, and first of thee to sing.

Sir John Denham (1615-1669), son of a knight of the same name, of Little Horsely, in Essex, was born in 1615, in Dublin, while his father was Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Ireland. The Denhams came over to England in 1617, the father receiving a high judicial appointment, and the future poet was put to a London grammar school. In 1631 he entered Trinity College, Oxford, as a gentleman

He

commoner; he was now "a slow, dreaming young man, more addicted to gaming than study." Denham entered at Lincoln's Inn, married in 1634, and was called to the Bar in 1638; in which year his father died, and left him a fortune, a great part of which he dissipated in gambling. was high sheriff of Surrey and governor of Farnham Castle when the Civil War broke out, and he took the Royalist side. Having given no evidence of a turn for poetry, he "broke out like the Irish Rebellion, three score thousand strong, when nobody was aware or in the least suspected it," as Waller said, by publishing in 1642 his tragedy of The Sophy and his famous topographical poem Cooper's Hill, both anonymous. It was on these works, and on these alone, that his great reputation was so long sustained. Denham retired to Oxford to the king, and he was engaged in personal attendance on various members of the royal family until 1652. In 1650 he took the perilous journey to Poland, and brought back £10,000 for Charles II. from his Scotch subjects there. Early in 1652 Denham came back to London, but, his estates having been confiscated, he was glad to accept the hospitality of the Earl of Pembroke at Wilton, and lived very quietly until the Restoration. When the king came back, Denham was made surveyor-general of His Majesty's Buildings, and was knighted at the Coronation. He appears to have become for a while insane, after a second marriage. Lady Denham died in January 1667, and her husband recovered his mental health, but not