GRAY AND COWLEY.
Some spirited publisher would confer a serious obligation on the classical world by bringing out an edition of Gray's Poems, with the parallel passages annexed. "Taking him for all in all," he is one of our most perfect poets: and though Collins might have rivalled him (under circumstances equally auspicious), he could have been surpassed by Milton alone. In 1786, Gilbert Wakefield attempted to do for Gray what Newton and Warton had done for Milton (and, for one, I thank him for it); but his illustrations, though almost all good and to the point, are generally from books which every ordinary reader knows off by heart. Besides, Wakefield is so very egotistical, and at times so very puerile, that he is too much for most people. However, his volume, The Poems of Mr. Gray, with Notes, by Gilbert Wakefield, B.A., late Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge: London, 1786, would furnish a good substratum for the volume I am now recommending.
Not to speak of Milton's English poems and the great masterpieces of ancient times, with which so learned a scholar as Gray was, of course, familiar, he draws largely from the Greek anthology, from Nonnus, from Milton's Latin poems, from Cowley, and I had almost said from the prose works of Bishop Jeremy Taylor. His admiration of the great "Shakspeare of Divinity" is proved from a portion of one of his letters to Mason; and some other day I may furnish an illustration or two. Indeed, were any publisher to undertake the generous office I mention, I dare say that many a secret treasure would be unlocked, and many an "orient pearl at random strung" be forthcoming for his use. Let me first mention Gray's opinion of Cowley, and then add in confirmation one or two passages out of many. He says in a note to his "Ode on the Progress of Poesy:"
"We have had in our language not other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden 'On St. Cecilia's Day:' for Cowley (who had his merit) yet wanted judgment, style, and harmony for such a task. That of Pope is not worthy of so great a man."
We must submit to Gray's oracular sentence, for he himself was pre-eminently gifted in the three great qualities in which he declares the deficiency of Cowley (at least if we are to judge from his English poems; for the prosody of his Latin efforts seems sadly deficient). At times Cowley's "harmony" is not first-rate, and his "style" is deeply impregnated with the fantastic conceits of the day; but he is still a poet, and a great one too. And I think that in some of his writings Gray had Cowley evidently in mind; e.g. in the epitaph to his "Elegy in a Country Churchyard:"
"Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompence as largely send:
He gave to mis'ry (all he had) a tear;
He gained from Heav'n ('twas all he wish'd) a friend."
Cowley had previously written:
"Large was his soul; as large a soul as e'er
Submitted to inform a body here.
High as the place 'twas shortly in Heav'n to have,
But low, and humble as his grave.
So high that all the virtues there did come,
As to their chiefest seat,
Conspicuous, and great;
So low that for me too it made a room."
On the Death of Mr. William Hervey.
Miscellanies, page 18. London, 1669.
Again—
"The attick warbler pours her throat
Responsive to the cuckoo's note,
The untaught harmony of spring."
Gray, Ode I. On the Spring.
"Hadst thou all the charming notes
Of the wood's poetic throats."
Cowley, Ode to the Swallow.
"Teaching their Maker in their untaught lays."
Cowley, Davideis lib. i. sect 63. p. 20.
"Where'er the oak's thick branches stretch
A broader browner shade,
Where'er the rude and moss-grown beech
O'ercanopies the glade,
Beside some water's rushy brink,
With me the Muse shall sit, and think," &c.
Gray, Ode I. On the Spring.
"O magnum Isacidum decus! O pulcherrima castra!
O arma ingentes olim paritura triumphos!
Non sic herbarum vario subridet Amictu,
Planities pictæ vallis, montisque supini
Clivus, perpetuis Cedrorum versibus altus.
Non sic æstivo quondam nitet hortus in anno,
Frondusque, fructusque ferens, formosa secundum
Flumina, mollis ubi viridisque supernatat umbra."
Cowley, Davideidos lib. i. ad finem.
I do not mean that Gray may not have had other poets in his mind when writing these lines (for there is nothing new or uncommon about them); but rather a careful going over of Cowley's poems convinces me that Gray was sensible of his "merits," and often corrects his want of "judgment" by his own refined and most exquisite taste. I must give one more instance; and I think that Bishop Hall's allusion to his life at Emmanuel College, and Bishop Ridley's "Farewell to Pembroke Hall," must every one fall into the background before Cowley. Gray's poem ought to be too well known to require quoting:
"Ye distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flowers among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver winding way.
"Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain.
I feel the gales that from ye blow,
A momentary bliss bestow,
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring."
Ode III. On a distant Prospect of Eton College.
Cowley was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; and if I rightly remember Bonney's Life of Bishop Middleton, his affecting allusions to Cambridge had the highest praise of that accomplished scholar and divine:
"O mihi jucundum Grantæ super omnia nomen!
O penitus toto corde receptus amor!
O pulchræ sine luxu ædes, vitæque beatæ,
Splendida paupertas, ingenuusque decor!
O chara ante alias, magnorum nomine Regum
Digna domus! Trini nomine digna Dei
O nimium Cereris cumulati munere campi,
Posthabitis Ennæ quos colit illa jugis!
O sacri fontes! et sacræ vatibus umbræ
Quas recreant avium Pieridumque chori!
O Camus! Phœbo multus quo gratior amnis
Amnibus auriferis invidiosus inops!
Ah mihi si vestræ reddat bona gaudia sedis,
Detque Deus doctâ posse quiete frui!
Qualis eram cum me tranquilla mente sedentem
Vidisti in ripâ, Came serene, tuâ;
Mulcentem audisti puerili flumina cantu;
Ille quidem immerito, sed tibi gratus erat.
Nam, memini ripa cum tu dignatus utrâque
Dignatum est totum verba referre nemus.
Tunc liquidis tacitisque simul mea vita diebus,
Et similis vestræ candida fluxit aquæ.
At nunc cœnosæ luces, atque obice multo
Rumpitur ætatis turbidus ordo meæ.
Quid mihi Sequanâ opus, Tamesisve aut Thybridis undâ?
Tu potis es nostram tollere, Came, sitim."
Elegia dedicatoria, ad illustrissimam Academiam
Cantabrigiensem, prefixed to Cowley's Works,
Lond. 1669, folio.
RT.
Warmington, Sept. 8. 1851.