COWLEY AND HIS MONUMENT.
If Pope in his time could ask, "Who now reads Cowley?" and if Cowper, at a later period, could lament that his "splendid wit" should have been "entangled in the cobwebs of the schools," it may be in our day, when most good people who cultivate poetry, either as readers or writers, swear by Wordsworth or Tennyson, that the bare mention of Cowley's name, in some circles, would be resented as a kind of impertinence. But Pope's answer to his own question is as apposite now as when the question was first put. If Cowley—
"——pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay pindaric art,
But still I love the language of his heart."
The Davideis and the Herbs and Plants find few readers beyond those who resort to them for special purposes; but poets of more recent times, even whilst contemning his "conceits," have (as your volumes have frequently shown) often borrowed his ideas without improving upon the phraseology in which they have been clothed. 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.
The verses themselves, evidently of a date not long subsequent to the erection of the Cowley monument in Westminster Abbey, are written on the back of a damaged copy of Faithorne's engraved portrait of him. They comprise a not very correct transcript of the Latin inscription on the monument, a translation and paraphrase of the same, and what is styled a "burlesque," in which one of the chief features of the monument itself is ludicrously associated with the profession of Sir Charles Scarborough, Cowley's friend. The "Per Carolum Scarborough, Militem, Med. Doctorem," implies, it may be presumed, that Sir Charles was the author of the Latin epitaph, of which it has always been understood, and indeed it is so stated in the later biographies of the poet, that Cowley's close friend and literary executor Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, was the author. Scarborough published an elegy to Cowley's memory, of which I am informed there is no copy in the British Museum library; and being unable to refer to it in any other collection, I have no means of ascertaining whether this elegy discloses the fact of the authorship of the epitaph. This is not an unimportant point, since it will be recollected that Dr. Johnson expends a considerable amount of indignation upon the epitaph, not on account of its Latinity, but on account of what he considers as the false sentiments of which it is made the vehicle.
The value of the manuscript depends of course upon the possibility of the chief item of its contents being unpublished. Whatever respect the writer may have entertained towards Cowley, he certainly seems inclined to be merry at the expense of Sir Charles Scarborough. The unwieldy urn which surmounts the monument, is variously designated as a "whimwham urn as broad as sawcer," and as "the surgeon's gally-pot." These are not very complimentary epithets, it is true; but if they ever met the courtly physician's eye he could afford to laugh with the laughers. Cowley's lack of success in his attempt to obtain the mastership of the Savoy is not forgotten; but the satirist speaks of the dead poet very goodhumouredly, and may be said to concur in opinion with those of his admirers who predicted for his writings an enduring immortality. But "sugar-candy Cowley," as the burlesquer terms him, is now obliged to be content with a few pages in the Selections from British Poets, where indeed he is entitled to a very eminent position; whilst "dull Chaucer," as he is irreverently called, with whom the writer quietly prays that Cowley may quietly "sleep in beggar's limbo," seems to live almost bodily amongst us; and his vivid pictures and naïve descriptions are so acceptable, that it may safely be predicted that an edition of the Canterbury Tales will always be a more profitable venture for a publisher than a speculation in a new edition of the Davideis.
But, after all, Cowley's acceptance amongst those who immediately survived him, is perhaps due quite as much to the recollection of his amiable personal qualities, as to his poetic abilities; and when Charles II., "who never said a foolish thing," declared, on being informed of the poet's death, that "Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England," the merry monarch may have intended exactly what he said, and no more. With these rambling remarks I leave the matter, only trusting, if I shall be found to have called attention to what may possibly be an old acquaintance of some of your learned readers, that my desire to contribute an occasional mite to the pages of a periodical, from which I gather so much information, will be accepted as an apology.
The words in brackets are supplied, conjecturally, in consequence of the manuscript being faulty in those places.
per Carolum Scarborough
Militem
Med. Doctorem.
ABRAHAMUS COWLEIUS.
Anglorum Pindarus, Flaccus Maro,
deliciæ, decus, desiderium, ævi sui
hic juxta situs est.
Aurea dum volitant late tua scripta per orbem,
Et fama æternum vivis, divine Poeta,
Hic placida jaceas requies custodiat urnam
Cana fides, vigilentq; perennii lampade Musæ.
Sit sacer iste locus, nec quis temerarius ausit
Sacrilegi turbare manu venerabili bustum.
Intacti maneant, maneant per secula dulcis
Cowleii cineres, serventq; immobile saxum.
Sic vovet, votumq; suum apud posteros sacratum esse voluit
Qui viro incomparabili posuit sepulchrale marmor.
GEORGIUS DUX BUCKINGHAMIÆ
Excessit e vita anno ætatis 49 magnifica pompa
elatus ex ædibus Buckinghamiis, viris illustribus
omnium ordinum; exequias celebrantibus sepultus est
die tertio Augusti anno 1667.
Englished—
ABRAHAM COWLEY;
the English Pindar, Horace, Virgil: the delight, glory
and desire of his age, lies near this place.
Whilst that thy glorious volumes still survive
And thou (great Poet) art in Fame alive,
Here take thy full repose, free from alarmes,
In th' Churches bosome and the Muses armes.
Speak and tread softly Passengers, and none
With an unhallowed touch pollute this stone
Let sweet-strained Cowley in death's sleep ne're stir
But rest, rest ever in his sepulchre.
BURLESQ;
Here lies, reduc'd to ashes and cinder,
not Sr Paul, but Sr Abraham Pindar.
It is not fierce Horatio Vere,
but Horatio Cowley buried here.
Nor is this Polydore Virgil's room,
but Cantabrigian Virgil's tomb.
The pleasant'st child e're England bred
The bravest youth e're Cambridge fed
The dearest man e're wore a head.
Whilst that thy ballads up & down do flutter
and the town gallants of thy town muse mutter
Possesse this church, though thou couldst not ye Savoy
and in her soft lap let Melpomene have thee.
Let no Court storm nor tough-lung'd zealot blow
thy neatly angled atomes to and fro
And sleep in beggar's Limbo, by dull Chaucer,
under the whim wham urn as broad as sawcer
Whilst yt thy name doth smell as sweet as May's
and all ye table talk is of thy Thais
thy miscellany and thy Davideis.
Rot away here and let the vault endure thee
let the religion of the house secure thee
and let the watching muses here immure thee.
Avaunt all ye that look profane and vile
Stand off, stand off, a hundred thousand mile
Nor with your thumbs this monument defile.
Let sugar-candy Cowley sleep in's grotte
let not ye people wake him, let them not
nor steal away the surgeons gally pot.
Whilst on wing'd Pegasus thou [Phœbus' Son]
through air and earth and sea & all do ride
Whilst by Orinda's pipe thy praise is blown
And thou in fairy land art deified;
Whilst thou dost soar aloft leave coyrs behind
to be interrd in antient monast'ry
And to the chimeing rabble safely joyn'd
[To] Draiton, Spencer and old Jeoffery.
Whilst thou above wear'st a triumphant wreath
And we the Poets militant beneath
Anthems to thy immortal honor breath
[Fill] the dark chest which for Apollo's heir
Ecclesia Anglicana doth prepare
And let the vestal nunne's watch ever here.
Let Libitina's selfe think't no disgrace
To be the Angel Guardian of this place
That no rude hand this monument deface.
Here let seraphic Cowley rest his head
Here let him rest it in this earthy bed
Till we all rise with glory lawrelled.
Whilst through ye world thy golden verses passe
more golden than those of Pythagoras
And whilst [sweet lyri]st thy anointed name
is registred in the large rowle of Fame
Here rest secure and let this minster be
a Sanctuary in that sense to thee,
Let the nine muses bid farewell to sleep
ever to watch the grave thy corps doth keep.
New consecrated is the holy ground
no crime no guilt must here be found;
Let not the man of vices hither come
and with his breath profane this sacred tomb.
Let Cowley's dust lie quiet in its urne
till the last trump all things to ashes turn;
Let it its station keep and quiet lie
till the blest dawn of immortality.
So wisheth
And desires his wish may be
Sacred to posterity
He who erected this monument
To that incomparable person
GEORGE DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM
He departed this life in the
49 year of his age
And was buried in great state out of
the Duke of Buckingham's House
Many illustrious persons of all
degrees attending his funeral.