He forms a link between the Shakespeare of his childish years, Milton, and the young Dryden. Waller and Cowley wrote the only recommendatory verses for his "Gondibert," which is dedicated, with Davenant's ideas on the Art of Poetry, to Thomas Hobbes. Davenant modestly compared himself to Homer. He trusts that his verses in "Gondibert" will be "sung at village feasts," "like the works of Homer ere they were joined together and made a volume by the Athenian king". A stranger combination of vanity with erroneous pedantry has seldom been printed.
Cowley.
The name of Abraham Cowley is likely to live as long as histories of English literature are written, and yet some students who are not passionately fond of Lydgate would much liefer read Lydgate than Cowley. To Charles Lamb, on the other hand, Cowley's was "one of the sweetest names, which carry a perfume in the mention". He was born in London in 1618, and Dr. Johnson suspected that his father was not only a Puritan but a grocer.
A copy of "The Faery Queen" which lay on the window-seat of his mother's chamber is said to have wakened Cowley's ambition. He "lisped in numbers," and published his verses at Westminster School, whence he went on to Cambridge. There he is said to have written much of his Biblical epic, the "Davideis". The poem is in the heroic couplet, thus
Rais'd with the news he from high heaven receives,
Straight to his diligent God just thanks he gives
To divine Nob directs he then his flight,
A small town, great in fame, by Levi's right.
The poem breaks off at the passage where Jonathan, after fighting all day, tastes some honey of the wild bees.
To compare with Milton's Satan the Satan of Cowley,
Thrice did he knock his iron teeth, thrice howl
And into frowns his wrathful forehead roll
is to perceive that the Cavalier was no match for the Puritan poet in sacred epic.
Cowley had done much secretary's work for Charles I during the war, he was employed by the Queen in Paris, and returned in 1656 to England, where he was arrested, but presently released. He returned to France just as the star of Molière was rising, came home at the Restoration, was dissatisfied with such reward as his loyalty obtained, and left town for a very pleasant house at Chertsey, where he died in 1667. His set of amatory verses, "The Mistress," holds a high place in collections. He revelled in what Dr. Johnson called "metaphysical" conceits. Odes he wrote in great numbers, in imitation of Pindar; one of them is addressed to the Royal Society and hails the new birth of divine Science.