[50] That Mr. Cowley had his prince’s grace appears from what the king said of him, on the news of his death: “That he had not left a BETTER man behind him in England.” And this with grace enough, in reason, from SUCH a prince.—How it came to pass that he wanted the grace of his peers (if, indeed, he did want it), hath been explained in a note, p. 140.
[51] The application of this line is the affair of the Mastership of the Savoy; “which though granted, says Mr. Wood, to his highest merit by both the Charleses I. and II. yet by certain persons, enemies to the Muses, he lost that place.” But this was not the worst. For, such is the hard lot of unsuccessful men, the Savoy-missing Cowley became the object of ridicule, instead of pity, even to the wits themselves; as may be seen in “The session of the poets, amongst the miscellaneous poems published by Mr. Dryden.”
Quid DOMINI facient, audent si talia FURES?
[52] Printed among his works, under the name of THE COMPLAINT. The relation it has to the subject debated, made me think it not amiss to print it at the end of this Dialogue—It must raise one’s indignation to find that so just, so delicate, and so manly a complaint should be scoffed at, as it was by the wits before mentioned, under the name of THE PITIFUL MELANCHOLY.
[53] Juvenal, Sat. i. ver. 112.
[54] Whether it were owing to his other occupations, or that he had no great confidence in the success of this attempt, these Essays, which were to give entire satisfaction to his court-friend in the affair of his retirement, went on very slowly. They were even left imperfect at his death, “a little before which (says Dr. Sprat) he communicated to me his resolution, to have dedicated them all to my Lord St. Albans, as a testimony of his entire respects to him; and a kind of apology for having left human affairs in the strength of his age, while he might have been serviceable to his country.”——However, if this apology had not the intended effect, it had a much better. Lords and wits may decide of the qualities of Mr. Cowley’s head as they please; but, so long as these Essays remain, they will oblige all honest men to love the language of his heart.
[55] Alas! he was mistaken.
[56] A citation from one of his own poems.
[57] Mr. Sprat himself tells us, speaking of Mr. Cowley’s retreat, that “some few friends and books, a chearful heart, and innocent conscience, were his constant companions.” Life.
[58] This is one of the prettiest of Mr. Cowley’s smaller Poems. The plan of it is highly poetical: and, though the numbers be not the most pleasing, the expression is almost every where natural and beautiful. But its principal charm is that air of melancholy, thrown over the whole, so expressive of the poet’s character.