Footnotes
The large outer porch of Cowley's house had chambers above it and beneath the window in front a tablet was affixed, upon which was inscribed the epitaph "upon the living author" which Cowley had written for himself, whilst living in retirement here, commencing
"Hic, O Viator, sub lare parvulo,
Couleius hic est conditus hic jacet."
It is represented in its original condition in the two views we have engraved.
Some additional rooms have been added to the house by the same occupant, who has, however, religiously preserved all the old rooms, which still exhibit the "fittings" that existed in Cowley's time. The bed-chambers are wainscotted with oaken panels. The staircase is a very solid structure, with ornamental balusters, leading toward the small study in which the poet wrote,—a little back room, about five feet wide, looking upon the garden. It may be distinguished in our back view of the house, by a figure placed at the window. Cowley ended his life in this house at the early age of forty-nine.
Brayley, in his History of Surrey, states that Cowley accompanied by his friend Dean Spratt, having been to see a "friend," did not set out for his walk home until it was too late, and had drunk so deep, that they both lay out in the fields all night; this gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. Brayley's authority for this slander (which is not borne out by the poet's previous course of life), is "Spence's Anecdotes."
Life and Letters of Joseph Story, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Dane professor of law at Harvard University. Edited by his son, William W. Story. Two vols. Boston: Little & Brown, 1851.