THE ENGLISH POETS. POEMS OF ABRAHAM COWLEY. ELEGIA DEDICATORIA, A D ILLUSTRISSIMAM ACADEMIAM CANTABRIGIENSEM. OC tibi de nato, ditiffima mater, egeno H Exiguum immenfi pignus amoris habe. Heu, meliora tibi depromere dona volentes Tu fpeculum poteris hìc reperire tuum? Non ego degeneri dubitabilis ore edirem., Nec pede adhuc firmo, nec firmo dente, negati Et vi victa cadunt'; arbor & ipfa gemit. O chara ante alias, magnorum nomine regum Ah mihi fi veftræ reddat bona gaudia fedis, Ille quidem immerito, fed tibi gratus erat. Quid mihi Sequanâ opus, Tamefifve aut Thybridis unda? Et verfas fundo vidimus orbis opes. Quis poterit fragilem poft talia credere puppim Tu quoque in hoc terræ tremuifti, Academia, motu, (Nec fruftrà) atque ædes contremuêre tuæ : Contremuêre ipfæ pacatæ Palladis arces; Et timuit fulmen laurea fancta novum. Ah quanquam iratum, peftem hanc avertere numen, Nos, tua progenies, pereamus; & ecce, perimus! THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE A то HIS EDITION IN FOLIO, 1656. It T my return lately into England *, I met by great accident (for fuch I account it to be, that any copy of it fhould be extant any where fo long, unless at his houfe who printed it) a book intituled, "The Iron Age," and published under my name, during the time of my abfence. I wondered very much how one who could be fo foolish to write fo ill verfes, should yet be fo wife to fet them forth as another man's rather than his own; though perhaps he might have made a better choice, and not fathered the baftard upon fuch a perfon, whofe ftock of reputation is, I fear, little enough for maintenance of his own numerous legitimate offspring of that kind. would have been much lefs injurious, if it had pleafed the author to put forth fome of my writings under his own name, rather than his own under mine: he had been in that a more pardonable plagiary, and had done lefs wrong by robbery, than he does by fuch a bounty for nobody can be juftified by the impuration even of another's merit; and our own coarse cloaths are like to become us better than thofe of another man, though never fo rich: but thefe, to say the truth, were fo beggarly, that I myself was afhamed to wear them. It was in vain for me, that I avoided cenfure by the concealment of my own writings, if my reputation could be thus executed in effigie; and impoffible it is for any good name to be in fafety, if the malice of witches have the power to confume and deftroy it in an image of their own making. This indeed was fo ill made, and fo unlike, that I hope the charm took no effect. So that I efteem myfelf lefs prejudiced by it, than by that which has been done to me fince, almoft in the fame kind; which is, the publication of fome things of mine without my confent or knowledge, and thofe fo mangled and imperfect, that I could neither with honour acknowledge, nor with honesty quite difavow them. Of which fort, was a comedy called " The Guardian," printed in the year 1650; but made and acted before the Prince, in his paffage through Cambridge towards York, at the beginning of the late unhappy war; or rather neither made nor acted, but roughdrawn only, and repeated; for the hafte was fo great, that it could neither be revised or perfected by the author, nor learned without book by the actors, nor fet forth in any measure tolerably by the officers of the college. After the reprefentation (which, I confefs, was fomewhat of the lateft) I began to look it over, and changed it very much, ftriking out fome whole parts, as that of the poet and the foldier; but I have loft the copy, and dare not think it deferves the pains to write it again, which makes me omit it in this publication, though there be fome things in it which I am not afhamed of, taking the excufe of my age and fmall experience in human converfation when I made it. But, it is, it is only the hafty firfl-fitting of a picture, and therefore like to refemble mccordingly. From t which has happened to myfelf, I began to reflect on the fortune of almost all writers, and efpecially poets, whofe works (commonly printed after their deaths) we find stuffed out, either with counterfeit pieces, like falfe money put in to fill up the bag, though it add nothing to the fum; or with fach, which, though of their own coin, they would have called in themfelves, for the bafenefs of the allay: whether this proceed from the indifcretion of their friends, who think a vast heap of stones or rubbish a better monument than a little tomb of marble; or by the unworthy avarice of fome ftationers, who are content to diminish the value of the author, fo they may increase the price of the book; and, like vintners, with fophifticate mixtures, fpoil the whole veel of wine, |