Page images
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

ROCHESTER,

ROSCOMMON,

OTWAY,

WALLER,

POMFRET,

DORSET,

STEPNEY,

PHILIPS,

WALSH,

[ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

1

1

1

COWLEY.

HE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding

TH

the penury of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose pregnancy of imagination and elegance of language have deservedly fet him high in the ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendfhip, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life of Cow ley; for he writes with fo little detail, that fcarcely any thing is diftinctly known, but all is fhewn confufed and enlarged through the mist of panegyrick.

ABRAHAM COWLEY was born in the year one thousand fix hundred and eighteen. His father was a grocer, whose con

VOL. I.

B

dition

dition Dr. Sprat conceals under the general appellation of a citizen; and, what would probably not have been lefs carefully fuppressed, the omiffion of his name in the regifter of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to suspect that his father was a fectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his son, and confequently left him to the care of his mother; whom Wood represents as ftruggling earnestly to procure him a literary education, and who, as the lived to the age of eighty, had her folicitude rewarded by feeing her fon eminent, and, I hope, by feeing him fortunate, and partaking his profperity. We know at leaf, from Sprat's account, that he always acknowledged her care,, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude.

In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenfer's Fairy Queen; in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verfe, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents, which, fometimes remembered, and perhaps fometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propenfity for some certain science or employment,

5

[ocr errors]

par

ment, which is commonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to fome ticular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great Painter of the prefent age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perufal of Richardfon's treatise.

By his mother's folicitation he was admitted into Westminster school, where he was foon diftinguished. He was wont, fays Sprat, to relate, "That he had this defect in his memory at that time, that his teachers "never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar.'

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

This is an inftance of the natural defire of man to propagate a wonder. It is furely very difficult to tell any thing as it was heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a commodious incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative contained its confutation. A memory admitting fome things, and rejecting others, an intellectual digestion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refufed the hufks, had the appearance of an instinctive elegance, of a particular provifion made by Nature for literary politeness.

[blocks in formation]
« PreviousContinue »