COWLEY being early difgufted with the perplexities and vanities of a court life, had a ftrong defire to enjoy the milder pleasures of folitude and retirement; he therefore escaped from the tumults of London, to a little house at Wandsworth; but finding that place too near the metropolis, he left it for Richmond, and at last fettled at Chertsey. He feems to have thought that the fwains of Surry, had the innocence of thofe of Sydney's Arcadia; Eternornm operum cuftos fidelis, Clarus Erechtheides, Opulenta dei per templa parentis, Nothing can more strongly characterize the different manner and turn of these two writers, than the pieces in queftion. It is remarkable, that Milton ends his ode with a kind of prophecy importing, that however he may be at prefent traduced, yet pofterity will applaud his works. At ULTIMI Nepotes, SFRIQUE POSTERI, Judicia rebus AQUIORA forfitan Adhibebunt INTEGRO finu, Tum, livore fepulto, Si quid MEREMUR, SERA POSTERITAS fciet. but but the perverseness and debauchery of his own workmen foon undeceived him, him, with whom, it is faid, he was fometimes fo far provoked, as even to be betrayed into an oath. His income was about three hundred pounds a year. Towards the latter part of his life, he fhewed an averfion to the company of women, and would often leave the room if any happened to enter it whilft he was prefent, but ftill he retained a fincere affection for Leonora. His death was occafioned by a fingular accident * ; he paid a vifit on foot with his friend There is something remarkable in the circumstances that occafioned the deaths of three others of our poets. OTWAY had an intimate friend who was murdered in the ftreet. One may guess at his sorrow, who has fo feelingly described true affection in his Venice Preferved. He purfued the murderer on foot who fled to France, as far as Dover, where he was feized with a fever, occafioned by the fatigue, which afterwards carried him to his grave in London. Sir JOHN SUCKLING was robbed by his Valet-de-Chambre; the moment he discovered it, he clapped on his boots in a paffionate hurry, and perceived not a large rufty nail that was concealed at the bottom which pierced his heel, and brought on a mortification. LEE had been fome time confined for lunacy, to a very low diet, but one night he escaped from his phyfician, and drank fo immoderately, that he fell down in the Strand, was run over by a Hackney coach, and killed on the spot. Sprat Sprat to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Chertsey, which they prolonged till midnight. On their return home they miftook their way, and were obliged to pafs the whole night expofed under a hedge, where Cowley caught a fevere cold, attended with a fever, that terminated in his death. THE verses on Silence are a fenfible imitation of the Earl of Rochester's on Nothing; which piece, together with his Satire on Man from Boileau, and the tenth Satire of Horace, are the only pieces of this profligate nobleman, which modesty or common sense will allow any man to read. Rochefter had great energy in his thoughts and diction, and though the ancient satirifts often use great liberty in their expreffions; yet, as the ingenious historian* observes, "their freedom no more re fembles the licence of Rochester, than the "nakedness of an Indian does that of a common prostitute." • Hume's Hiftory of Great-Britain. Vol. II. pag. 434. POPE POPE in this imitation has discovered a fund of folid fenfe, and just observation upon vice and folly, that are very remarkable in a perfon fo extremely young as he was, at the time he composed it. I believe on a fair comparifon with Rochester's lines, it will be found, that although the turn of the fatire be copied, yet it is excelled. That Rochefter fhould write a fatire on Man, I am not furprized; it is the business of the Libertine to degrade his fpecies, and debase the dignity of human nature, and thereby destroy the most efficacious incitements to lovely and laudable actions: but that a writer of Boileau's purity of manners, should represent his kind in the dark and disagreeable colours he has done, with all the malignity of a difcontented HOBBIST, is a lamentable perverfion of fine talents, and is a real injury to society. It is a fact worthy the attention of those who study the history of learning, that the grofs licentiousness and applauded debauchery of Charles the Second's court, proved almost as pernicious to the progrefs of polite literature and the fine arts that began began to revive after the Grand Rebellion, as the gloomy fuperftition, the absurd cant, and formal hypocrify that difgraced this nation, during the ufurpation of Cromwell * ARTEMISIA and PHRYNE are two characters in the manner of the Earl of Dorfet, an elegant writer, and amiable man, equally noted for the feverity of his fatire, and the fweetness of his manners, and who gave the fairest proof that these two qualities are by no means incompatible. The greatest wits, fays Addison, I have ever conversed with, were perfons of the best tempers. Dorfet poffeffed the rare fecret of uniting energy with ease, in his ftriking compofitions. Lord Bolingbroke used to relate, that his Great Grandfather Ireton, and Fleetwood, being one day engaged in a private drinking party with Cromwell, and wanting to uncork a bottle, they could not find their bottle-screw, which was fallen under the table. Juft at that inftant, an officer entered to inform the protector, that a deputation from the prefbyterian minifters attended without. "Tell them, fays Cromwell, with a countenance inftantly compofed, that I am retired, that I cannot be disturbed, for I am feeking the Lord," and turning afterwards to his companions, he added, "Thefe fcoundrels think we are seeking the Lord, and we are only looking for our bottle screw.". |