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BIBLI

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IAN

COWLEY.

HE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding

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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 friendship, or ambition of eloquence, has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life of Cowley; 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, whofe con

VOL. I.

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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 register of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to fufpect 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 she 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 leaft, 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, às he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, fometimes remembered, and perhaps. fometimes forgotten, produce that particular defignation of mind, and propenfity for some

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certain science or employment, which is commonly called Genius. The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to fome particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great Painter of the prefent age, had the firft fondness for his art excited by the perufal of Richardson's treatise.

By his mother's folicitation he was admitted into Weftminster-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."

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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 digeftion that concocted the pulp of learning, but refused the hufks, had the appearance of

an instinctive elegance, of a particular provifion

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vifion made by Nature for literary politeness. But in the author's own honeft relation, the marvel vanishes: he was, he fays, fuch "an enemy to all conftraint, that his master

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never could prevail on him to learn the "rules without book." He does not tell that he could not learn the rules, but that, being able to perform his exercises without them, and being an 66 enemy to constraint," he fpared himself, the labour.

Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope, might be faid “to lifp in "numbers;" and have given fuch early proofs, not only of powers of language, but of comprehenfion of things, as to more tardy minds seems scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities of Cowley there is no doubt, fince a volume of his poems was not only written but printed in his thirteenth year*; containing, with other poetical compofitions, "The tragical History of Pyramus

* This Volume was not published before 1633, when Cowley was fifteen years old. Dr. Johnfon, as well as former Biographers, feems to have been misled by the portrait of Cowley being by mistake marked with the age of thirteen years. R.

" and

* and Thisbe," written when he was ten years old; and "Conftantia and Philetus," written two years after.

While he was yet at fchool he produced a comedy called "Love's Riddle," though it was not published till he had been fome time at Cambridge. This comedy is of the paftoral kind, which requires no acquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at which it was compofed adds little to the wonders of Cowley's minority.

In 1636, he was removed to Cambridge where he continued his ftudies with great intenfenefs; for he is faid to have written, while he was yet a young ftudent, the greater part of his Davideis;" a work of which the materials could not have been collected without the study of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vigour and activity.

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Two years after his fettlement at Cambridge he published "Love's Riddle," with

* He was a can lidate this year at Westminster school for election to Trinity College, but proved unfuccefsful. N.

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