chimes of verse as have never since left ringing there. For I remember when I began to read, and to take some pleasure in it, there was wont to lie in my mother's parlour (I know not by what accident, for she herself never in her life read any book but of devotion), but there was wont to lie Spenser's works; this I happened to fall upon, and was infinitely delighted with the stories of the knights, and giants, and monsters, and brave houses, which I found everywhere there (though my understanding had little to do with all this); and by degrees with the tinkling of the rhyme and dance of the numbers, so that I think I had read him all over before I was twelve years old, and was thus made a poet as irremediably as a child is made an eunuch. With these affections of mind, and my heart wholly set upon letters, I went to the university, but was soon torn from thence by that violent public storm1 which would suffer nothing to stand where it did, but rooted up every plant, even from the princely cedars to me, the hyssop. Yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in such a tempest; for I was cast by it into the family of one of the best persons, and into the court of one of the best princesses of the world. Now though I was here engaged in ways most contrary to the original design of my life, that is, into much company, and no small business, and into a daily sight of greatness, both militant and triumphant, for that was the state then of the English and French courts; yet all this was so far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reason to that which was before but natural inclination. I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life, the nearer I came to it; and that beauty which I did not fall in love with when, for aught I knew, it was real, 1 In 1643 Cowley, as a Loyalist, had to leave Cambridge. A year after, he went to Paris as secretary to Lord Jermyn, the adviser of Queen Henrietta Maria. was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw that it was adulterate. I met with several great persons, whom I liked very well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to be liked or desired, no more than I would be glad or content to be in a storm, though I saw many ships which rid safely and bravely in it. A storm would not agree with my stomach, if it did with my courage. Though I was in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere, though I was in business of great and honourable trust, though I ate at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences for present subsistence that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and public distresses, yet I could not abstain from renewing my old schoolboy's wish in a copy of verses to the same effect. Well then; I now do plainly see, This busy world and I shall ne'er agree, &c.1 And I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from His Majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately convenient retreat in the country, which I thought in that case I might easily have compassed, as well as some others, with no greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary fortunes. But I had before written a shrewd prophecy against myself, and I think Apollo inspired me in the truth, though not in the elegance of it. Thou, neither great at court nor in the war, Nor at th' exchange shalt be, nor at the wrangling bar; Which neglected verse does raise, &c.2 However, by the failing of the forces which I had 1 The opening lines of "The Wish", one of the poems published in 1647 under the collective name of The Mistress. 2 From "Destiny", the seventh of Cowley's fifteen Pindarique Odes published in 1656. expected, I did not quit the design which I had resolved on; I cast myself into it A corps perdu, without making capitulations or taking counsel of fortune. But God laughs at a man who says to his soul, "Take thy ease": I met presently not only with many little encumbrances and impediments, but with so much sickness (a new misfortune to me) as would have spoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine. Yet I do neither repent nor alter my course. Non ego perfidum dixi sacramentum. Nothing shall separate me from a mistress which I have loved so long, and have now at last married, though she neither has brought me a rich portion, nor lived yet so quietly with me as I hoped from her. -Nec vos, dulcissima mundi Nomina, vos Musa, libertas, otia, libri, You of all names the sweetest, and the best, But this is a very petty ejaculation. Because I have concluded all the other chapters with a copy of verses, I will maintain the humour to the last. MARTIAL, LIB. 10, EP. 47. Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem, etc. SINCE, dearest friend, 't is your desire to see Let constant fires the winter's fury tame, Let mirth and freedom make thy table good. Enjoy the present hour, be thankful for the past, MARTIAL, LIB. 10, EP. 96. ME, who have lived so long among the great, You wonder to hear talk of a retreat: And a retreat so distant, as may show No thoughts of a return when once I go. The ground about the house maintains it there, The land itself must here to market go. 1 an equal quantity. Here every frugal man must oft be cold, Stay you then here, and live among the great, DANIEL DEFOE. (1661-1731.) IV. THE INSTABILITY OF HUMAN GLORY.1 IR, I have employed myself of late pretty much in the study of history, and have been reading the stories of the great men of past ages, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, the great Augustus, and many more down, down, down, to the still greater Louis XIV., and even to the still greatest John, Duke of Marlborough2. In my way I met with Tamerlane3, the Scythian, Tomornbejus*, the Egyptian, Solyman", the Magnificent, and others of the Mahometan or Ottoman race; and after all the great 1This essay appeared on July 21, 1722, in The Original Weekly Journal and Saturday's Post, started by Applebee on 2nd Oct. 1714. From 1720 to 1726 Defoe contributed weekly articles in the form of "letters introductory". These letters-admittedly the prototypes of "leading articles"-were first introduced by Defoe in the sixty-eighth number of Mist's Journal, 1718. 2 The Duke died five weeks before the date of Defoe's essay. 3 Timour (1336-1405) made war on the whole world in support of what he regarded as the true Mahometan faith. He defeated the Ottoman Sultan, and died when preparing to invade China. Tumanbeg or Tumanbai, the last Mameluke Sultan, was defeated and put to death by Selîm in 1517. "Suleiman, the Magnificent, the Lawgiver (1490-1566), was the greatest constructor of the Ottoman power. The capture of Rhodes, the invasion of Hungary, and the siege of Vienna were his most famous exploits. |