not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend: Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond1 or impediment in the wit, but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; a gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So, if a man's wits be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again: if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the school-men; for they are Cymini sectores2. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyer's cases: so every defect of the mind may have a special receipt. ABRAHAM COWLEY. (1618-1667.) III. OF MYSELF. T is a hard and nice subject for a man to write of I himself; it grates his to say anything disparagement and the reader's ears to hear anything of praise from him. There is no danger from me of offending him in this kind; neither my mind, nor my body, nor my fortune allow me any materials for that vanity. It is 1 obstacle. 2 hair-splitters: lit. "dividers of cummin seed, which is one of the least seeds" (Bacon). 8 Cf. Spectator, No. 562, where Addison discourses on Egotism, and misquotes this sentence from Cowley. sufficient for my own contentment that they have preserved me from being scandalous, or remarkable on the defective side. But besides that, I shall here speak of myself only in relation to the subject of these precedent discourses,1 and shall be likelier thereby to fall into the contempt than rise up to the estimation of most people. As far as my memory can return back into my past life, before I knew or was capable of guessing what the world, or glories, or business of it were, the natural affections of my soul gave me a secret bent of aversion from them, as some plants are said to turn away from others, by an antipathy imperceptible to themselves and inscrutable to man's understanding. Even when I was a very young boy at school,2 instead of running about on holidays and playing with my fellows, I was wont to steal from them and walk into the fields, either alone with a book, or with some one companion, if I could find any of the same temper. I was then, too, so much an enemy to all constraint, that my masters could never prevail on me, by any persuasions or encouragements, to learn without book the common rules of grammar, in which they dispensed with me alone, because they found I made a shift to do the usual exercise out of my own reading and observation. That I was then of the same mind as I am now (which I confess I wonder at myself) may appear by the latter end of an ode3 which I made when I was but thirteen years old, and which was then printed with many other verses. The beginning of it is boyish, but of this part which I here set down, if a very little were corrected, I should hardly now be much ashamed. 1" Of Myself" is the last of eleven essays comprised under the title, "Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse". 2 Cowley entered Westminster School when about ten years old. In 1636 he became a scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. The stanzas quoted form the conclusion of a poem entitled A Vote", which appeared in Sylva of 1636. IX. This only grant me, that my means may lie Not from great deeds, but good alone. Rumour can ope the grave; Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends X. Books should, not business, entertain the light, Than palace, and should fitting be For all my use, no luxury. My garden painted o'er With Nature's hand, not Art's; and pleasures yield, XI. Thus would I double my life's fading space, These unbought sports, this happy state, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display, Or in clouds hide them-I have lived to-day. You may see by it I was even then acquainted with the poets (for the conclusion is taken out of Horace1), and perhaps it was the immature and immoderate love of them which stamped first, or rather engraved, these characters in me. They were like letters cut into the bark of a young tree, which with the tree still grow proportionably, But how this love came to be produced in me so early is a hard question. I believe I can tell the particular little chance that filled my head first with such 1 Odes, III. xxix. 41. 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. 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. From "Destiny", the seventh of Cowley's fifteen Pindarique Odes published in 1656. |