To paint the distresses of an author soliciting alms for a book which he presents-and which, whatever may be its value, comes at least as an evidence that the suppliant is a learned man, is a case so uncommon, that the invention of the novelist seems necessary to fill up the picture. But Myles Davies is an artist, in his own simple narrative.

"A Critical History of Pamphlets." This rare the same odes, and inserts a political Latin drama, book forms the first volume of the Athenæ called "Pallas Anglicana." Mævius and Bavius Britannicæ." The author was Myles Davies, were never more indefatigable! The author's whose biography is quite unknown: he may now intellect gradually discovers its confusion amidst be his own biographer. He was a Welsh clergy- the loud cries of penury and despair. man, a vehement foe to Popery, Arianism, and Socinianism, of the most fervent loyalty to George I. and the Hanoverian succession; a scholar, skilled in Greek and Latin, and in all the modern languages. Quitting his native spot with political disgust, he changed his character in the metropolis, for he subscribes himself "Counsellor-at-Law." In an evil hour he commenced author, not only surrounded by his books, but| with the more urgent companions of a wife and family; and with that childlike simplicity which sometimes marks the mind of a retired scholar, we perceive him imagining that his immense reading would prove a source, not easily exhausted, for their subsistence.

From the first volumes of his series much curious literary history may be extracted, amidst the loose and wandering elements of this literary chaos. In his dedication to the Prince he professes "to represent writers and writings in a catoptrick view."

The preface to the second volume opens his plan; and nothing as yet indicates those rambling humours which his subsequent labours exhibit.

As he proceeded in forming these volumes, I suspect, either that his mind became a little disordered, or that he discovered that mere literature found but penurious patrons in "the Few;" for, attempting to gain over all classes of society, he varied his investigations, and courted attention, by writing on law, physic, divinity, as well as literary topics. By his account_

"The avarice of booksellers, and the stinginess of hard-hearted patrons, had driven him into a cursed company of door-keeping herds, to meet the irrational brutality of those uneducated mischievous animals called footmen, house-porters, poetasters, mumpers, apothecaries, attorneys, and suchlike beasts of prey," who were, like himself, sometimes barred up for hours in the menagerie of a great man's antechamber. In his addresses to Drs. Mead and Freind, he declares-" My misfortunes drive me to publish my writings for a poor livelihood; and nothing but the utmost necessity could make any man in his senses to endeavour at it, in a method so burthensome to the modesty and education of a scholar."

In French he dedicates to George I.; and in the Harleian MSS. I discovered a long letter to the Earl of Oxford, by our author, in French, with a Latin ode. Never was more innocent bribery proffered to a minister ! He composed what he calls Stricture Pindarice on the "Mughouses," then political clubs; celebrates English authors in

Our author has given the names of several of his unwilling customers :

"Those squeeze-farthing and hoard-penny ignoramus doctors, with several great personages who formed excuses for not accepting my books; or they would receive them, but give nothing for them; or else deny they had them, or remembered anything of them; and so gave me nothing for my last present of books, though they kept them gratis et ingratiis.

"But his grace of the Dutch extraction in Holland (said to be akin to Mynheer Vander B-nck) had a peculiar grace in receiving my present of books and odes, which, being bundled up together with a letter and ode upon his graceship, and carried in by his porter, I was bid to call for an answer five years hence. I asked the porter what he meant by that? I suppose, said he, four or five days hence-but it proved five or six months after, before I could get any answer, though I had writ five or six letters in French with fresh odes upon his graceship, and an account where I lived, and what noblemen had accepted of my present. I attended about the door three or four times a week all that time constantly from twelve to four or five o'clock in the evening; and walking under the fore windows of the parlours, once that time his and her grace came after dinner to stare at me, with open windows and shut mouths, but filled with fair water, which they spouted with so much dexterity that they twisted the water through their teeth and mouth-skrew, to flash near my face, and yet just to miss me, though my nose could not well miss the natural flavour of the orange-water showering so very near me. Her grace began the water-work, but not very gracefully, especially for an English lady of her description, airs, and qualities, to make a stranger her spitting-post, who had been guilty of no other offence than to offer her husband some writings. His grace followed, yet first stood looking so wistfully towards me, that I verily thought he had a mind to throw me a guinea or two for all these indignities, and two or three months' then sleeveless waiting upon him-and

"Some parsons would hollow to raise the whole house and posse of the domestics to raise a poor crown; at last all that flutter ends in sending Jack or Tom out to change a guinea, and then 'tis reckoned over half-a-dozen times before the fatal crown can be picked out, which must be taken as it is given, with all the parade of almsgiving, and so to be received with all the active and passive ceremonial of mendication and alms-receiving-as if the books, printing and paper, were worth nothing at all, and as if it were the greatest charity for them to touch them or let them be in the house; For I shall never read them,' says one of the five-shilling-piece-chaps- I have no time to look in them,' says another;- 'Tis so much money lost,' says a grave dean;— My eyes being so bad,' said a bishop, that I can scarce read at all.' What do you want with me?" said another; Sir, I presented you the other day with my Athena Britannica, being the last part published.' I don't want books, take them again; I don't understand what they mean.' 'The title is very plain,' said I, and they are writ mostly in English.' 'I'll give you a crown for both the volumes.' 'They stand me, sir, in more than that, and 'tis for a bare subsistence I present or sell them; how shall I live?' 'I care not a farthing for that, live or die, 'tis all one to me.'

Fortunately for our literary sympathy, the employment of the highest confidence, that of fatal error of these fastidious critics has been in deciphering the royal correspondence; he transsome degree repaired by the admirable genius acted their business, and, almost divorcing himhimself whom they have injured. When Cowley self from his neglected muse, he yielded up for retreated from society, he determined to draw up them the tranquillity so necessary to the existence an apology for his conduct, and to have dedicated of a poet. From his earliest days he tells us how it to his patron, Lord St. Albans. His death the poetic affections had stamped themselves on interrupted the entire design; but his Essays, his heart, "like letters cut into the bark of a which Pope so finely calls "the language of his young tree, which, with the tree, will grow proheart," are evidently parts of these precious Con-portionably." fessions. All of Cowley's tenderest and undisguised feelings have therefore not perished. These Essays now form a species of composition in our language, a mixture of prose and verse-the man with the poet-the self-painter has sat to himself, and, with the utmost simplicity, has copied out the image of his soul.

Why has this poet twice called himself the melancholy Cowley? He employed no poetical cheville* for the metre of a verse which his own feelings inspired.

Cowley, at the beginning of the civil war, joined the royalists at Oxford; followed the queen to Paris; yielded his days and his nights to an

no, not the sight of your garden in May, or even the having such an one; which makes me more obliged to return you my most humble thanks for the testimonies I have lately received of you, both by your letter and your presents. I have already sowed such of your seeds as I thought most proper, upon a hot-bed; but cannot find in all my books a catalogue of these plants which require that culture, nor of such as must be set in pots; which defects, and all others, I hope shortly to sec supplied, as I hope shortly to see your work of Horticulture finished and published; and long to be in all things your disciple, as I

He describes his feelings at the court:

“I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer I came to it-that beauty which I did not fall in love with when, for aught I knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw 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. I was in a crowd of good company, in business of great and honourable trust; I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the best conveniences that ought to be desired by a man of my condition; yet I could not abstain from renewing my old school-boy's wish, in a copy of verses to the same effect:

"Well then! I now do plainly see,

This busie world and I shall ne'er agree!"

After several years' absence from his native country, at a most critical period, he was sent over to mix with that trusty band of loyalists, who, in secrecy and in silence, were devoting themselves to the royal cause. Cowley was seized on by the ruling powers. At this moment he published a preface to his works, which some of his party interpreted as a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully defended. Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to retire from all parties; and saw enough among men whom it would be difficult to parallel, for their elegant the fiery zealots of his own, to grow disgusted

am in all things now,

Sir, Your most humble,

and most obedient Servant,

A. COWLEY."

Such were the ordinary letters which passed between two

tastes and gentle dispositions. Evelyn's beautiful retreat at Sayes Court at Deptford is described by a contemporary as "a garden exquisite and most boscaresque, and, as it were, an exemplar of his book of Forest-trees." It was the entertainment and wonder of the greatest men of those times, and inspired the following lines of Cowley, to Evelyn and his Lady, who excelled in the arts her husband loved; for she designed the frontispiece to his version of Lucretius

"In books and gardens thou hast placed aright (Things well which thou dost understand,

And both dost make with thy laborious hand)

Thy noble innocent delight;

And in thy virtuous wife, where thou again dost meet

Both pleasures more refined and sweet;

The fairest garden in her looks,

And in her mind the wisest books."

even with royalists.

His wish for retirement has been half censured as cowardice, by Johnson; but there was a tenderness of feeling which had ill formed Cowley for the cunning of party intriguers, and the company of little villains. About this time he might have truly distinguished himself as "The melancholy Cowley."

I am only tracing his literary history for the purpose of this work: but I cannot pass without noticing the fact, that this abused man, whom his enemies were calumniating, was at this moment, under the disguise of a doctor of physic, occupied by the novel studies of botany and medicine; and as all science in the mind of the poet naturally becomes poetry, he composed his books on plants

* A term the French apply to those botches which bad in Latin verse. poets use to make out their metre.

At length came the Restoration, which the

poet zealously celebrated in his "Ode" on that occasion. Both Charles the First and Second had promised to reward his fidelity with the mastership of the Savoy; but, Wood says, he lost it by certain persons enemies of the muses." Wood has said no more; and none of Cowley's biographers have thrown any light on the circumstance: perhaps we may discover this literary calamity.

That Cowley caught no warmth from that promised sunshine which the new monarch was to scatter in prodigal gaiety, has been distinctly told by the poet himself; his muse, in "The Complaint," having reproached him thus :

"Thou young prodigal, who didst so loosely waste Of all thy youthful years, the good estate

"not

clearly demonstrating the agony of his literary feelings. The cynical Wood tells us, that, finding that preferment he expected, while others for their money carried away most places, he retired discontented into Surrey." And his panegyrist, Sprat, describes him as "weary of the vexations and formalities of an active conditionhe had been perplexed with a long compliance with foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of a court, which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind," &c. I doubt if either the sarcastic antiquary or the rhetorical panegyrist have developed

Thou changeling then, bewitch'd with noise and show, the simple truth of Cowley's "violent inclina

Wouldst into courts and cities from me go

Go, renegado, cast up thy account

Behold the public storm is spent at last;

The sovereign is toss'd at sea no more,
And thou, with all the noble company,
Art got at last to shore-

But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,

All march'd up to possess the promised land;
Thou still alone (alas!) dost gaping stand
Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand."

tion of his own mind." He does it himself more openly in that beautiful picture of an injured poet, in "The Complaint," an ode warm with indi. vidual feeling, but which Johnson coldly passes over, by telling us that "it met the usual fortune of complaints, and seems to have excited more contempt than pity."

Thus the biographers of Cowley have told us nothing, and the poet himself has probably not told us all. To these calumnies respecting CowBut neglect was not all Cowley had to endure; ley's comedy, raised up by those whom Wood the royal party seemed disposed to calumniate designates as "enemies of the muses,'' it would him. When Cowley was young he had hastily appear that others were added of a deeper dye, composed the comedy of “The Guardian;" a piece and in malignant whispers distilled into the ear of which served the cause of loyalty. After the royalty. Cowley, in an ode, had commemorated Restoration, he rewrote it under the title of the genius of Brutus, with all the enthusiasm of a "Cutter of Coleman Street;" a comedy which votary of liberty. After the king's return, when may still be read with equal curiosity and interest: Cowley solicited some reward for his sufferings a spirited picture of the peculiar characters which and services in the royal cause, the chancellor is appeared at the Revolution. It was not only ill said to have turned on him with a severe countereceived by a faction, but by those vermin of a nance, saying, "Mr. Cowley, your pardon is your new court, who, without merit themselves, put in reward!" It seems that ode was then considered their claims, by crying down those who, with to be of a dangerous tendency among half the great merit, are not in favour. All these to a nation; Brutus would be the model of enthusiasts, man accused the author of having written a satire who were sullenly bending their neck under the against the king's party. And this wretched party yoke of royalty. Charles II. feared the attempt prevailed, too long for the author's repose, but of desperate men; and he might have forgiven not for his fame. Many years afterwards this Rochester a loose pasquinade, but not Cowley a comedy became popular. Dryden, who was pre- solemn invocation. This fact then is said to have sent at the representation, tells us, that Cowley been the true cause of the despondence so preva"received the news of his ill success not with so lent in the latter poetry of "the melancholy much firmness as might have been expected from Cowley." And hence the indiscretion of the so great a man." Cowley was in truth a great muse, in a single flight, condemned her to a painman, and a greatly injured man. His sensibility ful, rather than a voluntary solitude; and made and delicacy of temper were of another texture the poet complain of "barren praise" and than Dryden's. What at that moment did Cow-"neglected verse*." ley experience, when he beheld himself neglected, calumniated, and, in his last appeal to public favour, found himself still a victim to a vile faction; who, to court their common master, were trampling on their honest brother?

While this anecdote harmonises with better

*The anecdote, probably little known, may be found in "The judgment of Dr. Prideaux in condemning the murder of Julius Cæsar by the conspirators as a most

We shall find an unbroken chain of evidence, villanous act, maintained, 1721,” p. 41.

F

known facts, it throws some light on the outcry raised against the comedy, which seems to have been but an echo of some preceding one. Cowley retreated into solitude, where he found none of the agrestic charms of the landscapes of his muse. When in the world, Sprat says, "he had never wanted for constant health and strength of body;" but, thrown into solitude, he carried with him a wounded spirit—the Ode of Brutus and the condemnation of his comedy were the dark spirits that haunted his cottage. Ill health soon succeeded low spirits-he pined in dejection, and perished a victim of the finest and most injured feelings.

THE PAINS OF FASTIDIOUS EGOTISM.

I MUST place the author of "The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," who himself now ornaments that roll, among those who have participated in the misfortunes of literature.

HORACE WALPOLE was the inheritor of a name the most popular in Europe; he moved in the higher circles of society; and fortune had never denied him the ample gratification of his lively tastes in the elegant arts, and in curious knowledge. These were particular advantages. But Horace Walpole panted with a secret desire for literary celebrity; a full sense of his distinguished rank long suppressed the desire of ven

But before we leave the melancholy Cowley, he shall speak the feelings, which here are not exag-turing the name he bore to the uncertain fame of gerated. In this Chronicle of Literary Calamity, no passage ought to be more memorable than the solemn confession of one of the most amiable of men and poets.

an author, and the caprice of vulgar critics. At length he pretended to shun authors, and to slight the honours of authorship. The cause of this contempt has been attributed to the perpetual Thus he expresses himself in the preface to his consideration of his rank. But was this bitter "Cutter of Coleman Street:"

"We are, therefore, wonderful wise men, and have a fine business of it; we, who spend our time in poetry. I do sometimes laugh, and am often angry with myself, when I think on it; and if I had a son inclined by nature to the same folly, I believe I should bind him from it by the strictest conjurations of a paternal blessing. For what can be more ridiculous than to labour to give men delight, whilst they labour, on their part, most earnestly, to take offence?"

And thus he closes the preface, in all the solemn expression of injured feelings :—“This I do affirm, that from all which I have written, I never received the least benefit, or the least advantage; but, on the contrary, have felt sometimes the effects of malice and misfortune!"

contempt of so early a date? Was Horace Walpole a Socrates before his time? was he born that prodigy of indifference, to despise the secret object he languished to possess? His early associates were not only noblemen, but literary noblemen; and need he have been so petulantly fastidious at bearing the venerable title of author, when he saw Lyttelton, Chesterfield, and other peers, proud of wearing the blue riband of literature? No! it was after he had become an author that he contemned authorship; and it was not the precocity of his sagacity, but the maturity of his experience, that made him willing enough to undervalue literary honours, which were not sufficient to satisfy his desires.

Let us estimate the genius of Horace Walpole, by analysing his talents, and inquiring into the nature of his works.

His taste was highly polished; his vivacity attained to brilliancy; and his picturesque fancy,

Cowley's ashes were deposited between those of Chaucer and Spenser; a marble monument was erected by a duke; and his eulogy was pronounced, on the day of his death, from the lips of royalty. The learned wrote, and the tuneful wept well might the neglected bard, in his retire-vivacity, whenever pointed against authors. The following ment, compose an epitaph on himself, living there have not yet met the public eye. What can be more mali"entombed, though not dead."

To this ambiguous state of existence he applies a conceit, not inelegant, from the tenderness of its imagery:

"Hic sparge flores, sparge breves rosas,
Nam vita gaudet mortua floribus;

Herbisque odoratis corona

Vatis adhuc cinerem calentem."

IMITATED.

Here scatter flowers and short-lived roses bring,
For life, though dead, enjoys the flowers of spring;
With breathing wreaths of fragrant herbs adorn
The yet warm embers in the poet's urn.

In his letters there are uncommon instances of

Iciously pungent than this on Spence? "As I knew Mr. J.
Spence, I do not think I should have been so much delighted

as Dr. Kippis with reading his letters. He was a good-
natured harmless little soul, but more like a silver penny
than a genius. It was a neat fiddle faddle bit of sterling,
that had read good books, and kept good company; but
was too trifling for use, and only fit to please a child."
-On Dr. Nash's first volume of Worcestershire': "It is a
folio of prodigious corpulence, and yet dry enough; but
it is finely dressed with many heads and views."
characterises Pennant; "He is not one of our plodders
(alluding to Gough); rather the other extreme; his cor-
poral spirits (for I cannot call them animal do not allow
him to digest anything. He gave a round jump from orni-
thology to antiquity, and, as if they had any relation,

He