Quotes by Abraham Cowley

Even when I was a very young boy at school, 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 exercises 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 ode 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. IX. This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone. The unknown are better than ill known. Rumour can ope the grave; Acquaintance I would have, but when it depends Not on the number, but the choice of friends. X. Books should, not business, entertain the light, And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night. My house a cottage, more 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, Horace might envy in his Sabine field. XI. Thus would I double my life’s fading space, For he that runs it well twice runs his race. And in this true delight, These unbought sports, this happy state, I would not fear, nor wish my fate, But boldly say each night, To-morrow let my sun his beams display Or in clouds hide them—I have lived to-day.

I know they are not, and therefore cannot much recommend solitude to a man totally illiterate. But if any man be so unlearned as to want entertainment of the little intervals of accidental solitude, which frequently occur in almost all conditions (except the very meanest of the people, who have business enough in the necessary provisions for life), it is truly a great shame both to his parents and himself; for a very small portion of any ingenious art will stop up all those gaps of our time, either music, or painting, or designing, or chemistry, or history, or gardening, or twenty other things, will do it usefully and pleasantly; and if he happen to set his affections upon poetry (which I do not advise him too immoderately) that will overdo it; no wood will be thick enough to hide him from the importunities of company or business, which would abstract him from his beloved. —_O quis me geldis sub montibus Hæmi_ _Sistat_, _et ingenti ramorum protegat umbrâ_? I. Hail, old patrician trees, so great and good! Hail, ye plebeian underwood! Where the poetic birds rejoice, And for their quiet nests and plenteous food Pay with their grateful voice. II. Hail, the poor Muses’ richest manor seat! Ye country houses and retreat Which all the happy gods so love, That for you oft they quit their bright and great Metropolis above. III. Here Nature does a house for me erect, Nature the wisest architect, Who those fond artists does despise That can the fair and living trees neglect, Yet the dead timber prize. IV. Here let me, careless and unthoughtful lying, Hear the soft winds, above me flying, With all their wanton boughs dispute, And the more tuneful birds to both replying, Nor be myself too mute. V. A silver stream shall roll his waters near, Gilt with the sunbeams here and there, On whose enamelled bank I’ll walk, And see how prettily they smile, and hear How prettily they talk.

I shall only instance in one delight more, the most natural and best natured of all others, a perpetual companion of the husbandman: and that is, the satisfaction of looking round about him, and seeing nothing but the effects and improvements of his own art and diligence; to be always gathering of some fruits of it, and at the same time to behold others ripening, and others budding; to see all his fields and gardens covered with the beauteous creatures of his own industry; and to see, like God, that all his works are good. _Hinc atque hinc glomerantur Oreades_; _ipsi_ _Agricolæ tacitum pertentant gaudia pectus_. On his heart-strings a secret joy does strike. The antiquity of his art is certainly not to be contested by any other. The three first men in the world were a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier; and if any man object that the second of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider, that as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession and turned builder. It is for this reason, I suppose, that Ecclesiasticus forbids us to hate husbandry; because, says he, the Most High has created it. We were all born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the same earth out of which they were made, and to which they must return and pay at last for their sustenance. Behold the original and primitive nobility of all those great persons who are too proud now not only to till the ground, but almost to tread upon it. We may talk what we please of lilies and lions rampant, and spread eagles in fields d’or or d’argent; but if heraldry were guided by reason, a plough in a field arable would be the most noble and ancient arms. All these considerations make me fall into the wonder and complaint of Columella, how it should come to pass that all arts or Sciences (for the dispute, which is an art and which is a science, does not belong to the curiosity of us husbandmen), metaphysic, physic, morality, mathematics, logic, rhetoric, etc., which are all, I grant, good and useful faculties, except only metaphysic, which I do not know whether it be anything or no, but even vaulting, fencing, dancing, attiring, cookery, carving, and such like vanities, should all have public schools and masters; and yet that we should never see or hear of any man who took upon him the profession of teaching this so pleasant, so virtuous, so profitable, so honourable, so necessary art. A man would think, when he’s in serious humour, that it were but a vain, irrational, and ridiculous thing for a great company of men and women to run up and down in a room together, in a hundred several postures and figures, to no purpose, and with no design; and therefore dancing was invented first, and only practised anciently, in the ceremonies of the heathen religion, which consisted all in mummery and madness; the latter being the chief glory of the worship, and accounted divine inspiration.

The second is like the foolish chough, which loves to steal money only to hide it. The first does much harm to mankind, and a little good too, to some few. The second does good to none; no, not to himself. The first can make no excuse to God, or angels, or rational men for his actions. The second can give no reason or colour, not to the devil himself, for what he does: he is a slave to Mammon without wages. The first makes a shift to be beloved; aye, and envied, too, by some people. The second is the universal object of hatred and contempt. There is no vice has been so pelted with good sentences, and especially by the poets, who have pursued it with stories and fables, and allegories and allusions; and moved, as we say, every stone to fling at it, among all which, I do not remember a more fine and gentlemen-like correction than that which was given it by one line of Ovid’s. _Desunt luxuriæ malta_, _avaritiæ omnia_. Much is wanting to luxury; all to avarice To which saying I have a mind to add one member and render it thus:— Poverty wants some, luxury many, avarice all things. Somebody says of a virtuous and wise man, that having nothing, he has all. This is just his antipode, who, having all things, yet has nothing. He is a guardian eunuch to his beloved gold: _Audivi eos amatores esse maximos sed nil potesse_. They are the fondest lovers, but impotent to enjoy. And, oh, what man’s condition can be worse Than his, whom plenty starves, and blessings curse? The beggars but a common fate deplore, The rich poor man’s emphatically poor. I wonder how it comes to pass that there has never been any law made against him. Against him, do I say? I mean for him, as there is a public provision made for all other madmen. It is very reasonable that the king should appoint some persons (and I think the courtiers would not be against this proposition) to manage his estate during his life (for his heirs commonly need not that care), and out of it to make it their business to see that he should not want alimony befitting his condition, which he could never get out of his own cruel fingers.