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, 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, that happy state,
I could 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.

It is remarkable of Mr. Cowley, as he himself tells us, that he had
this defect in his memory, that his teachers could never bring him to
retain the ordinary rules of grammar, the want of which, however, he
abundantly supplied by an intimate acquaintance with the books
themselves, from whence those rules had been drawn. In 1636 he was
removed to Trinity College in Cambridge, being elected a scholar of
that house[2]. His exercises of all kinds were highly applauded, with
this peculiar praise, that they were fit, not only for the obscurity
of an academical life, but to have made their appearance on the true
theatre of the world; and there he laid the designs, and formed the
plans of most of the masculine, and excellent attempts he afterwards
happily finished. In 1638 he published his Love's Riddle, written at
the time of his being a scholar in Westminster school, and dedicated
by a copy of verses to Sir Kenelm Digby. He also wrote a Latin Comedy
entitled Naufragium Joculare, or the Merry Shipwreck. The first
occasion of his entering into business, was, an elegy he wrote on the
death of Mr. William Harvey, which introduced him to the acquaintance
of Mr. John Harvey, the brother of his deceased friend, from whom he
received many offices of kindness through the whole course of his
life[3]. In 1643, being then master of arts, he was, among many
others, ejected his college, and the university; whereupon, retiring
to Oxford, he settled in St. John's College, and that same year, under
the name of a scholar of Oxford, published a satire entitled the
Puritan and the Papist. His zeal in the Royal cause, engaged him in
the service of the King, and he was present in many of his Majesty's
journies and expeditions; by this means he gained an acquaintance and
familiarity with the personages of the court