eq;' = 'Sylvaeque': 'q;' was a regular contraction for
_que_: cf. p. 44, l. 6.

61.

The Works of Mr. Abraham Cowley, 1668.--'An Account of the Life and
Writings of M'r Abraham Cowley'. (pp. [18]-[20].)

Thomas Sprat (1635-1713), author of _The History of the
Royal-Society_, 1667, afterwards Bishop of Rochester, 1684, was
entrusted by Cowley's will with 'the revising of all his Works that
were formerly printed, and the collecting of those Papers which he had
design'd for the Press'; and as literary executor he brought out in
1668 a folio edition of the English works, and an octavo edition of
the Latin works. To both he prefixed a life, one in English and the
other in Latin. The more elaborate English life was written partly in
the hope that 'a Character of Mr. _Cowley_ may be of good advantage to
our Nation'. Unfortunately the ethical bias has injured the biography.
In Johnson's words, 'his zeal of friendship, or ambition of eloquence,
has produced a funeral oration rather than a history: he has given the
character, not the life of Cowley; for he writes with so little detail
that scarcely any thing is distinctly known, but all is shewn confused
and enlarged through the mist of panegyrick.' Similarly Coleridge asks
'What literary man has not regretted the prudery of Sprat in refusing
to let his friend Cowley appear in his slippers and dressing-gown?'
(_Biographia Literaria_, ch. iii). His method is the more to be
regretted as no one knew Cowley better in his later years. His
greatest error of judgement was to suppress his large collection
of Cowley's letters. But with all its faults Sprat's Life of Cowley
occupies an important place at the beginning of English biography of
men of letters. It is the earliest substantial life of a poet whose
reputation rested on his poetry. Fulke Greville's life of Sir Philip
Sidney was the life of a soldier and a statesman of promise; and to
Izaak Walton, Donne was not so much a poet as a great Churchman.

In the edition of 1668 the life of Cowley runs to twenty-four folio
pages. The passage here selected deals directly with his character.

Page 203, ll. 25-7. It is evidently the impression of a stranger at
first sight that Aubrey gives in his short note: 'A.C. discoursed very
ill and with hesitation' (ed. A. Clark, vol. i, p. 190).

62.

A Character of King Charles the Second: And Political, Moral and
Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections. By George Savile, Marquis of
Halif