ootnote 108: Mr. Cowley died at Chertsey, on the borders of the
Forest, and was from thence conveyed to Westminster.--POPE.

Pope told Spence that Cowley was killed by a fever brought on by lying
out all night in the fields. He had got drunk, in company with his
friend Dean Sprat, at the house of a neighbour, and they lost their way
in the attempt to walk home. Sprat had long before related that Cowley
caught his last illness in the "meadows," but says it was caused "by
staying too long amongst his labourers in the heat of the summer." The
drunkenness, and the lying out all night, appear to have been the
embellishments of scandal.]

[Footnote 109: Cowley died July 28, 1667, in the 49th year of his age.
Pope's "O early lost!" is copied from the "O early ripe!" of Dryden in
his lines to the Memory of Oldham.]

[Footnote 110: Oldham's Imitation of Moschus:

This, Thames, ah! this, is now thy second loss
For which in tears thy weeping current flows.]

[Footnote 111: On the margin of his manuscript Pope wrote the passage of
Virgil which he imitated:

quae, Tiberine, videbis
Funera, cum tumulum praeterlabere recentem.

The "pomp" was not a poetical exaggeration. Evelyn, who attended the
funeral, says that Cowley's body was "conveyed to Westminster Abbey in a
hearse with six horses, near a hundred coaches of noblemen, and persons
of quality following."]

[Footnote 112: Originally:

What sighs, what murmurs, filled the vocal shore!
His tuneful swans were heard to sing no more.--POPE.]

[Footnote 113: We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst
thereof. Psalm cxxxvii. 2.--WAKEFIELD.

Pope says that "_each_ muse" hung up her lyre because Cowley was thought
to excel in many departments of verse. "He was beloved," said Dr.
Felton, "by every muse he courted, and has rivalled the ancients in
every kind of poetry but tragedy." Dr. Sprat entitled his poem on him an
"Ode to the English Ovid, Anacreon, Pindar, and Virgil."]

[Footnote 114: Warton mentions, that "living lyre" is used by Cowley.]

[Footnote 115: This couplet was a triplet in the manuscript with the
following middle line:

What bard, what angel, tunes the warbling strings?

It is surprising that Pope did not feel the bathos of the expression,
"'Tis yours, my lord," introduced into the midst of the high-flown
adulation.]

[Footnote 116: Philips:

And paint those honours thou art sure to wear.--STEEVENS.