A CONVERSATION

BETWEEN MR. ABRAHAM COWLEY AND MR. JOHN MILTON. TOUCHING THE GREAT CIVIL WAR.

SET DOWN BY A GENTLEMAN OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE.

(Knight's Quarterly Magazine, August 1824.)

Referre sermones Deorum et

Magna modis tenuare parvis." -HORACE

I HAVE thought it good to set down in writing a memorable debate, wherein I was a listener, and two men of pregnant parts and great reputation discoursers; hoping that my friends will not be displeased to have a record both of the strange times through which I have lived, and of the famous men with whom I have conversed. It chanced, in the warm and beautiful spring of the year 1665, a little before the saddest summer that ever London saw, that I went to the BowlingGreen at Piccadilly, whither, at that time, the best gentry made continual resort. There I met Mr. Cowley, who had lately left Barnelms. There was then a

house preparing for him at Chertsey; and, till it should be finished, he had come up for a short time to London, that he might urge a suit to his Grace of Buckingham touching certain lands of her Majesty's, whereof he requested a lease. I had the honour to be familiarly acquainted with that worthy gentleman

and most excellent poet, whose death hath been deplored with as general a consent of all Powers that delight in the woods, or in verse, or in love, as was of old that of Daphnis or of Gallus.

After some talk, which it is not material to set down at large, concerning his suit and his vexations at the court, where indeed his honesty did him more harm than his parts could do him good, I entreated him to dine with me at my lodging in the Temple, which he most courteously promised. And, that so eminent a guest might not lack a better entertainment than cooks or vintners can provide, I sent to the house of Mr. John Milton, in the Artillery-Walk, to beg that he would also be my guest. For, though he had been secretary, first to the Council of State, and, after that, to the Protector, and Mr. Cowley had held the same post under the Lord St. Albans in his banishment, I hoped, notwithstanding, that they would think themselves rather united by their common art than divided by their different factions. And so indeed it proved. For, while we sat at table, they talked freely of many men and things, as well ancient as modern, with much civility. Nay, Mr. Milton, who seldom tasted wine, both because of his singular temperance and because of his gout, did more than once pledge Mr. Cowley, who was indeed no hermit in diet. At last, being heated, Mr. Milton begged that I would open the windows. "Nay," said I, "if you desire fresh air and coolness, what should hinder us, as the evening is fair, from sailing for an hour on the river?" To this they both cheerfully consented; and forth we walked, Mr. Cowley and I leading Mr. Milton between us, to the Temple Stairs. There we took a boat; and thence we were rowed up the river.

The wind was pleasant; the evening fine; the sky the earth, and the water beautiful to look upon.

Bu Mr. Cowley and I held our peace, and said nothing of the gay sights around us, lest we should too feelingly remind Mr. Milton of his calamity; whereof, however, he needed no monitor: for soon he said sadly, "Ah, Mr. Cowley, you are a happy man. What wi would I now give but for one more look at the sun, th and the waters, and the gardens of this fair city!"

"I know not," said Mr. Cowley, "whether we ought not rather to envy you for that which makes you to envy others: and that specially in this place, where all eyes which are not closed in blindness ought to become fountains of tears. What can we look upon which is not a memorial of change and sorrow, of fair things vanished, and evil things done? When I see the gate of Whitehall, and the stately pillars of the Banqueting House, I cannot choose but think of what I have there seen in former days, masques, and pageants, and dances, and smiles, and the waving of graceful heads, and the bounding of delicate feet. And then I turn to thoughts of other things, which even to remember makes me to blush and weep; of the great black scaffold, and the axe and block, which were placed before those very windows; and the voice seems to sound in mine ears, the lawless and terrible voice, which cried out that the head of a king was the head of a traitor. There stands Westminster Hall, which who can look upon, and not tremble to think how time, and change, and death confound the councils of the wise, and beat down the

weapons of the mighty? How have I seen it surrounded with tens of thousands of petitioners crying for justice and privilege! How have I heard it shake

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h fierce and proud words, which made the hearts he people burn within them! Then it is blockaded dragoons, and cleared by pikemen. And they who ve conquered their master go forth trembling at the word of their servant. And yet a little while, and the usurper comes forth from it, in his robe of ermine, with the golden staff in one hand and the Bible in the other, amidst the roaring of the guns and the shouting of the people. And yet again a little while, and the doors are thronged with multitudes in black, and the hearse and the plumes come forth; and the yrant is borne, in more than royal pomp, to a royal epulchre. A few days more, and his head is fixed to rot on the pinnacles of that very hall where he sat on

throne in his life, and lay in state after his death. When I think on all these things, to look round me makes me sad at heart. True it is that God hath restored to us our old laws, and the rightful line of our kings. Yet, how I know not, but it seems to me that something is wanting-that our court hath not the old gravity, nor our people the old loyalty. These vil times, like the great deluge, have overwhelmed 1 confused all earthly things. And, even as those rs, though at last they abated, yet, as the learned op destroyed all trace of the garden of Eden, so all mplace hath never since been found, so hath this Sipf all the flood-gates of political evil effaced of the ancient political paradise."

your favour," said Mr. Milton, "though, yourself, 1 fairer excuses for despondency than cumstances both of body and of fortune, or on the flook not so sadly either on the past this our nation

That a deluge hath passed over env not. But I hold it not to be

such a deluge as that of which you speak; but rat a blessed flood, like those of the Nile, which in overflow doth indeed wash away ancient landmar and confound boundaries, and sweep away dwelling yea, doth give birth to many foul and dangerous reptiles. Yet hence is the fulness of the granary, the beauty of the garden, the nurture of all living things.

“I remember well, Mr. Cowley, what you have said concerning these things in your Discourse of the Government of Oliver Cromwell, which my friend Elwood read to me last year. Truly, for elegance and rhetoric, that essay is to be compared with th finest tractates of Isocrates and Cicero. But neither that nor any other book, nor any events, which with most men have, more than any book, weight and, authority, have altered my opinion, that, of all assemblies that ever were in this world, the best and the most useful was our Long Parliament. I speak not this as wishing to provoke debate; which neither yet do I decline."

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Mr. Cowley was, as I could see, a little nett1 ́ Yet, as he was a man of a kind disposition and refined courtesy, he put a force upon hims answered with more vehemence and quickne Ithan was his wont, yet not uncivilly. "S.éed Milton, you speak not as you think. Id to one of those who believe that God hathies and himself the censure of kings, and that th of their oppressions are not to be resisted by thee violence subjects. Yet can I easily find excuse,us tyranny. of such as are stung to madness by Which of

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