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Cowley and 'Orinda'

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Cowley and 'Orinda' COWLEY AND 'ORINDA'. AUTOGRAPH FAIR COPIES HILTON KELLIHER ABRAHAM COWLEY'S elegy 'On the Death of Mr.Crashaw' was his tribute to a fellow- poet with whom he had exchanged verses at Cambridge and whom he had later befriended in exile at Paris where, according to Anthony Wood, he presented the destitute Crashaw to Henrietta Maria. The elegy has generally been recognized as one of Cowley's finest poems: 'In these verses', wrote Johnson, 'there are beauties which common authors may justly think not only above their attainment, but above their ambition.' A calli- graphic fair copy by Cowley himself, representing a slightly earlier stage of composition than the text printed in the 'Miscellanies' of 1656, has now come to light among the papers of the Marquess of Ormonde, on loan to the British Museum and then to the British Library (Department of Manuscripts Loan 37/6) since 1950 (fig. i). In the Calendar of Ormonde Manuscripts' that was compiled by John T.Gilbert in 189s niay be found a detailed description of the collection of verses addressed at various stages of his career to James Butler (1610-88), Marquess and subsequently ist Duke of Ormonde. Endorse- ments made on the separate sheets that comprise this collection show that they were brought together by Sir George Lane, later Viscount Lanesborough, who was private secretary to the Marquess when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and, in i6sSi to Charles II. Many of these verses are transcribed in the autographs of their rather obscure authors, while the better-known topical pieces are generally commonplace-copies. Cowley's elegy is written on the first three of four pages formed by folding lengthways a sheet of paper measuring approximately 434 X 323 mm. The watermark, which consists of a compartment incorporating the letters 'AB' connected to the crown that surmounts it by four small roundels arranged crosswise, is centred at the head of the sheet and is answered at the foot by a bunch of grapes lying between the chain-lines. Similar marks are recorded by Heawood,^ and occur in Royalist papers of 1649-50; but seemingly the earliest specimen of this exact type appears in an original letter of Henrietta Maria to the Marquess of Clanricarde, dated 14 March 1651, and the latest in a copy made by Sir George Lane of Ormonde's letter, endorsed 'Louvre 17/27 March 1651/2' (i.e. 1652), also to Clanricarde.^ Evidently the present fair copy was transcribed long after Crashaw's death at Loreto on 21 August 1649. It is endorsed in two distinct hands 'On M"" Crashaw / By M'' Cooly': the first does not occur elsewhere in the Ormonde papers of that period, but the other is Sir George Lane's. 102 U be o U e 103 On the face of it there is little reason why Cowley's autograph verses should have found their way into Ormonde's papers, for although they must have met fairly often after the lattcr's arrival in January i6si at the Louvre, where Cowley was living as Jermyn's (and therefore virtually Henrietta Maria's) secretary, Ormonde could not personally have known the subject of the elegy. Crashaw had, however, been recommended to the Pope in September 1646 by Henrietta Maria and was known to many of the English courtiers - possibly even to Prince Charles who was in Paris after May of that year. The likeliest explanation seems to be that this copy was written out for circulation at court; and as the watermark of the paper is found also in letters^ of Charles, Ormonde, and Jermyn dated between April 1651 and January 1652 its association with the innermost circle of Royalist exiles at the Louvre seems to be confirmed. The assertion of Cowley's biographer Nethercots that the elegy was not composed until two years after Crashaw's death was based on the apparently chronological arrangement of the 'Miscellanies' printed in the 1656 Poems, where it follows closely on 'An Answer to a Copy of Verses sent me to Jersey', itself composed between May and December i6si. The present manuscript tends to corroborate Nethercott's findings, for one would expect such a topical poem to have been circulated among interested parties soon after its completion. More forcefully than either the Jersey verses or those that Cowley composed at some time before January 1650 for Davenant's Gondibert the elegy recalls the testimony of a contemporary at Paris that its author 'could not be drawn into [the Catholic] communion all the time that he was in France ... but ... continued firm to the last'. Cowley's pro- testation that 'I myselfe a Catholique will bee Soe farre at least, great Saint, to Pray to Thee' may be a hint at some attempt on the part of the Anglo-Catholics at the Louvre to convert him to the faith that he unambiguously equates with 'Errour'. This single para- graph of controversial writing makes it at least possible that an elegy composed apparently so long after Crashaw's death was to some extent his reply to such pressures from within the exiled court - renewed perhaps following the opposition to Anglicanism at the Louvre shown by the French royal family after May 1651. Yet critics have rightly admired the tolerant spirit of the poem, for Cowley's quibble would be almost unexceptionable in the context. If this copy was intended for the eye of Henrietta Maria it was a bold but carefully calculated stroke on Cowley's part, a polite affirmation of his continuing loyalty to the 'Mother Church'. There were of course others at court - Prince Charles, the Duke of York, Ormonde, and Jermyn being chief among them - to whom the passage would have caused no pain, and it is hardly surprising that this fair copy should have found safe-keeping among the papers of the nobleman who was later to rescue the young Duke of Gloucester from his mother's proselytizing zeal. Cowley's draft of the elegy is printed below for ease of comparison with the published versions. The textual changes made for the 'Miscellanies' of 1656 are neither numerous nor on the whole very important, and confirm that the autograph represents a late stage of composition. Several revisions occur in the manuscript. In 1. 10 'Wer'et' originally stood as 'Wast', and in 1. 36 'Mother was and Virgin too!' as 'Mother and a Virgin too!'; while the most extensive change took place in the couplet that originally ran 'Enchain'd 104 by Love, tortured by fond Desires; By Tyrant Beawty expose'd to Savadge Beasts & Fires' (11.63, 64), which Cowley changed to read almost as it does in the printed text of 1656. The information imparted in the printed version by the side-note to 11. 37-42, which explains that 'M. Grashaw died of a Feaver at Loretto^ being newly chosen Canon of that Church', would have been superfluous for the small circle of exiles at the Louvre, and was accordingly omitted from the manuscript. The autograph may moreover encourage us to dismiss as merely pious sophistication the emendation of the tense and sense of Cowley's couplet 'And though Pans death long since all Oracles breakes; Yet still in Rhime the Feind Apollo speakes' (11. 21, 22 in MS. and 1656) to 'broke'/'spoke' in Thomas Sprat's edition of 1668. The text of the manuscript, reproduced by kind permission of the Marquess of Ormonde, is as follows. [p. i] On M!" Crashaw. Poet! and Saint! to Thee alone are giv'en The two most Sacred Names of Earth and Hea'ven! The hard and rarest Mixture w^^ can bee, Next that of Godhead with Humanitie! Long did the Muses, banisht Slaves abide. And built vain Pyramids to mortal pride. Like Moses thow (though spels and Charmes withstand) Hast led them nobly back home to their Holy Land. Ah wretched wee. Poets of Earth! but Thow Wer'et Liveing the same Poet w*^^ Thow'rt Now. 10 Whilst Angels sing to thee their aires divine. And ioy in an applause soe great as thine, Squall Society with them to hold, Thow needst not make new Songs, but say the Old, And they (kind Spirits!) shall all reioyce to see How little lesse then They, Exalted Man may bee. Still the old Heathen Gods in Numbers dwell; The Heavenli'est thing on earth still keeps up Hell. Nor have wee yet quite purge'd the Christian Land; Still Idols here, like Calves at Bethel, stand. 20 And though Pans death long since all Oracles breakes; Yet still in Rhime the Feind Apollo speakes. Nay with the worst of heathen dotage. Wee (Vain Men!) the Monster Woeman Deifie. Find Starres, and ty our Fates to'em, in a face; And Paradise in them, by whom wee lost it, place. What different faults corrupt our Muses thus? Wanton, like Girles, like Old Wives, Fabulous! Thy spotlesse Muse, like Marie, did contain The boundles Godhead; she did well disdain 30 105 [p. 2] That her ^ternall Verse employd should bee On a lcsse subiect then j^ternitie. And for a sacred Mistresse scorn'd to take But her, whom God himselfe scorn'd not his Wife to make, It in a kind her Miracle did doe; A fruitfull Mother was and Virgin too! How well (blest Swan) did fate contrive thy death, And made thee render up thy tunefull breath In thy great Mistresse Armes? Thow most divine And richest Offering of Lorettoes Shrine! 40 Where like some holy Sacrifice t'expire, A Feavor burnes thee, and Love lights y^ Fire.
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