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.

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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 ', 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 '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. Angels (they say) brought the fame'd Chapell there; And bore their sacred load in triumph through the aire. Tis' surer much they brought thee there; and They, And Thow (their charge) went singing all the way. Pardon, my Mother Church, if I consent That Angels lead him when from thee hee went. For ev'en in Errour sure noe danger is. When ioynd w^^ soe much Piety as His. 50 Ah mighty God (w^'^ shame I say't and greife) Ah y^ our greatest faults were in Beleife! And our weak Reason were ev'en weaker yit, Rather then thus our Will too strong for it! His Faith perhaps in some nice Tenents might Bee wrong; his Life, Tme sure, was in the Right. And I myselfe a Catholique will bee Soe farre at least, great Saint, to Pray to Thee. Hail, Bard Triumphant! and some care bestow, ^ On Vs the Poets Militant below. 60 Oppose'd by our old Ene'my, adverse Chance, Attaque'd by Envy, and by Ignorance, EnchainM by Beawty, tortur'ed by Desires; By Tyrant Love, expose'd to Savadge Beasts & Fires. Thow from low Earth in nobler Flames didst rise. And, like Eliah, mount Alive the skies, [p. 3] Elisha-like (but w^*^ a Wish much lesse. More fit thy Greatnes, and my Littlenesse) Loe here I beg (I whom thow once didst prove Soe Humble to esteem, soe Good to love) 70 Not that thy Spirit should on me Dowbled bee; I beg but Halfe thy mighty Spirit for Mee. And when my Muse soares w^*^ soe strong a Wing; Twill learn of things Divine, and first of Thee, to sing. Leaving aside the sixteen or so substantive readings that were rejected by Cowley in 106 C o e

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107 1656 the autograph deserves, and indeed demands, any editor's respect in matters of orthography, pointing, and presentation. The formality of the hand, the layout of the elegy on the page, and the addition of catchwords together confirm that this fair copy was intended either for presentation to an individual or for general circulation at court. The great importance of the present manuscript, however, lies in its revelation of the amazing pains that the author took to ensure correct recitation of his lines. This shows in his subtle enlargement of key-words and phrases and the increased spacing of their letters; in thediaeresis(four times) of'Poets'; and in his practice of writing out unsounded syllables in full, with an apostrophe preceding or following the silent vowel. Comparison with the text published in 1656 reveals that the printer preserved these distinctions of emphasis almost to a word, by the use of italics.

A rare poetical autograph not represented among the facsimiles published by Greg and P. J. Croft^ is that of Cowley's friend, . A fair copy in her own hand of her verses on the discovery of Colonel Blood's plot to seize Ormonde on 21 May 1663 occurs in the present collection (fig. 2). 'Orinda' may have met the Duke at a performance of her play Pompey in on 10 February of that year, but the presentation of the auto- graph seems to have been made through Ormonde's old acquaintance, Marcus Trevor, Viscount Dungannon, who in the previous August had married Mrs.Philips's 'Lucasia', Anne Owen. It is endorsed in Ormonde's hand, 'Verses M""'^ Phillips / 10 July 1663. / L"^ Dunganon'. The verses were published posthumously in her Poems of 1678, under a shortened title and, as the variants attest, from a revised version. In particular, the couplet that stands in the printed text as 11. 7-8 occurs in the manuscript as II. 11-12, while the latter also preserves as its antepenultimate couplet verses that were subsequently suppressed: Annalls & Fame, to all the world shall tell You sufTerd bravely, & you rule as well. The remaining substantival variants are as follows, the numeration used being that of the verses in the printed text: title To my Lord Duke of Ormonde Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on the discovery of the late Plot. MS. To my Lord Duke t>/Ormonde, upon the late Plot. i6y8\ 1.2 your MS.you i6y8\ 1.10 desperate Af^". dangerous 16^8; 1. 11 oft play's MS. may play i6j8\ 1.17 on MS. an i6y8 (misprint); 1. 27 secure MS. preserve i6'/8.

1 Historical Manuscripts Commission, 14th Report, 4 Bodleian MSS. Carte 29, fols. 638, 641, 649, and Appendix, VII, 105-18. Clarendon State Papers 42, fol. 19. 2 Watermarks, Hilversum, 1950, nos. 1037-55 5 Abraham Cowley, the Muse's Hannibaly New York passim. (i93i)> P-I33- 3 Bodleian MS. Carte 29, fols. 318, 324. 6 Autograph Poetry in the English Language (1973)-

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