They should be educated to expect no more, and more should not be extended to them, except in case of utter misfortune or destitution, and then only on a scale that should be in itself no temptation. Such an estate, founded by the people, would be the noblest monument ever yet erected to any man, or on any occasion. Shakspeare has a decent monument at Stratford, and an indifferent one in Westminster Abbey; this would be one worthy of him and of the nation which produced him. It would take away from us a melancholy opprobrium, and confer on him and the British people an equal glory. ABRAHAM COWLEY. [Illustration] The chief places connected with the name of Cowley are Barn-Elms and Chertsey, both in Surrey. Cowley is one of those poets who had a great reputation in his own time, but who at the present day are only read by those who are anxious to know the real history of the poetry of their country. He is so overloaded with the most outrageous conceits, and his whole system of versification is at once so affected, artificial, and yet rugged and often mean, that he has, in the midst of so much more genuine inspiration, fallen into almost utter neglect. Johnson, often unjust to our poets, can hardly be said to have been so to Cowley, when he says of him and the other metaphysical poets, that "they were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavor; but unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they wrote only verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables."... From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. "For these reasons," Johnson adds, "that though in his own time considered of unrivaled excellence, and as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him, Cowley's reputation could not last. His character of writing was, indeed, not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows." In Cowley, in fact, you will find many beautiful sentiments, and much learning; but he seems always playing with his matter, not dealing earnestly with it; constructing toys and gewgaws, not everlasting structures. You have artifice instead of feeling, and conceits and often downright fustian instead of heart, soul, and human passion. Who would now willingly wade through pages of such doggerel as this?