Abraham Cowley—the posthumous son of a London grocer—owed much to his mother. She, by her exertions, procured him a classical education at Westminster School. She lived to see him loved, honored, and great, and what was better still, and more uncommon, grateful. At the age of fifteen he published a volume called "Poetic Blossoms," which he afterwards described as "commendable extravagancies in a boy." He obtained a scholarship in Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1686, and there took his degree; but was ejected by the Parliament, and thence removed to Oxford. Shortly after, he followed the Queen Henrietta to Paris, as Secretary to the Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in the court of the exiles in the most confidential capacity. In 1656 he returned to England, and was immediately arrested as a suspected spy. He submitted quietly—the royalists thought too quietly—to the dominion of the Protector, but his whole life proved that he was no traitor. At the Restoration, that great national disappointment, his claims upon the ungrateful monarch were met by a taunt and a false insinuation—he was told that his pardon was his reward! Wood said, "he lost the place by certain enemies of the Muses;" certain "friends of the Muses," however, procured for him the lease of the Porch-house and farm at Chertsey, held under the Queen, and the great desire of his life—solitude—was obtained. [Illustration: COWLEY’S HOUSE—GARDEN FRONT.] COWLEY’S HOUSE—GARDEN FRONT. The place still seems a meet dwelling for a poet, and is, perhaps, even more attractive to strangers than St. Anne’s hill. The porch, which caused his residence to be called "The Porch-house," was taken down during the last century by the father of its present proprietor, the Rev. John Crosby Clarke, and the house is now known as "Cowley House."(1) It is situated near the bridge which crosses a narrow and rapid stream, in a lonely part of Guildford Street; a latticed window which overhangs the road is the window of the room in which the poet expired; on the outside wall Mr. Clarke has recorded his reason for removing the porch. "The porch of this house, which projected ten feet into the highway, was taken down in the year 1786, for the safety and accommodation of the public." "Here the last accents flowed from Cowley’s tongue." [Illustration: STAIRCASE—COWLEY’S HOUSE.] STAIRCASE—COWLEY’S HOUSE.