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Heroes of Literature; English Poets. a Book for Young Readers
Heroes of Literature English Poets a Book for Young Readers Author:John Dennis General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1883 Original Publisher: Society for promoting Christian knowledge Subjects: Poets, English Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get ... more »free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VI. POETS OF THE COMMONWEALTH. Abraham Cowley -- John Milton -- Andrew Marvell. DR. JOHNSON begins his famous work, "The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets," with the life of Abraham Cowley. The meagre facts he has to tell of that poet arc gleaned from a Abraham biography, or, as Johnson appropriately cowiey. styles it, a funeral oration, written by Bishop Sprat, a small versifier, who is himself honoured with a place in Johnson's gallery of poets. Cowley, the son of a London tradesman, was born in 1618, ten years after the birth of Milton. His mother, early left a widow, is said to have struggled hard to give her son a literary education, and it is pleasant to know that she lived to see him fortunate and famous. " In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's ' Faerie Queene,' in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet." 11 isrhyming faculty was developed when a mere boy, and he published a volume of poems in the sixteenth year of his age. While at Westminster School he is also said to have written a pastoral comedy. The amazing precocity of the boy may be estimated from the following stanzas, which were written, he states, at thirteen : -- "A Wish. " This only grant me, that my means may lie Too low for envy, for contempt too high. Some honour I would have, Not from great deeds, but good alone ; The unknown are better than ill known -- Rumour can ope the grave. Acquaintance I would have, ...« less