ABRAHAM, an eminent poet, was born at London in 1618. His father, who was a grocer, dying before he was born, his mother procured him to be admitted a king's scholar at Westminster. His first inclination to poetry arose on his lighting on Spenfer's Faiey Queen, when he was but just able to read; and this inclination so far improved in him, that at 13 he began to write several poems; a collection of which was published in 1613, when he was but 15. He has been represented as possessed of so bad a memory that his teachers could never bring him to retain the ordinary rules of grammar. But the fact was, as Dr. Johnson notices, not that he could not learn or retain the rules; but that being able to perform his exercises without them, he spared himself the labour. In 1636 he was elected a scholar of Trinity college, Cambridge, and removed to that university. Here, he went through all his exercises with a remarkable degree of reputation; and at the same time must have pursued his poetical turn with great eagerness, as it appears that the greatest part of his poems were written before he left that university. He had taken his degree of master of arts before 1643, when, in consequence of the turbulence of the times, he, among others, was ejected from the college; whereupon, retiring to Oxford, he entered himself of St John's College; and that very year, under the denomination of a scholar of Oxford, published a satire called the Puritan and the Papist. It is apparent, however, that he did not remain very long at Oxford; for his zeal to the royal cause engaging him in the service of the king, who was very sensible of his abilities, and by whom he was frequently employed, he attended his majesty in many of his journeys and expeditions, and gained not only that prince's esteem, but that of many other great personages, and in particular of Lord Falkland, one of the principal secretaries of state.

During the heat of the civil war, he was settled in the earl of St Albans's family; and when the queen-mother was obliged to retire into France, he accompanied her thither, laboured strenuously in the affairs of the royal family, undertook several very dangerous journeys on their account, and was the principal instrument in maintaining an epistolary correspondence between the king and queen, whose letters he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand. His poems, entitled The Mistres, were published at London in 1647; and his comedy called The Guardian, afterwards altered and published under the title of Cutter of Coleman-street, in 1650. In 1656 it was thought proper by those on whom Mr Cowley depended that he should come over into England, and, under pretence of privacy and retirement, should give notice of the posture of affairs in this nation. Upon his return he published a new edition of all his poems, consisting of four parts; viz. I. Miscellanies. II. The Mistres, or Several copies of Love-verbs. III. Pindaric Odes, written in imitation of the style and manner of Pindar. IV. Davidis, a sacred poem of the troubles of David, in four books.

Soon after his arrival, however, he was seized, in the search after another gentleman of considerable note in the king's party; but although it was through mistake that he was taken, yet when the republicans found all their attempts of every kind to bring him over to their party proved ineffectual, he was committed to a severe confinement, and it was even with considerable difficulty that he obtained his liberty; when, venturing back to France, he remained there, in his former situation, till near the time of the king's return. During his stay in England he wrote his Two Books of Plants, published first in 1662; to which he afterwards added four books more; and all six, together with his other Latin poems, were printed at London in 1678. It appears by Mr Wood's Fasti Oxonienae, that our poet was created doctor of physic at Oxford, December 2. 1657.

Soon after the Restoration he became possessed of a very competent estate, through the favour of his principal friends the duke of Buckingham and the earl of St Albans's; and being now upwards of 40 years of age, he took up a resolution to pass the remainder of a life which had been a scene of tempest and tumult, in that situation which had ever been the object of his wishes, a studious retirement. His eagerness to get out of the bustle of a court and city made him less careful than he might have been in the choice of a healthful habitation in the country; by which means he found his solitude from the very beginning most agreeable to the constitution of his body than with his mind. His first rural residence was at Barn Elms, a place which, lying low, and being near a large river, was subject to a variety of breezes from land and water, and liable in the winter-time to great inconvenience from the dampness of the soil. The consequence of this Mr Cowley too soon experienced, by being seized with a dangerous and lingering fever. On his recovery from this he removed to Chertsey, a situation not much more healthy, where he had not been long before he was seized with another continuing disease. Having languished under this for some months, he at length got the better of it, and formed pretty well recovered from the bad symptoms, when one day in the heat of summer 1667, staying too long in the fields to give some directions to his labourers, he caught a most violent cold, which was attended with a delirium and floppage in his breast; and for want of timely care, by treating it as a common cold, and refusing advice till it was past remedy, he departed this life on the 28th of July in that year, being the 49th of his age; and on the 3d of August following, he was. was interred in Westminster-abbey, near the ashes of Chaucer, and his beloved Spenser. He was a man of a very amiable character, as well as an admirable genius. King Charles II. on the news of his death, declared "that Mr Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England." A monument was erected to his memory by George Villiers duke of Buckingham in 1675.

Besides the works already mentioned, Mr Cowley wrote, among other things, A Proposition for the Advancement of Experimental Philosophy; A Discourse by way of Vifion concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell; and Several Discourses by way of Essays in Prose and Verse. Mr Cowley had designed also a Discourse concerning Style, and a Review of the Principles of the Primitive Christian Church, but was prevented by death. A spurious piece, entitled The Iron Age, was published under Mr Cowley's name during his absence; and, in Mr Dryden's Miscellany Poems, we find A Poem on the Civil War, said to be written by our author, but not extant in any edition of his works. An edition of his works was published by Dr Spratt, afterwards bishop of Rochester, who also prefixed to it an account of the author's life. The reverend editor mentions, as very excellent of their kind, Mr Cowley's letters to his Friends; none of which, however, were published.

The moral character of Mr Cowley appears, from every account of it, to have been very excellent; "He is represented by Dr Spratt (says Dr Johnson), as the most amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may be safely credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction."

As a poet, his merits have been variously estimated. Lord Clarendon has said he made a flight above all men; Addison, in his account of the English poets, that he improved upon the Theban bard; the duke of Buckingham upon his tombstone, that he was the English Pindar, the Horace, the Virgil, the delight, the glory of his time. And with respect to the harshness of his numbers, the eloquent Spratt tells us, that if his verses in some places seem not so soft and flowing as one would have them, it was his choice and not his fault.

"Such (says Mr Knox) is the applause lavished on a writer who is now seldom read. That he could ever be esteemed as a pindaric poet, is a curious literary phenomenon. He totally mistook his own genius when he thought of imitating Pindar. He totally mistook the genius of Pindar, when he thought his own incoherent sentiments and numbers bore the least resemblance to the wild yet regular sublimity of the Theban. He neglected even those forms, the Istrope, antistrope, and epode, which even imitative dulness can copy. Sublime imagery, vehement pathos, poetic fire, which constitute the essence of the Pindaric ode, are incompatible with witty conceits, accurate antitheses and vulgar expression. All these imply the coolness of deliberate composition, or the meanness of a little mind; both of them most repugnant to the truly Pindaric ode, in which all is rapturous and noble. Wit of any kind would be improperly displayed in such composition: but to increase the absurdity, the wit of Cowley is often false. That he had a taste for Latin poetry, and wrote in it with elegance, the well known epitaph on himself, upon his retirement, and an admirable imitation of Horace, are full proofs. But surely his rhetorical biographer makes use of the figure hyperbole, when he affirms that Cowley has excelled the Romans themselves. He was inferior to many a writer of less name in the Musae Anglicanae. But still he had great merit; and I must confess I have read his Latin verses with more pleasure than any of his English can afford." Essays, vol. ii. p. 363—365.

To Cowley's compositions in prose Mr Knox has paid a very honourable testimony. He says, that in this department he is an elegant, a pleasing, a judicious writer; and that it is much to be lamented that he did not devote a greater part of his time to a kind of writing which appeared natural to him, and in which he excelled.

Dr Joseph Warton observes, that it is no caricature of Cowley to represent him as being possessed of a strained affectation of striving to be witty upon all occasions. "It is painful (adds this excellent critic), to censure a writer of so amiable a mind, such integrity of manners, and such sweetness of temper. His fancy was brilliant, strong, and frightfully; but his taste false and unclassical, even though he had much learning."

Dr Beattie has characterized Cowley in the following terms. "I know not whether any nation ever produced a more singular genius than Cowley. He abounds in tender thoughts, beautiful lines, and emphatical expressions. His wit is inexhaustible, and his learning extensive; but his taste is generally barbarous, and seems to have been formed upon such models as Donne, Martial, and the worst parts of Ovid: nor is it possible to read his longer poems with pleasure, while we retain any relish for the simplicity of ancient composition. If this author's ideas had been fewer, his conceits would have been less frequent; so that in one respect learning may be said to have hurt his genius. Yet it does not appear that Greek and Latin did him any harm; for his imitations of Anacreon are almost the only parts of him that are now remembered or read. His Davidese, and his translations of Pindar, are destitute of harmony, simplicity, and every other classical grace."

But the works of this celebrated poet have been nowhere so amply criticised as in his Life by Dr Johnson. After a particular examination of the different pieces, the Doctor, in taking a general review of Cowley's poetry, observes, that "he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection; with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetic, and rarely sublime, but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or profound." Of his prose he speaks with great approbation. "No author (says he) ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equality, which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far sought or hard laboured; but all is easy without affectation, and familiar without groanings." Upon the whole, he concludes as follows: "It may be affirmed, without any encomiastic fervour, that he brought to his poetical labours a mind replete with learning, and that his passages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply;" Cowley, ply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greater ode and the gaiety of the sels; and he was qualified for frightly fallies and for lofty flights; that he was among those who freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his side; and that though he had left verification yet improveable, he left likewise from time to time such specimens of excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.

So many of Cowley's productions being now esteem'd scarcely worthy of a perusal, while others of them are distinguished by their beauty, Dr Hurd (the present bishop of Worcester) thought proper to make a selection of them, which he published in 1772, under the title of Select Works of Mr Abraham Cowley, in two volumes; with a preface and notes by the Editor.