whole over before he was 12 years old, and was made a poet, as
immediately as a child is made an eunuch.'

In the 16th year of his age, being still at Westminster school, he
published a collection of poems, under the title of Poetical Blossoms,
in which there are many things that bespeak a ripened genius, and a
wit, rather manly than puerile. Mr. Cowley himself has given us a
specimen in the latter end of an ode written when he was but 13 years
of age. 'The beginning of it, says he, is boyish, but of this part
which I here set down, if a very little were corrected, I should not
be much ashamed of it.' It is indeed so much superior to what might be
expected from one of his years, that we shall satisfy the reader's
curiosity by inserting it here.

IX.

This only grant me, that my means may lye,
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, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

X.

Books should, not business, entertain the light
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night:
My house a cottage, more