Was recently listening to a History of Literature podcast, -Politics and Grace in Early Modern Literature with Deni Kasa, in which Mr. Kasa discussed the poet Abraham Cowley, one of those influential-types who we eventually forget. It’s not easy finding information about him, though many of his writings are freely available. Oddly, for a man known best for his loyalty to the Crown in the Civil War, this essay Of Liberty is quintessentially republican:

The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of government; the liberty of a private man in being master of his own time and actions, as far as may consist with the laws of God and of his country. Of this latter only we are here to discourse, and to inquire what estate of life does best suit us in the possession of it. This liberty of our own actions is such a fundamental privilege of human nature, that God Himself, notwithstanding all His infinite power and right over us, permits us to enjoy it, and that, too, after a forfeiture made by the rebellion of Adam. He takes so much care for the entire preservation of it to us, that He suffers neither His providence nor eternal decree to break or infringe it. [...]

For the few hours of life allotted me,
Give me, great God, but Bread and Liberty,
I'll beg no more; if more thou'rt pleased to give,
I'll thankfully that overplus receive.
If beyond this no more be freely sent,
I'll thank for this, and go away content.

Amen, brother.

(Reviewed:23-Jul-24)

Grade: (A) Orrin C. Judd

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Abraham Cowley Links:

    -WIKIPEDIA: Abraham Cowley
    -PORTRAIT: Abraham Cowley (copy after an original of c.1660): Peter Lely (1618–1680) (copy after) (National Portrait Gallery, London)
    -GRAVE: Abraham Cowley (Poets Corner, Westminster Abbey)
    -ENTRY: Abraham Cowley (Encyclopedia.com)
    -ENTRY: Abraham Cowley (Famous Poets and Poems)
    -ENTRY: Abraham Cowley (Emily Donahoe, EMNON)
    -ENTRY: Abraham Cowley (BooKey)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (All Poetry)
    -ENTRY: Abraham Cowley British author (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (My Poetic Side)
    -INDEX: Cowley, Abraham (Project Gutenberg)
    -INDEX: Cowley, Abraham (Internet Archive)
    -SITE: The Abraham Cowley Text and Image Archive (University of Virginia Library)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (Poetry Foundation)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (Poets.org)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (Best Poems Encyclopedia)
    -INDEX: Abraham Cowley (LibriVox)
    -PODCAST: Politics and Grace in Early Modern Literature with Deni Kasa(The History of Literature Podcast with Jacke Wilson, July 18, 2024, Lit Hub)
    -CV: Deni Kasa
    -THESIS: Graceful Symmetry: The Politics of Grace in Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton (Deni Kasa, 2017, University of Toronto)
    -BOOK SITE: The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature by Deni Kasa (Stanford University Press)
    -EXCERPT: Introduction to The Politics of Grace in Early Modern Literature by Deni Kasa (Stanford University Press)
    -POEM: The Wish (Abraham Cowley)
    -ESSAY: Of Liberty (Abraham Cowley)
    -POEM: Poem of the week: Platonic Love by Abraham Cowley : A witty and engaging dance of ideas about the joining of bodies and the mixing of souls (Carol Rumens, 31 Jul 2023, The Guardian)
    -POEM: To the Royal Society (Abraham Cowley)
    -VIDEO: The Change by Abraham Cowley ( read by Dr Iain McGilchrist, Daily Poetry Readings #200)
    -VIDEO LECTURE: E:-33 Abraham Cowley & His Works (Priyankkaa Gauur, Oct 2, 2019, English Literature Playlist)
    -POEM: A poem on the late civil war (Abraham Cowley)
    -POEM: To Mr. Hobs (Abraham Cowley)
    -VIDEO: On the Hunt: Season 1, Episode 1 - Abraham Cowley
    -ESSAY: Abraham Cowley (Samuel Johnson, Lives of the Poets)
    -ESSAY: Cowley, Abraham (1618–1667) (Alexander Lindsay, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography)
    -ESSAY: Cowley's Verse Satire, 1642-43, and the Beginnings of Party Politics (Thomas Osborne Calhoun, 1991, The Yearbook of English Studies)
    -ESSAY: Abraham Cowley's 'Brutus': Royalist or Republican? (T. R. Langley, 1976, The Yearbook of English Studies)
    -CHAPTER: 4 Cowley: Oblivion and Obedience (Niall Allsopp, May 2020, Poetry and Sovereignty in the English Revolution)
    -THESIS: Abraham Cowley, the Transitional Poet (Stella F. Sheehy, 1938, Loyola University Chicago)
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    -REVIEW: T. S. Eliot, review of Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeenth Century: Donne to Butler. Selected and edited, with an Essay, by Herbert J. C. Grierson
    -VIDEO ARCHGIVES: “abraham cowley (YouTube)

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