Page:The Works of Abraham Cowley - volume 1 (ed. Aikin) (1806).djvu/132

In vultu color est sine sanguine: lumina mœstis
Stant immota genis: nihil est in imagine vivi.—
Flet tamen—"

The truth is, for a man to write well, it is necessary to be in good humour; neither is wit less eclipsed with the unquietness of mind, than beauty with the indisposition of body. So that it is almost as hard a thing to be a poet in despite of fortune, as it is in despite of nature. For my own part, neither my obligations to the Muses, nor expectations from them, are so great, as that I should suffer myself on no considerations to be divorced, or that I should say like Horace^[1],

"Quisquis erit vitæ, scribam, color."

I shall rather use his words in another place^[2],

"Vixi Camenis nuper idoneus,
Et militavi non sine gloriâ:
 Nunc arma, defunctúmque bello
  Barbiton hic paries habebit."

And this resolution of mine does the more befit me, because my desire has been for some years past (though

1. Hor. 2 Sat. i. 60.
2. 3 Carm. Ode xxvi. "Vixi puellis," &c.