Préface de 1656, pp

16GE las

among my writings which according to my severest judgement should be found Guilty of the crime objected, I would my self burn and extinguish them all together. Nothing is so detestably lewd and reckless as the derision of things sacred, and would be in me more unpardonable than any man else, who have endeavoured to root out the ordinary weeds of Poetry, and to plant it almost wholly with Divinity. 1 am so far from allowing any loose or irreverent expressions in matters of that Religion which I believe, that 1 am very tender in this point even for the grossest errors of Conscientious persons... 21.

Nous aurions pu choisir un passage composé de phrases plus brèves et plus légères, mais précisément ce qui nous paraît le plus intéressant, c’est .de voir Cowley maîtriser une forme pleine et ample. Il apprend maintenant à équiliber sa période, à la réduire à des proportions harmonieuses, à s’arrêter quand il le faut. Nous assistons en somme à la victoire progressive de la raison sur l'imagination et l’enthousiasme. À

Elle triomphe plus nettement encore dans les Essais, sans jamais le faire d’ailieurs complètement. Car même dans les Essais subsistent des traces de la lourdeur première. Ça et là une phrase manque d'harmonie et d’unité. Ainsi, passant en revue les éloges décernés par les poètes de l’Antiquité à la vie des champs, il arrive à Virgile :

Among the Romans we have in the first place, our truly Divine Virgil, who, though by the favour of Mecoenas and Augustus, he might have been one of the chief men of Rome, yet chose rather to employ much of his time in the exercise, and much of his immortal wit in the praise and instructions of a Rustique Life, who though he had written before whole Books of Pastorals and Georgiques could not abstain in his great and Imperial Poem from describing Evander, one of his best Princes, as living just after the homely manner of an ordinary Countrey-man.…. 22.

21. Préface à Cutter of Coleman Street, II, p. 264. Cf. aussi ce passage, tiré de la Proposition (p. 247) : Our Reasoning Faculty as well as Fancy does but Dream, when it is but guided by sensible Objects. We shall compound where Nature has divided, and divide where Nature has compounded, and create nothing but either Deformed Monsters, or at best pretty but impossible Mermaids. It is like Painting by Memory and Imagination which can never produce a Picture to the Life.

22. Of Agriculture, p. 407. Cf. encore, dans le même essai, le développement sur l'utilité de l’agriculture (p. 401), où 22 lignes séparent le début de la fin de la phrase, et où les liaisons entre les membres de phrase sont représentées par : « from whence », « the reason of which », « which is, that », « the rent of which », « whilst »…

L'abus des relatifs témoigne encore d’une certaine gaucherie. Lisons cette parenthèse sur Perse :

Persius (who, you use to say, you do not know whether he be a good Poet or no, because you cannot understand him and whom therefore (I say) I know to be not a good Poet).. 23.

Mais ces erreurs sont devenues des exceptions. Dans l’ensemble, l'allure est plus aisée, les phrases ont gagné en netteté de coupe, et se sont débarrassées des propositions parasites qui les alourdissaient. Le début de l’essai The Garder montre excellemment le progrès réalisé sur ce point par Cowley. Ses phrases s’équilibrent et, même longues, s'organisent harmonieusement autour d’un centre :

J never had any other desire so strong, and so like to covetousness as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and large garden, with very moderate conveniencies joyned to them, and there dedicate the remainder of my life only to the culture of them and study of Nature,

And there (with no design beyond my wall) whole and intire to lye, In no unactive Ease, and no unglorious Poverty.

Or as Virgil has said, Shorter and Better for me, that I might there Studiis florere, ignobilis otii (though TI could wish that he had rather said, Nobilis otit, when he spoke of his own). But several accidents of my ill fortune have disappointed me hitherto, and do still, of that felicity; for though I have made the first and hardest step to it, by abandoning all ambitions and hopes in this World, and by retiring from the noise of all business and almost company, yet I stick still in the Inn of a hired House and Garden, among Weeds and Rubbish; and without that pleasantest work of Human Industry, the Improvement of Something which we call (not very. properly,. but yet we call) Our Own 24.

Comme le montre cet exemple, l'harmonie de la prose de Cowley n’est pas une harmonie musicale. Cowley ne nous paraît pas plus sensible aux sonorités de la prose qu’à la mélodie du vers. Son oreille ne le guide pas, comme elle guide Jeremy Taylor, par exemple, vers des résonances et des rythmes évocateurs. Il se