Ordered, that the security of L20,000 to
be given by the Lord Fairfax, on the behalf of the Duke of Buckingham,
be taken in the name of His Highness the Lord Protector.'
During his incarceration at Windsor, Buckingham had a companion, of whom
many a better man might have been envious: this was Abraham Cowley, an
old college friend of the duke's. Cowley was the son of a grocer, and
owed his entrance into academic life to having been a King's Scholar at
Westminster. One day he happened to take up from his mother's parlour
window a copy of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.' He eagerly perused the
delightful volume, though he was then only twelve years old: and this
impulse being given to his mind, became at fifteen a reciter of verses.
His 'Poetical Blossoms,' published whilst he was still at school, gave,
however, no foretaste of his future eminence. He proceeded to Trinity
College, Cambridge, where his friendship with Villiers was formed; and
where, perhaps, from that circumstance, Cowley's predilections for the
cause of the Stuarts was ripened into loyalty.
No two characters could be more dissimilar than those of Abraham Cowley
and George Villiers. Cowley was quiet, modest, sober, of a thoughtful,
philosophical turn, and of an affectionate nature; neither boasting of
his own merits nor depreciating others.
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