elegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetorick.

One paffage, however, feems not unworthy of fome notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation:

"The Scotch treaty," fays he, "is the only thing now in which we are vitally con"cerned; I am one of the last hopers, and

66

yet cannot now abstain from believing, that an agreement will be made: all people upon "the place incline to that of union. The "Scotch will moderate fomething of the rigour of their demands; the mutual ne

66

66

ceffity of an accord is vifible, the King is perfuaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which I take to be an argument above all "the reft), Virgil has told the fame thing to "that purpose."

This expreffion from a fecretary of the present time, would be confidered as merely ludicrous, or at moft as an oftentatious dif play of fcholarship; but the manners of that time were fo tinged with fuperslition, that

I

I can

I cannot but fufpect Cowley of having confulted on this great occafion the Virgilian lots*, and to have given fome credit to the anfwer of his oracle.

Some

* Confulting the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilianæ, is a method of Divination by the opening of Virgil, and applying to the circumftances of the perufer the firit paffage in either of the two pages that he accidently fixes his eye on. It is faid, that king Charles I. and lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian library, made this experiment of their future fortunes, and met with pasfages equally ominous to each. That of the king was the following:

At bello audacis populi vexatus & armis,
Finibus extorris, complexu avulfus Iuli,
Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna fuorum
Funera, nec, cum fe fub leges pacis iniquæ
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur:
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena,
Eneid, book IV. line 615.

Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppofe,
Op refs'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men discourag'd, and himfelf expell'd:
Let him for fuccour fue from place to place,
Torn from his fubjects and his fon's embrace.
First let him fee his friends in battle flain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain :
And when, at length, the cruel war fhall ceafe,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace;

Some years afterwards, afterwards, "bufinefs," fays Sprat," paffed of courfe into other hands;"

Nor let him then enjoy fupreme command,
But fall untimely by fome hoftile hand,

And lie unbury'd on the barren fand.

Lord FALKLAND's:

DRYDEN.

Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promiffa parenti,
Cautius ut fævo velles te credere Marti.

Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et prædulce decus primo certamine poffet.
Primitiæ juvenis miferæ, bellique propinqui
Dura rudimenta, & nulli exaudita Deorum,
Vota precefque meæ !

Eneid, book XI. line 152.

O Pallas, thou haft fail'd thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would pursue;
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert to dangers raw, to war.
O curft effay of arms, disastrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come;
Hard elements of unaufpicious war,

Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care.
DRYDEN.

Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very fatisfactory account of this practice of seeking fates in books: and fays, that it was used by the Pagans, the Jewish Rabbins, and even the early Chriftians; the latter taking the New Teftament for their oracle. H.

and

and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656 fent back into England, that, "under pretence of privacy and retirement, " he might take occafion of giving notice of "the posture of things in this nation."

Soon after his return to London, he was feized by fome meffengers of the ufurping powers, who were fent out in queft of another man; and being examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not difmiffed without the fecurity of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough.

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he feems to have inferted something, fuppreffed in fubfequent editions, which was interpreted to denote fome relaxaation of his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that his defire had been for fome

66

days paft, and did ftill very vehemently "continue, to retire himself to fome of the "American plantations, and to forfake this "world for ever."

From the obloquy which the appearance of fubmiffion to the ufurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear

him, and indeed it does not feem to have leffened his reputation. His with for retirement we can eafily believe to be undiffembled; a man harraffed in one kingdom, and perfecuted in another, who, after a course of bufinefs that employed all his days and half his nights in cyphering and decyphering, comes to his own country and steps into a prifon, will be willing enough to retire to fome place of quiet and of fafety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a fufferer, difpofe us to forget that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.

He then took upon himself the character of Physician, still, according to Sprat, with intention, 66 to diffemble the main defign of "his coming over;" and, as Mr. Wood relates," complying with the men then in

66

power (which was much taken notice of

by the royal party), he obtained an order "to be created Doctor of Phyfick, which

being done to his mind (whereby he gained "the ill-will of fome of his friends), he "went into France again, having made a copy of verfes on Oliver's death."