"favour had been fhewn him, he received "the news of his ill fuccefs, not with fo "much firmness as might have been expected "from fo great a man."

What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley difcovered, cannot be known. He that miffes his end will never be as much pleafed as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part of his failure to himself; and when the end is to please the multitude, no man, perhaps, has a right, in things admitting of gradation and comparison, to throw the whole blame upon his judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame by a haughty confcioufnefs of his own excellence.

For the rejection of this play, it is difficult now to find the reason: it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of fixing attention and exciting merriment. From the charge of difaffection he exculpates himself in his preface, by obferving how unlikely it is that, having followed the royal family through all their diftreffes," he should chuse "the time of their restoration to begin a " quarrel with them." It appears, however,

from the Theatrical Register of Downes the Prompter, to have been popularly confidered as a fatire on the royalists.

That he might shorten this tedious fufpense; he published his pretenfions and his discontent, in an ode called "The Complaint;" in which he ftyles himself the melancholy Cowley. This met with the usual fortune of complaints, and feems to have excited more contempt than pity.

These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in fome ftanzas, written about that time, on the choice of a laureat; a mode of fatire, by which, fince it was first introduced by Suckling, perhaps every generation of poets has been teazed.

Savoy miffing Cowley came into the court,
Making apologies for his bad play;
Every one gave him fo good a report,

That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:
Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke,
Unless he had done fome notable folly;
Writ verfes unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,

Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.

His vehement defire of retirement now

came again upon him. "Not finding," fays the morose Wood, "that preferment con"ferred upon him which he expected, while "others for their money carried away most places, he retired discontented into Surrey."

"He was now," fays the courtly Sprat, 66 weary of the vexations and formalities of 66 an active condition. He had been per"plexed with a long compliance to foreign "manners. He was fatiated with the arts "of a court; which fort of life, though his "virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing "could make it quiet. Those were the rea"fons that made him to follow the violent "inclination of his own mind, which, in "the greatest throng of his former business, "had ftill called upon him, and represented "to him the true delights of folitary studies, "of temperate pleasures, and a moderate re"venue below the malice and flatteries of "fortune."

So differently are things feen! and fo differently are they fhewn! but actions are vifible, though motives are fecret. Cowley cer

tainly retired; firft to Barn-elms, and afterwards to Chertfey, in Surrey. He feems, however, to have loft part of his dread of the *bum of men. He thought himself now safe enough from intrufion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and instead of feeking shelter in America, wifely went only fo far from the bustle of life as that he might eafily find his way back, when folitude should grow tedious. His retreat was at firft but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the intereft of the earl of St. Alban's and the duke of Buckingham, such a lease of the Queen's lands as afforded him an ample income.

By the lover of virtue and of wit it will be folicitoufly afked, if he now was happy. Let them perufe one of his letters accidentally preferved by Peck, which I recommend to the confideration of all that may hereafter pant for folitude.

L'Allegro of Milton. Dr. J.

" To

"To Dr. THOMAS SPRAT.

Chertsey, 21 May, 1665.

"The first night that I came hither I caught fo great a cold, with a defluxion of "rheum, as made me keep my chamber ten

days. And, two after, had fuch a bruise

"on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet un"able to move or turn myself in my bed. "This is my personal fortune here to begin "with. And, befides, I can get no money "from my tenants, and have my meadows "eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this fignifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it "be ominous, it can end in nothing less than hanging. Another misfortune has been, "and ftranger than all the reft, that you "have broke your word with me, and failed "to come, even though you told Mr. Bois "that you would. This is what they call "Monftri fimile. I do hope to recover my "late hurt fo farre within five or fix days

66

(though it be uncertain yet whether I fhall "ever recover it) as to walk about again. "And then, methinks, you and I and the 65 Dean

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