judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and shame by a haughty consciousness 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 royalifts.

That he might shorten this tedious fufpenfe, he published his pretenfions and his discontent, in an ode called "The Com"plaint;" 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 stanzas, 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 fay:
Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke,
Unless he had done fome notable folly ;
Writ verfes unjustly in praife of Sam Tuke,
Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.

His vehement defire of retirement now

came again upon him. "Not finding," says the morofe Wood, "that preferment con"ferred upon him which he expected, while "others for their money carried away moft places, he retired difcontented into Sur"rey."

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"He was now," fays the courtly Sprat, weary of the vexations and formalities of

"an active condition. He had been perplexed "with a long compliance to foreign man26 ners. He was fatiated with the arts of a "court; which fort of life, though his vir«tue made it innocent to him, yet nothing "could make it quiet. Those were the "reafons that moved him to follow the vio"lent inclination of his own mind, which, "in the greatest throng of his former bufi"nefs, had ftill called upon him, and re"prefented to him the true delights of foli"tary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a "moderate revenue below the malice and "flatteries of fortune."

So differently are things feen, and fo differently are they fhown; but actions are visible, though motives are fecret, Cowley certainly retired; firft to Barn-elms, and afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. He feems, however, to have loft part of his dread of the bum of men. He thought himself now fafe 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 easily find his way back, when foli

tude should grow tedious. tedious. His retreat was at first but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the intereft of the Earl of St. Albans and the duke of Buckingham, fuch a leafe 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 peruse one of his letters accidentally preferved by Peck, which I recommend to the confideration of all that may hereafter pant for folitude.

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"To Dr. THOMAS SPRAT.

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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 perfonal fortune here to begin "with. And, befides, I can get no money "from my tenants, and have my meadows

4

" eaten

"eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this fignifies, or

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may come to in time, God knows; if it "be ominous, it can end in nothing less "than hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the reft, that

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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

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my late hurt fo farre within five or fix

days (though it be uncertain yet whether "I fhall ever recover it) as to walk about

again. And then, methinks, you and I and the Dean might be very merry upon "S. Anne's Hill. You might very conve

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niently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this "in pain, and can fay no more: Verbum 'fapienti."

He did not long enjoy the pleasure or fuffer the uneafinefs of folitude; for he died at the Porch-house * in Chertsey in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

*Now in the poffeffion of Mr. Clarke, Alderman of London.

He