again upon him. "Not finding," says the morose Wood," that preferment conferred upon him "which he expected, while others for their 66 money carried away most places, he retired "discontented into Surrey."

"He was now," says the courtly Sprat," weary "of the vexations and formalities of an active "condition. He had been perplexed with a long "compliance to foreign manners. He was sa"tiated with the arts of a court; which sort of "life, though his virtue made it innocent to him,

yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were "the reasons that made him to follow the violent "inclination of his own mind, which, in the "( greatest throng of his former business, had still "called upon him, and represented to him the "true delights of solitary studies, of temperate 66 pleasures, and a moderate revenue below the "malice and flatteries of fortune."

So differently are things seen, and so differently are they shewn; but actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowley certainly retired; first to Barn-elms, and afterwards to Chert

sey, in Surrey. He seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of the hum of men*. He thought himself now safe enough from intrusion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking shelter in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of life as that he might easily find his way back, when solitude should grow tedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly accommodated; yet he soon obtained, by the interest of the earl of St. Albans 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 solicitously asked, if he now was happy. Let them peruse one of his letters accidentally preserved by Peck, which I recommend to the consideration of all that may hereafter pant for solitude.

"To Dr. THOMAS SPRAT.

"Chertsey, 21 May, 1665.

"The first night that I came hither I caught "so great a cold, with a defluxion of rheum, as

* L'Allegro of Milton. Dr. J.

"made me keep my chamber ten days. And, “two after, had such a bruise on my ribs with a "fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn my❝self in my bed. This is my personal fortune "here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no 66 money from my tenants, and have my meadows ❝eaten up every night by cattle put in by my "neighbours. What this signifies, 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 stranger than all the

rest, 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 "Monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late "hurt so farre within five or six days (though it "be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it) And then, methinks,

"as to walk about again.

you and I and the Dean

upon S. Anne's Hill. "niently come hither the

might be very merry

You might very conve

way of Hampton Town,

"lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: Verbum sapienti.”

He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the

uneasiness of solitude; for he died at the Porchhouse* in Chertsey in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and king Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a "better man in England." He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely be credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction.

Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of the civil war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell, cannot however now be known. I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to

* Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, chamberlain of London.

which my narration can be considered only as a slender supplement.

COWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the minds of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some

account.

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote