commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been published by Dr. Birch, he appears among the experimental philofophers with the title of Doctor Cowley.

There is no reafon for fuppofing that he ever attempted practice; but his preparatory ftudies have contributed fomething to the honour of his country. Confidering Botany as neceffary to a phyfician, he retired into Kent to gather plants, and as the predominance of a favourite study affects all fubordinate operations of the intellect, Botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poetry. He composed in Latin feveral books on Plants, of which the first and second difplay the qualities of Herbs, in elegiac verfe; the third and fourth the beauties of Flowers in various measures; and in the fifth and fixth, the uses of Trees in heroick numbers.

At the fame time were produced from the fame university, the two great Poets, Cowley and Milton, of diffimilar genius, of oppofite principles; but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry, in which the English, till their works and May's poem appeared, feemed unable to conteft the palm with any other of the lettered nations.

If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared, for May I hold to be fuperior to both, the advantage seems to lie on the fide of Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the ancients in their language; Cowley, without much lofs of purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions.

At

At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long fervice, and with consciousness not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; and, that he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a Song of Triumph. But this was a time of fuch general hope, that great numbers were inevitably disappointed; and Cowley found his reward very tediously delayed. He had been promised by both Charles the first and fecond the Mastership of the Savoy, but "he loft it," fays Wood," by certain perfons, enemies to "the Mufes."

The neglect of the court was not his only mortification; having by fuch alteration, as he thought proper, fitted his old Comedy of the Guardian for the stage, he produced it to the public under the title of the "Cutter of "Coleman-street." It was treated on the ftage with great feverity, and was afterwards cenfured as a fatire on the king's party.

Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, related to Mr. Dennis, "that when they told Cowley how little fav"our 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 weaknefs 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 himfelf; and when the end is to please the multitude, no man perhaps has a right, in things admitting

of

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 fhould chufe the time of "their restoration to begin a quarrel with " them." It appears, however, from the Theatrical Regifter 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 difcontent, in an ode called "The Complaint;" in which he ftiles himself the melancholy Cowley. This met with the ufual fortune of complaint, and seems 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
fay:

Nor

Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a re

buke,

Unless he had done fome notable folly; Writ verses 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 morofe Wood, "that preferment conferred દ upon him which he expected, while others "for their money carried away most places, "he retired difcontented into Surrey."

"He was now," fays the courtly Sprat, weary of the vexations and formalities of ἐσ 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 vir"tue made it innocent to him, yet nothing "could make it quiet. Those were the rea"fons that moved 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 reprefented

to him the true delights of folitary ftudies, "of temperate pleafure, and a moderate re"venue below the malice and flatteries of "fortune."

So differently are things feen, and fo differently are they shown; but actions are vifible, though motives are fecret. Cowley certainly retired; firft to Barnelms, 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

enough from intrufion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and inftead 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 first but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the interest of the earl of St. Albans and the duke of Buckingham, fuch a lease of the Queen's lands as afforded him an ample in

come.

By the lover of virtue and of wit it will be folicitoufly asked, 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.

"To Dr. Thomas Sprat.

r

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 bruife " on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet un"able to move or turn myfelf 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

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 stranger than all the reft, that you VOL. I.

C

"have