This is no favourable reprefentation, yet even in this not much wrong can be difcovered. How far he complied with the men in power, is to be enquired before he can be blamed. It is not faid that he told them any fecrets, or affifted them by intelligence, or any other act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whofe hands he was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of fociety prohibits. The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of his enemy may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, or preferve his life, by a promise of neutrality: for the ftipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before; the neutrality of a captive may be always fecured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the difpofal of another, may not promise to aid him in any injurious act, because no power can compel active obedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. There is reason to think that Cowley promifed little. It does not appear that his com compliance gained him confidence enough to be trufted without fecurity, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor that it made him think himself fecure, for at that diffolution of government, which followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he refumed his former ftation, and ftaid till the Restoration. "He continued," fays his biographer, "under these bonds till the general deliver"ance;" it is therefore to be fuppofed, that he did not go to France, and act again for the King without the confent of his bondfman; that he did not shew his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his friend's permiffion. Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative feems to imply fomething encomiaftick, there has been no appearance. There is a difcourfe concerning his government, indeed, with verfes intermixed, but fuch as certainly gained its author no friends. among the abettors of ufurpation. A doctor of phyfick however he was made at Oxford, in December, 1657; and in the VOL. I. C com commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the experimental philofophers with the title of Dr. Cowley. There is no reason for fuppofing that he ever attempted practice; but his preparatory studies have contributed fomething to the honour of his country. Confidering Botany as necessary to a physician, 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 univerfity, 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 their works and May's poem appeared*, feemed unable to contest 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 exprefs 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 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 * By May's Poem, we are here to understand a continuation of Lucan's Pharfalia to the death of Julius Cæfar, by Thomas May, an eminent poet and historian, who flourished in the reigns of James and Charles I, and of whom a life is given in the Biographia Britannica. H. 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 Second, the Mastership of the Savoy; "but he lost 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 ftage, he produced it* under the title of "The Cutter of Cole"man-ftreet +." It was treated on the stage with great severity, 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 * 1663• + Here is an error in the defignation of this comedy, which our author copied from the title-page of the latter editions of Cowley's works: the title of the play itself is without the article, "Cutter of Coleman-ftreet," and that, because a merry fharking fellow about the town, named Cutter, is a principal character in it. H. "favour |