Mr. Dryden, who went with Mr. Sprat to the first exhibition, related to Mr. Dennis, "that,

when they told Cowley how little favour had "been fhewn him, he received the news of his "ill fuccefs, not with fo much firmnefs 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 fhame by a haughty confcioufnefs of his own excellence.

For the rejection of this play, it is difficult now to find the reafon: 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 reftoration to begin a "quartel with them." It appears, however, from the Theatrical Register of Downes the Prompter, to have been popularly confidered as a fatire on the Rovalifts.

That he might fhorten this tedious fufpenfe; he published his pretenfions and his difcontent, in an ode called The Complaint," in which he ftyles himfelf the melancholy Cowley This met with the ufual fortune of complaints, and feems to have excited more contempt than pity.

Thefe

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 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," fays the morofe Wood," that preferment conferred upon him "which he expected, while others for their money "carried away most places, he retired difcontented into Surrey."

86

66

"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 manners. He was fa"tiated with the arts of a court; which fort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. Thofe were "the reasons that made him to follow the violent "inclination of his own mind, which, in the "greatest throng of his former bufinefs, had ftill "called upon him, and reprefented to him the "true delights of folitary ftudies, of temperate 66 pleasures, and a moderate revenue below the "malice and flatteries of fortune."

So

So differently are things feen and fo differently are they fhewn! but actions are vifible, though motives are fecret. Cowley certainly 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 himfelf now fafe enough from intrufion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, inftead of feeking fhelter in America, wifely went only fo far from the bufile of life as that he might eafily find his way back, when folitude thould grow tedious. His retreat was at first but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the intereft of the earl of St. Alban's and the duke of Buckingham, fuch a leafe of the Queen's lands as afforded him an ample income.

By the lovers 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.

"To Dr. THOMAS SPRAT.

"Chertfey, 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 unable to move or turn my"felf in my bed. This is my perfonal fortune "here to begin with. And, befides, I can get from my tenants, and have my mea

no money

* L'Allegro of Milton. Dr. J.

"dows

"dows 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 lefs than hanging. Ano"ther 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 Monfiri fimile. I do hope to recover 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, me"thinks, you and I and the Dean might be very "merry upon St. Anne's Hill. You might very Conveniently 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 pleafure or fuffer the uneafinefs of folitude; for he died at the Porchhoufe in Chertfey in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenfer; and king Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a

better man in England." He is reprefented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this pofthumous 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

Now in the poffeffion of Mr. Clark, Alderman of London. Dr. J.-Mr. Clark was in 1798 elected Chamberlain of London. N.

war

war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were eafily irritated, was obliged to pais over many tranfactions in general expreffions, and to leave curiofity often unfatisfied. What he did not tell,

cannot however now be known. I must therefore recommend the perufal of his work, to which my narration can be confidered only as a fiender fupplement.

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

Wit, like all other things fubject 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 feventeenth century, appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphyfical poets; of whom, in a criticifm on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give fome ac

count.

The metaphyfical poets were men of learning, and to fhew their learning was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily refolving to fhew it in rhyme, inftead of writing poetry they only wrote verfes, and very often fuch verfes as ftood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was fo imperfect, that they were only found to be verfes by counting the fyllables.

If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry réx sunn, an imitative art, thele writers