and to have given fome credit to the answer of his oracle.

Opprefs'd with numbers in th'unequal field,
His men difcourag'd, and himself expell'd:
Let him for fuccour fue from place to place,
Torn from his subjects and his fon's embrace.
Firft let him fee his friends in battle flain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain :
And when, at length, the cruel war fhall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace;
Nor let him then enjoy fupreme command,
But fall untimely by fome hoftile hand,
And lie unbury'd on the barren fand.

LORD FALKLAND'S:

Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promiffa parenti,
Cautius ut fævo velles te credere Marti.

}

DRYDEN,

Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et prædulce decus primo certamine poffet.
Primitia juvenis miferæ, bellique propinqui
Dura rudimenta, & nulla exaudita Deorum,
Vota precefque mea!

Eneid XI. 152.

O Pallas, thou haft fail'd thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would purfue;
That boiling blood would carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war.
O curft effay of arms, difaftrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come!
Hard elements of unaufpicious war,

Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care!

DRYDEN. Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very fatisfactory account of this practice of feeking fates in books: and fays, that it was used by the Pagans, the Jewish Rabbins, and even the early Christians; the latter taking the New Teftament for their oracle. H.

66

Some years afterwards, bufinefs," fays Sprat, " paffed of courfe into other hands ;" and Cowley, being no longer ufeful at Paris, was in 1656 fent back into England, that, "under pretence of privacy "and retirement, he might take occafion of giving "notice of the pofture of things in this nation."

Soon after his return to London, he was feized by fome meffengers of the ufurping powers, who were fent out in queft of another man; and being examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not difmiffed without the fecurity of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough.

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems to have inferted fomething fuppreffed in fubfequent editions, which was interpreted to denote fome relaxation of his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that "his defire had been for

fome days paft, and did ftill very vehemently con❝tinue, to retire himself to fome of the American "plantations, and to forfake this world for ever."

From the obloquy which the appearance of fubmiffion to the ufurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him, and indeed it does not seem to have leffened his reputation. His wifh for retirement we can easily believe to be undiffembled; a man haraffed in one kingdom, and perfecuted in another, who, after a course of bufinefs that employed all his days and half his nights, in cyphering and decyphering, comes to his own country and fteps into a prifon, will be willing enough to retire to fome place of quiet and of fafety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a fufferer, difpofe us to forget

that,

that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.

He then took upon himself the character of Phyfician, ftill, according to Sprat, with intention, "to "diffemble the main defign of his coming over;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the "men then in power (which was much taken notice "of by the royal party), he obtained an order to be "created Doctor of Phyfick; which being done to "his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of fome ❝ of his friends), he went into France again, having "made a copy of verses on Oliver's death."

This is no favourable representation, 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 juft caufe 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 promife 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

There is reafon to think that Cowley promised little. It does not appear that his 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 Reftoration.

"under

it is

"He continued," fays his biographer, "these bonds till the general deliverance;" 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 fhew 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 such 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 commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears bufy among the experimental philofophers with the title of Dr. 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 predo

minance

minance of a favourite ftudy affects all fubordinate operations of the intellect, Botany in the mind of Cowley turned into Poetry. He compofed in Latin feveral books on Plants, of which the firft and fecond difplay the qualities of Herbs, in elegiac verfé; the third and fourth, the beauties of Flowers in various meafures; and the fifth and fixth, the ufes 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 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 feems 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 confciousness 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

* By May's Poem we are here to understand a continuation of Lucan's Pharfalia to the death of Julius Caefar, by Thomas May, an eminent poet and hiftorian, who flourished in the reigns of James and Charles I. and of whom a life is given in the Biogra phia Britannica, H.

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