judges, and totally to exclude diffidence and fhame by a haughty consciousness of his own excellence.

For the rejection of this play, it is difficult how to find the reafon : it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of fixing atten tion 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 ઠંડ quarrel with them." It appears, howeyer, from the Theatrical Register of Downes the prompter, to have been popularly considered as a fatire on the Royalifts.

That he might fhorten this tedious fufpenfe, he published his pretenfions and his difcontent, in an ode called "The Com"plaint;" in which he ftyles himself the melancholy Cowley. This met with the ufual fortune of complaints, and feems 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 would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke, 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 con"ferred upon him which he expected, while "others for their money carried away moft places, he retired discontented into Surrey."

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"He was now," fays the courtly Sprat, 66 weary of the vexations and formalities of “an active condition. He had been perplexed

"with a long compliance to foreign man❝ners. 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 "" reasons that moved him to follow the vio"lent inclination of his own mind, which, "in the greatest throng of his former bufi"nefs, had still called upon him, and re"prefented to him the true delights of foli "tary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a "moderate revenue below the malice and "flatteries of fortune."

So differently are things feen, and fo differently are they shown ; but actions are visible, 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 himself now fafe enough from intrufion, without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of feeking shelter in America, wifely went only fo far from the buftle of life as that he might easily find his way back, when foli

tude should grow tedious. His retreat was at first but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the intereft of the Earl of St. Albans and the duke of Buckingham, fuch a lease of the Queen's lands as afforded him an ample income.

By the lover of virtue and of wit it will be folicitoufly afked, if he now was happy. Let them perufe one of his letters acciden tally preferved by Peck, which I recommend to the confideration of all that may hereafter pant for folitude.

"To Dr. THOMAS SPRAT,

"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 bruise " on my ribs with a fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn myfelf in my bed. "This is my personal fortune here to begin with. And, befides, I can get no money "from my tenants, and have my meadows

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7

❝ eaten

"eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this fignifies, or

(6

may come to in time, God knows; if it "be ominous, it can end in nothing lefs "than hanging. Another 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 Monftri fimile. I do hope to recover late hurt fo farre within five or fix "days (though it be uncertain yet whether "I fhall ever recover it) as to walk about

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my

again. And then, methinks, you and I " and the Dean might be very merry upon "S. Anne's Hill. You might very conve"niently come hither the way of Hampton "Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can fay no more: Verbum "Sapienti."

He did not long enjoy the pleasure or fuffer the uneafinefs of folitude; for he died at the Porch-house * in Chertsey in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

Now in the poffeffion of Mr. Clarke, Alderman of London