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tally to exclude diffidence and shame by a haughty consciousness 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 "he fhould chufe the through all their diftreffes, "time of their restoration to begin a quarrel with "them." It appears, however, from the Theatrical Register of Downes, the Prompter, to have been popularly confidered as a fatire on the Royalists.

That he might fhorten this tedious fufpenfe, he published his pretenfions and his discontent, in an ode called "The Complaint;" 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.

Thefe 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 firft 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 ex"pected, while others for their money carried away moft places, he retired difcontented into Surrey."

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"He was now," fays the courtly Sprat, " weary "of the vexations and formalities of an active con"dition. He had been perplexed with a long com"pliance to foreign manners. He was fatiated "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 "represented to him the true delights of folitary

ftudies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue below the malice and flatteries of for"tune."

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 seems, 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 moun tains and oceans; and, inftead of feeking shelter in America, wifely went only fo far from the buftle of life as that he might eafily find his way back, when folitude fhould grow tedious. His retreat was

L'Allegro of Milton. Dr. J.

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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 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.

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"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 such a bruise on my ribs with a fall, that I am

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yet unable to move or turn myself 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 ftranger than all the reft, that you have broke 66 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 my late hurt fo farre within five or fix days. (though it be uncertain yet whether I fhall ever

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VOL. IX.

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"recover it) as to walk about again. And then, me"thinks, you and I and the Dean might be very

merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very con"veniently 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 pleasure or suffer the uneafinefs of folitude; for he died at the Porchhoufe in Chertfey, in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.

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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 moft amiable of mankind; and this pofthumous praise may fafely 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 war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were eafily irritated, was obliged to pass 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 flender fupplement.

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

COW.

COWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things subject 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 some account.

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to fhew their learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily refolving to fhew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, 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 criticifm has rightly denominated poetry Tex peninn, an imitative art, thefe writers will, without great wrong, lofe their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be faid to have imitated any thing; they. neither copied nature for life; neither painted the forms of matter; nor reprefented the operations of intellect.

Those however who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confeffes of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit; but maintains, that they furpafs him in poetry.

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