theatres, it was fometimes privately acted with fufficient approbation. In 1643, being now mafter of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and fheltered himself at St. John's College in Oxford; where, as is faid by Wood, he published a fatire, called "The Puritan and Papift," which was only inferted in the laft collection of his works*; and to diftinguished himself by the warmth of his loyalty and the elegance of his converfation, that he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended the King, and amongst others of Lord Falkland, whofe notice caft a luftre on all to whom it was extended. About the time when Oxford was furrendered to the parliament, he followed the Queen to Paris, where he became fecretary to the Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Albans, and was employed in fuch correfpondence as the royal caufe required, and particularly in cyphering and decyphering the letters that paffed between the King and Queen; an employment of the higheft confidence and honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, that, for feveral years, it filled all his days and two or three nights in the week. In the year 1647, his "Miftrefs" was published; for he imagined, as he declared in his preface to a fubfequent edition, that " poets are scarcely thought * In the first edition of this Life, Dr Johnfon wrote, " which was never inferted in any collection of his works;" but he altered the expreflion when the lives were collected into volumes. The fatire was added to Cowley's works by the particular direction of Dr. Johnfon. N. "freemen of their company without paying fome "duties, or obliging themselves to be true to Love." This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I believe, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful homage to his Laura, refined the manners of the lettered world, and filled Europe with love and poetry. But the bafis of all excellence is truth: he that profeffes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtlefs deferved his tenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes*, who had means enough of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never had refolution to tell his paffion. This confideration cannot but abate, in fome meafure, the reader's efteem for the work and the author. To love excellence, is natural; it is natural likewife for the lover to folicit reciprocal regard by an elaborate difplay of his own qualifications. The defire of pleafing has in different men produced actions of heroifm, and effufions of wit; but it feems as reafonable to appear the champion as the poet of an airy nothing," and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have learned from his mafter Pindar to call the dream of a fhadow." 66 It is furely not difficult, in the folitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful ftudies and ferious employment. No man needs to be fo burthened with life as to fquander it in volun Barnefii Anacreontem. Dr. J. tary tary dreams of fictitious occurrences. The man that fits down to fuppofe himself charged with treafon or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never within the poffibility of committing, differs only by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never faw; complains of jealousy which he never felt; fuppofes himself fome. times invited, and fometimes forfaken; fatigues his fancy, and ranfacks his memory, for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope, or the gloominefs of defpair; and dreffes his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis fometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and fometimes in gems lafting as her virtues. At Paris, as fecretary to lord Jermyn, he was engaged in tranfacting things of real importance with real men and real women, and at that time did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry, Some of his letters to Mr. Bennet, afterwards Earl of Arlington, from April to December, in 1650, are preferved in "Mifcellanea Aulica," a collection of papers published by Brown. Thefe letters, being written like thofe of other men whofe minds are more on things than words, contribute no otherwife to his reputation than as they fhew him to have been above the affectation of unfeafonable elegance, and to have known that the bufinefs of a ftatefiman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetorick. One paffage, however, feems not unworthy of fome notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation; "The Scotch treaty," fays he, "is the only thing "now in which we are vitally concerned; I am one "of the laft hopers, and yet cannot now abftain from believing that an agreement will be made; all people upon the place incline to that of union. "The Scotch will moderate fomething of the rigour "of their demands; the mutual neceffity of an ac"cord is vifible, the King is perfuaded of it. And "to tell you the truth (which I take to be an argu"ment above all the reft), Virgil has told the fame thing to that purpose." 66 This expreffion from a fecretary of the prefent time would be confidered as merely ludicrous, or at moft as an oftentatious difplay of fcholarship; but the manners of that time were fo tinged with fuperftition, that I cannot but fufpect Cowley of having confulted on this great occafion the Virgilian lots *, and *Confulting the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilianæ, is a method of Divination by the opening of Virgil, and applying to the circumstances of the perufer the firft paffage in either of the two pages that he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is faid, that king Charles I, and Lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian library, made this experiment of their future fortunes, and met with paffages equally ominous to each. That of the king was the following: At bello audacis populi vexatus & armis, Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes, Eneid IV. 615. Op and to have given fome credit to the answer of his oracle. Opprefs'd with numbers in th' unequal field, Lord FALKLAND'S : Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promiffa parenti, Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis, DRYDEN, Eneid XI. 152: O Pallas, thou has fail'd thy plighted word, 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 Chriftians; the latter taking the New Testament for their oracle. H. Some |