might have learned from his master Pindar to call the "dream of a fhadow."

It is furely not difficult, in the folitude of a college, or in the buftle of the world, to find useful studies and ferious employment. No man needs to be fo burthened with life as to fquander it in voluntary 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; fupposes himself sometimes invited, and fometimes forfaken; fatigues his fancy, and ranfacks his memory, for images which may exhibit the gaiety of hope, or the gloominess of despair, and dresses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis fometimes in flowers fading as her beauty, and fometimes in gems lasting as her virtues,

At Paris, as fecretary to Lord Jermin, 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 preserved in "Mifcellanea Aulica,” a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, being written like thofe of other men whofe mind is more on things than words, contribute no otherwife to his reputation than as they fhew him to have been above the affectation of unfeasonable elegance, and to have known that the bufinefs of a ftatefinan 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 last hopers, "and yet cannot now abstain 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

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"the rigour of their demands; the mutual neceffity of an accord is vifible, the King "is perfuaded of it. And to tell you the "truth (which I take to be an argument "above all the rest) Virgil has told the fame thing to that purpose."

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This expreffion from a fecretary of the prefent time, would be confidered as merely ludicrous, or at moft as an oftentatious difplay of scholarship; 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 to have given fome credit to the anfwer of his oracle.

Some years afterwards, " "business," fays Sprat," paffed of courfe into other hands;" and Cowley, being no longer useful 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 posture of things in this nation.”

Soon after his return to London, he was feized by fome meffengers of the ufurping

powers,

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. Scarborow.

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he feems to have inserted 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 66 continue, to retire himself to fome of the "American plantations, and to forfake this world for ever."

From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the ufurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him, and indeed it does not feem to have leffened his reputation. His wish for retirement we can eafily believe to be undif fembled; a man harraffed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a course of business that employed all his days and half his nights in cyphering and decypher

ing, comes to his own country and steps into a prison, will be willing enough to retire to fome place of quiet, and of safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, por our pity for a fufferer, difpofe us to forget that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.

He then took upon himself the character of Physician, still, according to Sprat, with intention to diffemble the main design of "his coming over," and, as Mr. Wood relates, " complying with the men then in

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power (which was much taken notice of "by the royal party), he obtained an order "to be created Doctor of Physick, 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 ❝ verfes on Oliver's death."

This is no favourable representation, yet even in this not much wrong can be discovered. 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