liament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's College in Oxford; where, as is faid by Wood, he published a fatire called "The Pu"ritan and Papift," which was never inferted in any collection of his works; and fo diftinguished himself by the warmth of his loyalty, and the elegance of his conversation, 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 Jermin, afterwards

terwards earl of St. Albans, and was employed in fuch correfpondence as the royal caufe required, and particularly in ciphering and deciphering the letters that paffed between the king and queen; an employment of the highest 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 scarce thought "freemen of their company without

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paying fome duties, or obliging them"felves 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 doubtless deferved his tendernefs. 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 measure, 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 heroism, and effufions of wit; but it seems as reafonable to appear the

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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."

It is furely not difficult, in the folitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and se

rious employment. No man needs to be fo burthened with life as to fquander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious The man that fits down

occurrences.

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 praifes beauty which he never faw, complains of jealoufy which he never felt; fuppofes himself fometimes 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 fome