That he might fhorten this tedious fufpenfe, he published his pretenfions and his difcontent, in an ode called "The Complaint;" in which he ftiles 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 verfes unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,

Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.

His vehement defire of retirement

"Not

now came again upon him. "finding," fays the morofe Wood," that

preferment conferred upon him which

he

"he expected, while others for their

66

money carried away moft places, he "retired discontented into Surrey."

"He was now," fays the courtly

66

Sprat, weary of the vexations and "formalities of an active condition. "He had been perplexed with a "long compliance to foreign man.66 .ners. 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. "Those were the reasons that moved "him to follow the violent inclination "of his own mind, which, in the great"eft throng of his former bufiness, "had ftill called upon him, and repre"fented to him the true delights of

folitary ftudies, of temperate plea"fures, and a moderate revenue below "the malice and flatteries of fortune."

So differently are things feen, and fo differently are they fhown; but actions are vifible, though motives are fecret. Cowley certainly retired; firft to Barnelms, and afterwards to Chertsey, in Surrey. He feems, however, to have loft part of his dread of the hum of men. He thought himself now fafe enough from intrufion, without the defence of mountains and occans; and instead of seeking fhelter in America, wifely went only fo far from the buftle of life as that he might eafily find his way back, when folitude should grow tedious. His retreat was at firft

but flenderly accommodated; yet he foon obtained, by the interest of the earl of St. Albans and the duke of Buckingham, fuch a leafe of the Queen's lands as afforded him an ample in

come.

By the lover of virtue and of wit it will be folicitoufly asked, if he now was happy. Let them perufe one of his letters accidentally 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 firft night that I came hither "I caught fo great a cold, with a "defluxion of rheum, as made me keep