my chamber ten days. And, two af"ter, had fuch a bruife on my ribs "with a fall, that I am yet unable to 66 move or turn myself in my bed. "This is my personal fortune here to 66 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 stranger than all the reft, "that you have broke your word with 66 66 me, and failed to come, even though you told Mr. Bois that you would. "This is what they call Monftri fimile. D 2 "I do "I do hope to recover my late hurt fo farre within five or fix days "(though it be uncertain yet whether "I fhall ever recover it) as to walk "about again. And then, methinks, "you and I and the Dean might be "very merry upon S. Anne's Hill. "You might very conveniently come. hither the way of Hampton Town, "lying there one night. I write this "in pain, and can fay no more: Ver"bum fapienti." He did not long enjoy the pleasure or fuffer the uneafinefs of folitude; for he died at the Porch-houfe * in Chert *Now in the poffeffion of Mr. Clarke, Alderman of London. fey fey in 1667, in the 49th year of his age. He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenfer; and king Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley "had not left a better man behind "him in England." He is reprefented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this pofthumous praise may be fafely 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 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 muft therefore recommend the perufal of his work, to which my narration. be confidered only as a flender fupplement. can COWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and inftead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural fources in the mind of man, 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 fubject 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 criticism on the works of Cowley, the last of the race, it is not improper to give some account. The metaphyfical 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 verses, as ftood the trial of the finger better. than of the ear; for the modulation |