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rate difplay of his own qualifications. The defire of pleafing has in different men produced actions of heroifm, and effufions of wit; but it seems as reasonable 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."

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It is furely not difficult, in the folitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious 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; fuppofes himself sometimes 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 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 preferved in "Mifcellanea Aulica," a collection of papers published by Brown. Thefe letters, being written like thofe of other men whofe mind is more

on

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 statesman 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:

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"The Scotch treaty," fays he, " is the only thing 19 "now in which we are vitally concerned; I am one of "the last hopers, and yet cannot now abstain from

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believing, that an agreement will be made: all peo

ple upon the place incline to that of union. The "Scotch will moderate fomething of 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 reft) Virgil has told the fame thing to that " purpose."

This expreffion from a fecretary of the prefent time, would be confidered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an oftentatious display 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 answer of his oracle.

Some

* Confulting the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgiliana, 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 omi nous to each. That of the king was the following:

At

21

Some years afterwards, "business," fays Sprat, "paffed of course into other hands;" and Cowley,

At bello audacis populi vexatus & armis,
Finibus extoris, complexu avulfus Iuli,
Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna fuorum
Funera, nec, cum fe fub leges pacis iniquæ
Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur:
Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena.

being

Eneid, book IV. line 615.

Yet let a race untam'd, and haughty foes,
His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose,
Opprefs'd with numbers in th' unequal field,
His men difcourag'd, and himself expell'd:
Let him for fuccour fue from place to place,
Torn from his fubjects and his fon's embrace.
First let him fee his friends in battle flain,
And their untimely fate lament in vain:
And when, at length, the cruel war fhall cease,
On hard conditions may he buy his peace;
Nor let him then enjoy fupreme command,
But fall untimely by fome hoftile hand,
And lie unbury'd on the barren fand.

Lord FALKLAND's:

Non hæc, O Palla, dederas promiffa parenti,
Cautius ut fævo velles te credere Marti.

Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in armis,
Et prædulce decus primo certamine poffet.
Primitiæ juvenis miferæ, bellique propinqui
Dura rudimenta, & nulli exaudita Deorum,
Vota precefque meæ !

DRYDEN.

Eneid, book XI. line 152.

O Pallas, thou haft fail'd thy plighted word,
To fight with caution, not to tempt the fword;
I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew
What perils youthful ardour would pursue ;
That boiling blood wou'd carry thee too far,
Young as thou wert to dangers raw, to war.

}

O curft

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 messengers of the ufurping 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. Scarborough.

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems to have inferted 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 continue, "to retire himself to fome of the American planta"tions, and to forfake this world for ever."

From the obloquy which the appearance of fubmiffion to the ufurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him, and indeed it does not seem to have leffened his reputation. His wifh for retirement we can easily believe to be undiffembled; 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 decyphering, comes to his own country and steps

O curft effay of arms, difaftrous doom,
Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come;
Hard elements of unaufpicious war,

Vain vows to Heav'n, 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.

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into a prifon, will be willing enough to retire to fome place of quiet, and of fafety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pofe us to forget that, if his retreat was cowardice.

pity for a fufferer, difactivity was virtue, his

He then took upon himself the character of Phyfician, ftill, according to Sprat, with intention "to "diffemble the main defign of his coming over," and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the men "then in 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 66 copy of verfes on Oliver's death."

This is no favourable reprefentation, 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 other act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whofe hands he was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of fociety prohibits.

The man whofe mifcarriage in a juft caufe has put him in the power of his enemy may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, or preferve his life, by a promife of neutrality: for the ftipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before; the neutrality of a captive may be always fecured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the dif pofal of another, may not promise to aid him in any injurious act, because no power can compel active obedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill.

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