eal intention, by the study of physic, to
which he applied.

It appears by Wood's Fasti Oxon. that our poet was created Dr. of
Physic at Oxford, December 2, 1657, by virtue of a mandamus from the
then government. After the King's restoration, Mr. Cowley, being then
past the 4Oth year of his age, the greatest part of which had been
spent in a various and tempestuous condition, resolved to pass the
remainder of his life in a studious retirement: In a letter to one of
his friends, he talks of making a voyage to America, not from a view
of accumulating wealth, but there to chuse a habitation, and shut
himself up from the busy world for ever. This scheme was wildly
romantic, and discovered some degree of vanity, in the author; for Mr.
Cowley needed but retire a few miles out of town, and cease from
appearing abroad, and he might have been sufficiently secured against
the intrusion of company, nor was he of so much consequence as to be
forced from his retirement; but this visionary scheme could not be
carried into execution, by means of Mr. Cowley's want of money, for he
had never been much on the road of gain. Upon the settlement of the
peace of the nation, he obtained a competent estate, by the favour of
his principal patrons, the duke of Buckingham, and the earl of St.
Albans. Thus furnished for a retreat, he spent the last seven or eight
years of his life in his beloved obscurity, and possessed (says Sprat)
that solitude, which from his very childhood he so passionately
desired. This great poet, and worthy man, died at a house called the
Porch-house, towards the West end of the town of Chertsey in Surry,
July 28, 1667, in the 49th year of his age. His solitude, from the
very beginning, had never agreed so well with the constitution of his
body, as his mind: out of haste, to abandon the tumult of the city, he
had not prepared a healthful situation in the country, as he might
have done, had he been more deliberate in his choice; of this, he soon
began to find the inconvenience at Barn-elms, where he was afflicted
with a dangerous and lingring fever. Shortly after his removal to
Chertsey, he fell into another consuming disease: having languished
under this for some months, he seemed to be pretty well cured of its
ill symptoms, but in the heat of the summer, by staying too long
amongst his labourers in the meadows, he was taken with a violent
defluxion, and stoppage in his breast and throat; this he neglected,
as an ordinary