itics has been in some degree repaired by the admirable
genius himself whom they have injured. When Cowley retreated from
society, he determined to draw up an apology for his conduct, and to
have dedicated it to his patron, Lord St. Albans. His death
interrupted the entire design; but his Essays, which Pope so finely
calls "the language of his heart," are evidently parts of these
precious Confessions. All of Cowley's tenderest and undisguised
feelings have therefore not perished. These Essays now form a species
of composition in our language, a mixture of prose and verse--the man
with the poet--the self-painter has sat to himself, and, with the
utmost simplicity, has copied out the image of his soul.

Why has this poet twice called himself _the melancholy Cowley_? He
employed no poetical _cheville_[28] for the metre of a verse which his
own feelings inspired.

Cowley, at the beginning of the Civil War, joined the Royalists at
Oxford; followed the queen to Paris; yielded his days and his nights
to an employment of the highest confidence, that of deciphering the
royal correspondence; he transacted their business, and, almost
divorcing himself from his neglected muse, he yielded up for them the
tranquillity so necessary to the existence of a poet. From his
earliest days he tells us how the poetic affections had stamped
themselves on his heart, "like letters cut into the bark of a young
tree, which, with the tree, will grow proportionably."

He describes his feelings at the court:--

"I saw plainly all the paint of that kind of life the nearer I came to
it--that beauty which I did not fall in love with when, for aught I
knew, it was real, was not like to bewitch or entice me when I saw it
was adulterate. I met with several great persons whom I liked very
well, but could not perceive that any part of their greatness was to
be liked or desired. I was in a crowd of good company, in business of
great and honourable trust; I eat at the best table, and enjoyed the
best conveniences that ought to be desired by a man of my condition;
yet I could not abstain from renewing my old schoolboy's wish, in a
copy of verses to the same effect:--

Well then! I now do plainly see,
This busie world and I shall ne'er agree!"

After several years' absence from his native country, at a most
critical period, he was sent over to mix with that trusty band of
loyalists, who, in secrecy and in silence, were devoting themselves to
the royal