cause. Cowley was seized on by the ruling powers. At this
moment he published a preface to his works, which some of his party
interpreted as a relaxation of his loyalty. He has been fully
defended. Cowley, with all his delicacy of temper, wished sincerely to
retire from all parties; and saw enough among the fiery zealots of his
own, to grow disgusted even with Royalists.

His wish for retirement has been half censured as cowardice by
Johnson; but there was a tenderness of feeling which had ill-formed
Cowley for the cunning of party intriguers, and the company of little
villains. About this time he might have truly distinguished himself as
"The melancholy Cowley."

I am only tracing his literary history for the purpose of this work:
but I cannot pass without noticing the fact, that this abused man,
whom his enemies were calumniating, was at this moment, under the
disguise of a doctor of physic, occupied by the novel studies of
botany and medicine; and as all science in the mind of the poet
naturally becomes poetry, he composed his books on plants in Latin
verse.

At length came the Restoration, which the poet zealously celebrated in
his "Ode" on that occasion. Both Charles the First and Second had
promised to reward his fidelity with the mastership of the Savoy; but,
Wood says, "he lost it by certain persons enemies of the muses." Wood
has said no more; and none of Cowley's biographers have thrown any
light on the circumstance: perhaps we may discover this literary
calamity.

That Cowley caught no warmth from that promised sunshine which the
new monarch was to scatter in prodigal gaiety, has been distinctly
told by the poet himself; his muse, in "The Complaint," having
reproached him thus:--

Thou young prodigal, who didst so loosely waste
Of all thy youthful years, the good estate--
Thou changeling then, bewitch'd with noise and show,
Wouldst into courts and cities from me go--
Go, renegado, cast up thy account--
Behold the public storm is spent at last;
The sovereign is toss'd at sea no more,
And thou, with all the noble company,
Art got at last to shore--
But whilst thy fellow-voyagers I see,
All march'd up to possess the promis'd land;
Thou still alone (alas!) dost gaping stand
Upon the naked beach, upon the barren sand.

But neglect was not all Cowley had to endure; the royal party seemed
disposed to calumniate him. When Cowley was young he had hastily
composed the comedy of