revolutions, which, in that tumultuous time, disturbed the peace of all our neighbour-states, as well as our own. He had nearly beheld all the splendour of the highest part of mankind. He had lived in the presence of princes, and familiarly conversed with greatness in all its degrees, which was necessary for one that would contemn it aright: for to scorn the pomp of the world before a man knows it, does commonly proceed rather from ill-manners than a true magnanimity.

He was now weary of the vexations and formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts of court: which sort of life, though his virtue had made innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. These were the reasons that moved him to forego all public employments, and to follow the violent inclination of his own mind, which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had still called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and of a moderate revenue, below the malice and flatteries of fortune.

At first he was but slenderly provided for such a retirement, by reason of his travels, and the afflictions of the party to which he adhered, which had put him quite out of all the roads of gain. Yet, notwithstanding the narrowness of his income, he remained fixed to his resolution, upon his confidence in the

temper of his own mind, which he knew had contracted its desires into so small a compass, that a very few things would supply them all. But upon the settlement of the peace of our nation, this hinderance of his design was soon removed: for he then obtained a plentiful estate, by the favour of my Lord St. Albans, and the bounty of my Lord Duke of Buckingham; to whom he was always most dear, and whom he ever respected, as his principal patrons. The last of which great men, you know, Sir, it is my duty to mention, not only for Mr. Cowley's sake, but my own: though I cannot do it, without being ashamed, that, having the same encourager of my studies, I should deserve his patronage so much less.

Thus he was sufficiently furnished for his retreat. And immediately he gave over all pursuit of honour and riches, in a time, when, if any ambitious or covetous thoughts had remained in his mind, he might justly have expected to have them readily satisfied. In his last seven or eight years, he was concealed in his beloved obscurity, and possessed that solitude, which, from his very childhood, he had always most passionately desired. Though he had frequent invitations to return into business, yet he never gave ear to any persuasions of profit or preferment. His visits to the city and court were very few his stays in town were only as a passenger, not an inhabitant. The places that he chose for the seats of his declining

life, were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come, than what was passed he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him, than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart and innocent conscience, were his constant companions. His poetry indeed he took with him, but he made that an anchorite as well as himself; he only dedicated it to the service of his Maker, to describe the great images of religion and virtue wherewith his mind abounded. And he employed his music to no other use, than, as his own David did towards Saul, by singing the praises of God and of nature, to drive the evil spirit out of men's minds.

Of his works that are published, it is hard to give one general character, because of the difference of their subjects, and the various forms and distant times of their writing. Yet this is true of them all, that in all the several shapes of his style, there is still very much of the likeness and impression of the same mind; the same unaffected modesty, and natural freedom, and easy vigour, and cheerful passions, and innocent mirth, which appeared in all his manners. We have many things that he writ in two very unlike conditions, in the university and the court. But in his poetry as well as his life, he mingled with excellent skill what was good in both states. In his

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life, he joined the innocence and sincerity of the scholar with the humanity and good behaviour of the courtier. In his poems, he united the solidity and art of the one with the gentility and gracefulness of the other.

If any shall think that he was not wonderfully curious in the choice and elegance of all his words, I will affirm with more truth, on the other side, that he had no manner of affectation in them; he took them as he found them made to his hands; he neither went before, nor came after, the use of the age. He forsook the conversation, but never the language, of the city and court. He understood exceeding well all the variety and power of poetical numbers; and practised all sorts with great happiness. If his verses in some places seem not as soft and flowing as some would have them, it was his choice, not his fault. He knew that, in diverting men's minds, there should be the same variety observed, as in the prospects of their eyes where a rock, a precipice, or a rising wave, is often more delightful than a smooth even ground, or a calm sea. Where the matter required it, he was as gentle as any man. But where higher virtues were chiefly to be regarded, an exact numerosity was not then his main care. serve to answer those who upbraid some of his pieces with roughness, and with more contractions than they are willing to allow. But these admirers of gentleness without sinews should know, that different

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arguments must have different colours of speech : that there is a kind of variety of sexes in poetry, as well as in mankind: that, as the peculiar excellence of the feminine kind is smoothness and beauty, so strength is the chief praise of the masculine.

He had a perfect mastery in both the languages in which he writ but each of them kept a just distance from the other; neither did his Latin make his English too old, nor his English make his Latin too modern. He excelled both in prose and verse; and both together have that perfection, which is commended by some of the ancients above all others, that they are very obvious to the conception, but most difficult in the imitation.

His fancy flowed with great speed; and therefore it was very fortunate to him, that his judgment was equal to manage it. He never runs his reader nor his argument out of breath. He perfectly practises the hardest secret of good writing, to know when he has done enough. He always leaves off in such a manner, that it appears it was in his power to have said much more. In the particular expressions there is still much to be applauded, but more in the disposition and order of the whole. From thence there springs a new comeliness, besides the feature of each part. His invention is powerful, and large as can be desired. But it seems all to arise out of the nature of the subject, and to be just fitted for the thing of