Cowleys Essays | Page 6

arrived to extraordinary fortunes."
In 1654 Queen Henrietta, under influence of a new confessor, had left
the Louvre, and, with the little daughter born at Exeter, taken up her
quarters in a foundation of her own, at Chaillot, for nuns of the
visitation of St. Mary. Lord Jermyn having little use left for a secretary
in Paris, Cowley in 1656, after twelve years' service in France, was sent
to England that he might there live in the retirement he preferred, and
with the understanding that he would be able to send information upon
the course of home affairs. In England he was presently seized by
mistake for another man, and, when his name and position were known,
he was imprisoned, until a friendly physician, Sir Charles Scarborough,

undertook to be security in a thousand pounds for his good conduct. In
this year, 1656, Cowley published the first folio volume of his Poems,
prepared in prison, and suggested, he said, by his finding, when he
returned to England, a book called "The Iron Age," which had been
published as his, and caused him to wonder that any one foolish enough
to write such bad verses should yet be so wise as to publish them under
another man's name. Cowley thought then that he had taken leave of
verse, which needed less troubled times for its reading, and a mind less
troubled in the writer. He left out of his book, he said, the pieces
written during the Civil War, including three books of the Civil War
itself, reaching as far as the first battle of Newbury. These he had burnt,
for, he said, "I would have it accounted no less unlawful to rip up old
wounds than to give new ones." "When the event of battle and the
unaccountable Will of God has determined the controversy, and that we
have submitted to the will of the conqueror, we must lay down our pens
as well as arms." The first part of this folio contained early poems; the
second part "The Mistress;" the third part "Pindaric Odes;" and the
fourth and last his "Davideis."
In September of the following year, 1657, Cowley acted as best man to
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, on his marriage at Bolton Percy,
to Fairfax's daughter; Cowley wrote also a sonnet for the bride. In
December he obtained, by influence of friends, the degree of M.D.
from the University of Oxford, and retired into Kent to study botany.
Such study caused him then to write a Latin poem upon Plants, in six
books: the first two on Herbs, in elegiac verse; the next two on Flowers,
in various measures; and the last two on Trees, in heroic numbers:-
"Plantarum, Libri VI."
After the death of Cromwell, Cowley returned to France, but he came
back to England in 1660, when he published an "Ode on His Majesty's
Restoration and Return," and "A Discourse by way of Vision
concerning the Government of Oliver Cromwell." He was admitted, as
Dr. Cowley, among the first members of the Royal Society then
founded; but he was excluded from the favour of the king. He had
written an "Ode to Brutus," for which, said his Majesty, it was enough
for Mr. Cowley to be forgiven. A noble lord replied to Cowley's Ode,
in praise of Brutus, with an Ode against that Rebel. Cowley's old friend,
Lord Jermyn, now made Earl of St. Alban's, joined, however, with

George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in providing for the poet all that
was required to secure to him the quiet life that he desired. Provision to
such end had been promised him both by Charles I. and Charles II., in
the definite form of the office of Master of the Savoy, but the post was
given by Charles II. to a brother of one of his mistresses.
Cowley recast his old comedy of "The Guardian," and produced it in
December, 1661, as "Cutter of Coleman Street." It was played for a
week to a full audience, though some condemned it on the supposition
it was a satire upon the king's party. Cowley certainly was too pure and
thoughtful to be a fit associate for Charles II. and many of his friends.
The help that came from the Earl of St. Albans and the Duke of
Buckingham, was in the form of such a lease of the Queen's lands as
gave the poet a sufficient income. Others who had served little were
enriched; but he was set at ease, and sought no more. He then made his
home by the Thames, first at Barn Elms, and afterwards at Chertsey, at
which latter place he lived for about a year in the Porch House, that yet
stands. Cowley was living at Chertsey when a July evening in damp
meadows gave him