Lives of the Poets, vol 1 | Page 6

indeed, it does not seem to have lessened his reputation. His wish
for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled; a man
harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a
course of business that employed all his days, and half his nights, in
ciphering and deciphering, comes to his own country, and steps into a
prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place of quiet and of
safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a
sufferer, dispose us to forget, that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat
was cowardice[10].
He then took upon himself the character of physician, still, according to
Sprat, with intention "to dissemble the main design of his coming
over;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, "complying with the men then in
power, which was much taken notice of by the royal party, he obtained
an order to be created doctor of physick; which being done to his mind,
whereby he gained the ill will of some of his friends, he went into
France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver's death."
This is no favourable representation, yet even in this not much wrong
can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power, is to be
inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said, that he told them any
secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other act. If he only
promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he was might free him
from confinement, he did what no law of society prohibits.
The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of
his enemy may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty,
or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality; for, the stipulation gives
the enemy nothing which he had not before: the neutrality of a captive
may be always secured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the
disposal of another may not promise to aid him in any injurious act,
because no power can compel active obedience. He may engage to do
nothing, but not to do ill.
There is reason to think that Cowley promised little. It does not appear
that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be trusted
without security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; nor that
it made him think himself secure, for, at that dissolution of government

which followed the death of Oliver, he returned into France, where he
resumed his former station, and staid till the restoration[11].
"He continued," says his biographer, "under these bonds, till the
general deliverance;" it is, therefore, to be supposed, that he did not go
to France, and act again for the king, without the consent of his
bondsman; that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard of his friend,
but by his friend's permission.
Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative seems to
imply something encomiastick, there has been no appearance. There is
a discourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses intermixed,
but such as certainly gained its author no friends among the abettors of
usurpation.
A doctor of physick, however, he was made at Oxford, in December,
1657; and, in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which an
account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the
experimental philosophers, with the title of Dr. Cowley.
There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice: but
his preparatory studies have contributed something to the honour of his
country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, he retired into
Kent to gather plants; and as the predominance of a favourite study
affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, botany, in the mind of
Cowley, turned into poetry. He composed, in Latin, several books on
plants, of which the first and second display the qualities of herbs, in
elegiac verse; the third and fourth, the beauties of flowers, in various
measures; and the fifth and sixth, the uses of trees, in heroick numbers.
At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two
great poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite
principles; but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry, in which
the English, till their works and May's poem appeared[12], seemed
unable to contest the palm with any other of the lettered nations.
If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared, (for May
I hold to be superiour to both,) the advantage seems to lie on the side of

Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the
ancients in their language; Cowley, without much loss of purity or
elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions.
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