Page:Essays - Abraham Cowley (1886).djvu/13

Rh 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