be willing enough to retire to fome place of quiet, and of fafety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a fufferer, difpofe us to forget that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.

He then took upon himself the character of Phyfician, ftill, according to Sprat, with intention" to diffemble the "main defign of his coming over," "comply

and, as Mr. Wood relates, "

"ing 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 Phy❝fick, which being done to his mind "(whereby he gained the ill-will of "fome of his friends), he went into

"France

"France again, having made a copy "of verfes 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 enquired before he can be blamed. It is not faid that he told them any fecrets, or affifted them by intelligence, or any other act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whofe hands he was might free him from confinement, he did what no law of fociety prohibits.

The man whose miscarriage in a juft caufe has put him in the power of his enemy may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, or preferve his life by a promise of neutrality : for

the ftipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before; the neutrality of a captive may be always fecured by his imprisonment or death. He that is at the difpofal 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 reafon to think that Cowley

promised little. It does not appear, that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be trufted without fecurity, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled; not that it made him think himself secure, for at that diffolution of government, which followed.

t

the death of Oliver, he returned into

France,

France, where he refumed his former ftation, and ftaid till the Restoration.

"He continued, fays his biographer,

"under these bonds till the general "deliverance;" it is therefore to be fuppofed, that he did not go to France, and act again for the King without the confent of his bondsmen; that he did not fhew his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his friend's permiffion.

Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative feems to imply fomething encomiaftick, there has been no appearance. There is a difcourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses intermixed, but fuch as certainly gained its author no friends among the abettors of ufurpation.

A doctor of phyfick however he was made at Oxford, in December 1657; and in the commencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been published by Dr. Birch, he appears bufy among the experimental philofophers with the title of Doctor Cowley.

There is no reafon for fuppofing that he ever attempted practice; but his preparatory ftudies have contributed fomething to the honour of his country. Confidering Botany as neceffary to a phyfician, he retired into Kent to gather plants, and as the predominance of a favourite ftudy affects all fubordinate operations of the intellect, Botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poetry, He compofed in Latin

feveral