skilled in military affairs, he soon quitted that post and retired to
his Majesty at Oxford, where he published an excellent poem called
Cooper's-hill, often reprinted before and since the restoration, with
considerable alterations; it has been universally admired by all good
judges, and was translated into Latin verse, by Mr. Moses Pengry of
Oxford.

Mr. Dryden speaking of this piece, in his dedication of his Rival
Ladies, says, that it is a poem, which, for the Majesty of the stile,
will ever be the exact standard of good writing, and the noble author of
an essay on human life, bestows upon it the most lavish encomium[3]. But
of all the evidences in its favour, none is of greater authority, or
more beautiful, than the following of Mr. Pope, in his Windsor Forest.

Ye sacred nine, that all my soul possess,
Whose raptures fire me, and whose visions bless;
Bear me, O bear me, to sequester'd scenes,
The bow'ry mazes, and surrounding greens;
To Thames's bank which fragrant breezes fill,
Or where the muses sport on Cooper's-hill.
(On Cooper's hill eternal wreaths shall grow,
While lasts the mountain, or while Thames shall flow.)
I seem thro' consecrated walks to rove,
I hear soft music die along the grove,
Led by the found, I roam from shade to shade,
By god-like poets venerable made:
Here his last lays majestic Denham sung,
There the last numbers flow'd from Cowley's tongue.

In the year 1647 he was entrusted by the Queen with a message to the