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 a cold, of
which he died within a fortnight. That was in the year 1667, year
also of the death of Jeremy Taylor, and of the birth of Jonathan
Swift.

Abraham Cowley is at his truest in these ESSAYS, written during the
last seven years of his life. Their style is simple, and their
thoughts are pure. They have, for their keynote, the happiness of
one who loves true liberty in quiet possession of himself. When he
turns to the Latins, his translations are all from those lines which
would have dwelt most pleasantly upon a mind that to the last held
by the devout wish expressed by himself in a poem of his early
youth--(A Vote, in "Sylva"):


"Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturbed as death, the night.
My house a cottage more