It was into the service of this Lord Jermyn that Cowley had been
introduced through his friendship with the Herveys. He went to
Paris as Lord Jermyn's secretary, had charge of the queen's
political correspondence, ciphered and deciphered letters between
Queen Henrietta and King Charles, and was thus employed so actively
under Lord Jermyn that his work filled all his days, and many of his
nights. He was sent also on journeys to Jersey, Scotland, Flanders,
Holland, or wherever else the king's troubles required his
attendance. In 1647 Cowley published his volume of forty-four love
poems, called "The Mistress." He was himself no gallant, neither
paid court to ladies, nor married. His love poetry was
hypothetical; and of his life at this time he says: "Though I was
in a crowd of as good company as could be found anywhere; though I
was in business of great and honourable trust; though I ate at the
best table, and enjoyed the best convenience for present subsistence
that ought to be desired by a man of my condition in banishment and
public distresses, yet I could not abstain from renewing my old
schoolboy's wish in a copy of verses to the same effect:-


"'Well, then, I now do plainly see
This busy world and I shall ne'er agree,' &c.,


and I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his
Majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately
convenient retreat in the country, which I thought, in that case, I
might easily have compassed, as well as some others who, with no
greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary