accord is visible; the king is persuaded of it. And to tell you the
truth (which I take to be an argument above all the rest), Virgil
has told me something to that purpose."

This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would be
considered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious
display of scholarship; but the manners of that time were so tinged
with superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of having
consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and to have
given some credit to the answer of his oracle.

Some years afterwards, "business," says Sprat, "passed of course
into other hands;" and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was
in 1656 sent back into England, that, "under pretence of privacy and
retirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture
of things in this nation."

Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of
the usurping powers, who were sent out in quest of another man; and
being examined, was put into confinement, from which he was not
dismissed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr.
Scarborough.

This year he published his poems, with a preface, in which he seems
to have inserted something suppressed in subsequent editions, which
was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this
preface he declares, that "his desire had been for some days past,
and did still very vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of
the American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever."