fixing attention and exciting merriment. From the charge of
disaffection he exculpates himself in his preface, by observing how
unlikely it is, that, having followed the royal family through all
their distresses, "he should choose the time of their restoration to
begin a quarrel with them." It appears, however, from the
theatrical register of Downes the prompter, to have been popularly
considered as a satire on the royalists.

That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his
pretensions and his discontent in an ode called "The Complaint;" in
which he styles himself the MELANCHOLY Cowley. This met with the
usual fortune of complaints, and seems to have excited more contempt
than pity.

These unlucky incidents are brought, maliciously enough, together in
some stanzas, written about that time on the choice of a laureate; a
mode of satire, by which, since it was first introduced by Suckling,
perhaps every generation of poets has been teased.


Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court,
Making apologies for his bad play;
Every one gave him so good a report,
That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:

Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke,
Unless he had done some notable folly;
Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,
Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.