His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him. "Not
finding," says the morose Wood, "that preferment conferred upon him
which he expected, while others for their money carried away most
places, he retired discontented into Surrey."

"He was now," says the courtly Sprat, "weary of the vexations and
formalities of an active condition. He had been perplexed with a
long compliance to foreign manners. He was satiated with the arts
of a court; which sort of life, though his virtue made it innocent
to him, yet nothing could make it quiet. Those were the reasons
that moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind,
which, in the greatest throng of his former business, had still
called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of
solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue
below the malice and flatteries of fortune."

So differently are things seen! and so differently are they shown!
But actions are visible, though motives are secret. Cowley
certainly retired; first to Barn Elms, and afterwards to Chertsey,
in Surrey. He seems, however, to have lost part of his dread of the
HUM OF MEN. He thought himself now safe enough from intrusion,
without the defence of mountains and oceans; and, instead of seeking
shelter in America, wisely went only so far from the bustle of life
as that he might easily find his way back when solitude should grow
tedious. His retreat was at first but slenderly accommodated; yet
he soon obtained, by the interest of the Earl of St. Alban's, and
the Duke of Buckingham, such lease of the queen's lands as afforded
him an ample income.