solitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, in 1667 [28th
July], in the forty-ninth year of his age.

He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King
Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a
better man in England." He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most
amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely be
credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction.

Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to
the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of civil war
were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily
irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general
expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did
not tell cannot, however, now be known; I must therefore recommend
the perusal of his work, to which my narration can be considered
only as a slender supplement.

Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and,
instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in
the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been
at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of
man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes
different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century
appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical
poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not
improper to give some account.