al to Cromwell's magnanimity was successful. Cleveland was
released, came to London, and lived by his wits there till his death
in May 1658.[3]--A much later returner from among the Royalist
exiles than either Hobbes or Davenant was the poet COWLEY. His return
was late in 1655 or early in 1656, and seems to have been attended
with some mystery. He had been for years at Paris or St. Germains, in
the household of Lord Jermyn, acting as secretary to his Lordship and
to Queen Henrietta Maria, deciphering the secret letters that came to
them, and therefore at the very heart of the intrigues for Charles
II. Yet, after a temporary imprisonment, security in L1000 had been
accepted in his behalf, and he had been allowed to remain in London.
The story afterwards by his Royalist friends was that he had come
over, by understanding with Jermyn and the ex-Queen, to watch affairs
in their interest and send them intelligence, and that, the better to
disguise the design, he pretended compliance with the existing
powers, meaning to obtain the degree of M.D. from Oxford, and set up
cautiously as a medical practitioner. It is very unlikely that such a
dangerous game could have been safely tried under eyes like
Thurloe's; and the fact seems to be that Cowley was honestly tired of
exile and willing to comply, in a manly way, for the sake of life
once more at home. One of his first acts after his return was to
publish his Collected Poems in a volume of four parts. They appeared,
on or about April 1656, from the shop of Humphrey Moseley, the
publisher of Milton's Poems ten years before, and still always
dealing, as then, in the finer literature. In a preface to the book
Cowley distinctly avowed his intention to accept the inevitable,
treat the controversy as at length determined against the Stuarts by
the unaccountable will of God, and no longer persist in the
ridiculous business of weaving laurels for the conquered. He
announced at the same time that he had not only excluded from the
volume all his pieces of this last kind, but had even burnt the
manuscripts. In a copy of the book presented by him to the Bodleian
Library at Oxford there is a "Pindarique Ode" in his own hand, dated
June 26, 1656, breathing the same sentiment. The book is supposed to
be addressing the great Library; and, after congratulating itself on
being admitted into such a glorious company without deserts of its
own, but by mere predestination, it is made to say:--

[Foot