Abraham Cowley was driven into retirement by his unfortunate play _Cutter of Coleman Street_, which was an improved edition of his unfinished comedy entitled _The Guardian_, acted at Cambridge before the Court at the beginning of the Civil War. After the Restoration he produced the revised version under the name of _Cutter of Coleman Street_, the principal character being a merry person who bore that cognomen. Some of the aspirants to royal favour persuaded the King that the play was a satire directed against him and his Court, and the poor poet, condemned by the enemies of the Muses, calumniated and deprived of all hopes of preferment, retired in disgust to a country retreat among the hills of Surrey. The disfavour of the Court was also increased by his _Ode to Brutus_, wherein he had extolled the genius of his hero, and praised liberty in language too enthusiastic for the Court of Charles II. The spirit of melancholy claimed Cowley for her own. Disappointment and disgust clouded his heart; ill-health followed, and soon the poor poet breathed his last. As is not unusual, the learned and the great mourned over and praised the dead poet whom when alive they had so cruelly neglected. Antoine Danchet was one of the most famous of French dramatic writers, although his poetry was not of a very high order and lacked energy and colour. He was born at Riom, in Auvergne, in 1671; he distinguished himself at the college of the Oratorian fathers, and soon came to Paris to become a teacher of youths and to finish his studies at the Jesuit College. At a very early age he manifested a great love of poetry, and when he used to recite the whole of Horace he was rewarded by a wealthy patron with a present of thirty _louis d'ors_. He bore so noble a character and had such a reputation for learning that a certain noble lady on her death-bed entrusted him with the charge of her two sons, giving him a pension of two hundred livres, on the condition that he should never leave them. Soon after her death he was ordered to write some verses for a ballet produced at Court; this led him to acquire a taste for the theatre, and he produced in 1700 an opera entitled _Hésione_, which met with a great success. The relations of his pupils were aroused. It was scandalous that a teacher of youths should write plays. All the arguments that superstition could suggest were used against him. He must relinquish his charge; he must refund the pension which he had received from the mistaken mother. But Danchet saw no reason why he should conform to their demands, and refused to relinquish his charge. They urged him still more vehemently, but met with the same response. They at length refused to pay him the pension, and withdrew his pupils from his care. A troublesome law-suit followed, but at length the poet emerged triumphant from the troubles in which his love of the drama had involved him. He produced also the tragedies of _Cyrus,