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 £1000 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:-- [Footnote 1: Wood's Ath. III. 1207-1212, and 972.] [Footnote 2: Wood's Ath. III. 805-806. In Davenant's works (pp. 341-359 of folio edition of 1673) will be found, by those who are curious, a copy of _"The First Day's Entertainment at Rutland House by Declamations and Musick: after the manner of the Ancients."_ It strikes one as very proper and very heavy, but it may have been a godsend to the Londoners after their long deprivation of theatrical entertainments. The music was partly by Henry Lawes.] [Footnote 3: _Cromwelliana_, 154; Wood's Fasti, I. 499; Godwin, IV. 240-241. There is a MS. copy of Cleveland's letter among the Thomason large quartos. It is dated "Oct. 1657;" but that, I imagine, is an error.]