,
and I never then proposed to myself any other advantage from his
Majesty's happy restoration, but the getting into some moderately
convenient retreat in the country, which I thought, in that case, I
might easily have compassed, as well as some others who, with no
greater probabilities or pretences, have arrived to extraordinary
fortunes."
In 1654 Queen Henrietta, under influence of a new confessor, had
left the Louvre, and, with the little daughter born at Exeter, taken
up her quarters in a foundation of her own, at Chaillot, for nuns of
the visitation of St. Mary. Lord Jermyn having little use left for
a secretary in Paris, Cowley in 1656, after twelve years' service in
France, was sent to England that he might there live in the
retirement he preferred, and with the understanding that he would be
able to send information upon the course of home affairs. In
England he was presently seized by mistake for another man, and,
when his name and position were known, he was imprisoned, until a
friendly physician, Sir Charles Scarborough, undertook to be
security in a thousand pounds for his good conduct. In this year,
1656, Cowley published the first folio volume of his Poems, prepared
in prison, and suggested, he said, by his finding, when he returned
to England, a book called "The Iron Age," which had been published
as his, and caused him to wonder that any one foolish enough to
write such bad verses should yet be so wise as to publish them under
another man's name.
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