Porch-house, towards the West end of the town of Chertsey in Surry,
July 28, 1667, in the 49th year of his age. His solitude, from the
very beginning, had never agreed so well with the constitution of his
body, as his mind: out of haste, to abandon the tumult of the city, he
had not prepared a healthful situation in the country, as he might
have done, had he been more deliberate in his choice; of this, he soon
began to find the inconvenience at Barn-elms, where he was afflicted
with a dangerous and lingring fever. Shortly after his removal to
Chertsey, he fell into another consuming disease: having languished
under this for some months, he seemed to be pretty well cured of its
ill symptoms, but in the heat of the summer, by staying too long
amongst his labourers in the meadows, he was taken with a violent
defluxion, and stoppage in his breast and throat; this he neglected,
as an ordinary cold, and refused to send for his usual physicians,
'till it was past all remedy, and so in the end, after a fortnight's
sickness, it proved mortal to him.

He was buried in Westminster Abbey, the 3d of August following, near
the ashes of Chaucer and Spenser. King Charles II. was pleased to
bestow upon him the best character, when, upon the news of his death,
his Majesty declared, that Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind
him in England. A monument was erected to his memory in May 1675, by
George, duke of Buckingham, with a Latin inscription, written by Dr.
Sprat, afterwards lord bishop of Rochester.

Besides Mr. Cowley's works already mentioned, we have, by the fame
hand, A Proposition for the advancement of Experimental Philosophy. A
Discourse, by way of Vision, concerning the Government of Oliver
Cromwel, and several Discourses, by way of Essays, in Prose and Verse.
Mr. Cowley had designed a Discourse on Stile, and a Review of the