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BRAHAM COWLEY was born in the year 1618*. His father, a grocer, died before the birth of our poet, who was confequently left to the care of his mother, a woman who ftruggled hard to procure him a literary education. Her folicitude, however, was rewarded; for fhe had the gratification of living to fee him arrive at eminence, and, no doubt, of partaking in his profperity.

The youth very early took delight in reading" Spenfer's Fairy Queen," and, thus feeling the charms of verfe, became, as he himself tells us, "irrecoverably a poet." On his mother's folicitation he was admitted into Westminster School, where he foon diftinguished himself, and published a volume of Poems in his thir teenth year, containing, among other compofitions, "The Tragical Hiftory of Pyramus and Thisbe,” written when he was ten years old; and "Conftantia and Philetus," written two years after.

Dr. Johnfon does not mention the place of his birth, but other refpectable authorities inform us, that it was in Fleet-ftreet, near the end of Chancery-lane.

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While at school, he alfo produced a comedy called "Love's Riddle," though this was not published till he had been fome time at Cambridge, to which place he was removed in 1636, and where he continued his ftudies with great intenfenefs; for he is faid to have written, while a young ftudent, the greater part of his " Davideis," a work which proves him to have poffeffed a mind of the greatest vigour and activity.

Two years after his fettlement at Cambridge, he publifhed "Love's Riddle," with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby, and alfo a Latin comedy, entitled "Naufragium Joculare." This was printed, with a dedication in verfe to Dr. Comber, mafter of the college; but it did not add much to his reputation.

At the beginning of the civil war, as the Prince paffed through Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with the representation of the "Guardian," a comedy, which Cowley fays was neither written nor acted, but rough drawn by him, and repeated by the fcholars. He had no opinion of it himself, although, during the fuppreffion of the theatres, it was fometimes privately acted with fufficient approbation.

In 1643, being then Master of Arts, he was, by the prevalence of the Parliament, ejected from Cambridge. He then entered himself at St. John's College, Oxford, where, it is faid, he published a fatire called" the Puritan and Papist," and diftinguished himself equally by the warmth of his loyalty and the elegance of his converfation.

When Oxford was furrendered to the Parliament, he followed the Queen to Paris, where he became fecretary to the Lord Jermin, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, and where he was employed in cyphering and decyphering the letters that paffed between the king and queen, a fituation certainly of the highest confidence and honour.

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