Excerpt from The Essays of Abraham Cowley: With Life by the Editor Hard as he worked, and useful as he was, he seems to have been merely used just so long as he was useful, and during the whole of that time to have longed for leisure and retirement. In 1656 he was sent to Eng land under pretence of seeking this retirement, but in reality to be useful as a spy. Being seized instead of another man, he was not released until he found security of GBP1000, a heavy sum in those days, which he could not pay, and which was found for him by Dr. Scarborough. In the same year he published his poems, declaring in the preface, that his desire had been for some tme past, and did even now vehemently continue, to retire himself to some of the American plantations, and to for sake this world for ever. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.