Cowley. 2S5 
from the oak of Bofcobel, to the lowly juni- 
per I and, having conftituted his druidical 
monarch the fovereign of the forefl, he 
makes him the oracle for a train of reflec- 
tions, on the ufurpation ; the exile oi C barks 
the Second, his reftoration ; and the Dutch 
war. 
His poems are accompanied by notes, 
iiluftrating the etymology, the names, fyno- 
nyms, defcriptions, faculties, and uf::s of 
the plants, confirmed by authorities drawn 
from clafiical, botanical, and medical wri- 
ters. Of thefe, he profeffes in his preface, 
that Pliny among the antients, and Fer- 
NELius among the moderns, have been his 
chief refources. Of botanical authors, Ge- 
rard and Parkinson are fparingly men- 
tioned, and they are the principal of that 
clafs. 
Great eminence in fcience is feldom at- 
tainable, unlefs its foundation be laid in a 
devotednefs of mind to its objedt, in the 
early fceneof life. Cov/ley did not enter 
on the ftudy of phyfic, till the middle age 
of man ^ and then, as is probable, not with 
interefted views towards pradice. Hence 
it 
