It purports to be the report of a pleasant colloquy between the two in the spring of 1665, "set down by a gentleman of the Middle Temple." Their principles are courteously expressed, in a retrospective view of the great rebellion.
COWLEY'S LIFE AND WORKS .-- Abraham Cowley, the posthumous son of a grocer, was born in London, in the year 1618.

He is said to have been so precocious that he read Spenser with pleasure when he was twelve years old; and he published a volume of poems, entitled "Poetical Blossoms," before he was fifteen.

After a preliminary education at Westminster school, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1636, and while there he published, in 1638, two comedies, one in English, entitled _Love's Riddle_, and one in Latin, _Naufragium Joculare, or, The Merry Shipwreck_.
When the troubles which culminated in the civil war began to convulse England, Cowley, who was a strong adherent of the king, was compelled to leave Cambridge; and we find him, when the war had fairly opened, at Oxford, where he was well received by the Royal party, in 1643.

He vindicated the justice of this reception by publishing in that year a satire called _Puritan and Papist_.

Upon the retirement of the queen to Paris, he was one of her suite, and as secretary to Viscount St.Albans he conducted the correspondence in cipher between the queen and her unfortunate husband.
He remained abroad during the civil war and the protectorate, returning with Charles II.