In a letter dated August 1667 (vol. I, p. 117), Temple expresses a wish that Cowley could sing the heroic death of captain Douglas in his burning ship at Chatham, and, generally, that something could be done 'to turn the Vein of Wits,' and 'to raise up the Esteem of some Qualities, above their real value, rather than bring everything,' even the poetry of Mr Waller, 'to Burlesque.' As it is, he says, in offering this curious though unconscious contribution to the 'heroic' tendency in contemporary literature, we 'neither act things worth relating, nor relate things worth the reading.' It would almost seem as if Temple's absence from home had left him in ignorance of the appearance, in this very year 1667, of Annus Mirabilis.