With whom more venturers might boldly dare
Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share.

DONNE.

Their thoughts and expreffions were fometimes grossly abfurd, and fuch as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding.

A Lover neither dead nor alive:

Then down I laid my head

Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed foul to a ftrange fomewhere fied:

Ah, fottish foul, faid I,

When back to its cage again I faw it fly:
Fool to refume her broken chain !

And row her galley here again!

Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn'd and deftin'd is to burn!

Once dead, how can it be,

Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?

A Lover's heart, a hand grenado.

COWLEY,

Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come

Into the felf-fame room,

'Twill tear and blow up all within,

Like a grenado fhot into a magazin.

Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts,

Of both our broken hearts:

Shall out of both one new one make;

From her's th' allay, from mine, the metal take.

The poetical Propagation of Light:

COWLEY.

The Prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all,

From which all fortunes, names, and naturès fall;
Then from thofe wombs of ftars, the Bride's bright eyes,
At every glance a conftellation flies

D 2

And

And fowes the court with ftars, and doth prevent
In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament:
Firft her eye kindles other ladies' eyes,

Then from their beams their jewels luftres rife,
And from their jewels torches do take fire,
And all is warmth, and light, and good defire.

DONNE.

THEY were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of drefs, and therefore mifs the notice and the praife which are often gained by thofe, who think lefs, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts..

That a miftrefs beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expreffed :

Thou in my fancy doft much higher ftand,
Than wonten can be plac'd by Nature's hand;
And I must needs, I'm fure, a lofer be,

To change thee, as thou'rt there, for very thee.

That prayer and labour fhould co-operate, are thus taught by Donne :

In none but us, are fuch mixt engines found,

As hands of double office; for the ground

We till with them; and them to heaven we raise;
Who prayerlefs labours, or without this, prays,

Doth but one half, that's none.

By the fame author, a common topick, the danger of procrastination, is thus illuftrated :

That which I fhould have begun

In my youth's morning, now late must be done;
And I, as giddy travellers must do,

Which ftray or fleep all day, and having loft

Light and ftrength, dark and tir'd muft then ride poft.

All that man has to do is to live and die; the fum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:

Think in how poor a prifon thou didst lie;

After enabled but to fuck and cry.

Think, when 'twas grown to moft, 'twas a poor inn,

A province pack'd up in two yards of fkin,
And that ufurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage
Of fickneffes, or their true mother age.
But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee;
Thou haft thy expanfion now, and liberty;
Think, that a rufty piece difcharg'd is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,

And freely flies: this to thy foul allow,

Think thy hell broke, think thy foul hatch'd but now. THEY were fometimes indelicate and difgufting. Cowley thus apoftrophifes beauty:

-Thou tyrant, which leav'ft no man free!

Thou fubtle thief, from whom nought fafe can be! Thou murtherer, which haft kill'd, and devil, which would't damn me.

Thus he addreffes his Miftrefs:

Thou who, in many a propriety,

So truly art the fun to me,

Add one more likeness, which I'm fure you can,
And let me and my fun beget a man.

Thus he reprefents the meditations of a Lover:
Though in thy thoughts fcarce any tracts have been
So much as of original fin,

Such charms thy beauty wears as might
Defires in dying confeft faints excite.

Thou with ftrange adultery

Doft in each breaft a brothel keep;
Awake, all men do luft for thee,
And fome enjoy thee when they fleep.
The true taste of Tears:

Hither with cryftal vials, lovers, come,

And take my tears, which are love's wine,

And try your mistress' tears at home;

For all are falfe, that tafte not just like mine.

D 3

DON

This is yet more indelicate :

As the fweet fweat of rofes in a ftill,

As that which from chaf'd mufk-cat's pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,

Such are the fweet drops of my miftrefs' breaft.
And on her neck her fkin fuch luftre fets,
They feem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:
Rank fweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.

DONNE.

THEIR expreffions fometimes raife horror, when

they intend perhaps to be pathetic :

As men in hell are from difeafes free,

So from all other ills am I,
Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee.

COWLEY.

THEY were not always ftrictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were popular, Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, because they fupply commodious allufions. It gave a piteous groan, and fo it broke;

In vain it something would have spoke :
The love within too ftrong for❜t was,
Like poifon put into a Venice-glass.

COWLEY.

IN forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common fubject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows: Thou fecft me here at midnight, now all reft. Time's dead low-water; when all minds divest To-morrow's bufinefs, when the labourers have Such reft in bed, that their laft church-yard grave, Subject to change, will fcarce be a type of this, Now when the client, whofe laft hearing is

To

To-morrow, fleeps; when the condemned man,
Who when he opes his eyes, must shut them then
Again by death, although fad watch he keep,
Doth practife dying by a little fleep,

Thou at this midnight feeft me.

IT must be however confeffed of these writers, that if they are upon common fubjects often unneceffarily and unpoetically fubtle; yet where fcholaftick speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope, fhews an unequalled fertility of

invention:

Hope, whofe weak being ruin'd is,

Alike if it fucceed, and if it mifs;
Whom good or ill does equally confound,
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound.
Vain fhadow, which doft vanish quite,
Both at full noon and perfect night!
The ftars have not a poffibility

Of bleffing thee;

If things then from their end we happy call,
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all,

Hope, thou bold tafter of delight,

Who, whilft thou should't but tafte, devour'ft it quite!
Thou bring'ft us an estate, yet leav'st us poor,

By clogging it with legacies before!

The joys which we entire fhould wed,
Come deflower'd virgins to our bed;
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
Such mighty cuftom's paid to thee:

For joy, like wine, kept close,does better taste;
If it take air before, its fpirits waste.

To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that stays at home, with a pair of compaffes, it may be doubted whether abfurdity or ingenuity has the better claim: