Our two fouls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two fo
As ftiff twin-compaffes are two,
Thy foul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre fit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home,
Such wilt thou be to me, who muft
Like th' other foot obliquely run.

Thy firmnefs makes my circle just,

And makes me end, where I begun.

DONNE.

In all thefe examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or vitious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in purfuit of fomething new and ftrange; and that the writers fail to give delight, by their defire of exciting admiration.

HAVING thus endeavoured to exhibit a general reprefentation of the ftyle and fentiments of the metaphyfical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the laft of that race, and undoubtedly the beft.

His Mifcellanies contain a collection of fhort compofitions, written fome as they were dictated by a mind at leifure, and fome as they were called forth by different occafions; with great variety of ftyle and fentiment, from burlefque levity to awful grandeur. Such an affemblage of diverfified excellence no other poet. has hitherto afforded. To choose the best, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of

criticism.

criticifm. I know not whether Scaliger himself has perfuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favorite odes, which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom. I will however venture to recommend Cowley's firft piece, which ought to be infcribed To my mufe, for want of which the fecond couplet is without reference. When the title is added, there will ftill remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is neceffary to make it intelligible. Pope has fome epitaphs without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the prefent, but hardly appropriated.

The ode on Wit is almoft without a rival. It was about the time of Cowley that Wit, which had been till then used for Intellection, in contradiftinction to Will, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now

bears.

Of all the paffages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, none will eafily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley condems exuberance of Wit:

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part,

That fhews more coft than art.

Jewels at nofe and lips but ill appear;

Rather than all things wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be feen,

If there be nothing elfe between.

Men doubt, because they ftand fo thick i'th' fky,
If those be ftars which paint the galaxy.

In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compofitions, fome ftriking thoughts;

but

!

but they are not well wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy, the series of thoughts is eafy and natural, and the conclufion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.

It may be remarked, that in this Elegy, and in most of his encomiaftic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes.

In his poem on the death of Harvey, there is much praife, but little paffion, a very juft and ample delineation of fuch virtues as a ftudious privacy admits, and fuch intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called forth to action can difplay. He knew how to distinguish, and how to commend the qualities of his companion; but when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his forrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be worfe for being true, The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as therefore this property was not affigned it by chance, the mind must be thought fufficiently at eafe that could attend to fuch minuteness of phyfiology. But the power of Cowley is not fo much to move the affections, as to exercife the understanding,

The Chronicle is a compofition unrivalled and alone; fuch gaiety of fancy, fuch facility of expreffion, fuch varied fimilitude, fuch a fucceffion of images, and fuch a dance of words, it is vain to expect except from Cowley. His ftrength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic mind, His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralift, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius, To fuch a performance Suckling could have

brought

brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.

The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily concluded, contain fome hints of criticifm very justly conceived and happily expressed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been fufficiently obferved: the few decifions and remarks which his prefaces and his notes on the Davideis fupply, were at that time acceffions to English literature, and fhew fuch skill as raises our wifh for more examples.

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleafing fpecimen of the familiar descending to the burlesque.

His two metrical difquifitions for and against Reafon, are no mean fpecimens of metaphysical poetry. The ftanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the human faculties, Reason has its proper task affigned it; that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation, In the verses for Reafon is a paffage which Bentley, in the only English verfes which he is known to have written, seems to have copied, though with the infe riority of an imitator,

The holy Book like the eighth sphere doth fhine

With thoufand lights of truth divine,

So numberlefs the ftars that to our eye

It makes all but one galaxy:

Yet Reafon must affift too; for in feas

So vaft and dangerous as these,

Our courfe by stars above we cannot know

Without the compafs too below.

After this fays Bentley:

Who travels in religious jars,

Truth mix'd with error, clouds with tays,
With Whifton wanting pyx and stars,

In the wide ocean finks or strays.

Cowley

Cowley feems to have had, what Milton is believed to have wanted, the skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore clofed his Miscellanies with the verfes upon Crafhaw, which apparently excel all that have gone before them, and in which there are beauties which common authors may justly think not only above their attainment, but above their ambition.

To the Mifcellanies fucceed the Anacreontiques, or paraphraftical tranflations of fome little poems, which pafs, however justly, under the name of Anacreon. Of those fongs dedicated to feftivity and gaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment of the prefent day, he has given rather a pleating than a faithful reprefentation, having retained their spriteliness, but lost their fimplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly more amiable to

* I have reafon to think that Dr. Johnfon knew not that a complete tranflation of Anacreon, other than the late one of Fawkes, who himself was ignorant of the fact, was extant in our language; fuch a one, however, there is by Stanley, the author of "the Lives of the Philofophers, 8vo." 1654; remarkable in respect both of its elegance and concifenefs, of which qualities the following, being the twentyfixth ode, may ferve as a fpecimen:

When my fense in wine I steep,

All my cares are lull'd asleep;
Rich in thought, I then defpife
Cræfus, and his royalties;

Whilft with ivy twines I wreath me,

And fing all the world beneath me;
Others run to martial fights,

I to Bacchus's delights;
Fill the cup then, boy, for I
Drunk than dead had rather lie.

common