which ingenions absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety though less copiousness of sentiment.

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments.

When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and more music. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it.

In the following verses, we have an allusion to a Rabbinical opinion concerning Manna:

Variety I ask not: give me one
To live perpetually upon.

The person Love does to us fit,

Like manna, has the taste of all in it.

Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses:

A Balsamum to keep it fresh and new,
In every thing there naturally grows

If 'twere not injured by extrinsique blows;
Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.
And virtue and such engredients, have made
But you, of learning and religion,
A mithridate, whose operation
Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.

Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant :

This twilight of two years, not past nor next, Some emblem is of me, or I of this,

I

Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
sum the years and me, and find me not
If I should call me any thing, should miss.
Debtor to the' old, nor creditor to the' new.
That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot,
Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce

true

This bravery is, since these times shew'd me you. DONNE.

Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Micro

cosm:

Something to answer in some proportion;
If men be worlds, there is in every one
All the world's riches: and in good men, this
Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is.

As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Knowledge: The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; The phoenix Truth did on it rest, And built his perfumed nest, That right Porphyrian tree which did true Togic shew.

Each leaf did learned notions give, And the' apples were demonstrative: So clear their colour and divine,

The very shade they cast did other lights

outshine.

On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:

Love was with thy life entwined,
Close as heat with fire is join'd;
A powerful brand prescribed the date
Of thine, like Meleager's fate.
The' antiperistasis of age
More enflamed thy amorous rage.

To a Lady, who wrote poesies for rings.

They, who above do various circles find,
Say, like a ring, the equator Heaven does
bind.
When Heaven shall be adorn'd by thee

(Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be),
Tis thou must write the poesy there,
For it wanteth one as yet,
Then the sun pass through't twice a year,
The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit.
COWLEY.

Must of all things most strangely inconstant

prove,

If from one subject they to' another move; My members then, the father members were From whence these take their birth, which now are here.

If then this body love what the' other did, 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid.

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels through different countries:

Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The land where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest,

Or wild, and uninhabited?
What joy could'st take, or what repose,
In countries so uncivilized as those?
Lust, the scorching dog-star, here

Rages with immoderate heat;
Whilst Pride, the rugged northern bear,
In others makes the cold too great.
And where these are temperate known,
The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone.
COWLEY.

A Lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt:

The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain From clouds which in the head appear; But all my too much moisture owe To overflowings of the heart below. COWLEY.

A workman, that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Asia;

Who would imagine it possible that, in a very few lines, so many remote ideas could be brought together?

Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve,
Why this reprieve?

Why doth my she-advowson fly
Jucumbency?

To sell thyself dost thou intend
By candle's end,

And hold the contrast thus in doubt,
Life's taper out?

Think but how soon the market fails,
Your sex lives faster than the males;
And if to measure age's span,

The sober Julian were the account of man,
Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.
CLEIVELAND.

Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about, Lashing his angry tail and roaring out. Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world, by that impression

grow,

Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so.

fear;

Silence and horror fill the place around; Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. COWLEY.

Their fictions were often violent and unnatural.

The moderate value of our guiltless ore
Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore:
Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine
Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?
These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,
Than a few embers, for a deity.

Had he our pits, the Persian would admire
No sun, but warm's devotion at our fire:
He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat, or light? or would have
store,

Or both? 'tis here: and what can suns give ⚫ more?

Nay, what's the sun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame!
Then let this truth reciprocally run,-
The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun.

Death, a Voyage.

No family

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

Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as no figures or licence can reconcile to the understanding.

They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts.

That a Mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expressed:

Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand,
Than woman can be placed by Nature's hand;
And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be,
To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee.

That prayer and labour should cooperate, are thus taught by Donne:

In none but us are such mix'd engines found, As hands of double office; for the ground We till with them; and them to Heaven we raise;

Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays, Doth but one half, that's none.

By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination is thus illustrated:

-That which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done;

And I, as giddy travellers must do,
Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost
Light and strength, dark and tired must then
ride post.

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

Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie;
After enabled but to suck and cry.
Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a
poor inn,

A province pack'd up in two yards of skin:
And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage
of sicknesses, or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchised
thee;

Thou hast thy expansion 'now, and liberty;
Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies: this to thy soul allow,
Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd
but now.

They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises beauty:

-Thou tyrant which leavest no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!

Thou murtherer, which hast kill'd; and devil,

which would'st damn me!

Thus he addresses his Mistress:

Thou, who, in many a propriety,

So truly art the sun to me,

Doth practise dying by a little sleep; Thou at this midnight seest me.