of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which
the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational
admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness
by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist
in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not
descending to minuteness.
It is with great propriety that
subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles,
is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction.
Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have
little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped
former observation. Their attempts were always analytick :
they broke every image into fragments, and could no more
represent by their slender conceits and laboured particularities
the prospects of nature or the scenes of life, than he who
dissects a sun-beam with a prism can exhibit the wide effulgence
of a summer noon.

What they wanted however of the sublime they endeavoured 59
to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits:
they left not only reason but fancy behind them, and produced
combinations of confused magnificence that not only could not
be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour directed by great abilities is never wholly 60 نکه lost: if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth2: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme and volubility of syllables 3.

I

Johnson defines subtlety (he spells it subtilty) as 'thinness; fineness; exility of parts. Exility he does not give in his Dictionary.

* 'Some to Conceit alone their taste

confine,

And glitt'ring thoughts struck out
at every line;
Pleas'd with a work where nothing's
just or fit;
[of wit.'
One glaring Chaos and wild heap
POPE, Essay on Criticism, 1. 289.

3 Southey, quoting this passage, says:-'Justly as Johnson condemned the metaphysical poets, he saw how superior they were to those who were trained up in the school of Dryden.' Southey's Cowper, ii. 136.

'In the elder poets, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most fantastic out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and genuine mother English; in the modern poets the most obvious thoughts in language the

61

In perusing the works of this race of authors the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry; either something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness ✓ often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials, which ingenious 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.

62 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 sentiments2.

63 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 3, and Milton*. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers 5. Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier 6. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors; having as much sentiment and more musick. Suckling neither improved versification nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with ✓✓ Cowley: Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it7. 64 CRITICAL REMARKS are not easily understood without ex

3 Dryden defines Cleivelandism as 'wresting and torturing a word into another meaning.' Works, xv. 287.

* Johnson omits Sprat (post, SPRAT, 22). Cunningham points out (i. 22) the omission of Crashaw and Herbert.

5 Post, DENHAM, 21; WALLER, 5, 142.

6 Milton's Poetical Works (ed. W. Aldis Wright), p. 23.

' 'Wit,' said Gray, 'had gone entirely out of fashion since the reign of Charles II.' Mitford's Gray, v. 39.

amples, and I have therefore collected instances of the modes.. of writing by which this species of poets, for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers, was eminently distinguished.

As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of 65 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 phenix Truth did on it rest,

And built his perfum'd nest,

That right Porphyrian tree which did true logick shew.

Each leaf did learned notions give,

And th' 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 entwin'd,.
Close as heat with fire is join'd;
A powerful brand prescrib'd the date
Of thine, like Meleager's fate.

Th' antiperistasis of age

More enflam'd thy amorous rage 2.'

66

In the following verses we have an allusion to a Rabbinical 67 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 it3.'

Thus Donne shews his medicinal knowledge in some encomias- 68

tick verses:

'In every thing there naturally grows

A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,

If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows;

Your youth [birth] and beauty are this balm in you.

Eng. Poets, vii. 144.

* Ib. vii. 197. 'This hard word

[antiperistasis] only means compression. The word is used by naturalists to express the power which one quality has by pressing on all sides to augment its contrary; as here the cold with which old age is surrounded increases heat. He expresses this

But you, of learning and religion,
And virtue and such ingredients, have made
A mithridate, whose operation

Keeps off or cures what can be done or said '.'

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

'This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
If I should call me any thing, should miss.

I sum the years and me, and find me not
Debtor to th' old nor creditor to th' 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 you2,'

DONNE.

70 Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Microcosm:

'If men be worlds, there is in every one

Something to answer in some proportion
All the world's riches: and in good men this
Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul is 3.'

71✓Of thoughts so far-fetched as to be not only unexpected but unnatural, all their books are full.

To a lady, who wrote [made] poesies for rings:
'They, who above do various circles find,
Say, like a ring th' æquator 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,

Though the sun pass through't twice a year,
The sun, which [who] is esteem'd the god of wit.'

COWLEY.

72 The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philosophy are by Cowley with still more perplexity applied to Love:

'Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you,
For which you call me most inconstant now;

Grosart's Donne, ii. 30.

* Ib. ii. 42.

3 Ib. ii. 79.

4

Eng. Poets, vii. 127.

Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;
For I am not the same that I was then;
No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me,
And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see.
The same thoughts to retain still, and intents,
Were more inconstant far; for accidents
Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove,
If from one subject they t'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 th' other did,

'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid1.'

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared 73 to travels through different countries:

'Hast thou not found, each woman's breast

(The land [lands] where thou hast travelled)

Either by savages possest,

Or wild, and uninhabited ?

What joy could'st take, or what repose,
In countries so uncivilis'd 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 3.

74

The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws 75 of augury and rites of sacrifice:

'And yet this death of mine, I fear,

Will ominous to her appear :

When found in every other part,

Her sacrifice is found without an heart,

For the last tempest of my death

Shall sigh out that too, with my breath'.'

I

Eng. Poets, viii. 13.