136 137 138 In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prescience or, in poetical language, the foresight of events hatching in futurity; but having once an egg in his mind he cannot forbear to shew us that he knows what an egg contains: Thou [There] into the close nests of Time dost peep, Through the firm shell and the thick white dost spy Close in their sacred fecundine asleep.' The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically, expressed by Casimir ', a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley: 'Omnibus mundi Dominator horis Cowley, whatever was his subject, seems to have been carried by a kind of destiny to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require still more ignoble epithets. A slaughter in the Red Sea 'new dies [paints] the waters name ''; and England during the Civil War was 'Albion no more, nor to be named from white.' It is surely by some fascination not easily surmounted that a writer professing to revive 'the noblest and highest [kind of] writing in verse 5,' makes this address to the new year: 'Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year, Let not so much as love be there, Vain fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year, There's of this caution little need, Yet, gentle year, take heed How thou dost make Such a mistake; Such love I mean alone As by thy cruel predecessors has been shewn ; ''Casimir Sarbiewski, whose name has been Latinised into Sarbievius (1646). His contemporaries considered him as the greatest rival of Horace that had appeared, and he received a gold medal from the Pope, who made him his laureate.' Morfill's Poland, p. 278. Dr. Watts, who imitated some of his odes (Eng. Poets, lv. 116, 126, 127), described him (zb. p. 35) as 'that noblest Latin poet of modern ages.' 2 Odes, i. 4. 3 Eng. Poets, viii. 173. * Ib. viii. 143. 5 Ib. viii. III. For, though I have too much cause to doubt it, I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it '.' The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior Ye Criticks, say, How poor to this was Pindar's style'!' Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Isthmian or Nemeæan songs what Antiquity has disposed them to expect, will at least see that they are ill represented by such puny poetry; and all will determine that if this be the old Theban strain it is not worthy of revival. 139 To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley's sentiments 140 must be added the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the liberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from two syllables to twelve. The verses of Pindar have, as he observes, very little harmony to a modern ear3; yet by examining the syllables we perceive them to be regular, and have reason enough for supposing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the sound. The imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting to have preserved a constant return of the same numbers, and to have supplied smoothness of transition and continuity of thought*. It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers 141 is the very thing which makes that kind of poesy fit for all manner of subjects". But he should have remembered that what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arises from the known measure of the lines and uniform structure of the stanzas, by which the voice is regulated and the memory relieved ❝. 1 Eng. Poets, viii. 153. "On the Taking of Namur. Ib. xxxii. 221. 3 'In effect they are little better than prose to our ears.' Ib. viii. 110. See also ib. vii. 18; viii. 130. 'Mr. Cowley has brought it as near perfection as was possible in so short a time. But, if I may be allowed to speak my mind modestly, and without injury to his sacred ashes, somewhat of the purity of English, somewhat of more equal thoughts, somewhat of sweetness in the num bers, in one word, somewhat of a finer turn and more lyrical verse is yet wanting.' DRYDEN, Works, xii. 300. 5 Hurd's Cowley, i. 27. Post, DRYDEN, 275, 349; Prior, 77; CONGREVE, 44; POPE, 321; AKENSIDE, 23. Ruskin, in 1861, wrote to D. G. Rossetti of Miss Rossetti's poems:'Irregular measure (introduced, to my great regret, in its chief wilfulness by Coleridge) is the calamity of modern poetry.' Ruskin: Rossetti: Preraphaelitism, 1889, p. 258. 142 143 1 If the Pindarick style be what Cowley thinks it, 'the highest and noblest [noblest and highest] kind of writing in verse',' it can be adapted only to high and noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the critick, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of writing in verse which, according to Sprat, 'is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to [with] prose".' This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the deficiencies of the barren and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like Pindar3. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhappily inserted in the Musæ Anglicanæ *. Pindarism prevailed above half a century, but at last died gradually away, and other imitations supply its place 5. 144 The Pindarique Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation that I am not willing to dismiss them with unabated censure; and surely, though the mode of their composition be erroneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehension of knowledge and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new and often striking, but the greatness of one part is disgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the noblest conceptions the appearance of a fabric, august in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet surely those verses are not without a just claim to praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no one but Cowley could have written them. The Davideis now remains 145 to be considered; a poem Musae Anglicanae, 1761, i. 75. The poem, by Corbett Owen, was published in 1669-Carmen Pindaricum in Theatrum Sheldonianum in Solemnibus Magnifici Operis Encaeniis. Evelyn heard the 'Pindarics' recited on this occasion. The Encaenia 'lasted from eleven in the morning till seven at night.' Diary, ii. 44 5 Post, PRIOR, 77; CONGREVE, 44; YALDEN, 15; SWIFT, 18; POPE, 321; WATTS, 6. 'Wordsworth said he thought of which the author designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no scruple of declaring, because the Eneid had that number; but he had leisure or perseverance only to write the third part 2. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and Cowley. That we have not the whole Davideis is, however, not much to be regretted, for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at least, confessed to have miscarried. There are not many examples of so great a work produced by an author generally read and generally praised that has crept through a century with so little regard. Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the Davideis no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor emerges in conversation. By the Spectator it has once been quoted 3, by Rymer it has once been praised, and by Dryden, in Mac Flecknoe 5, it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice from its publication till now in the whole succession of English literature. 6 Of this silence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will 146 be found partly in the choice of the subject, and partly in the performance of the work. Sacred History has been always read with submissive reverence, 147 and an imagination over-awed and controlled. We have been accustomed to acquiesce in the nakedness and simplicity of the authentick narrative, and to repose on its veracity with such humble confidence as suppresses curiosity. We go with the historian as he goes, and stop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain: all addition to that which E 4 The epick poems of Spenser, Cowley, and such names as will ever be sacred to me.' The Tragedies of the Last Age, p. 10. For Rymer see post, DRYDEN, 200. 5 'Where their vast courts the mother-strumpets keep, And undisturb'd by watch in silence sleep.' Mac Flecknoe, 1. 72. 'Where their vast court the motherwaters keep, And undisturb'd by moons in silence sleep.' Eng. Poets, viii. 181. In the first edition, 'Of this obscurity.' 1 is already sufficient for the purposes of religion seems not only useless, but in some degree profane1. Such events as were produced by the visible interposition of Divine Power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle of Creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffusion of language: 'He spake the word, and they were made?.' We are told that Saul 'was troubled with an evil spirit 3' from this Cowley takes an opportunity of describing hell and telling the history of Lucifer, who was, he says, 'Once general of a gilded host of sprites, Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights; But down like lightning, which him struck, he came, ; Lucifer makes a speech to the inferior agents of mischief, in which there is something of heathenism, and therefore of impropriety; and, to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lashing his breast with his long tail". Envy after a pause steps out, and among other declarations of her zeal utters these lines: 'Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply, And thunder echo [echo't] to the trembling sky; Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height, As shall the fire's proud element affright. Th' old drudging Sun, from his long-beaten way, Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day. The jocund orbs shall break their measur❜d pace, And stubborn Poles change their allotted place. 1 Johnson is perhaps answering In the Davideis he writes:- Their gods too long were Devils, and virtues Sin; But thou, Eternal Word, hast call'd forth me, Th' apostle to convert that world to thee; T'unbind the charms that in slight fables lie, And teach that Truth is truest poesy.' Ib. viii. 180. See also post, DENHAM, 18; MILTON, 246; WALLER, 135; FENTON, 23; WATTS, 33; YOUNG, 155. 2 Psalms cxlviii. 5. 3 'An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him.' I Samuel xvi. 14. Eng. Poets, viii. 182. 5 With his long tail he lash'd his breast.' Ib. viii. 184. |