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till then ufed 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 condemns 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 stand fo thick i'th' sky,
If those be ftars which paint the galaxy.

In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praife, there are, as there muft be in all Cowley's compofitions, fome ftriking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the feries of thoughts is eafy and natural; and the conclufion, though a little weakened by the intrufion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.

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

In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praife, but little paffion; a very just 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 diftinguish, and how to commend, the quali

ties 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 the worse 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 minutenefs of phyfiology. But the power of Cowley is not fo much to move the affec-` tions, 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 in 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 elaftick 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 the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have fupplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.

The verfes to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily concluded, contain fome hints of criticism very juftly conceived and happily expreffed. 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 fkill as raifes our wifh for more examples.

The

The lines from Jerfey are a very curious and pleafing fpecimen of the familiar defcending to the burlefque.

His two metrical difquifitions for and against Reafon are no mean fpecimens of metaphyfical poetry. The ftanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In thofe which are intended to exalt the human faculties, Reafon 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 paffige which Bentley, in the only English verses which he is known to have written, feems to have copied, though with the inferiority 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 muft affiit too; for, in feas
So vaft and dangerous as thefe,

Our course by flars above we cannot know
Without the compafs too below.

After this fay Bentley *:

Who travels in religious jars,

Truth mix'd with error, thade with rays,

Like Whifton wanting pyx or ftars,

In occean wide or finks or ftrays.

Cowley feems to have had what Milton is believed to have wanted, the fkill to rate his own performances by their juft value, and has therefore

* Dodfley's Collection of Poems, Vol, V. R.

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ciofed his Mifcellanies 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 juftly, under the name of Anacreon. Of thofe 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 pleafing than a faithful representation, having retained their fpritelinefs, but loft their fimplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of fome modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of thofe whom courtefy and ignorance are content to ftyle the Learned.

These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than any other of Cowley's works. The diction fhews nothing of the mould of time, and the fentiments are at no great distance from our prefent habitudes of thought. Real mirth must always be natural, and nature is uniform. Men have been wife in very different modes; but they have always laughed the fame way.

Levity of thought naturally produced familiarity of language, and the familiar part of language continues long the fame; the dialogue of comedy, when it is tranfcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from age to age with equal pleasure. The

artifices

artifices of inverfion, by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or meanings of words are introduced, is practifed, not by thofe who talk to be understood, but by thofe who write to be admired.

The Anacreontiques therefore of Cowley give now all the pleafure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power feems to have been greateft in the familiar and the feftive.

The next clafs of his poems is called The Miftrefs, of which it is not neceffary to felect any particular pieces for praife or cenfure. They have all the fame beauties and faults, and nearly in the fame proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copioufnefs of learning; and it is truly afferted by Sprat, that the plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, fo that the reader is commonly furprized into fome improvement. But, confidered as the verfes of a lover, no man that has ever loved will much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetick, have neither gallantry nor fondness. His praifes are too far fought, and too hyperbolical, either to exprefs love, or to excite it; every stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, with mingled fouls and with broken hearts.

The principal artifice by which The Mistress is filled with conceits is very copioufly difplayed by Addifon. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, expreffed metaphorically by flame and fire; and that which is true of real fire is faid of love, or figurative fire, the fame word in the fame fentence retaining both

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