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Every mind is now difgufted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I cannot refufe myfelf the four next lines:

Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,
And bid it to put on;

For long though chearful is the way,

And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day.

In the fame ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prescience, or, in poetical language, the forefight of events hatching in futurity; but, having once an egg in his mind, he cannot forbear to fhew us that he knows what an egg contains: Thou into the clofe nefts of Time doft peep,

And there with piercing eye

Through the firm shell and the thick white doft fpy
Years to come a-forming lie,

Clofe in their facred fecundine afleep.

The fame thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically expreffed by Cafimer, a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley: Omnibus mundi Dominator horis

Aptat urgendas per inane pennas,
Pars adhuc nido latet, & futuros
Crefcit in annos.

Cowley, whatever was his fubject, seems to have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require ftill more ignoble epithets. A flaughter in the Red Sea new dies the waters name; and England, during the Civil War, was Albion no more, nor to be named from white. It is furely by fome fascination not easily surmounted,

that.

that a writer, profeffing to revive the nobleft and bigbest writing in verfe, makes this addrefs to the

new year:

Nay, if thou lov'ft me, gentle year,

Let not fo much as love be there,

Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,
Although I fear

There's of this caution little need,

Yet, gentle year, take heed

How thou doft make

Such a mistake;

Such love I mean alone

As by thy cruel predeceffors has been shewn :
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, fay,

How poor to this was Pindar's fyle!

Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Ifthmian or Nemean fongs what Antiquity has difpofed them to expect, will at least fee that they are ill-reprefented by fuch puny poetry; and all will determine that if this be the old Theban ftrain, it is not worthy of

revival.

To the difproportion and incongruity of Cowley's fentiments must be added the uncertainty and loosenefs of his measures. He takes the liberty of ufing

in

any place a verse of any length, from two fyllables to twelve. The verfes of Pindar have, as he obferves, very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the fyllables we perceive them to be

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regular, and have reafon enough for fuppofing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the found. The imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to have preferved a conftant return of the fame numbers, and to have fupplied fmoothnefs of tranfition and continuity of thought.

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of poefy fit for all manner of fubjects. But he fhould have remembered, that what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verfe arifes from the known measure of the lines, and uniform ftructure of the ftanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved.

If the Pindarick ftyle be, what Cowley thinks it, the highest and nobleft kind of writing in verfe, it can be adapted only to high and noble fubjects; 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 verfe which, according to Sprat, is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to profe.

This lax and lawless verfification fo much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle, that it immediately overfpread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleafing fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and diforder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre,

*First published in quarto, 1669, under the title of "Carmen Pindaricum in Theatrum Sheldonianum in folennibus magnifici Operis Encæniis. Recitatum Julii die 9, Anno 1669, "a Corbetto Owen, A. B. Æd. Chr. Alumno Authore." R.

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in which all kinds of verfe are fhaken together, is unhappily inferted in the Mufa Anglicana. Pindarifm prevailed about half a century; but at last died gradually away, and other imitations fupply its place.

The Pindarick Odes have fo long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am not willing to difmifs them with unabated cenfure; and furely though the mode of their compofition be erroneous, yet many parts deferve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehenfion of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often ftriking; but the greatness of one part is difgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the nobleft conceptions the appearance of a fabrick auguft in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet furely thofe verfes are not without a juft claim to praife; of which it may be faid with truth, that no man but Cowley could have written them.

The Davideis now remains to be confidered; a poem which the author defigned to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no fcruple of declaring, because the Æneid had that number; but he had leifure or perfeverance only to write the third part. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenfer, 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, confeffed to have miscarried. There are not many examples of fo great a work, produced by an author generally read, and generally praifed, that has crept through a century with fo

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little regard. Whatever is faid of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the Davideis no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor emerges in converfation. By the Spectator it has been once quoted; by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, in "Mac Flecknoe," it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice from its publication till now in the whole fucceffion of English literature.

Of this filence and neglect, if the reason be inquired, it will be found partly in the choice of the fubject, and partly in the performance of the work.

Sacred History has been always read with submiffive reverence, and an imagination overawed and controlled. We have been accustomed to acquiefce in the nakedness and fimplicity of the authentic narrative, and to repofe on its veracity with fuch humble confidence as fuppreffes curiofity. We go with the hiftorian as he goes, and ftop with him when he ftops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which is already fufficient for the purposes of religion feems not only ufelefs, but in fome degree profane.

Such events as were produced by the visible interpofition 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 diffufion of language: He fpake the word, and they were made.

We are told that Saul was troubled with an evil fpirit; from this Cowley takes an opportunity of defcribing Hell, and telling the hiflory of Lucifer, who was, he fays,

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