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.'

"

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 license can reconcile to the understanding:

A Lover neither dead nor alive.

"Then down I laid my head,

Down on cold earth; and for awhile was dead,.
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.

Ah, sottish soul, said I,

When back to its cage again I saw it fly;

Fool, to resume her broken chain,

And row her galley here again!

Fool, to that body to return

Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn?

Once dead, how can it be

Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

That thou shouldst come to live it o'er again in me?"

A Lover's Heart a Hand-grenado.

"Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the selfsame room;

"Twill tear and blow up all within,

Like a grenado shot into a magazin.

Then shall love keep the ashes and torn parts

Of both our broken hearts;

Shall out of both one new one make:

From her's th' alloy, from mine the metal take."

COWLEY.

The poetical Propagation of Light.

"The prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all

From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall:
Then from those wombs of stars, the bride's bright eyes,
At every glance a constellation flies,

And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent,
In light and power, the all-eyed firmament:
First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes,

Then from their beams their jewels' lustres rise;
And from their jewels torches do take fire;

And all is warmth, and light, and good desire."

DONNE.

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 plac'd 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 co-operate 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 tir'd, 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 enfranchis'd thee;

Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;

Think that a rusty piece discharg'd 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 leav'st no man free!

Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!
Thou murderer, which hast kill'd; and devil, which
wouldst damn me!"

Thus he addresses his mistress:

"Thou who, in many a propriety,
So truly art the sun to me,

Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can,
And let me and my sun beget a man."

Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:

"Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been
So much as of original sin,

Such charms thy beauty wears as might
Desires in dying confest saints excite.

Thou with strange adultery

Dost in each breast a brothel keep;
Awake, all men do lust for thee,
And some enjoy thee when they sleep."

The true Taste of Tears.

"Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come,

And take my tears, which are love's wine,

And try your mistress' tears at home;

For all are false that taste not just like mine."

This is yet more indelicate :

DONNE.

"As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,

As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill,
As the almighty balm of th' early East,

Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast.
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets:
Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles."

DONNE.

Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend per

haps to be pathetic:

"As men in hell are from diseases free,

So from all other ills am I,

Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee."

COWLEY.

They were not always strictly curious whether the opinions from which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions.

"It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:
In vain it something would have spoke;
The love within too strong for 't was,
Like poison put into a Venice-glass."

COWLEY.

In forming descriptions, they looked out, not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common subject which poets have con

tended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows:

"Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest :
Time's dead low-water; when all minds divest
To-morrow's business; when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last churchyard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;
Now when the client, whose last hearing is
To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,
Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them then
Again by death, although sad watch he keep,
Doth practise dying by a little sleep ;-
Thou at this midnight seest me."

It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle, yet where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention:

If things, then, from their end we happy call,
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

Hope, thou bold taster of delight,

Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour'st it quite!

Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor,

By clogging it with legacies before.

The joys which we entire should wed

Come deflower'd virgins to our bed;

Good fortunes without gain imported be,

Such mighty custom's paid to thee:

For joy, like wine, kept close does better taste;

If it take air before, its spirits waste."

To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has better claim :

"Our two souls, therefore, which are one,

Though I must go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expansion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so

As stiff twin compasses are two :

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if th' other do;

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam,

It leans and hearkens after it,

And grows erect as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th' other foot obliquely run.
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun."

DONNE.

In all these examples, it is apparent that whatever is improper or vicious is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something new and strange; and that the writers fail to give delight by their desire of exciting admiration.

Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best.

His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, written some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they were called forth by different occasions; with great variety of style and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an assemblage of diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose the best among many good is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticism. I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates, in his raptures, at the value of a kingdom. I will, however, venture to recommend Cowley's first piece, which ought to be inscribed To my Muse, for want of which the second couplet is without reference. When the title is added, there will still remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names, which are therefore epitaphs to be let,cupied indeed for the present, but hardly appropriated.

-oc

The ode on Wit is almost without a rival. It was about the time of Cowley that wit, which had been till then used for intellection in contradistinction to will, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears.

Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, none will easily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley condemns exuberance of wit :

"Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part,

That shows more cost than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear:

Rather than all things wit, let none be there.

Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between :

Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky,

If those be stars which paint the galaxy.'

"

In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compositions, some striking thoughts; but they are not well wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.

It may be remarked that in this elegy, and in most of his encomiastic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes.