Page images
PDF
EPUB

That eagle's fate and mine are one,

Which on the shaft that made him die,
Efpy'd a feather of his own

Wherewith he wont to foar fo high.

Had Echo with fo fweet a grace,
Narciffus' loud complaints return'd,
Not for reflexion of his face,

But of his voice, the boy had burn'd.

Here is matter enough compreffed toge'ther for Voiture to have spun out into fifty lines. If I was to name my favourite among Waller's fmaller pieces, it fhould be his apology for having loved before. He begins by saying that " they who never had been ufed to the furprifing juice of the grape, render up cup" this is fufficiently gallant, but what he adds has much of the fublime, and is like a thought of Milton's.

their reafon to the firft delicious

To man that was i' th' evening made,

Stars gave the first delight;
Admiring in the gloomy fhade,

Those little drops of light.

*Spenfer and Waller were POPE's great favourites, as he told Mr. Spence, in the order they are named, in his

early reading.

[blocks in formation]

Then at Aurora, whofe fair hand
Remov'd them from the fkies,

He gazing tow'rds the Eaft did stand,
She entertain'd his eyes.

But when the bright fun did appear,
All thofe he 'gan despise;

His wonder was determin'd there,
And could no higher rise.

Which of the French writers has produced any thing at once fo gallant and so lofty? The English verfification was much fmoothed by Waller; who used to own that he derived the harmony of his numbers from Fairfax's Taffo, who wellvowelled his lines, though Sandys was a melodious verfifier, and Spenfer has perhaps more variety of mufic than either of them *. A poet who addreffes his pieces to living characters, and confines himself to the fubjects and anecdotes of his own. times, like this courtly author, bids fairer to become popular, than he that is em

*

"Even little poems, faid POPE, fhould be written by a plan. This method is evident in Tibullus, and Ovid's elegies, and almost all the pieces of the ancients. A poem on a flight subject requires the greater care to make it confiderable enough to be read."

ployed

ployed in the higher fcenes of poetry and fiction, which are more remote from comIt may be remarked laftly

mon manners.

of Waller, that there is no paffion in his love verfes, and that one elegy of Tibullus, fo well imitated by Hammond, excels a volume of the most refined panegyric.

THE next imitation is of COWLEY, in two pieces, on a garden, and on weeping, in which POPE has properly enough, in conformity to his original, extorted fome moral, or darted forth fome witticifm on every object he mentions: It is not enough to fay that the laurels fheltered the fountain from the heat of the day, but this idea must be accompanied with a conceit.

Daphne, now a tree, as once a maid,

Still from Apollo vindicates her shade.

The flowers that grow on the water-fide could not be fufficiently defcribed without faying, that

The pale Narciffus on the bank, in vain,
Transformed, gazes on himfelf again.

In the lines on a lady weeping, you might expect a touching picture of beauty in distress; you will be difappointed. Wit on the present occafion is to be preferred to tenderness; the babe in her eye is faid to resemble Phaeton fo much,

That heav'n the threat'ned world to fpare,
Thought fit to drown him in her tears:
Elfe might th' ambitious nymph aspire,
To fet, like him, the world on fire.

His

Let not this ftrained affectation of striving to be witty upon all occafions, be thought exaggerated, or a caricatura of Cowley. It is painful to cenfure a writer of so amiable a mind, fuch integrity of manners, and such a sweetness of temper. fancy was brilliant, ftrong, and fprightly; but his tafte falfe and unclaffical, even though he had much learning. In his latin compofitions, his fix books on plants, where the subject might have led him to a contrary practice, he imitates Martial rather than Virgil, and has given us more Epigrams than Defcriptions. I do not remember

member to have feen it enough obferved, that Cowley had a moft happy. talent of imitating the eafy manner of Horace's epiftolary writings; I must therefore insert a fpecimen of this, his excellence.

Ergo iterum verfus? dices. O Vane! quid ergo
Morbum ejurafti toties, tibi qui infidet altis,
Non evellendus, vi vel ratione, medullis?
Numne poetarum (merito dices) ut amantum
Derifum ridere deum perjuria censes?

Parcius hæc, fodes, neve inclementibus urge
Infelicem hominem dictis; nam fata trahunt me

Magna reluctantem, et nequicquam in vincla mi

nacem.

Helleborum fumpfi, fateor, pulchreque videbar

Purgatus morbi; fed Luna potentior herbis
Infanire iterum jubet, et fibi vendicat ægrum.

There is another epiftle alfo, well worthy perufal, to his friend Mat. Clifford *, at the end of the fame volume. POPE †, in

* Settle was affifted in writing the Anti-Achitophel by Clifford, and others the best wits of that time, who combined against Dryden.

+ Another line likewife of POPE exactly characterises him. The penfive Cowley's moral lay.——Vol. VI. p. 37. His general preface; his difcourfe concerning Cromwell; his effays on liberty, on obfcurity, on agriculture, on greatnefs, and on himself, are full of pleafing and virtuous fentiments, expreffed without any affectation, fo that he appears to be one of the beft profe writers of his time.

one

« PreviousContinue »