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one of his imitations of Horace, has exhibited the real character of Cowley, with delicacy and candour.

Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,
His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay Pindaric art,

But ftill I love the language of his heart.

His profe works give us the most amiable idea both of his abilities and his heart. His Pindaric odes cannot be perused with common patience by a lover of antiquity. He that would fee Pindar's manner truly imitated, may read Mafters's noble and pathetic ode on the Crucifixion; and he that wants to be convinced that these reflections on Cowley are not too fevere, may read alfo his epigrammatic verfion of it.

Η εκ οράας όλο πορφυρον
Στιλβοντ' 8 φλογι

Σιδονίης αλος, αλο

-λ, αιματι σαζομενω

Doft thou not see thy prince in purple clad all o'er,

Not purple brought from the Sidonian fhore?

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Open, oh! open wide the fountains of thine eyes,

And let them call

Their stock of moisture forth where e'er it lies,
For this will ask it all.

'Twould all alas! too little be,

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Though thy falt tears came from a fea.

• Compare Cowley's ode on prefenting his book to the Bodleian library, with one of Milton on the fame subject, Ad Johannem Rouseium, 1646, written in the true spirit of the ancient Lyrics, and an excellent imitation of Pindar. One allufion to Euripides of whom Milton is known to have been fo fond, I cannot omit.

Æternorum operum cuftos fidelis,
Quæftorque gazæ nobilioris,
Quam cui præfuit Ion,

Clarus Erechtheides,

Opulenta dei per templa parentis,
Fulvofque tripodas, donaque Delphica,
Ion Actea genitus Creufa.

Nothing can more strongly characterize the different manner and turn of these two writers, than the pieces in queftion. It is remarkable, that Milton ends his ode with. a kind of prophecy importing, that however he may be at present traduced, yet pofterity will applaud his work. At ULTIMI Nepotes,

SERIQUE POSTERI,

Judicia rebus ÆQUIORA forfitan

Adhibebunt INTEGRO finu,

Tum, livore fepulto,

Si quid MEREMUR, SERA POSTERITAS sciet.

COWLEY

COWLEY being early difgufted with the perplexities and vanities of a court life, had a strong defire to enjoy the milder pleasures of folitude and retirement; he therefore escaped from the tumults of London, to a little houfe at Wandsworth; but finding that place too near the metropolis, he left it for Richmond, and at last fettled at Chertsey. He feems to have thought that the fwains of Surry had the innocence of thofe of Sydney's Arcadia; but the perverfenefs and debauchery of his own workmen foon undeceived him, with whom, it is faid, he was fometimes fo far provoked, as even to be betrayed into an oath. His income was about three hundred pounds a year. Towards the latter part of his life, he fhewed an averfion to the company of women, and would often leave the room if any happened to enter it whilft he was present, but still he retained a fincere affection for Leonora. His death was occafioned by a fingular accident *;

he

* There is fomething remarkable in the circumftances that occafioned the deaths of three others of our poets. OTWAY

he paid a visit on foot with his friend Sprat to a gentleman in the neighbourhood of Chertsey, which they prolonged and feafted too much, till midnight. On their return home they mistook their way, and were obliged to pass the whole night expofed under a hedge, where Cowley caught a fevere cold, attended with a fever, that terminated in his death.

THE verfes on Silence are a fenfible imitation of the Earl of Rochefter's on No

OTWAY had an intimate friend who was murdered in the street. One may guess at his forrow, who has fo feelingly described true affection in his Venice Preserved. He pursued the murderer on foot who fled to France, as far as Dover, where he was feized with a fever, occafioned by the fatigue, which afterwards carried him to his grave in London.

Sir JOHN SUCKLING was robbed by his Valet-deChambre; the moment he discovered it, he clapped on his boots in a paffionate hurry, and perceived not a large rufty nail that was concealed at the bottom which pierced his heel, and brought on a mortification.

LEE had been fome time confined for lunacy, to a very low diet, but one night he escaped from his phyfician, and drank fo immoderately, that he fell down in the Strand, was run over by a hackney-coach, and killed on the spot. These three facts are from Mr. Spence: though OrwAY'S death has been differently related.

thing; which piece, together with his Satire on Man from the fourth of Boileau, and the tenth Satire of Horace, are the only pieces of this profligate nobleman, which modesty or common fense will allow any man to read. Rochefter had much energy in his thoughts and diction, and though the ancient satirifts often use great liberty in their expreffions; yet, as the ingenious hiftorian obferves, "their freedom no more resembles the licence of Rochester, than the nakedness of an Indian does that of a common prostitute."

*

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POPE in this imitation has difcovered a fund of folid fenfe, and juft obfervation upon *vice and folly, that are very remarkable in a perfon fo extremely young as he was, at the time he compofed it. I believe on a fair comparison with Rochester's lines, it will be found, that although the turn of the fatire be copied, yet it is excelled. That Rochefter fhould write a fatire on

* Hume's History of Great-Britain. Vol. II. pag. 434

Man,

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