Page images
PDF
EPUB

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

HAVING thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the ftyle and fentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almoft the laft of that race, and undoubtedly the best.

His Mifcellanies contain a collection of fhort compofitions, written fome as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and fome as they were called forth by different occafions; with great variety of ftyle and fentiment, from burlefque levity to awful grandeur. Such an affemblage of diverfified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose the beft, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticifm. I know not whether Scaliger himself has perfuaded 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 infcribed To my Mufe, for want of which the fecond 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 neceffary to make it. intelligible. Pope has fome epitaphs without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be lett, occupied indeed for the prefent, but hardly appropriated.

The ode on Wit is almoft without a rival. It was about the time of Cowley that Wit, which had been

[blocks in formation]

till then used 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 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 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 else between.

Men doubt, because they ftand fo thick i' th' sky,
If those be ftars which paint the galaxy.

In his verfes to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compofitions, fome striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the series 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 diftinguifh, and how to commend, the quali

ties of his companion; but, when he wifhes 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 worfe 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 minutonefs of phyfiology. But the power of Cowley is not fo much to move the affections, as to exercise 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 verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily concluded, contain fome hints of criticifimm very justly 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 skill as raifes our wifh for more examples.

The

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the familiar defcending to the burlesque.

His two metrical difquifitions for and against Reafon are no mean fpecimens of metaphyfical poetry. The ftanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the human faculties, Reafon has its proper tafk affigned it; that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses for Reafon is a paffage 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 shine
With thousand lights of truth divine,

So numberless the ftars that to our eye

It makes all but one galaxy.

Yet Reafon muft affift too; for in feas,
So vaft and dangerous as thefe,

Our courfe by ftars above we cannot know

Without the compass too below.

After this fays Bentley * :

Who travels in Religious jars,

Truth mix'd with error, fhade with rays,

Like Whifton wanting pyx or stars,

In ocean wide or finks or ftrays.

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

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

clofed

clofed 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 Miscellanies fucceed the Anacreontiques, or paraphrastical tranflations of fome little poems, which pass, 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 reprefentation, 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 honeftly declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy and ignorance are content to ftyle the Learned.

Thefe 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 diftance from our prefent habitudes of thought. Real mirth must be always 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

« PreviousContinue »