unless it be poffible to defcribe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is not in Heaven. Taffo endeavours to reprefent the fplendours and pleafures of the regions of happiness. Taffo affords images, and Cowley fentiments. It happens, however, that Taffo's description affords fome reafon for Rymer's cenfure. He fays of the Supreme Being,

Hà fotto i piedi e fato e la natura

Miniftri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il mifura.

The fecond line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be found in any other ftanza of the poem.

In the perufal of the Davideis, as of all Cowley's works, we find wit and learning unprofitably fquandered. Attention has no relief; the affections are never moved; we are fometimes furprifed, but never delighted, and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still however it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by nature, and replenished by study.

In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found, that he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unfkilful felection; with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetick, and rarely fublime; but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or profound.

It is faid by Denham in his elegy,

To him no author was unknown;
Yet what he writ was all his own.

This wide pofition requires lefs limitation, when it is affirmed of Cowley, than perhaps of any other poet. He read much, and yet borrowed little.

His character of writing was indeed not his own he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and not sufficiently enquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its fpring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually ftealing from his brows.

excellence.

He was in his own time confidered as of unrivalled Clarendon reprefents him as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him; and Milton is faid to have declared, that the three greatest English poets were Spenfer, Shakspeare, and Cowley.

but his

His manner he had in common with others fentiments were his own, Upon every fubject he thought for himself; and fuch was his copiousness of knowledge, that fomething at once remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea merely because another had ufed it: his known wealth was fo great, that he might have borrowed without lofs of credit.

In his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last lines have fuch resemblance to the noble epigram of Grotius upon the death of Scaliger, that I cannot but think them copied from it, though they are copied by no fervile hand.

One paffage in his Mistress is so apparently borrowed from Donne, that he probably would not have written it, had it not mingled with his own thoughts,

fo

fo as that he did not perceive himself taking it from

another :

Although I think thou never found wilt be,
Yet I'm refolv'd to fearch for thee;
The fearch itself rewards the pains.
So, though the chymic his great fecret mifs
(For neither it in Art or Nature is),

Yet things well worth his toil he gains:
And does his charge and labour pay

With good unfought experiments by the way.

COWLEY,

Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:

I have lov'd, and got, and told;

But fhould I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery;

Oh, 'tis impofture all :

And as no chymic yet th' elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befal

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,

So lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-feeming fummer's night.

Jonfon and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest esteem.

It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledges his obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson; but I have found no traces of Jonfon in his works to emulate Donne, appears to have been his purpose; and from Donne he may have learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allufion to facred things, by which readers far fhort of fanctity are frequently offended; and which would

not

not be born in the prefent age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate.

Having produced one paffage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will recompenfe him by another which Milton feems to have borrowed from him. He fays of Goliah,

His fpear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,

Which Nature meant fome tall fhip's maft should be.

Milton of Satan:

His fpear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the maft
Of fome great admiral, were but a wand
He walked with.

His diction was in his own time cenfured as negligent. He feems not to have known, or not to have confidered, that words being arbitrary muft owe their power to affociation, and have the influence, and that only, which cuftom has given them. Language is the drefs of thought: and as the nobleft mien, or moft graceful action, would be degraded and obfcured by a garb appropriated to the grofs employments of rufticks or mechanicks; fo the most heroick sentiments will lofe their efficacy, and the moft fplendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words ufed commonly upon low and trivial occafions, debafed by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.

Truth indeed is always truth, and reafon is always reason; they have an intrinsic and unalterable value, and conftitute that intellectual gold which defies deftruction; but gold may be fo concealed in bafer matter,

2.

that

that only a chymift can recover it; fenfe may be fo hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philofophers can diftinguish it; and both may be fo buried in impurities, as not to pay the coft of their extraction.

The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to the intellectual eye: and if the first appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often fought. Whatever profeffes to benefit by pleafing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply fomething fudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise. What is perceived by flow degrees may gratify us with confcioufnefs of improvement, but will never ftrike with the fense of pleasure.

Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes no selection of words, nor feeks any neatness of phrafe: he has no elegance either lucky or elaborate; as his endeavours were rather to imprefs fentences upon the understanding than images on the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar propriety of nice adaptation. It feems to follow from the neceffity of the fubject, rather than the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroick poem is lefs familiar than that of his flightest writings. He has given not the fame numbers, but the fame diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempeftuous Pindar.

His verfification feems to have had very little of his care; and if what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmufical only when they are ill-read, the art of reading them is at prefent loft; for they are commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed · VOL. IX.

F

many