The fate of Egypt I sustain,

And never feel the dew of rain
From clouds which in the head appear;
But all my too much moisture owe
To overflowings of the heart below.

COWLEY.

The lover fuppofes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of facrifice :

And yet this death of mine, I fear,
Will ominous to her appear:

When found in every other part,
Her facrifice is found without an heart.
For the last tempeft of my death
Shall figh out that too, with my breath.

That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the different founds arofe, remained for a modern to discover:

Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew,
An artless war from thwarting motions grew;
Till they to number and fixt rules were brought.
Water and air he for the Tenor chofe,
Earth made the Bafe; the Treble, flame arose *.
COWLEY.

The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again.

On a round ball

A workman, that hath copies by, can lay

An Europe, Afric, and an Afia,

And quickly make that, which was nothing, all.

*Cowley appears, by thefe lines, to have been but little skilled in mufic. Not to speak of the fentiment, had he resembled water alone to the tenor, and air to the contra-tenor, the analogy had been just.

So doth each tear,

Which thee doth wear,

A globe, yea world, by that impreffion grow,
Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow

This world, by waters fent from thee my Leaven dif
folved fo.

may per- 79

On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out-Confufion worfe confounded.

Here lies a fhe fun, and a he moon here
She gives the best light to his sphere,

Or each is both, and all, and fo

They unto one another nothing owe.

DONNE.

Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope?

Το

Though God be our true glass, through which we see
All, fince the being of all things is he,

Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive

Things in proportion fit, by perspective

Deeds of good men; for by their living here,
Virtues, indeed remote, feem to be near.

Who would imagine it poffible that in a very few lines

To many remote ideas could be brought together:

Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve,

Why this reprieve?

Why doth my She Advowfon fly

Incumbency?

To fell thyfelf doft thou intend

By candle's end,

And hold the contraft thus in doubt,
Life's taper out?

Think but how foon the market fails,
Your fex lives fafter than the males;
And if to measure age's span,

The

82

The fober Julian were th' account of man,
Whilft you live by the fleet Gregorian.

CLEIVELAND,

OF enormous and disgusting hyberboles, these may be examples:

By every wind, that comes this way,

Send me at least a figh or two,

Such and fo many I'll repay

As fhall themselves make winds to get to you.

In tears I'll waste these eyes,

By Love fo vainly fed;

COWLEY.

So luft of old the Deluge punished.

COWLEY,

All arm'd in brass the richest drefs of war,
(A dismal glorious fight) he fhone afar.
The fun himself started with fudden fright,
To fee his beams return fo difmal bright.

An univerfal confternation:

COWLEY.

His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws
Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,
Lashing his angry tail and roaring out.

Beafts creep into their dens, and tremble there;

Trees, though no wind is ftirring, shake with fear;
Silence and horrour fill the place around :

Echo itself dares fcarce repeat the found.

COWLEY.

THEIR fictions were often violent and unnatural,

Of his Mistress bathing.

The fish around her crouded, as they do

To the falfe light that treacherous fishes fhew,
And all with as much ease might taken be,

As fhe at firft took me :

For ne'er did light fo clear

Among

Among the waves appear,

Though every night the fun himself set there.

COWLEY.

The poetical effect of a Lover's name upon glafs :

My name engrav'd herein

Doth contribute my firmness to this glafs;
Which, ever fince that charm, hath been

As hard as that which grav'd it was.

DONNE.

Their conceits were fometimes flight and trifling.

On an inconftant woman:

He enjoys the calmy funfhine now,

And no breath ftirring hears,

In the clear heaven of thy brow,

No fmalleft cloud appears.

He fees thee gentle, fair and gay,

And trufts the faithlefs April of thy May.

COWLEY.

Upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and

read by the fire:

Nothing yet in thee is feen,

But when a genial heat warms thee within,
A new-born wood of various lines there grows;
Here buds an L, and there a B,

Here sprouts a V, and there a T,

And all the flourishing letters ftand in rows.

COWLEY.

As they fought only for novelty, they did not much enquire whether their allufions were to things high or low, elegant or grofs; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little.

Phyfick and Chirurgery for a Lover.
Gently, ah gently, madam, touch

The wound, which you yourself have made;

Vol. II.

D

That

1

85

That pain must needs be very much,
Which makes me of your hand afraid.
Cordials of pity give me now,

For I too weak of purgings grow.

The World and a Clock.

COWLEY.

Mahol, th' inferior world's fantastic face,
Thro' all the turns of matter's maze did trace;
Great Nature's well-fet clock in pieces took;
On all the fprings and smalleft wheels did look
Of life and motion, and with equal art
Made up the whole again of every part.

COWLEY.

A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the Sun:

The moderate value of our guiltless ore

Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore ;
Yet why fhould hallow'd veftal's facred shrine
Deferve 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 Perfian would admire
No fun, but warni's devotion at our fire:
He'd leave the trotting whipfter, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat, or light? or would have ftore
Or both? 'tis here: and what can funs give more?
Nay, what's the fun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame!
Then let this truth reciprocally run,

The fun's heaven's coalery, and coals our fun

Death, a Voyage:

No family

Ere rigg'd a foul for heaven's discovery.