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But stop, my Muse—

Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,

Which does to rage begin—

'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horse

'Twill no unfkilful touch endure,

But flings writer and reader too that fits not fure.

The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphyfical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their laft ramifications, by which he lofes the grandeur of generality; for of the greatest things the parts are little; what is little can be but pretty, and by claiming dignity becomes ridiculous. Thus all the power of defcription is deftroyed by a fcrupulous enumeration; and the force of metaphors is loft, when the mind by the mention of particulars is turned more upon the original than the secondary fenfe, more upon that from which the illuftration is drawn than that to which it is applied.

Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode intituled The Mufe, who goes to take the air in an intellectual chariot, to which he harneffes Fancy and Judgement, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and Invention: how he diftinguifhed Wit from Fancy, or how Memory could properly contribute to Motion, he has not explained; we are however content to fuppofe that he could have juftified his own fiction, and wifh to fee the Mufe begin her career; but there is yet more to be done.

Let the poftilion Nature mount, and let
The coachman Art be fet;

And let the airy footmen, running all befide,
Make a long row of goodly pride;

Figures, conceits, raptures, and fentences,
In a well-worded drefs,

And

And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies,
In all their gaudy liveries.

Every mind is now difgufted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I cannot refufe myself the four next lines:

Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,
And bid it to put on;

For long though cheerful is the way,

And life alas allows but one ill winter's day.

In the fame ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prescience, or, in poetical language, the forefight of events hatching in futurity; but having once an egg in his mind, he cannot forbear to fhew us that he knows what an egg contains:

Thou into the close nefts of Time doft peep,

And there with piercing eye

Through the firm shell and the thick white doft fpy
Years to come a-forming lie,

Clofe in their facred fecundine afleep.

The fame thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically, expreffed by Cafimir, a writer, who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley:

Omnibus mundi Dominator horis

Aptat urgendas per inane pennas,
Pars adhuc nido latet, & futuros
Crefcit in annos.

Cowley, whatever was his fubject, feems to have been carried, by a kind of deftiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require ftill more ignoble epithets. A flaughter in the Red Sea new dies the waters name; and England, during the Civil War,. was Albion no more, nor to be named from white. It is furely by fome fascination not easily furmounted, that a wri

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a writer profeffing to revive the nobleft and higheft writing in verfe, makes this addrefs to the new year:

Nay, if thou lov'ft me, gentle year,

Let not fo much as love be there,

Vain fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,

Although I fear,

There's of this caution little need,

Yet, gentle year, take heed

How thou dost make

Such a mistake;

Such love I mean alone

As by thy cruel predeceffors has been shewn;
For, though I have too much cause to doubt it,

I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.

The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior

Te Critics, fay,

How poor to this was Pindar's ftyle!

Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Ifthmian or Nemeæan fongs what Antiquity has disposed them to -expect, will at least fee that they are ill reprefented by fuch puny poetry; and all will determine that, if this be the old Theban ftrain, it is not worthy of revival.

To the disproportion and incongruity of Cowley's fentiments must be added the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the liberty of ufing in any place a verse of any length, from two fyllables to twelve. The verfes of Pindar have, as he obferves, very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the fyllables we perceive them to be regular, and have reafon enough for fuppofing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the found. The imitator ought therefore to have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to have preferved a con

ftant

stant return of the fame numbers, and to have fupplied smoothness of transition and continuity of thought.

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of poefy fit for all manner of fubjects. But he should have remembered, that what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. The great pleafure of verfe arises from the known measure of the lines, and uniform structure of the ftanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved.

If the Pindaric ftyle be, what Cowley thinks it, the highest and nobleft kind of writing in verfe, it can be adapted only to high and noble fubjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet with the critick, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of writing in verfe, which, according to Sprat, is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to profe.

This lax and lawless verfification fo much concealed the deficiences of the barren, and flattered the laziness. of the idle, that it immediately overfpread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing elfe could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and disorder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together, is unhappily inferted in the Mufa Anglicana. Pindarifin prevailed above half a century; but at last died gradually away, and other imitations fupply its place.

The Pindarique Odes have fo long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am not willing to difinifs them with unabated cenfure; and furely though the mode of their compofition be érroneous,

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it

roneous, yet many parts deferve at leaft that admiration which is due to great comprehenfion of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is difgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the nobleft conceptions the appearance of a fabric auguft in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet furely those verses are not without a juft claim to praise; of which it may be faid with truth, that no man but Cowley could have written them.

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The Davideis now remains to be confidered; a poem which the author designed to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no fcruple of declaring, because the Æneid had that number; but he had leifure or perfeverance only to write the third part. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenfer, and Cowley. That we have not the whole Davideis is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at leaft, confeffed to have mifcarried. There are not many examples of fo great a work, produced by an author generally read, and generally praifed, that has crept through a century with fo little regard. Whatever is faid of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the Davideis no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor emerges in converfation. By the Spectator it has once been quoted, by Rymer it has once been praised, and by Dryden, in "Mac Flecknoe," it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice from its publication till now, in the whole fucceffion of English literature.