So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out-" Confusion worse confounded:" Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here, DONNE. Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope? Though God be our truc glass through which we see Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote ideas could be brought together? Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there; COWLEY. Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. OF HIS MISTRESS BATHING. The fish around her crowded, as they do To the false light that treacherous fishers show, For ne'er did light so clear Though every night the sun himself set there. THE POETICAL EFFECTS OF A LOVER'S NAME My name engraved herein DONNE. Their conceits were sentiments slight and trifling. ON AN INCONSTANT WOMAN. He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay, UPON A PAPER WRITTEN WITH THE JUICE OF LEMON, AND READ BY THE FIRE. Nothing yet in thee is seen, But when a genial heat warms thee within, As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross: whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. PHYSIC AND CHIRURGERY FOR A LOVER. Gently, ah gently, madam, touch The wound, which you yourself have made; 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. A universal consternation: 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. THE WORLD AND A CLOCK. Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took; 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 ; Had he our pits, the Persian would admire The sun's heaven's coalery, and coal's our sun. DEATH, A VOYAGE. No family E'er rigg'd a soul for heaven's discovery, With whom more venturers might boldly dare Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share. DONNE. Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as no figures or license can reconcile to the understanding. A LOVER NEITHER DEAD NOR ALIVE. Then down I laid my head Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead, When back to its cage again I saw it fly; And row her galley here again! Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn! Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee, A LOVER'S HEART, A HAND GRENADO. Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come Shall out of both one new one make: THE POETICAL PROPAGATION OF LIGHT. The prince's favour is diffus'd o'er all, eyes At every glance a constellation flies And sows the court with stars, and doth prevert, DONNE. They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts. That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is by Cowley thus expressed: Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand, To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee. That prayer and labour should co-operate, are thus taught by Donne : In none but us are such mix'd engines found,' By the same author, a common topic, the danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated: -That which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done; Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost post. All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines: Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie, Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, now. They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises beauty: -Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! Thou murtherer, which hast kill'd; and devil, which wouldst damn me! Thus he addresses his mistress: Thou who, in many a propriety, So truly art the sun to me, Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, And let me and my sun beget a man. Thus he represents the meditations of a lover: Though in my thoughts scarce any tracts have been Such charms thy beauty wears, as might Thou with strange adultery Dost in each breast a brothel keep; THE TRUE TASTE OF TEARS. Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, For all are false, that taste not just like mine. This is yet more indelicate; As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, DONNE. As that which from chaf'd musk-cats' pores doth trill, As the almighty balm of the early East; Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast. As men in hell are from diseases free, COWLEY. They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were popular. Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions. It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke COWLEY. In forming descriptions, they looked out, not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows: Thon seest me here at midnight, now all rest: Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave, Again by death, although sad watch he keep, It must be however confessed of these writers, that if they are upon uncommon subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle; yet, where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention: Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is, Of blessing thee! If things then from their end we happy call, 'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all. Hope, thou bold taster of delight, Who, whilst thou should'st but taste, devour'st it Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor, By clogging it with legacies before ! The joys which we entire should wed, Come deflower'd virgins to our bed: Good fortunes without gain imported be, Such mighty custom's paid to thee: For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste, If it take air before its spirits waste. To the following comparison of a man that travels and his wife that stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has better claim : Our two souls, therefore, which are one, A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. As stiff twin compasses are two; DONNE. In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or vicious is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something new and strange; and that the writers fail to give delight by their desire of exciting admiration. HAVING thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best. His Miscellanies contain a collection of short | to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by compositions, written, some as they were dic-imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, tated by a mind at leisure, and some as they would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of were called forth by different occasions, with this thought to be the worse for being true. great variety of style and sentiment, from bur- The bay leaf crackles remarkably as it burns lesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an as- as therefore this property was not assigned it by semblage of diversified excellence no other poet chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently has hitherto afforded. To choose the best, at ease that could attend to such minuteness of among many good, is one of the most hazardous physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so attempts of criticism. I know not whether much to move the affections, as to exercise the Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to understanding. 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 inscribed “To my Muse," for want of which the second 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 necessary to make it intelligible. Pope has some epitaphs without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the present, but hardly appropriated. The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gayety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a suc cession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to expect except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastic mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influence even in this airy frolic of genius. To such a performance, Suckling could have brought the gayety but not the knowledge: Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gayety. The verses to Davenant, which are vigorous The Ode on Wit is almost without a rival. It was about the time of Cowley that wit, which had been till then used for intellection, in contra-ly begun, and happily concluded, contain some distinction to will, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears. Of all the passages 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, Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; Rather than all things wit, let none be there. hints of criticism very justly conceived and happily expressed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been sufficier tly observed; the few decisions and remarks, which his prefaces and his notes on the Davideis supply, were at that time accessions to English literature, and show such skill as raises our wish for more examples. The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the familiar descending to the burlesque. His two metrical disquisitions for and against Reason, are no mean specimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against knowledge pro Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' the sky, duce little conviction. In those which are in If those be stars which paint the galaxy. In his verses to Lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compositions, some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible. It may be remarked, that in this Elegy, and in most of his encomiastic poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes. In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a studious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called forth to action can display. He knew how to distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion; but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets tended to exalt the human faculties, reason has The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine So numberless the stars, that to our eye Yet reason must assist too; for, in seas Who travels in religious jars, Truth mix'd with error, shade with rays, * Dodsley's Collection of Poems, vol. v.-R. Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars, the plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, so that the reader is commonly surprised into some improvement. But, consi Cowley seems to have had what Milton is be-dered as the verses of a lover, no man that has lieved to have wanted, the skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw, 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 succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrastical translations of some little poems, which pass, however justly, under the name of Anacreon. Of these songs dedicated to festivity and gayety, in which, even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather a pleasing, than a faithful, representation, having retained their sprightliness, but lost their simplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of some modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy and ignorance are content to style the learned. These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than any other of Cowley's works. The diction shows nothing of the mould of time, and the sentiments are at no great distance from our present habitudes of thought. Real mirth must always be natural, and nature is uniform. Men have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed the same way. Levity of thought naturally produced familiarity of language, and the familiar part of language continues long the same: the dialogue of comedy, when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices of inversior, by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or meanings of words are introduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired. ever loved, will much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetic, have neither gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too far sought, and too hyperbolical, either to express love or to excite it; every stanza is crowded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, with mingled souls and with broken hearts. The principal artifice by which The Mistress is filled with conceits, is very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, expressed metaphorically by flame and fire; and that which is true of real fire, is said of love, or figurative fire; the same word in the same sentence retaining both significations. Thus, "observing the cold regard of his mistress's eyes, and at the same time their power of producing love in him, he considers them as burning glasses made of ice. Finding himself able to live in the greatest extremities of love, he concludes the torrid zone to be habitable. Upon the dying of a tree on which he had cut his loves, he observes that his flames had burnt up and withered the tree." These conceits Addison calls mixed wit; that is, wit which consists of thoughts true in one sense of the expression, and false in the other. Addison's representation is sufficiently indulgent: that confusion of images may entertain for a moment; but, being unnatural, it soon grows wearisome. Cowley delighted in it, as much as if he had invented it; but, not to mention the ancients, he might have found it fullblown in modern Italy. Thus Sannazaro : Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis ! Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor: One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as having published a book of profane and lascivious verses. From the charge of profaneness, the constant tenor of his life, which seems to have been eminently virtuous, and the general tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence of religion, must defend him; but that the accusation of lasciviousness is unjust, the The Anacreontics therefore of Cowley give now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writ-perusal of his work will sufficiently evince. ing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive. The next class of his poems is called The Mistress, of which it is not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or censure. They have all the same beauties and faults, and nearly in the same proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of learning; and it is truly asserted by Sprat, that Cowley's Mistress has no power of seduction:" she "plays round the head; but reaches not the heart." Her beauty and absence, her kindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce no correspondence of emotion. His poetical account of the virtues of plants and colours of flowers, is not perused with more sluggish frigidity. The compositions are such as might have been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philosophical rhymer who had only с |