proper to give some account. The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables. fall, that I am yet unable to move or turn my- | criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not imself in my bed. This is my personal fortune here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing else than hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the rest, that you have broke your word with me, and failed to come, even though you told Mr. Bois that you would. This is what they call monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it,) as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I and the Dean might be very merry upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very conveniently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: Verbum Sapienti.' He did not long enjoy the pleasure, or suffer the uneasiness of solitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chertsey, 1667, in the 49th year of his age. He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser, and King Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind hir a better man in England." He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may safely be credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction. Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of the civil war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell, cannot however now be known; I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to which my narration can be considered only as a slender supplement. Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets: of whom, in a سليت بلس • Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, Alderman of London. Dr. J.-Mr. Clark was in 1798 elected to the important office of Chamberlain of London; and has every year since been unanimously reelected.-N If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry ríx μμnrıen, an imitative art, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have imitated any thing: they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect. Those however who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit; but maintains, that they surpass him in poetry. If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language. If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that which he that never found it wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were not be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and, in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety, though less copiousness of sentiment. successful in representing or moving the affec- | inquiry; either something already learned is to tions. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had never been said before. Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic, for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who dissects a sun-beam with a prism, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer What they wanted, however, of the sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations, of confused magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined. noon. This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments. When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier, Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much senti. ment and more music. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it. CRITICAL REMARKS are not easily understood without examples; and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers) was eminently distinguished. As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Know Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost; if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they like-ledge: wise sometimes struck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or [shew. The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; Love was with thy life entwin'd, A powerful brand prescribed the date Of thine, like Meleager's fate. Th' antiperistasis of age More enflamed thy amorons rage. In the following verses we have an allusion to a Rabbinical opinion concerning manna ; Variety I ask not: give me on To live perpetually upon., Like manna, has the taste of all in it. Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses: In every thing there naturally grows If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows; Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in.them too scholastic, they are not inelegant : "This twilight of two years, not past nor nex Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full. TO A LADY, WHO WROTE D For it wanteth one as yet, CAT 960 38.03 COWLEY. The difficulties which have been raised about Identity in philosophy, are by Cowley with still more perplexity applied to Love: No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, My members then the father members were, here. If then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels through different countries: Hast thou not found each woman's breast Or wild, and uninhabited? Rages with immoderate heat; A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt: The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, 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 true 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, Why this reprieve? Why doth my she advowson fly 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, subpodlib a IT For I too weak of purgings grow. THE WORLD AND A CLOCK. COWLEY Mahol th' inferior or world's fantastic face Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace; 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. And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent, 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; And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride 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, After enabled but to suck and cry. 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, |