"tice of by all judicious men, so that it is fuperfluous to collect them.” 68 I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only found and motion. A boundless verfe, a beadlong verfe, and a verse of brass or of Strong brass, seem to comprise very incongruous and unfociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the found of the line expreffing loofe care, I cannot difcover; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexandrine than in ten fyllables. But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of representative verfification, which perhaps no other English line can equal: Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife. Till the whole ftream that ftopp'd him fhall be gone, Which runs, and as it runs, for ever fhall run on. Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroick of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He confidered the verfe of twelve fyllables as elevated and majestick, and has therefore deviated into that measure when he supposes the voice heard of the Supreme Being. The Author of the Davideis is commended by Dryden for having written it in couplets, because he discovered that any ftaff was too lyrical for an heroick poem; but this feems. to have been known before by May and Sandys, the tranflators of the Pharfalia and. the Metamorphofes. In the Davideis are fome hemiftichs, or verses left imperfect by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he fuppofes not to have intended to complete them: that this opinion is erroneous, may be probably concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet; because Vir-gil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verfe, a line interfected by a cæfura and a full ftop will equally effect. Of triplets in his Davideis he makes no ufe, and perhaps did not at first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changed his mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell he inserts them liberally with great happiness. After fo much criticism on his Poems, the Effays which accompany them must not be forgotten. What is faid by Sprat of his converfation, that no man could draw from it any fufpicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to thefe compofitions. No author ever kept his verfe and his profe at a greater diftance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his ftyle has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-fought, or hard-laboured; but all is eafy without feebleness, and familiar without groffness. It has been obferved by Felton, in his Effay on the Clafficks, that Cowley was beloved by every Mufe that he courted; and that he has rivalled the Ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. It may be affirmed, without any encomiaftick fervour, that he brought to his poetick labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that he was the first who imparted to Englifh numbers the enthufiafm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified for fpritely fallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those who freed tranflation from fervility, and, instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his fide; and that if he left verfification yet improvable, he left likewife from time to time fuch fpecimens of excellence as enabled fucceeding poets to improve it. DENHAM, |