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left behind. Their immediate fucceffors, of whom any remembrance can be faid to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller fought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphyfick ftile only in his lines upon Hobfon the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predeceffors, having as much fentiment, and more musick. Suckling neither improved verfification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton difdained it.

CRITICAL REMARKS are not easily underflood without examples; and I have therefore collected inftances of the modes of writing by which this fpecies of poets, for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers, was eminently distinguished.

A

S the authors of this race were perhaps more defirous of being admired than underflood, they fometimes drew their conceits from receffes of learning not very

much

fre

frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Knowledge:

The facred tree midst the fair orchard grew;
The phoenix Truth did on it reft,

And built his perfum'd neft,

That right Porphyrian tree which did true lo gick fhew.

Each leaf did learned notions give,

And th' apples were demonstrative :

So clear their colour and divine,

The very fhade they caft did other lights outfhine.

On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:

Love was with thy life entwin'd,
Close as heat with fire is join'd,

A powerful brand prescrib'd the date
Of thine, like Meleager's fate.
Th' antiperiftafis of age

More enflam'd thy amorous rage.

In the following verfes we have an allufion to a Rabbinical opinion concerning Manna:

Variety I ask not give me one

To live perpetually upon.

The perfon Love does to us fit,

Like manna, has the tafte of all in it.

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Thus Donne fhews his medicinal knowledge in fome encomiaftick verfes:

In every thing there naturally grows A Balfamum to keep it fresh and new,

If 'twere not injur'd by extrinfique blows; Your youth and beauty are this balm in you. But you, of learning and religion, And virtue and fuch ingredients, have made A mithridate, whofe operation

Keeps off, or cures what can be done or faid.

Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in them too fcholaftick, they are not inelegant:

This twilight of two years, not paft nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,

Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,
Whose what and where, in difputation is,
If I fhould call me any thing, fhould miss.
I fum the years and me, and find me not

Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new,
That cannot fay, my thanks I have forgot,
Nor truft I this with hopes; and yet scarce true
This bravery is, fince these times fhew'd me
you.
DONNE.

Yet

Yet more abftrufe and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Microcoẩm :

If men be worlds, there is in every one
Something to answer in fome proportion
All the world's riches: and in good men, this
Virtue, our form's form, and our foul's foul is.

OF

F thoughts fo far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full.

To a Lady, who wrote poefies for rings.
They, who above do various circles find,
Say, like a ring th' æquator heaven does bind.
When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee,
(Which then more heaven than 'tis, will be)
'Tis thou must write the poefy there,
For it wanteth one as yet,

Though the fun pass through't twice a year,
The fun, which is esteem'd the god of wit.
COWLEY.

The difficulties which have been raised about identity in philofophy, are by Cowley with still more perplexity applied to Love. Five years ago (says story) I lov'd you, For which you call me moft inconstant now; Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; For I am not the fame that I was then;

No flesh is now the fame 'twas then in me, And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see,

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The fame thoughts to retain ftill, and intents,
Were more inconftant far; for accidents
Muft of all things moft ftrangely inconftant
prove,

If from one fubject they t' another move :

My members then, the father members were

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From whence these take their birth, which now

are here.

If then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere inceft, which by nature is forbid.

The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travel through different countries:

Haft thou not found, each woman's breast (The land where thou haft travelled)

Either by favages poffeft,

Or wild, and uninhabited?

What joy could'ft take, or what repose,
In countries fo uncivilis'd as thofe ?
Luft, the fcorching dog-ftar, here

Rages with immoderate heat;

Whilft Pride, the rugged Northern Bear,
In others makes the cold too great.

And

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