it; the moralift, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius. To fuch a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have fupplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.

The verfes to Davenant, which are vigoroufly begun, and happily concluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived and happily expreffed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been fufficiently obferved: the few decisions and remarks which his prefaces and his notes on the Davideis fupply, were at that time acceffions to English literature, and fhew such skill as raises our wish for more examples.

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the familiar defcending to the burlesque.

His two metrical difquifitions for and against Reason, are no mean fpecimens of metaphyfical poetry. The stanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In thofe which are intended to exalt the human fa

culties,

culties, Reafon has its proper task affigned it; that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses for Reason is a paffage which Bentley, in the only English verses which he is known to have written, seems to have copied, though with the inferiority of an imitator.

The holy Book like the eighth sphere does fhine
With thousand lights of truth divine,
So numberless the ftars that to our eye
It makes all but one galaxy :
Yet Reason muft affift too; for in seas
So vaft and dangerous as thefe,

Our course by ftars above we cannot know
Without the compass too below.

After this fays Bentley:

Who travels in religious jars,
Truth mix'd with error, clouds with rays,
With Whiston wanting pyx and stars,
In the wide ocean finks or ftrays.

Cowley feems to have had, what Milton is believed to have wanted, the fkill to hate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore closed his Mifcellanies with the verfes upon Crafhaw, which apparently excel

all

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 Mifcellanies fucceed the Anacreontiques, or paraphraftical tranflations of fome little poems, which pass, however juftly, under the name of Anacreon. Ofthofe fongs dedicated to festivity and gaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment of the prefent day, he has given rather a pleafing than a faithful reprefentation, having retained their fpritelinefs, but loft their fimplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of fome modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly made more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honeftly declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtefy and ignorance are content to ftyle the Learned.

These little pieces will be found more finifhed in their kind than any other of Cowley's works. The diction fhews nothing of the mould of time, and the fentiments are at no great dif

tance

tance from our present habitudes of thought. Real mirth must be always natural, and nature is uniform. Men have been wise in very different modes; but they have always laughed the fame way,

Levity of thought naturally produced familiarity of language, and the familiar part of language continues long the fame: 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 inverfion, by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or new meanings of words are introduced, is practifed, not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired.

The Anacreontiques therefore of Cowley give now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power seems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.

The

The next class of his poems is called The Mistress, of which it is not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or cenfure. They have all the fame beauties and faults, and nearly in the fame proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of learning; and it is truly af ferted by Sprat, that the plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, fo that the reader is commonly furprised into fome improvement. But, confidered as the verfes of a lover, no man that has ever loved will much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetick, have neither gallantry nor fondness. His praises are too farfought, and too hyperbolical, either to exprefs love, or to excite it: every stanza is crouded with darts and flames, with wounds and death, with mingled fouls, and with broken hearts.

The principal artifice by which The Miftress is filled with conceits is very copiously displayed by Addison. Love is by Cowley, as by other poets, expreffed metaphorically by flame and fire; and that which is true of

real