One of the fevere theologians of that time cenfured him as having publifhed a book of profane and lafcivious Verfes. From the charge of profanenefs, the conftant tenour of his life, which feems to have been eminently virtuous, and the general tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence of religion, muft defend him; but that the accufation of lafciviousness is unjuft, the perufal of his works will fufficiently evince.

Cowley's Miflrefs has no power of feduction "the plays round the head, but reaches "not the heart." Her beauty and abfence, her kindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconftancy, produce no correspondence of emotion. His poetical account of the virtues of plants, and colours of flowers, is not perufed with more fluggish frigidity. The compofitions are fuch as might have been written for penance by a hermit, or for hire by a philofophical rhymer who had only heard of another fex; for they turn the mind only on the writer, whom, without thinking on a woman but as the fubject for his tafk, we fometimes efteem as learned, and fometimes de

fpife as trifling, always admire as ingenious, and always condemn as unnatural.

The Pindarique Odes are now to be confidered; a fpecies of compofition, which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in his lift of the loft inventions of antiquity, and which he has made a bold and vigorous attempt to recover.

The purpose with which he has paraphrased an Olympick and Nemæan Ode, is by himfelf fufficiently explained. His endeavour was, not to fhew precifely what Pindar fpoke, but his manner of Speaking. He was therefore not at all restrained to his expreffions, nor much to his fentiments; nothing was required of him, but not to write as Pindar would not have written.

Of the Olympick Ode the beginning is, I think, above the original in elegance, and the conclufion below it in ftrength. The connection is supplied with great perfpicuity, and the thoughts, which to a reader of less fkill feem thrown together by chance, are concatenated without any abruption. Though

it

the English ode cannot be called a translation, may be very properly confulted as a commentary.

The spirit of Pindar is indeed not every where equally preferved. The following pretty lines are not fuch as his deep mouth was used to pour :

Great Rhea's fon,

If in Olympus' top where thou
Sitt'ft to behold thy facred fhow,
If in Alpheus' filver flight,

If in my verse thou take delight,
My verfe, great Rhea's fon, which is
Lofty as that, and fmooth as this.

In the Nemean ode the reader muft, in mere juftice to Pindar, obferve that whatever is faid of the original new moon, her tender fore-head and her horns, is fuperadded by his paraphraft, who has many other plays of words and fancy unfuitable to the original, as,

The table, free for every guest,
No doubt will thee admit,

And feaft more upon thee, than thou on it.

He

He sometimes extends his author's thoughts without improving them. In the Olympionick an oath is mentioned in a fingle word, and Cowley spends three lines in fwearing by the Caftalian Stream. We are told of Theron's bounty, with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley thus enlarges in rhyming profe:

But in this thankless world the giver
Is envied even by the receiver;

'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion
Rather to hide than own the obligation:
Nay, 'tis much worse than fo;
It now an artifice does grow
Wrongs and injuries to do,

Left men fhould think we owe.

It is hard to conceive that a man of the first rank in learning and wit, when he was dealing out fuch minute morality in fuch feeble diction, could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitated Pindar.

In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own fubjects, he fometimes rifes to dignity truly Pindarick; and, if fome de

ficiencies of language be forgiven, his strains are fuch as those of the Theban Bard were to his contemporaries :

Begin the fong, and strike the living lyre: Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,

All hand in hand do decently advance,"
And to my fong with smooth and equal mea-
fure dance;

While the dance lafts, how long foe'er it be,
My mufick's voice fhall bear it company;
Till all gentle notes be drown'd

In the last trumpet's dreadful found.

After fuch enthufiafm, who will not lament to find the poet conclude with lines like thefe!

But ftop, my Muse

Hold thy Pindaric Pegafus clofely in,
Which does to rage begin-

'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd horfe

'Twill no unfkilful touch endure,

But flings writer and reader too that fits not fure.

The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphyfical race, is that

of