This kind of compofition, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extenfive and various knowledge; and by Jonfon, whofe manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than the caft of his fentiments. When their reputation was high, they hadundoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate fucceffors, of whom any remembrance can be faid to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, and Milton. Denham and Waller fought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphyfical ftyle only in his lines on Hobfon the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predeceffors; having as much fentiment, and more mufic. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable ftyle remained chiefly with Cowley: Suckling could not reach, and Milton difdained it. Abraham Cowley, the laft, and undoubtedly the best of this clafs, was born in 1618. His father dying when he was young, he was left to the care of his mother, who is reprefented as ftruggling earnestly to procure him a literary education; and who, as the lived to the age of eighty, had her folicitude rewarded by feeing her fon both eminent and grateful. He was admitted into Weftminfter fchool, and foon diftinguished there, affording fuch early proofs, not only of acquired knowledge but comprehenfion of things, as to more tardy minds feems fcarcely credible. A volume of poems was printed in his thirteenth year, containing the Hiftory of Pyramus and Thisbe, written when ten years old, and Constantine and Philitus, written two years after. He was removed to Cambridge in 1636, where he continued his ftudies with great intenfenefs, for he is faid to have written the greater part of his Davideis whilft fo young a ftudent; a work, of which the materials could not have been collected without the ftudy of many years, years, but by a mind of the greatest vigor and activity, a mind capacious by nature and replenished by ftudy. In 1643, being mafter of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himfelf at St. John's College Oxford; where he published a fatire called the Puritan and Papift, and fo diftinguished himself by the warmth of his loyalty, and the elegance of his converfation, that he gained the kindness and confi dence of those who attended the king. About the time when Oxford was furrendered to the parliament he followed the queen to Paris, where he became fecretary to lord Jermin, and was employed in such correfpondence as the royal caufe required, particularly in cyphering and decyphering the letters that paffed between the king and queen; an employment of the highest confidence and honour. Some years afterwards he was fent back into England privately, to give notice of the posture of things in the nation. Soon after his return he was feized upon by fome meffengers of the ufurping powers, who were fent in purfuit of another man, and put into confinement; from which he was not releafed without the fecurity of a thousand pounds. At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long fervice, and with confcioufnefs not only of the merit of fidelity, but the dignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample preferments; but this was a time of fuch general hope, that great numbers were inevitably difappointed, and Cowley amongst the rest, who miffed obtaining the maftership of the Savoy, which had been promised him by Charles the Ift and Charles the Id. His defire of folitude, which (fays Spratt) was the only thing in his difpofition which ever ought to have been changed, now returned vehemently upon him. Weary of the vexations of an active condition, fatiated with the arts of a court-which fort of life, though his virtue made it innocent to him, yet nothing could make it quiet-thefe were the reafons that moved him to follow the violent inclination inclination of his own mind, which, in the greateft throng of his former bufinefs, had ftill called upon him, and reprefented to him the true delights of folitary ftudies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue. He retired into Surry; but no fooner found an opportunity of beginning to live indeed, and to enjoy himself in fecurity, in the country, which he had always fancied above all pleasure, than his contentment was first broken by ficknefs, and then by death, in the 49th year of his age, at the Porch-Houfe, Chertfey, 1667. It is not ftrange, that the retreat of a man of fuch abilities, who went away unrewarded with preferment, fhould have been afcribed to difguft, notwithstanding the reprefentation of his biographer: Wood attributes it folely to this caufe. Yet there remains ample teftimony, in the juvenile works of Cowley, of that innate love of retirement, which, in all ages, has adhered clofely to thofe minds moft enlarged by knowledge and elevated by genius. That difappointments have a tendency to increafe it cannot be denied; but he himfelf has left this account of his early tafte in one of his profe effays. "As far as my memory can return back into my paft life, before I was capable of guefling what the world, or glories, or bufinefs were, the natural affections of my foul gave a fecret bent of averfion from them: That I was then in the fame mind as I am now, may appear by an ode printed when I was thirteen years old. With these affections, and my heart wholly fet upon letters, I went to the university; but was foon torn from thence by that violent public ftorm, which would fuffer nothing to ftand as it did, but rooted up every plant, from the princely cedar, to me the hyffop: yet I had as good fortune as could have befallen me in fuch a tempeft; for I was caft into the family of one of the beft princeffes in the world, in a crowd of good company, in business of honourable truft, and a daily fight of greatnefs: yet all this was fo far from altering my opinion, that it only added the confirmation of reafon to it; and I could not abstain from my schoolboy's with, long ago printed. " Well, "Well, then I now do plainly fee, Nor did I purpose to myself any other advantage from the Restoration than obtaining fome convenient retreat: nor, by the failure of fome fupplies which I expected, did I quit my defign. But God laughs at man, who fays to his foul, take thine eafe. I met not only with many incumbrances, but with as much ficknefs as would have fpoiled the happiness of an emperor as well as mine: yet I do neither repent nor alter my courfe."-Surely no man, was ever better qualified to eftimate and to enjoy the calm delights of quiet and retirement than Cowley. He was born a poet; he is reprefented to have been of the moft amiable nature, as poffeffing great integrity, and preferving it in the moft difficult ftations; and he was eminently endowed with the requifites which he defcribes, as indifpenfably neceffary for men who feck feclufion; "having knowledge enough of the world to fee the vanity, of it, and enough virtue to defpife all vanity." He had a tafte for agriculture; had cultivated the study of botany; and, to use his own words, "only went out of the world as it was man's, into the fame world as it was Nature's, and as it was God's." Cowley, like other poets who have paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. His Mifcellanies contain a collection of fhort compofi tions, with great variety of ftyle and fentiment, from burlefque levity to awful grandeur. Such an affemblage of diverfified beauties no other writer has afforded. His Ode on Wit is without a rival: of all the paffages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, none will be found of greater excellence than that in which he condemns the exuberance of wit. The Chronicle is a compofition unrivalled; fuch gaiety of of fancy, fuch a fucceffion of images, and fuch a dance of words, it is vain to expect from any other author. The moralift, the politician, and the critic, mingle their influ ence in this airy frolic of genius. Of his Anacreontiques, or paraphraftic translations of little fongs, dedicated to feftivity, of which the morality is voluptuous, he has given rather a pleafing than a faithful reprefentation, having retained their sprightliness, but loft their fimplicity. The next clafs of poems is called The Miftrefs; they have all the fame beauties and faults, and, nearly in the fame proportion, they are written with exuberance of wit and copioufnefs of learning; he is never pathetic, and rarely fublime, but always ingenious or fcientific, either acute or profound. One of the fevere theologians of that time cenfured him as having published a book of profane and lafcivious verfes. From the charge of profanenefs the constant tenor of his life, which was eminently virtuous, and the tendency of his opinions, which discover no irreverence for religion, muft defend him. From Donne he learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allufion to facred things, by which readers, far fhort of fanctity, are offended, and which would not be borne in the prefent age, when devotion, not more fervent, is more delicate; but that the accufation of lafciviousness is unjust, the perusal of his works will fufficiently evince. In his Pindaric Odes he has given, though not the fame numbers, the fame diction to the gentle Anacreon and the tempestuous Pindar. Whatever was his subject, he is carried, by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require ftill more ignoble epithets. Yet there are inftances wherein he rifes to dignity truly Pindaric; and, if fome deficiencies of language be forgiven, his strains are fuch as were thofe of the Theban bard to his contemporaries. The |