not be borne in the prefent age, when devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate.

Having produced one paffage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will recompenfe him by another which Milton feems to have borrowed from him. He fays of Goliah,

His fpear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,

Which Nature meant fome tall fhip's mast should be.

Milton of Satan :

His fpear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the maft
Of fome great admiral, were but a wand,
He walked with.

His diction was in his own time cenfured as negligent. He feems not to have known, or not to have confidered, that words being arbitrary muft owe their power to affociation, and have the influence, and that only, which cuftom has given them. Language is the drefs of thought: and as the nobleft mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obfcured by a garb appropriated to the grofs employments of rufticks or mechanicks; fo the moft heroick fentiments will lofe their efficacy, and the moft fplendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words ufed commonly upon low and trivial occafions, debafed by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.

Truth indeed is always truth, and reafon is always reafon; they have an intrinfic and unalterable value, and conftitute that intellectual gold which defies deftruction; but gold may be fo concealed in bafer matter,

that

that only a chymift can recover it; fenfe may be fo hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philofophers can diftinguifh it; and both may be fo buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction.

The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to the intellectual eye: and if the firft appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often fought. Whatever profeffes to benefit by pleafing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply fomething fudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always furprise. What is perceived by flow degrees may gratify us with confcioufnefs of improvement, but will never ftrike with the fense of pleasure.

Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes no selection of words, nor feeks any neatnefs of phrafe: he has no elegancies either lucky or elaborate : as his endea vours were rather to impress sentences upon the underftanding than images on the fancy; he has few epithets, and thofe fcattered without peculiar propriety or nice adaptation. It feems to follow from the neceffity of the fubject, rather than the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroic poem is lefs familiar than that of his flightest writings. He has given not the fame numbers, but the fame diction, to the gentle Anacreon and the tempeftuous Pindar.

His verfification feems to have had very little of his care; and if what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmufical only when they are ill-read, the art of reading them is at prefent loft; for they are commonly harsh to modern ears. He has indeed VOL. I.

F

many

many noble lines, fuch as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts fometimes fwelled his verfe to unexpected and inevitable grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he finks willingly down to his general careleffness, and avoids with very little care either meanness or afperity.

His contractions are often rugged and harsh :

One flings a mountain, and its rivers too

Torn up with 't.

His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and deftroy the energy of the line.

His combination of different measures is fometimes diffonant and unpleafing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not flide easily into the latter.

The words do and did, which fo much degrade in prefent estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley little cenfured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad an effect, at leaft to our ears, will appear by a paffage, in which every reader will lament to fee juft and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance of language:

Where honour or where confcience does not bind,

No other law fhall fhackle me;

Slave to myself I ne'er will be ;

Nor fhall my future actions be confin'd

By my own prefent mind.

Whe

1

Who by refolves and vows engag'd does ftand
For days, that yet belong to fate,
Does like an unthrift mortgage his eftate,
Before it falls into his hand;

The bondman of the cloifter fo,

All that he does receive docs always owe.

And ftill as Time comes in, it goes away,
Not to enjoy, but debts to pay!

Unhappy flave, and pupil to a bell!

Which his hour's work as well as hours does tell:
Unhappy till the laft, the kind releafing knell.

His heroic lines are often formed of monofyllables but yet they are fometimes fweet and fonorous.

He fays of the Meffiah,

Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall found,
And reach to worlds that must not yet be found.

In another place, of David,

Yet bid him go fecurely, when he fends;
'Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends.
The man who has his God, no aid can lack;
And we who bid him go, will bring him back:

Yet amidst his negligence he fometimes attempted an improved and scientifick verfification; of which it will be best to give his own account fubjoined to this line:

Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space.

"I am forry that it is neceffary to admonish the "moft part of readers, that it is not by negligence "that this verfe is fo loofe, long, and, as it were,

F 2

vaft;

"vaft; it is to paint in the number the nature of "the thing which it defcribes, which I would have "obferved in divers other places of this poem, that elfe will pafs for very carelefs verfes as "before,

And over-runs the neighb'ring fields with violent courfe,

"In the fecond book;

Down a precipice deep, down he cafts them all.

. And,

And fell a-down his fhoulders with loofe care.

"In the third,

Brass was his helmet, his boots brafs, and o'er
His breaft a thick plate of strong brass he wore.

"In the fourth,

Like fome fair pine oʻer-looking all th' ignobler wood.

And,

Some from the rocks caft themselves down headlong.

"And many more: but it is enough to inftance in *a few. The thing is, that the difpofition of words

and numbers fhould be fuch, as that, out of the "order and found of them, the things themfelves

may be reprefented. This the Greeks were not fo "accurate as to bind themselves to; neither have "our English poets observed it, for aught I can << find. The Latins (qui Mufas colunt feveriores) fome“ times did it; and their prince, Virgil, always: in "whom the examples are innumerable, and taken

"" notice