1 Kt \m lift M*f ltlh«c4h) ii ftfil $» I^HHESI i;ki inMrQTKHtrn,l> s .UK. ■ . wu ■KM : 1 II IP 'i mm I H HI 'HHh -i^.iiHBKl 1 1 HI H SH _mhhi 8$ fat Bffi* ■nniHH flass "Pf?^.? 3 Book >J"'l GLASGOW: ANDREW & JOHN M. DUNCAN, Printers to the University. CONTENTS. Page Cowley 1 Denham . 21 Milton 24 Butler 53 Rochester .- «... 59 Roscommon 61 Otway 64 Waller 67 POMFRET 83 Dorset ........... ib. Stepney ...«••••••■ 84 J. Philips 85 Walsh 91 Dryden ib. Smith 134 Duke ............ 142 Kino _ 143 Sprat ............. 144 Halifax ... 146 Parnell ........... 148 Garth ........... 149 Rowe 151 Addison 155 Hughes . 175 Sheffield . . '77 Prior . . >• 179 Page congreve 187 Blackmore .......... 192 Fenton ....... c ... 199 Gay 202 Granville 205 Yalden 208 TlCKELL ..... 210 Hammond 212 somervile 213 Savage 214 Swift 250 Broome . • . . • 254 Pope 256 Pitt 314 Thomson 315 Watts 320 A. Philips 323 West 326 Collins 327 Dyer 329 Shenstone 330 Young 334 Mallet 345 Akenside 353 Gray 355 Lyttelton 360 LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. COWLEY. THE Life of CowtEY, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose preg- nancy of imagination and elegance of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendship, or am- bition of eloquence, has produced a funeral ora- tion rather than a history: he has given the character, not the life, of Cowley ; for he writes with so little detail, that scarcely any thing is distinctly known, but all is shown con- fused and enlarged through the mist of pane- gyric. Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand six hundred and eighteen. His fath- er was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals under the general appellation of a citi- zen ; and, what would probably not have been less carefully suppressed, the omission of his name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to suspect that his father was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his son, and consequently left him to the care of his mother; whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly to procure him a literary education, and who, as she lived to the age of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. We know, at least, from Sprat's account, that he always acknowledged her care, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, some times remembered, and perhaps sometimes for- gotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity- for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular 'direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's treatise. By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminster School, where he was poon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to relate, " That he had this defect in his memory at that time, that his teachers never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar." This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder. It is surely very difficult to tell any thing as it was. heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a com- modious incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative contained his confutation. A memory admitting some things, and reject- ing others, an intellectual digestion that con- cocted the pulp of learning, but refused t'aa husks, had the appearance of an instinctive ele- gance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness. But in the autaor's own honest relation, the marvel vanishes : he was, he says, such " an enemy to all constraint, that his master never could prevail on him to learn the rules without book." He does -not tell that he coxdd not learn the rules ; but that, being able to perform his exercises without them, and being an " enemy to constraint," he spared himself the labour. Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope, might be said " to lisp in numbers ;" and have given such early proofs, not only of powers of language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardy minds seem scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities of Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not only written, but printed in his thirteenth year ;* containing, with other poeti- • This volume was not published before 1633, when Cowley was fifteen years old. Dr. Johnson, as well as former biographers, seems to have been misled by the portrait of Cowley being by mistake marked with the age of thirteen years.-— H. A COWLEY. cal compositions, " The tragical History of Pyramus and Thisbe," written when he was ten years old ; and " Con3tantia and Philetus," written two years after. While he was yet at school he produced a co- medy called " Love's Riddle," though it was not published till he had been sometime at Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires no acquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at which it was composed adds little to the wonders of Cowley's minority. In 1636, he was removed to Cambridge,* where he continued his studies with great in- tenseness : for he is said to have written, while he was yet a young student, the greater part of his " Davideis ;" a work, of which the materials could not have been collected without the study of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vi- gour and activity. Two years after his settlement at Cambridge he published " Love's Riddle," with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby ; of whose ac- quaintance all his cotemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and " Naufragium Joculare," a comedy written in Latin, but without due at- tention to the ancient models ; for it was not loose verse, but mere prose. It was printed, with a dedication in verse, to Dr. Comber, mas- ter of the college ; but, having neither the facil- ity of a popular nor the accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universally neglect- ed. At the beginning of the civil war, as the Prince passed through Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with, a representation of the " Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says was neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by the scholars. That this comedy was printed during his absence from his country, he appears to have considered as injurious to his reputation ; though during the suppression of the theatres, it was some- times privately acted with sufficient approba- tion. In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's College, in Oxford ; where, as is said by Wood, he published a satire, called " The Puritan and Papist," which was only inserted in the last col- lection of his Works ;f and so distinguished himself by the warmth of his loyalty and the • He was a candidate thi3 year at Westminster School for election to Trinity College, but proved un- successful. — N. t In the first edition of thi3 Life, Dr. Johnson wrote, " which was never inserted in any collection of his worhs f but he altered the expression when the Uvea were Cullected into volumes. The satire was added to Cowley's Works by the particular di- rection of Dr. Johnson. — N. elegance of his conversation, that he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended the King, and amongst others of Lord Falk- land, whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom it was extended. About the time when Oxford was surrender- ed to the parliament, he followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, and was employed in sucb correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in cypher- ing and decyphering the letters that passed be- tv> een the King and Queen ; an employment of the highest confidence and honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, that, for several years, it filled all his days and two or three nights in the week. In the year 1647, his " Mistress" was publish- ed ; for he imagined, as he declared in his pre- face to a subsequent edition, that " poets are scarcely thought freemen of their company without paying some duties, or obliging them- selves to be true to Love." This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I be- lieve, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful homage to his Laura, refined the manners of the lettered world, and filled Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is truth : he that professes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes,* who had means enough of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never had resolution to tell his passion. This consideration cannot but abate, in some measure, the reader's esteem for the work and the author. To love excellence, is natural; it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reci- procal regard by an elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and effusions of wit ; but it seems as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet of an " airy nothing," and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have learned from his master Pindar to call " the dream of a shadow." It is surely not difficult in the solitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. No man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious oc- currences. The man that sits down to suppose himself changed with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never with- in the possibility of committing, differs only • Barnesii Anacreonten.. — Dr. J. LIVES OF THE ENGLISH POETS. COWLEY. THE Life of Cowley, notwithstanding the penury of English biography, has been written by Dr. Sprat, an author whose preg- nancy of imagination and elegance of language have deservedly set him high in the ranks of literature; but his zeal of friendship, or am- bition of eloquence, has produced a funeral ora- tion rather than a history : he has given the character, not the life, of Cowley ; for he writes with so little detail, that scarcely any thing is distinctly known, but all is shown con- fused and enlarged through the mist of pane- gyric. Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand six hundred and eighteen. His fath- er was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat conceals under the general appellation of a citi- zen ; and, what would probably not have been less carefully suppressed, the omission of his name in the register of St. Dunstan's parish gives reason to suspect that his father was a sectary. Whoever he was, he died before the birth of his son, and consequently left him to the care of his mother ; whom Wood represents as struggling earnestly to procure him a literary education, and who, as she lived to the age of eighty, had her solicitude rewarded by seeing her son eminent, and, I hope, by seeing him fortunate, and partaking his prosperity. We know, at least, from Sprat's account, that he always acknowledged her care, and justly paid the dues of filial gratitude. In the window of his mother's apartment lay Spenser's Fairy Queen ; in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, some- times remembered, and perhaps sometimes for- gotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir Joshua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had the first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of Richardson's treatise. By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminster School, where he was soon distinguished. He was wont, says Sprat, to relate, " That he had this defect in his memory at that time, that his teachers never could bring it to retain the ordinary rules of grammar." This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a wonder. It is surely very difficult to tell any thing as it was heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a com- modious incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative contained his confutation. A memory admitting some things, and reject- ing others, an intellectual digestion that con- cocted the pulp of learning, but refused the husks, had the appearance of an instinctive ele- gance, of a particular provision made by Nature for literary politeness. But in the author's own honest relation, the marvel vanishes : he was, he says, such " an enemy to all constraint, that his master never could prevail on him to learn the rules without book." He does not tell that he could not learn the rules ; but that, being able to perform his exercises without them, and being an " enemy to constraint," he spared himself the labour. Among the English poets, Cowley, Milton, and Pope, might be said " to lisp in numbers;" and have given such early proofs, not only of powers of language, but of comprehension of things, as to more tardy minds seem scarcely credible. But of the learned puerilities or Cowley there is no doubt, since a volume of his poems was not only written, but printed in his thirteenth year ;* containing, with other poeti- * This volume was not published before 1633, when Cowley was fifteen years old. Dr. Johnson, as well as former biographers, seems to hare been misled by the portrait of Cowley being by mistake marked with the age of thirteen years.^-R. A COWLEY. cal compositions, " The tragical History of Py ramus and Thisbe," written when he was ten years old ; and " Constantia and Philetus," written two years after. While he was yet at school he produced a co- medy called " Love's Riddle," though it was not published till he had been sometime at Cambridge. This comedy is of the pastoral kind, which requires no acquaintance with the living world, and therefore the time at which it was composed adds little to the wonders of Cowley's minority. In 1636, he was removed to Cambridge,* where he continued his studies with great in- tenseness : for he is said to have written, while he was yet a young student, the greater part of his " Davideis ;" a work, of which the materials could not have been collected without the study of many years, but by a mind of the greatest vi- gour and activity. Two years after his settlement at Cambridge he published " Love's Riddle," with a poetical dedication to Sir Kenelm Digby ; of whose ac- quaintance all his cotemporaries seem to have been ambitious; and" Naufragium Joculare," a comedy written in Latin, but without due at- tention to the ancient models ; for it was not loose verse, but mere prose. It was printed^ with a dedication in verse, to Dr. Combei', mas- ter of the college ; but, having neither the facil- ity of a popular nor the accuracy of a learned work, it seems to be now universally neglect- ed. At the beginning of the civil war, as the Prince passed through Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with a representation of the " Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says was neither written nor acted, but rough-drawn by him, and repeated by the scholars. That this comedy was printed during his absence from his country, he appears to have considered as injurious to his reputation ; though during the suppression of the theatres, it was some- times privately acted with sufficient approba- tion. In 1643, being now master of arts, he was, by the prevalence of the parliament, ejected from Cambridge, and sheltered himself at St. John's College, in Oxford ; where, as is said by Wood, he published a satire, called" The Puritan and Papist," which was only inserted in the last col- lection of his Works ;f and so distinguished himself by the warmth of his loyalty and the * He was a candidate this year at Westminster School for election to Trinity College, but proved un- successful. — N. ■f In the first edition of this Life, Dr. Johnson wrote, " which was never inserted in any collection of his works ;" but he altered the expression when the Lives were collected into volumes. The satire watt added to Cowley's Works by the particular di- rection of Dr. Johnson. — N. elegance of his conversation, that he gained the kindness and confidence of those who attended the King, and amongst others of Lord Falk- land, whose notice cast a lustre on all to whom it was extended. About the time when Oxford was surrender- ed to the parliament, he followed the Queen to Paris, where he became secretary to the Lord Jermyn, afterwards Earl of St. Alban's, and was employed in such correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in cypher- ing and decyphering the letters that passed be- tween the King and Queen ; an employment of the highest confidence and honour. So wide was his province of intelligence, that, for several years, it filled all his days and two or three nights in the week. In the year 1647, his " Mistress" was publish- ed ; for he imagined, as he declared in his pre- face to a subsequent edition, that " poets are scarcely thought freemen of their company without paying some duties, or obliging them- selves to be true to Love." This obligation to amorous ditties owes, I be- lieve, its original to the fame of Petrarch, who, in an age rude and uncultivated, by his tuneful homage to his Laura, refined the manners of the lettered world, and filled Europe with love and poetry. But the basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. Petrarch was a real lover, and Laura doubtless deserved his tenderness. Of Cowley, we are told by Barnes,* who had means enough of information, that, whatever he may talk of his own inflammability, and the variety of characters by which his heart was divided, he in reality was in love but once, and then never had resolution to tell his passion. This consideration cannot but abate, in some measure, the reader's esteem for the work and the author. To love excellence, is natural; it is natural likewise for the lover to solicit reci- procal regard by an elaborate display of his own qualifications. The desire of pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and effusions of wit ; but it seems as reasonable to appear the champion as the poet of an " airy nothing," and to quarrel as to write for what Cowley might have . learned from his master Pindar to call " the dream of a shadow." It is surely not difficult in the solitude of a college, or in the bustle of the world, to find useful studies and serious employment. No man needs to be so burdened with life as to squander it in voluntary dreams of fictitious oc- currences. The man that sits down to suppose himself charged with treason or peculation, and heats his mind to an elaborate purgation of his character from crimes which he was never with- in the possibility of committing, differs only Barnesii Anacrcontena. - Dr. J. C O W LE Y. 3 by tlie infreqnency of his Tolly from him who praises beauty which he never saw ; complains of jealousy which he never feltj supposes him- self sometimes invited, and sometimes for- saken ; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his me- mory, for images which may exhibit the gayety of hope, or the gloominess of despair ; and dres- ses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis, some- times in flowers fading as her beauty, and some- times in gems lasting as her virtues. At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting things of real im- portance with real men and real women, and, at that time did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his let- ters to Mr. Bennett, afterwards Earl of Ar- lington, from April to December, in 1650, are preserved in" Miscellanea Aulica," a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, being written like those of other men whose minds are more on things than words, contri- bute no otherwise to his reputation than as they show him to have been above the affecta- tion of unseasonable elegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation : " The Scotch treaty," says he, " is the only thing now in which we are vitally concerned : I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now ab- stain from believing, that an agreement will be made j all people upon the place incline to that of union. The Scotch will moderate something of the rigour of their demands ; the mutual ne- cessity of an accord is visible, the King is per- suaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which I take to be an argument above aU,the rest,) Virgil has told the same thing to that pur- pose." This expression from a secretary of the pre- sent time would be considered as merely ludi- crous, or at most as an ostentatious display of scholarship ; but the manners of that time were so tinged with superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of having consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian Lots,* and to have given some credit to the answer of his oracle. 1 * Consulting, the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilia- nae, is a method of divination by the opening of Vir- gil, and applying to the circumstances of the peru- ser the first passage in either of the two pages that he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said that King Charles I. and Lord Falkland being in the Bodleian Library, made this experiment of their fu- ture fortunes, and met with passages equally omi- nous to each. That of the King was the following : At bello audacis populi vexatus et armis, Fiuibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli, Auxilium imploret, videatque indigna suorum Some years afterwards, " business," saya Sprat, " passed of course into other hands ; and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656, sent back into England, that " under pre- tence of privacy and retirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation." Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of the usurping powers who were sent out in quest of ano- ther man ; and, being examined, was put in- to confinement, from which he was not dismis- sed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough. This year he published his poems, with a pre- face, in which he seems to have inserted some- thing suppressed in subsequent editions, which was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that Funera : nee, cum se sub leges pads iniquae Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur : Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. jEneid iv. 615. Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes, His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, His men discouraged, and himself expelPd ; Let him for succour sue from place to place, Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain : And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; Nor let him then enjoy supreme command, But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And lie unbury'd on the barren sand. Dryden. Lord Falkland's: Non hasc, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti, Cautius ut sarvo velles te credere Marti. Haud ignarus eram, quantum nova gloria in ar- \ mis, Et praedulce decus primo certamine posset. Primitiae juvenis miserae, bellique propinqui Dura rudimenta, et nulla exaudita Deorum Vota, precesque meas ! JEaeid xi. 152. O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word, To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword ; I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew What perils youthful ardour would pursue ; That boiling blood would carry thee too far, Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war. O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom, Prelude of bloody fields and fights to cornel Hard elements of unauspicious war, Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care! Dryden. Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very satisfactory account of this practice of seeking fates in books » and says, that it was nsed by the Pagans, the Jewish Rabbins, and even the early Christians ; the latter taking the New Testament for their oracle.— H. COWLEY. " his desire had been for some days past, and lid still very vehemently continue, to retire aimself to some of the American plantations, and to forsake this world for ever." From the obloquy which the appearance of submission to the usurpers brought upon him, his biographer has been very diligent to clear him; and indeed it does not seem to have les- sened his reputation. His wish for retirement we can easily believe to be undissembled ; a man harassed in one kingdom, and persecuted in another, who, after a course of business that employed all his days and half his nights, in cyphering and decyphering, comes to his own country, and steps into a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place of quiet and of safety. Yet let neither our reverence for a genius, nor our pity for a sufferer, dispose us to forget that, if his activity was virtue, his retreat ■was cowardice. He then took upon himself the character of physician, still, according to Sprat, with inten- tion " to dissemble the main design of his com- ing over ;" and, as Mr. Wood relates, " comply- ing with th e men then in power (which was much taken notice of by the royal party,) he obtained an order to be created doctor of physic ; which being done to his mind (whereby he gained the ill-will of some of his friends) he went into France again, having made a copy of verses on Oliver's death. " This is no favourable representation, yet even in this not much wrong can be discovered. How far he complied with the men in power, is to be inquired before he can be blamed. It is not said that he told them any secrets, or assisted them by intelligence or any other act. If he only promised to be quiet, that they in whose hands he was, might free him from confinement, he did what no law of society prohibits. The man whose miscarriage in a just cause has put him in the power of his enemy may, without any violation of his integrity, regain his liberty, or preserve his life, by a promise of neutrality : for, the stipulation gives the enemy nothing which he had not before ; the neutrality of a captive may be always secured by his im- prisonment or death. He that is at the disposal of another may not promise to aid him in any injurious act, because no power can compel ac- tive obedience. He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill. There is reason to think that Cowley promis- ed little. It does not appear that his compliance gained him confidence enough to be trusted with- out security, for the bond of his bail was never cancelled : nor that it made him think himself secure; for at that dissolution of government which followed the death of Oliver, he returned xnto France, where he resumed his former sta- tion, and staid till the Restoration. " He continued," says his biographer, " under these bonds till the general deliverance;" it is therefore to be supposed, that he did not go to. France, and act again for the King, without the consent of his bondsman ; that he did not show his loyalty at the hazard of his friend, but by his friend's permission. Of the verses on Oliver's death, in which Wood's narrative seems to imply something en- comiastic, there has been no appearance. There is a discourse concerning his government, indeed, with verses intermixed, but such as certainly gained its author no friends among the abettors of usurpation. A doctor of physic however he was made at Oxford in December, 1657; and in the com- mencement of the Royal Society, of which an account has been given by Dr. Birch, he appears busy among the experimental philosophers with the title of Dr. Cowley. There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice ; but his preparatory studies have contributed something to the honour of his country. Considering botany as necessary to a physician, he retired into Kent to gather plants ; and as the predominance of a favourite study affects all subordinate operations of the intellect, botany in the mind of Cowley turned into poe- try. He composed in Latin several books on plants, of which the first and second display the qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse ; the third and fourth, the beauties of flowers in various mea- sures ; and the fifth and sixth, the uses of trees, in heroic numbers. At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two great poets, Cowley and Milton, of dissimilar genius, of opposite principles ; but concurring in the cultivation of Latin poetry, in which the English, till their works and May's poem appeared,* seemed un- able to contest the palm with any other of the lettered nations. If the Latin performances of Cowley and Milton be compared (for May I hold to be su- perior to both,) the advantage seems to lie on the side of Cowley. Milton is generally content to express the thoughts of the ancients in their language ; Cowley, without much loss of purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own conceptions. At the Restoration, after all the diligence of his long service, and with consciousness not only of the merit of fidelity, but of the dignity of great abilities, he naturally expected ample pre- ferments ; and, that he might not be forgotten by his own fault, wrote a Song of Triumph, But this was a time of such general hope, that * By May's poem we are h ere to understand a continuation of Lucan's Pharsalia to the death of Julius Caesar, by Thomas May, an eminent poet and historian, who flourished in the reigns of James and Charles I. and of whom a life is given in the Bio- graphia Britaunica. — H. C O W LE Y. by the infrequency of his folly from him who praises beauty which he never saw ; complains of jealousy which he never felt; supposes him- self sometimes invited, and sometimes for- saken ; fatigues his fancy, and ransacks his me- mory, for images which may exhibit the gayety of hope, or the gloominess of despair; and dres- ses his imaginary Chloris or Phyllis, some- times in flowers fading as her beauty, and some- times in gems lasting as her virtues. At Paris, as secretary to Lord Jermyn, he was engaged in transacting things of real im- portance with real men and real women, and at that time did not much employ his thoughts upon phantoms of gallantry. Some of his let- ters to Mr. Bennett, afterwards Earl of Ar- lington, from April to December, in 1650, are preserved in " Miscellanea Aulica," a collection of papers published by Brown. These letters, being written like those of other men whose minds are more on things than words, contri- bute no otherwise to his reputation than as they show him to have been above the affecta- tion of unseasonable elegance, and to have known that the business of a statesman can be little forwarded by flowers of rhetoric. One passage, however, seems not unworthy of some notice. Speaking of the Scotch treaty then in agitation : " The Scotch treaty," says he, " is the only thing now in which we are vitally concerned : I am one of the last hopers, and yet cannot now ab- stain from believing, that an agreement will be made ; all people upon the place incline to that of union. The Scotch will moderate something of the rigour of their demands ; the mutual ne- cessity of an accord is visible, the King is per- suaded of it. And to tell you the truth (which I take to be an argument above all Jhe rest,) Virgil has told the same thing to that pur- pose." This expression from a secretary of the pre- sent time would be considered as merely ludi- crous, or at most as an ostentatious display of scholarship ; but the manners of that time were so tinged with superstition, that I cannot but suspect Cowley of having consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian Lots,* and to have given some credit to the answer of his oracle. • Consulting the Virgilian Lots, Sortes Virgilia- nae, is a method of divination by the opening of Vir- gil, and applying to the circumstances of the peru- ser the first passage in either of the two pages that he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said that King Charles I. and Lord Falkland being in the Bodleian Library, made this experiment of their fu- ture fortunes, and met with passages equally omi- nous to each. That of the King was the following : At bello audacis popuh* vcxatus et armis, Finibus extorris, complexu avulsus Iuli, Auailium imploret, videatque indigna sv.orum Some years afterwards, " business/' says Sprat, " passed of course, into other hands ; and Cowley, being no longer useful at Paris, was in 1656, sent back into England, that " under pre- tence of privacy and retirement, he might take occasion of giving notice of the posture of things in this nation." Soon after his return to London, he was seized by some messengers of the usurping powers who were sent out in quest of ano- ther man ; and, being examined, was put in- to confinement, from which he was not dismis- sed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr. Scarborough. This year he published his poems, with a pre- face, in which he seems to have inserted some- thing suppressed in subsequent editions, which was interpreted to denote some relaxation of his loyalty. In this preface he declares, that Funera : nee, cum se sub leges pads iniquae Tradiderit, regno aut optata luce fruatur : Sed cadat ante diem, mediaque inhumatus arena. Maeid iv. 615. Yet let a race untamed, and haughty foes, His peaceful entrance with dire arms oppose, Oppress'd with numbers in th' unequal field, His men discouraged, and himself expell'd ; Let him for succour sue from place to place,' Torn from his subjects and his son's embrace. First let him see his friends in battle slain, And their untimely fate lament in vain : And when, at length, the cruel war shall cease, On hard conditions may he buy his peace ; Nor let him then enjoy supreme command But fall untimely by some hostile hand, And lie unbury'd on the barren sand. Dryden. Lord Falkland's: Non hsec, O Palla, dederas promissa parenti, Cautius ut ssevo velles te credere Marti. Haud ignarus eram, qxiantum nova gloria in ar- mis, Et prajdulce decus primo certamine posset. Primitiae juvenis miseras, bellique propinqui Dura rudimenta, et nulla exaudita Deorum Vota, precesque meas ! jEneid xi. 152. O Pallas, thou hast fail'd thy plighted word, To fight with caution, not to tempt the sword ; I warn'd thee, but in vain, for well I knew What perils youthful ardour would pursue ; That boiling blood would carry thee too far, Young as thou wert to dangers, raw to war. O curs'd essay of arms, disastrous doom, Prelude of bloody fields and fights to come ! Hard elements of unauspicious war, Vain vows to Heaven, and unavailing care !' Dryden. Hoffman, in his Lexicon, gives a very satisfactory account of this practice of seeking fates in books , and says, that it was used by the Pagans, the Jewish Rabbins, and even the early Christians ; the latter { taking the New Testament for their oracle.— H. COWLE Y. full, that I am yet unable to move or turn my- self in my bed. This is my personal fortune here to begin with. And, besides, I can get no money from my tenants, and have my meadows eaten up every night by cattle put in by my neighbours. What this signifies, or may come to in time, God knows ; if it be ominous, it can end in nothing else than hanging. Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the rest, that you have broke your word with me, and failed to come, even though you told Mr. Bois that you would. This is what they call monstri simile. I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within five or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever recover it,) as to walk about again. And then, methinks, you and I and the Dean might be very merry Upon St. Ann's Hill. You might very conve- niently come hither the way of Hampton Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more : Verbum Sapienti." He did not long enjoy the pleasure, or suffer the uneasiness of solitude ; for he died at the Porch-house * in Chertsey, 1667, in the 49th year of his age. He was buried with great pomp near Chau- cer and Spenser, and King Charles pronounced, " That Mr. Cowley bad not left behind hin a better man in England." He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind ; and this posthumous praise may safely be credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction. Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat ; who, writing when the feuds of the civil war were yet recent, and the minds of either party were easily irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell, cannot however now be known; I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to which my narration can be considered only as a slender supplement. Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing in- tellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much ne- glected at another. W T it, like all other things subject by their na- ture to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of tbe seventeenth century, appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets : of whom, in a • Now in the possession of Mr. Clark, Alderman of London, Dr. J. — Mr. Clark was in 1798 elected to the important office of Chamberlain of London ; and has every year since been unanimously re- elected.— N criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not im- proper to give some account. The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole en- deavour : but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables. If the father of criticism has rightly denomi- nated poetry ri%vr, fu/Mirixb, an imitative art, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets ; for they cannot be said to have imitated any thing : they neither copied nature nor life ; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect. Those however who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit ; but maintains, that they surpass him in poetry. If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it ; for they endea- voured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous : he depresses it below its natural dignity, and re- duces it from strength of thought to happiness of language. If by a more noble and more adequate con- ception that be considered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknow- ledged to be just; if it be that which he that never found it wonders how he missed ; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural ; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophi- cally considered as a kind of discordia concors ; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently un- like. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together ; nature and art are ran- sacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allu- sions; their learning instructs, and their sub- tlety surprises ; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were Eot COWLEY, successful in representing or moving the affec- tions. As they were wholly employed on some- thing unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds : they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done ; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature ; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure ; as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had never been said before. Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic, for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in pos- itions not limited by exceptions, and in descrip- tions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness ; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were al- ways analytic; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particulari- ties, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who dissects a sun-beam with a prism, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a t summer noon. What they wanted, however, of the sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyper- bole ; their amplification had no limits ; they left not only reason but fancy behind them ; and produced combinations, of confused magni- ficence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined. Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost ; if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they like- wise sometimes struck out unexpected truth : if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor as- sume the dignity of a writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations bor- rowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry ; either something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be exam- ined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises ; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of re- flection and comparison are employed ; and, in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried per- haps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value ; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety, though less copious- ness of sentiment. This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge ; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments. When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improv- ing the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much senti- ment and more music. Suckling neither im- proved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley ; Suckling could not reach it, and Mil- ton disdained it. Critical Remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have therefore collect- ed instances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers) was eminent- ly distinguished. As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Know- ledge: The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew; The phoenix Truth did en it rest. And built his perfurn'd nest, [shew. That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic Each leaf did learned notions give, And th' apples were demonstrative : So clear their colour and divine, The very shade they cast did other lights outshine. ON ANACREON CONTINUING A LOVER IK HIS OLD AGE. Love was with thy life entwin'd, Close as heat with fire is join'd ; COWLEY. A powerful brand prescribed tbe date Of thine, like Meleager's fate. Th' antiperistasis of age More enflamed thy amorous rage. In the following verses we have an allusion to a Rabbinical opinion concerning manna : Variety I ask not : give me on To live perpetually upon. ; The person Love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it. Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses : In every thing there naturally grows A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows ; Your youth and beauty are this balm in yo But you, of learning and religion, And virtue and such ingredients, have made A roithridate, whose operation Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the year, have something in. .them too scholastic, they are not inelegant : This twilight cf two years, not past nor nex^. Some emblem is of me, or I of this, Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext, Whose what and where in disputation is, If I should call me any thing, should miss. I sum the years and me, and find me not Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new. That cannot say, my thanks I have forgot, Not trust I this with hopes ; and yet scarce true This bravery is, since these times show'd me you. Donne. Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Microcosm : If men be worlds, there is in every one Something to answer in some proportion ; All the world's riches : and in good men, this Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is. Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full. TO A LADY, WHO WROTE POESIES FOR RIN ' They, who above do various circles find, Say, like a ring, th' equator heaven does bind. When heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, (Which then more heav'n than 'tis will be^ 'Tis thou must write the poesy there, For it wanteth one as yet, Then the stm pass through't twice ttPyear, The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit. Cowley. The difficulties which have been raised about Identity in philosophy, are by Cowley with still more perplexity applied to Love : Five years ago (says story) I loved you, For which you call me most inconstant now ; Pardon me, Madam, you mistake the man ; For I am not tbe dame that I was then ; No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me, And that my mind is changed yourself may see* The same thoughts to retain still, and intents, Were more inconstant far : for accidents Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove. If from one subject they f another move ; My members then the father members were, From whence these take their birth which now are here. If then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere incest, which by nature is forbid. The love of different women is, in geographi- cal poetry, compared to travels through different countries : Hast thou not found each woman's breast (The laud where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited 1 What joy could'st take, or what repose, In countries so uncivilized as those 1 Lust, the scorching dog-star, here Rages with immoderate heat ; Whilst Pride, the rugged northern bear, In others makes the cold too great. And where these are temperate known, The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. Cowley. A loverj burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt : The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain From clouds which in the head appear ; But all my too much moisture owe To overflowings of the heart below. Cowley. The Lover supposes his Lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice : And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear : When sound in every other part, Her sacrifice is found without an heart. For the last tempest of my death Shall sigh out that too with my breath. That the chaos was harmonized, has been re- cited of old; but whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover : Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew ; An artless war from thwarting motions grew ; Till they to number and fixt rules were brought. Water and air he for the Tenor chose, Earth made the Bass ; the Treble, flame arose. Cowley, The tears of lovers are always of great poeti- cal account ; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again. On a round ball A workman, that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, And quickly make that which was nothing all. C OWLE Y. So doth each tear, Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, . Till thy tears mixt with mine do overflow This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. On reading the following lines, the reader inay perhaps cry out — " Confusion worse con- founded:" Here lies a she sun, and a he moon here, She gives the best light to his sphere, Or each is both, and all, and so They unto one another nothing owe. Donne. Who hut Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope ? Though God be our true glass through which we see All, since the being of all things is he ; Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive Things in proportion fit, by perspective Deeds of good men ; for by their living here, Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near. Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many remote ideas could be brought together ? Since 'tis my doom, Love's undershrieve, Why this reprieve ? Why doth my she advowson fly Incumbency ? To sell thyself dost thou intend By candle's end, And hold the contrast thus in doubt, Life's taper out? Think but bow soon the market fails, Your sex Irves faster than the males, And if to measure age's span, The sober Julian were th' account of man, Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian. Cleiveland. Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples : By every wind that comes this way, Send me at least a sigh or two, S uch and bo many I'll repay As shall themselves make wings to get to you. Cowley. In tears I'll waste these eyes, By love so vainly fed ; So lust of old the Deluge punished. Cowley. All arm'diu brass, the richest dress* of war, (A dismal glorious sight !) he shone afar. The sun himself started with sudden fright, To see his beams return so dismal bright. Cowley. A universal consternation : His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws Tear up the ground : then runs he wild about, Lashing his angry tail, and roaring out. Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there ; Trees, though no wind is stirring, e>hake with fear ; Silence and horror fill the place around ; Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. Cowley. Their fictions were often violent and unnatural. OF HIS MISTRESS BATHING. The fish around her crowded, as they do To the false light that treacherous fishers show, And all with as much ease might taken be, As she at first took me : For ne'er did light so clear Among the waves appear, Though every night the sun himself set there. Cowley. the poetical effects of a lover's name upon glass. My name engraved herein Doth contribute my firmness to this glass ; Which, ever since that charm, hath been As hard as that which graved it was. Donne. Their conceits were sentiments slight and trifling. ON AN INCONSTANT WOMAN. He enjoys the calmy sunshine now, And no breath stirring hears, In the clear heaven of thy brow, No smallest cloud appears. He sees thee gentle, fair, and gay, ( And trusts the faithless April of thy May. Cowley. upon a paper written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire. Nothing yet in thee is seen, But when a genial heat warms the 3 within, A new-born wood of various lines there grows ; Here buds an L, and there a B, Here spouts a V, and there a T, And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. Cowley. As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross : whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little. PHYSIC AND CHIRURGERY FOR A LOVER. Gently, ah gently, madam, touch The wound, which you yourself have made ; That pain must needs be very much, Which makes me of your hand afraid. Cordials of pity give me now, For I too weak of purgings grow. COWLKT. THE WORLD AND A CLOCK. Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace j 10 COWLEY.