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 spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, Which Nature meant some tall ship's maft should be. Milton of Satan : His fpear, to equal which the tallest pine 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 must 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 moft graceful action, would be degraded and obfcured by a garb appropriated to the grofs employments of rufticks or mechanicks; fo the most heroick fentiments will lofe their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used 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 diftinguish it; and both may be fo buried in impurities, as not to pay the coft 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 muft always furprise. What is perceived by flow degrees may gratify us with consciousness of improvement, but will never ftrike with the fenfe of pleasure, Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes no selection of words, nor feeks any neatness of phrase: he has no elegancies either lucky or elaborate: as his endea vours were rather to impress fentences upon the understanding 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. IX. 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 careleffnefs, and avoids with very little care either meanness or asperity. His contractions are often rugged and harsh: 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 verfes together, of which the former does not flide eafily into the latter. The words do and did, which fo much degrade in present eftimation 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 least to our ears, will appear by a passage, 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, Slave to myself I ne'er will be; Nor fhall my future actions be confin'd By my own present mind. Who Who by refolves and vows engag'd does ftand The bondman of the cloifter fo, All that he does receive does always owę. Which his hour's work as well as hours does tell: His heroic lines are often formed of monofyllables; but yet they are fometimes sweet and fonorous. He says of the Meffiah, Round the whole earth his dreaded name fhall found, And reach to worlds that must not yet be found. In another place, of David, Yet bid him go fecurely, when he fends; Yet amidst his negligence he fometimes attempted an improved and scientifick verfification; of which it will be beft 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 "most part of readers, that it is not by negligence "that this verfe is fo loofe, long, and, as it were, " vaft; F 2 "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 else will pafs for very careless verses: as "before, And over-runs the neighb'ring fields with violent course. "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, Brafs was his helmet, his boots brass, and o'er "In the fourth, Like fome fair pine o'er-looking all th' ignobler wood. "And, Some from the rocks cajt 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 obferved it, for aught I can find. The Latins (qui Mufas colunt feveriores) fometimes did it; and their prince, Virgil, always: in "whom the examples are innumerable, and taken 66 86 "notice |