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 positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions_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 always analytick: they broke every image into fragments, and could no more represent by their slender conceits and laboured particularities 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 summer noon. What they wanted however of the sublime they endeavoured 59 to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits: they left not only reason but fancy behind them, and produced combinations of confused magnificence that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined. Yet great labour directed by great abilities is never wholly 60 lost if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth2> 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 assume the dignity of a writer by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme and volubility of syllables 3. 'Johnson defines subtlety (he And glitt'ring thoughts struck out 3 Southey, quoting this passage, says:-Justly as Johnson condemned the metaphysical poets, he saw how superior they were to those who were trained up in the school of Dryden.' Southey's Cowper, ii. 136. 'In the elder poets, from Donne to Cowley, we find the most fantastic out-of-the-way thoughts, but in the most pure and genuine mother English; in the modern poets the most obvious thoughts in language the ld In perusing the works of this race of authors the minds exercised either by recollection or inquiry; either something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; ( employed and in the mass of materials, which ingenious absurdity has 62 thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be Sometimes found, buried perhaps 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 copiousness 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 improving the harmony of our numbers 5. Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors; having as much sentiment and more musick. Suckling neither improved versification nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley: Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it". 64 CRITICAL REMARKS are not easily understood without exmost fantastic and arbitrary.' ColeRIDGE, Biog. Lit. i. 22. 'I always said about Cowley, Donne, &c., whom Johnson calls the metaphysical poets, that their very quibbles of fancy showed a power of logic which could follow fancy through such remote analogies.' Letters of Edward FitzGerald, ii. 26. 3 Dryden defines Cleivelandism as 'wresting and torturing a word into another meaning.' Works, xv. 287. * Johnson omits Sprat (post, SPRAT, 22). Cunningham points out (i. 22) the omission of Crashaw and Herbert. 5 Post, DENHAM, 21; WALLER, 5, 142. 6 Milton's Poetical Works (ed. V Aldis Wright), p. 23. 7 6 'Wit,' said Gray, 'had gone en tirely out of fashion since the reign of Charles II.' Mitford's Gray, v. 39. amples, and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets, for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers, was eminently distinguished. As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of 65 being admired than understood they sometimes drew their loo conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by to unkno common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Knowledge: The sacred tree midst the fair orchard grew; The phoenix Truth did on it rest, And built his perfum'd nest, That right Porphyrian tree which did true logick shew. 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 in his old age: 'Love was with thy life entwin'd, More enflam'd thy amorous rage'.' 66 In the following verses we have an allusion to a Rabbinical 67 opinion concerning Manna: 'Variety I ask not: give me one To live perpetually upon. The person Love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it.' Thus Donne shews his medicinal knowledge in some encomias- 68 tick verses: I 'In every thing there naturally grows A balsamum to keep it fresh and new, If 'twere not injur'd by extrinsique blows; Your youth [birth] and beauty are this balm in you. 1 Eng. Poets, vii. 144. 2 lb. vii. 197. This hard word [antiperistasis] only means compression. The word is used by naturalists to express the power which one quality has by pressing on all sides. to augment its contrary; as here the cold with which old age is surrounded increases heat. He expresses this learning. But you, of learning and religion, A mithridate, 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 scholastick, they are not inelegant : 'This twilight of two years, not past nor next, That cannot say my thanks I have forgot, Nor trust this with hopes; and yet scarce true DONNE. Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon Man as a Microcosm : 'If men be worlds, there is in every one All the world's riches: and in good men this 2 Of thoughts so far-fetched as to be not only unexpected but unnatural, all their books are full. To a lady, who wrote [made] poesies for rings: Say, like a ring th' æquator heaven does bind. (Which then more heaven than 'tis, will be), For it wanteth one as yet, Though the sun pass through 't twice a year, The sun, which [who] is esteem'd the god of wit.' COWLEY. 72 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 lov'd you, • Grosart's Donne, ii. 30. 3 Ib. ii. 79. now; * Eng. Poets, vii. 127. Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man; Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t'another move: My members then, the father members were From whence these take their birth, which now are here. The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared 73 to travels through different countries: 'Hast thou not found, each woman's breast (The land [lands] where thou hast travelled) Either by savages possest, Or wild, and uninhabited? What joy could'st take, or what repose, In countries so uncivilis'd as those? Lust, the scorching dog star, here COWLEY 2. A lover burnt up by his affection is compared to Egypt: 'The fate of Egypt I sustain, From clouds which in the head appear; But all my too much moisture owe To overflowings of the heart below.'-CowLEY 3. 74 The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws 75 of augury and rites of sacrifice : 'And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear: When found 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'.' Eng. Poets, viii. 13. 21b. viii. 48. In the edition of Cowley's Poems, 1674, the last line runs : 'The soyls are,' &c. 3 lb. viii. 61. |