First her eye kindles [eyes kindle] other ladies' eyes, And from their jewels torches do take fire, And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.'-DONNE1. They were in very little care to clothe their notions with 88 elegance of dress, and therefore miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts. That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by 89 Cowley thus expressed: 'Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand, Than women can be plac'd by Nature's hand; To change thee, as thou'rt there, for very thee'.' That prayer and labour should co-operate are thus taught 90 by Donne : 'In none but us, are such mixt engines found, As hands of double office: for the ground We till with them; and them to heaven we raise; Who prayerless labours, or without this prays, Doth but one half, that's none 3.' By the same author a common topick, the danger of procrasti- 91 nation, is thus illustrated: 'That which I should have begun In my youth's morning, now late must be done; And I, as giddy travellers must do, Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost Light and strength, dark and tir'd must then ride post *.' (All that Man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity 92 is comprehended by Donne in the following lines: 'Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie After, enabled but to suck and cry. Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn, A province pack'd up in two yards of skin, And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a [the] rage Of sicknesses, or their true mother, age. But think that death hath now enfranchis'd thee; In pieces, and the bullet is his own, ' Grosart's Donne, i. 262. 3 Grosart's Donne, ii. 38. 4 lb. ii. 15. مهن 94 And freely flies: this to thy soul allow, Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but now'.' They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises beauty: '-Thou tyrant, which leav'st no man free! Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be! Thou murtherer, which hast kill'd, and devil, which would'st damn me!' Thus he addresses his Mistress : 'Thou who, in many a propriety, So truly art the sun to me, Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can, Thus he represents the meditations of a Lover: 'Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been So much as of original sin, Such charms thy beauty wears as might Desires in dying confest saints excite. Dost in each breast a brothel keep; The true taste of Tears: Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come, And take my tears, which are Love's wine, And try your mistress' tears at home; For all are false that taste not just like mine.' 95 This is yet more indelicate: 'As the sweet sweat of roses in a still, DONNE 5. As that which from chaf'd musk-cat's pores doth trill, Such are the sweet drops of [on] my mistress' breast. They seem no sweat-drops, but pearl coronets [carkanets] Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.'-DONNE. 96 Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be pathetick: 'As men in hell are from diseases free, So from all other ills am I, 4 Ib. viii. 95. 5 Grosart's Donne, ii. 186. Free from their known formality: But all pains eminently lie in thee.'-COWLEY '. fulerhoods mode. THEY were not always strictly curious whether the opinions 97 'It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke; Like poison put into a Venice-glass.'-COWLEY3. IN forming descriptions they looked out not for images, but 98 for conceits. Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known*; Donne's is as follows: 'Thou seest me here at midnight; now all rest, IT must be however confessed of these writers that if they 99 are upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle, yet where scholastick speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope shews an unequalled rais fertility of invention: I Hope, whose weak being ruin'd is, Whom good or ill does equally confound, And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound; Eng. Poets, viii. 75. 'As things now are, if an untruth in nature be once on foot, what by reason of the neglect of examination and countenance of antiquity, and what by reason of the use of the opinion in similitudes and ornaments If things then from their end we happy call, Hope, thou bold taster of delight, Who, whilst thou should'st but taste, devour'st it quite! The joys which we entire should wed, For joy, like wine, kept close does better taste: 100 To the following comparison of a man that travels and his wife that stays at home with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim : 'Our two souls therefore, which are one, A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat. If they be two, they are two so And though it in the centre sit, And grows erect, as that comes home. 1 Eng. Poets, viii. 54. 2 Grosart's Donne, ii. 211, where the poem is entitled Upon Partinge from his Mistris. Walton, quoting the whole poem (A Valediction, Forbidding to Mourn), says 'they were given by Mr. Donne to his wife at the time he parted from her,' when he accompanied the English am bassador to Paris. DONNE 2. Walton's Lives, A curious mathematical quatrain of Omar's has been pointed out to me; the more curious because almost exactly paralleled by some verses of Dr. Donne's. Here is Omar :"You and I are the image of a pair of compasses, though we have two In all these examples it is apparent that whatever is im- 101 proper or vicious is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something new and strange, and that the writers fail to give delight by their desire of exciting admiration. HAVING thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation 102 of the style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race and undoubtedly the best. Cowley Iwersity His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, 103 written some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they were called forth by different occasions; with great variety of style and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an assemblage of diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose the best among many good is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticism. I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom'. I will however venture to recommend Cowley's first piece, which ought to be inscribed To my Muse, for want of which the second couplet is without reference2. When the title is added, there will still remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make it Pindari et Nemeonicarum, quarum 2 It is inscribed The Motto. It 'What shall I do to be for ever And make the age to come my I shall like beasts or common people Unless you write my elegy.' Eng. Poets, vii. 107. 'We have had in our language,' wrote Gray, 'no other odes of the sublime kind than that of Dryden On St. Cecilia's Day; for Cowley, who had his merit, yet wanted judgment, style and harmony for such a task.' Mitford's Gray, i. 36 n. |