tion of particulars is turned more upon the original than the fecondary fenfe, more upon that from which the illuftration is drawn than that to which it is applied.

Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled The Mufe, who goes to take the air in an intellectual chariot, to which he harneffes Fancy and Judgment, Wit and Eloquence, Memory and Invention: how he diftinguished Wit from Fancy, or how Memory could properly contribute to Motion, he has not explained: we are however content to fuppofe that he could have justified his own fiction, and wish to see the Mufe begin her career; but there is yet more to be done.

Let the poftilion Nature mount, and let
The coachman Art be fet;

And let the airy footmen, running all befide,

Make a long row of goodly pride;

Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences, In a well-worded dress,

And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies,

In all their gaudy liveries.

Every mind is now disgufted with this cumber of magnificence; yet I cannot refuse myfelf the four next lines:

Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,

And bid it to put on ;

For long though cheerful is the way,

And life alas allows but one ill winter's day.

In the fame ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her prefcience, or in poetical language, the forefight of events hatching in futurity; but having once an egg in his mind, he cannot forbear to fhew us that he knows what an egg contains:

Thou into the close nefts of time do'ft peep, And there with piercing eye

Through the firm thell and the thick white doft fpy

Years to come a-forming lie,

Close in their facred fecundine asleep.

The fame thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically, expreffed by Cafimir, a writer who has many of the beauties and faults of Cowley;

Omnibus mundi Dominator horis
Aptat urgendas per inane pennas,
Pars adhuc nido latet, & futuros.
Crefcit in annos.

Cowley, whatever was his fubject, feems to have been carried, by a kind of destiny, to the light and the familiar, or to conceits which require ftill more ignoble epithets. A flaughter in the Red Sea, new dies the waters name; and England, during the Civil War, was Albion no more, nor to be named from white. It is furely by fome fafcination not eafily furmounted, that a writer, profeffing to revive the nobleft and bigbeft writing in verfe, makes this addrefs to

the new year:

Nay,

Nay, if thou lov'ft me, gentle year,
Let not so much as love be there,

Vain fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,
Although I fear,

There's of this caution little need,
Yet, gentle year, take heed

How thou doft make

Such love I mean alone

As by thy cruel predeceffors has been shewn; For, tho' I have too much cause to doubt it, I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.

The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior—

-Ye Criticks, fay,

How poor to this was Pindar's ftile!

Even those who cannot perhaps find in the Ifthmian or Nemeæan fongs what Antiquity has difpofed them to expect, will at leaft fee that they are ill reprefented by fuch puny poetry; and all will determine that if this be the old Theban strain, it is not worthy of revival,

To the difproportion and incongruity of Cowley's fentiments must be added the uncertainty and looseness of his measures. He takes the liberty of using in any place a verse of any length, from two fyllables to twelve. The verfes of Pindar have, as he obferves, very little harmony to a modern ear; yet by examining the fyllables we perceive them to be regular, and have reafon enough for fuppofing that the ancient audiences were delighted with the found. The imitator ought therefore to

have adopted what he found, and to have added what was wanting; to have preferved a conftant return of the fame numbers, and to have fupplied smoothness of transition and continuity of thought.

It is urged by Dr. Sprat, that the irregularity of numbers is the very thing which makes that kind of poefy fit for all manner of fubjects. But he should have remembered, that what is fit for every thing can fit nothing well. The great pleasure of verse arises from the known measure of the lines, and uniform structure of the stanzas, by which the voice is regulated, and the memory relieved.

If the Pindarick ftile be, what Cowley thinks it, the highest and noblest kind of writing in verfe, it can be adapted only to high and noble fubjects; and it will not be eafy to reconcile the poet with the critic, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of writing in verfe, which, according to Sprat, is chiefly to be preferred for its near affinity to profe.

This lax and lawless verfification fo much concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the lazinefs of the idle, that it immediately overfpread our books of poetry; all the boys and girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing else could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded, and diforder tried to break into the Latin a poem on the Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verfe are fhaken together, is unhappily inferted in the Mufæ Anglicana. Pindarifm prevailed above half a century; but at laft died gradually away, and other imitations fupply its place.

The

The Pindarique Odes have fo long enjoyed the highest degree of poetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with unabated cenfure; and furely though the mode of their compofition be erroneous, yet many parts deferve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehenfion of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the greatnefs of one part is difgraced by the little.efs of another, and total negligence of language gives the nobleft conceptions the appearance of a fabrick august in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet furely thofe verfes are not without a juft claim to praise; of which it may be faid with truth, that no man but Cowley could have written them.

The Davideis now remains to be confidered; a poem which the author defigned to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no fcruple of declaring, because the Eneid had that number; but he had leisure or perseverance only to write the third part. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenfer, and Cowley. That we have not the whole Davideis is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at least, confeffed to have mifcarried. There are not many examples of fo great a work, produced by an author generally read, and generally praised, that has crept through a century with fo little regard. Whatever is faid of Cowley, is meant of his other works Of the Davideis no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor emerges in conversation. By the Spectator it has once

been