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In a fimile descriptive of the morning :

As glimm'ring stars just at th' approach of day,

Cashier'd by troops, at last drop all away.

The dress of Gabriel deferves attention :

He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e'er the midday fun pierc'd thro' with light,

Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Wash'd from the morning beauties deepest red, An harmless flatt'ring meteor fhone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care: He cuts out a filk mantle from the skies, Where the most spritely azure pleas'd the

eyes;

This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;

Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,

The choicest piece cut out, a scarfe is made.

This is a just fpecimen of Cowley's imagery; what might in general expreffions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the foftest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and difmiffed to improve the idea in our different proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got firft his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and the taylor.

Some

Sometimes he indulges himself in a di greffion, always conceived with his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious:

I' th' library a few choice authors stood,
Yet 'twas well ftor'd; for that small store
was good;

Writing, man's fpiritual phyfic, was not

then

Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. Learning (young virgin) but few fuitors knew ;

The common prostitute fhe lately grew, And with the fpurious brood loads now the prefs;

Laborious effects of idleness !

As the Davideis affords only four books, though intended to confift of twelve, there is no opportunity for fuch criticism as Epick poems commonly fupply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly fhewn by the third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or fhewn but upon few occafions, the full extent and the nice difcriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyffey than the Iliad; and many artifices of diverfification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the beft models. The paft is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vifion: but he has been fo lavifh of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more

without

without practifing again the fame modes of difpofing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to ftop. By this abruption, pofterity lost more inftruction than delight. If the continuation of the Davideis can be miffed, it is for the learning that had been diffufed over it, and the notes in which it had been explained.

Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by improper decorations, they would have deferved uncommon praife. He gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero :

His way once chofe, he forward thrust outright,

Nor turn'd afide for danger or delight.

And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michal are very justly conceived and strongly painted.

Rymer has declared the Davideis fuperior to the Jerufalem of Taffo, "which, fays he, the poet, with all his care, has not totally purged from pedantry." If by pedantry is meant that minute knowledge which is derived from particular sciences and ftudies, in oppofition to the general notions fupplied by a wide furvey of life and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry far more frequently than Taffo. I know not, indeed, why they should be compared, for the refemblance of Cowley's work to Tallo's, is only that they both exhibit the agency of celeftial and infernal fpirits, in which however they differ widely; for Cowley fuppofes them commonly to operate upon the mind by fuggeftion; Taffo represents them

F

as

as promoting or obstructing events by external agency.

Of particular paffages that can be properly compared, I remember only the defcription of Heaven, in which the different manner of the two writers is fufficiently difcernible. Cowley's is fcarcely defcription, unless it be poffible to defcribe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is not in heaven; Tasso endeavours to represent the fplendours and pleafures of the regions of happiness. Taffo affords images, and Cowley fentiments. It happens, however, that Taffo's description affords fome reafon for Rymer's cenfure. He says of the Supreme Being,

Hà fotto i piedi e fato e la natura
Miniftri humili, e'l moto, e chi'l mifura.

The second line has in it more of pedantry than perhaps can be found in any other stanza of the poem.

In the perufal of the Davideis, as of all Cowley's works, we find wit and learning unprofitably fquandered. Attention has no relief; the affections are never moved; we are fometimes surprised, but never delighted, and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still however it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by nature, and replenished by study.

In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found, that he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unfkilful felection; with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetick, and rarely fublime,

but

but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or profound.

It is faid by Denham in his elegy,

To him no author was unknown;
Yet what he writ was all his own.

This wide pofition requires lefs limitation, when it is affirmed of Cowley than perhaps of any other poet-He read much, and yet borrowed little.

His character of writing was indeed not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He faw a certain way to prefent praife, and not fufficiently enquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure in its spring was bright and gay, but which time has been continually ftealing from his brows.

He was in his own time confidered as of unrivalled excellence. Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him; and Milton is faid to have declared, that the three greatest English poets were Spenfer, Shakespeare, and Cowley.

His manner he had in common with others; but his fentiments were his own. Upon every fubject he thought for himself; and fuch was his copiousness of knowledge, that something at once remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea merely because anoF 2

ther

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