ther had used it: his known wealth was fo great, that he might have borrowed without lofs of credit. In his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the last lines have fuch resemblance to the noble epigram of Grotius upon the death of Scaliger, that I cannot but think them copied from it, though they are copied by no fervile hand. One paffage in his Miftrefs is fo apparently borrowed from Donne, that he probably would not have written it, had it not mingled with his own thoughts, fo as that he did not perceive himself taking it from another. Altho' I think thou never found wilt be, way. Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine Say, where his centric happiness doth lie : But should I love, get, tell, till I were old, Oh, 'tis impofture all: And as no chymic yet th' elixir got, But glorifies his pregnant pot, Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, So, So, lovers dream a rich and long delight, It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his obligation to the learning and industry of Jonfon, but I have found no traces of Jonfon in his works; to emulate Donne appears to have been his purpose; and from Donne he may have learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allufion to facred things, by which readers far fhort of fanctity are frequently offended; and which would 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 recompense him by another which Milton feems to have borrowed from him. He fays of Goliah, His fpear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, Which Nature meant fome 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 arbi trary trary muft owe their power to affociation, and have the influence, and that only, which cuftom has given them, Language is the dress of thought; and as the nobleft mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obfcured by a garb appropriated to the grofs employments of rufticks or mechanicks, fo the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most fplendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occafions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications. Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reafon; they have an intrinfick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies deftruction: but gold may be fo concealed in bafer matter 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 cost of their extraction. The diction being the vehicle of the thoughts, first prefents itself to the intellectual eye; and if the first appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often fought. Whatever profeffes to benefit by pleafing, must please at once. The pleafures of reafon imply fomething fudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always furprife. What is perceived by flow degrees may gratify us with the confcioufness of improvement, but will never strike with the fenfe of pleasure. Of all this, Cowley feems to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes makes no selection of words, nor feeks any neatness of phrafe: he has no elegancies either lucky or elaborate; as his endeavours. were rather to imprefs fentences upon the understanding than images on the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scattered 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 heroick 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 many noble lines, fuch as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts fometimes fwelled his verse 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 meannefs or af perity. His contractions are often rugged and harsh : One flings a mountain, and its rivers too His rhymes are very often made by pronouns or particles, or the like unimportant words, words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy 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 easily into the latter. The words do and did, which so much degrade in prefent estimation 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 paffage, in which every reader will lament to fee just and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance of language ; Where honour or where conscience does not bind, No other law fhall fhackle me. Slave to myself I ne'er will be; Nor fhall my future actions be confin'd Who, by refolves and vows engag'd does For days, that yet belong to fate, Does like an unthrift mortgage his estate, The bondman of the cloifter fo, All that he does receive does always owe. Which his hours' work as well as hours does tell; Unhappy till the laft, the kind releafing knell. |