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His heroick lines are often formed of monofyllables; but yet they are sometimes sweet and fonorous.

He says of the Meffiah,

Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall found,

And reach to worlds that must not yet be found.

In another place, of David,

Yet bid him go fecurely, when he fends;
'Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends.
The man who has his God, no aid can lack,
And we who bid him go, will bring him back.

He did not write without attempting an improved and scientifick verfification; of which it will be beft to give his own account fubjoined to this line,

Nor can the glory contain itself in th endless space.

"I am forry that it is neceffary to admo"nish the most part of readers, that it is not

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by negligence that this verse is so loose, long, "and, as it were, vaft; it is to paint in the "number the nature of the thing which it

describes, which I would have observed in "divers other places of this poem, that else "will pass for very careless verses: as before,

And over-runs the neighb'ring fields with violent courfe.

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Down a precipice deep, down he caft them all

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And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care.

"In the third,

Brafs was his helmet, his boots brafs, and o'er
His breaft a thick plate of brass he wore.

"In the fourth,

Like fome fair pine o'er-looking all th' ignobler

wood.

"And,

Some from the rocks caft themselves down headlong.

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"And many more: but it is enough to in"ftance in a few. The thing is, that the difpofition of words and numbers should be fuch, as that, out of the order and found " of them, the things themselves may be represented. This the Greeks were not fo ac"curate as to bind themselves to; neither "have our English poets obferved it, for aught "I can find. The Latins (qui mufas volunt feveriores) fometimes did it, and their prince, Virgil, always: in whom the examples are innumerable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, fo that it is fuperfluous to "collect them."

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I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the representation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only found and motion. A boundless verse, a beadlong verfe, and a verfe of brass or of ftrong brass, feem to comprise very incongruous and unfociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the found of the line expreffing loofe care, I cannot discover; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexandrine than in ten fyllables.

But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of reprefentative verfification, which perhaps no other English line can equal:

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife.
He who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay
Till the whole ftream that stopp'd him shall
be gone,

Which runs, and as it runs, for ever shall run

on.

Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroick of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He confidered the verfe of twelve fyllables as elevated and majestick, and has therefore deviated into that meafure when he supposes the voice heard of the Supreme Being.

The Author of the Davideis is commended by Dryden for having written it in couplets, becaufe he difcovered that any staff was too lyrical for an heroic poem; but this feems to

have been known before by May and Sandys, the tranflators of the Pharfalia and the Metamorphofes,

In the Davideis are fome hemiftichs, or verfes left imperfect by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intended to complete them: that this opinion is erroneous may be probably concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no fubfequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; because in one the fenfe is now unfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verfe, a line interfected by a cefura and a full ftop will equally effect.

Of triplets in his Davideis he makes no use, and perhaps did not at first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changed his mind, for in the verfes on the government of Cromwel he inferts them liberally with great happiness.

After fo much criticifm on his Poems, the Effays which accompany them must not be forgotten. What is faid by Sprat of his converfation, that no man could draw from it any fufpicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to these compofitions. No author ever kept his verfe and his profe at a greater diftance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his ftile has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-fought, or hard-laboured; but all is eafy without feeblenefs, and familiar without groffness.

It has been obferved by Felton, in his Essay on the Clafficks, that Cowley was beloved by

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every

every Mufe that he courted; and that he has rivalled the Ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy.

It may be affirmed, without any encomiaftick fervour, that he brought to his poetick labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could fupply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified for fpritely fallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those who freed tranflation from fervility, and instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his fide; and that if he left verfification yet improvable, he left likewife from time to time fuch specimens of excellence as enabled fucceeding poets to improve it.

WALLE R.

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