ing pictures to the mind.

Cowley gives inferences instead of images, and shews not what may be fuppofed to have been seen, but what thoughts the fight might have fuggefted. When Virgil describes the stone which Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight:

Saxum circumfpicit ingens,

Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat

Limes agro pofitus, litem ut difcerneret arvis.

Cowley fays of the ftone with which Cain flew his brother,

I faw him fling the stone, as if he meant
At once his murther and his monument.

Of the fword taken from Goliah, he says,

A fword fo great, that it was only fit
To cut off his great head that came with it.

Other poets describe death by fome of its common appearances; Cowley fays, with a learned allufion to fepulchral lamps real or fabulous,

'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious

blade,

VOL. I.

G

And

And open'd wide those fecret veffels where Life's light goes out, when first they let in air.

But he has allufions vulgar as well as learned. In a vifionary fucceffion of kings:

Joas at firft does bright and glorious fhow,
In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow.

Defcribing an undifciplined army, after having faid with elegance,

His forces feem'd no army, but a crowd Heartless, unarm'd, diforderly, and loud; he gives them a fit of the ague.

The allufions however are not always to vulgar things:

The King was plac'd alone, and o'er his head A well-wrought heaven of filk and gold was fpread.

Whatever he writes is always polluted with fome conceit :

Where the fun's fruitful bears give metals birth, Where he the growth of fatal gold does fee, Gold, which alone more influence has than he.

In one paffage he starts a fudden question, to the confufion of philofophy:

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?
The oak, for courtship most of all unfit,
And rough as are the winds that fight with it.

His expreffions have sometimes a degree of meannefs that furpaffes expectation :

Nay, gentle guests, he cries, fince now you're in, The story of your gallant friend begin.

In a fimile descriptive of the Morning:

As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day, Cashier'd by troops, at last drop all away.

The drefs of Gabriel deferves attention :

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

Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Wash'd from the morning beauties deepest red ;
An harmless flattering meteor fhone for hair,
And fell adown his fhoulders with loofe care;
He cuts out a filk mantle from the skies,
Where the most spritely azure pleas'd the eyes;
G 2

This

This he with starry vapours fprinkles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;
Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,

The choiceft piece cut out, a fcarfe is made.

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

Sometimes he indulges himfelf in a digreffion, 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 flood,

Yet 'twas well ftor'd; for that small store was
good;

Writing, man's fpiritual phyfic, was not then
Itfelf, as now, grown a difeafe of men.

Learning

Learning (young virgin) but few fuitors knew; The common proftitute 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 such criticisms 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 afcertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyffey than the Iliad; and many artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best 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 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