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 scarfe is made,

This is a just specimen 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 invested with the fofteft or brightest colours of the fky, we might have been told, and been 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 first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his fearfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and taylor.

Sometimes he indulges himself 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 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 consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for fuch 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 ex

tent

tent and the nice difcriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formned rather from the Odyssey than the Iliad; and many artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best models. The past is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vifion; but he has been fo lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising again the fame modes of difpofing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to fop. By this abruption, pofterity loft 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 Michol are very juftly conceived and ftrongly painted.

Rymer has declared the Davideis fuperior to the Jerufalem of Tao," 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 fciences and studies, 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 fhould be compared ;

for the resemblance of Cowley's work to Taffo's is only that they both exhibit the agency of celeftial and infernal spirits, in which however they differ widely for Cowley supposes them commonly to operate upon the mind by fuggeftion; Taffo reprefents them as promoting or obftructing events by external agency.

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

Hà fotto i piedi e fato e la natura

Miniftri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il mifura.

The fecond 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 furprised, 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 replenifhed by fudy.

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

and rarely fublime, 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 poetHe read much, and yet borrowed little.

His character of writing was indeed not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw 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 fpring 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 reprefents 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, Shakspeare, and Cowley.

His manner he had in common with others: but his fentiments were his own. Upon every fubject he thought for himfelf; and fuch was his copiousness of knowledge, that fomething at once remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea merely because another had ufed it: his known wealth was fo great, that he might have borrowed without lofs of credit.

In his elegy on Sir Henry Wotton, the laft lines have fuch refemblance 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. Although I think thou never found wilt be, Yet I'm refolv'd to fearch for thee; The fearch itself rewards the pains. So, though the chymic his great fecret mifs, (For neither it in Art nor Nature is)

Yet things well worth his toil he gains :
And does his charge and labour pay

With good unfought experiments by the way.

COWLEY,

Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:

I have lov'd, and got, and told;
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I fhould not find that hidden mystery;
Oh, 'tis imposture all;

And as no chymic yet th' elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befal

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,

So lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-feeming fummer's night.

Jonfon and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest esteem.

It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledges 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 purpofe; and from Donne he may have learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allufion to

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