The ode on Wit is almoft without a rival. It was about the time of Cowley that Wit, which had been till then used for Intellection, in contradiftinction to Will, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears.

Of all the paffages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, none will eafily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley condemns exuberance of Wit:

Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part,
That fhews more cost than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear; Rather than all things wit, let none be there.

Several lights will not be seen,

If there be nothing else between. Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky,

If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

In his verses to lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley's compofitions, some striking thoughts; but they are not well-wrought. His elegy on Sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy, the series of thoughts is easy and natural, and the conclufion, though a little weakened by the intrufion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.

It may be remarked, that in this Elegy, and in most of his encomiaftick poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes.

In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little paffion, a very just and ample delineation of fuch virtues as a ftudious privacy admits, and fuch intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called forth to action can display. He knew how to diftinguish, and how to commend the qualities of his companion; but when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his forrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be worfe for being true. The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as therefore this property was not affigned it by chance, the mind must be thought fufficiently at ease that could attend to fuch minuteness of phyfiology. But the power of Cowley is not to move the affections, but to exercise the understanding.

The Chronicle is a compofition unrivalled and alone fuch gaiety of fancy, fuch facility of expreffion, fuch varied fimilitude, fuch a fucceffion of images, and fuch a dance of words, it is vain to expect except from Cowley. His ftrength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light but the bound of an elastick mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralift, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius. To fuch a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have fupplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.

The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily concluded, contain

fome

fome hints of criticism very justly conceived and happily expreffed. Cowley's critical abilities have not been fufficiently obferved: the few decifions and remarks which his prefaces and his notes on the Davideis fupply, were at that time acceffions to English literature, and fhew fuch fkill as raifes our wifh for more examples.

The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleafing fpecimen of the familiar defcending to the burlesque.

His two metrical difquifitions for and against Reason, are no mean fpecimens of metaphyfical poetry. The ftanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the human faculties, Reason has its proper task affigned it; that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses for Reason is a paffage which Bentley, in the only English verfes which he is known to have written, feems to have copied, though with the inferiority of an imitator.

The holy Book like the eighth sphere does
shine

With thousand lights of truth divine,
So numberless the stars that to our eye
It makes all but one galaxy :

Yet Reason muft affift too; for in feas
So vaft and dangerous as these,

Our course by stars above we cannot know
Without the compass too below.

After this fays Bentley :

Who

Who travels in religious jars,

Truth mix'd with error, clouds with rays,
With Whiston wanting pyx and stars,
In the wide ocean finks or ftrays.

Cowley feems to have had, what Milton is believed to have wanted, the skill to rate his own performances by their just value, and has therefore clofed his Mifcellanies with the verses upon Crafhaw, which apparently excel all that have gone before them, and in which there are beauties which common authors may justly think not only above their attainment, but above their ambition.

To the Mifcellanies fucceed the Anacreontiques, or paraphrastical translations of fome little poems, which pass, however justly, under the name of Anacreon. Of those songs dedicated to festivity and gaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach nothing but the enjoyment of the present day, he has given rather a pleafing than a faithful representation, having retained their spritelinefs, but loft their fimplicity. The Anacreon of Cowley, like the Homer of Pope, has admitted the decoration of fome modern graces, by which he is undoubtedly made more amiable to common readers, and perhaps, if they would honeftly declare their own perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtefy and ignorance are content to ftile the Learned.

These little pieces will be found more finished in their kind than any other of Cowley's works. The diction fhews nothing of the mould of time, and the fentiments are at no

great

great distance from our present habitudes of thought. Real mirth must be always natural, and nature is uniform. Men have been wife in very different modes; but they have always laughed the fame way.

Levity of thought naturally produced familiarity of language, and the familiar part of language continues long the fame: the dialogue of comedy, when it is transcribed from popular manners and real life, is read from age to age with equal pleasure. The artifices of inverfion by which the established order of words is changed, or of innovation, by which new words or new meanings of words are introduced, is practised not by those who talk to be understood, but by those who write to be admired.

The Anacreontiques therefore of Cowley give now all the pleasure which they ever gave. If he was formed by nature for one kind of writing more than for another, his power feems to have been greatest in the familiar and the festive.

The next class of his poems is called The Miftrefs, of which it is not necessary to select any particular pieces for praise or cenfure. They have all the fame beauties and faults, and nearly in the fame proportion. They are written with exuberance of wit, and with copiousness of learning; and it is truly afferted by Sprat, that the plenitude of the writer's knowledge flows in upon his page, so that the reader is commonly furprised into fome improvement. But, confidered as the verses of a lover, no man that has ever loved will much commend them. They are neither courtly nor pathetick, have neither gallantry