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In the lines on a lady weeping, you might expect a touching picture of beauty in diftrefs; you will be disappointed. Wit on the present occafion is to be preferred to tenderness; the babe in her eye is faid to resemble Phaeton fo much,

That heav'n the threat'ned world to fpare,
Thought fit to drown him in her tears:
Elfe might th' ambitious nymph aspire,
To fet, like him, the world on fire.

His

Let not this ftrained affectation of ftriving to be witty upon all occafions, be thought exaggerated, or a caricatura of Cowley. It is painful to censure a writer of so amiable a mind, fuch integrity of manners, and fuch a sweetness of temper. fancy was brilliant, ftrong, and sprightly; but his tafte falfe and unclaffical, even though he had much learning. In his latin compofitions, his fix books on plants, where the subject might have led him to a contrary practice, he imitates Martial rather than Virgil, and has given us more Epigrams than Defcriptions. I do not re

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member

member to have feen it enough obferved, that Cowley had a most happy talent of imitating the easy manner of Horace's epiftolary writings; I must therefore infert a fpecimen of this, his excellence.

Ergo iterum verfus? dices. O Vane! quid ergo
Morbum ejurafti toties, tibi qui infidet altis,
Non evellendus, vi vel ratione, medullis?
Numne poetarum (merito dices) ut amantum
Derifum ridere deum perjuria censes?

Parcius hæc, fodes, neve inclementibus urge
Infelicem hominem dictis; nam fata trahunt me
Magna reluctantem, et nequicquam in vincla mi-

nacem.

Helleborum fumpfi, fateor, pulchreque videbar
Purgatus morbi; fed Luna potentior herbis
Infanire iterum jubet, et fibi vendicat ægrum.

There is another epiftle also, well worthy

perufal, to his friend Mat.

the end of the fame volume.

Clifford *, at

POPE †, in

• Settle was affifted in writing the Anti-Achitophel by Clifford, and others the beft wits of that time, who combined against Dryden.

† Another line likewife of Pore exactly characterises him. The penfive Cowley's moral lay.Vol. VI. p. 37. His general preface; his discourse concerning Cromwell; his effays on liberty, on obscurity, on agriculture, on greatnefs, and on himself, are full of pleasing and virtuous fentiments, expreffed without any affectation, fo that he appears to be one of the best prose writers of his time.

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one of his imitations of Horace, has exhibited the real character of Cowley, with delicacy and candour.

Who now reads Cowley? if he pleases yet,

His moral pleases, not his pointed wit;
Forgot his epic, nay Pindaric art,

But ftill I love the language of his heart.

His profe works give us the most amiable idea both of his abilities and his heart. His Pindaric odes cannot be perused with common patience by a lover of antiquity. He that would fee Pindar's manner truly imitated, may read Mafters's noble and pathetic ode on the Crucifixion; and he that wants to be convinced that these reflections on Cowley are not too fevere, may read also his epigrammatic verfion of it.

Η εκ ορέας ὁλοπερφυρον
Στάβοντ' κ φλογε

Σιδονίης άλες, αλο

-λ, αιματι σαζομενω

Doft thou not fee thy prince in purple clad all o'er,

Not purple brought from the Sidonian shore ?

But made at home with richer

gore.

COWLEY.

• Avery's

• Avery', avorys

Πύλας υπώπων

Kas anyas Crepapar

Λυσαι, ψεκαζε, δευς γειαν.

Open, oh! open wide the fountains of thine eyes,
And let them call

Their flock of moisture forth where e'er it lies,
For this will ask it all.

"Twould all alas! too little be,

Though thy falt tears came from a sea.

• Compare Cowley's ode on prefenting his book to the Bodleian library, with one of Milton on the fame subject, Ad Johannem Roufeium, 1646, written in the true fpirit of the ancient Lyrics, and an excellent imitation of Pindar. One allufion to Euripides of whom Milton is known to have been fo fond, I cannot omit.

Eternorum operum cuftos fidelis,
Quæftorque gazæ nobilioris,

Quam cui præfuit Ion,

Clarus Erechtheides,

Opulenta dei per templa parentis,
Fulvofque tripodas, donaque Delphica,
Ion Actea genitus Creufa.

Nothing can more ftrongly characterize the different manner and turn of these two writers, than the pieces in queftion. It is remarkable, that Milton ends his ode with a kind of prophecy importing, that however he may be at prefent traduced, yet pofterity will applaud his work. At ULTIMI Nepotes,

SERIQUE POSTERI,

Judicia rebus

QUIORA forfitan

Adhibebunt INTEGRO finu,

Tam, livore fepulto,

Si quid MEREMUR, SERA POSTERITAS sciet.

COWLEY

COWLEY being early disgusted with the perplexities and vanities of a court life, had a strong defire to enjoy the milder pleasures of folitude and retirement; he therefore escaped from the tumults of London, to a little houfe at Wandsworth; but finding that place too near the metropolis, he left it for Richmond, and at last settled at Chertsey. He feems to have thought that the swains of Surry had the innocence of thofe of Sydney's Arcadia; but the perverseness and debauchery of his own workmen foon undeceived him, with whom, it is faid, he was fometimes fo far provoked, as even to be betrayed into an oath. His income was about three hundred pounds a year. Towards the latter part of his life, he fhewed an averfion to the company of women, and would often leave the room if any happened to enter it whilst he was prefent, but ftill he retained a fincere affection for Leonora. His death was occafioned by a fingular accident ;

he

• There is fomething remarkable in the circumstances that occafioned the deaths of three others of our poets. OTWAY

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