COWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, inftead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things fubject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphyfical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give fome account.

The metaphyfical poets were men of learning, and to fhew their learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily refolving to fhew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verfes, and very often fuch verfes as ftood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was fo imperfect that they were only found to be verfes by counting the fyllables.

If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry texnμninn, an imitative art, thefe writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be faid to have imitated any thing; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect.

Those however who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confeffes of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit; but maintains, that they furpafs him in poetry.

If wit be well defcribed by Pope, as being "that "which has been often thought, but was never before "fo well expreffed," they certainly never attained, nor ever fought it; for they endeavoured to be fingular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depreffes it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happiness of language.

If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be confidered as wit which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its firft production, acknowledged to be juft; if it be that which he that never found it wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphyfical poets have feldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they juft; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perverfenefs of induftry they were ever found.

But wit, abftracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of difcordia concors; a combination of diffimilar images, or discovery of occult refemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The moft heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations, comparisons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he fometimes admires, is feldom pleased.

From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccefsful in reprefenting or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and furprifing, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite. the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never enquired what, on any occafion, they fhould have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondnefs, and their lamentation of forrow. Their with was only to fay what they hoped had never been faid before.

Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanfe of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the firft effect is fudden aftonishment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in defcriptions not defcending to minutenefs. It is with great propriety that Subtelty, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Thofe writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatnefs; for great things cannot have efcaped former obfervation. Their attempts were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more reprefent,

C 3

fent, by their flender conceits and laboured particularities, the profpects of nature, or the fcenes of life, than he who diffects a fun-beam with a prifm can exhibit the wide effulgence of a fummer noon.

What they wanted however of the fublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not not only reafon but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confufed magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly loft: if they frequently threw away their wit upon falfe conceits, they likewise fometimes ftruck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least neceffary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphyfical poet, nor affume the dignity of a writer, by defcriptions copied from defcriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary fimilies, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of fyllables.

In perufing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or enquiry: either fomething already learned is to be retrieved, or fomething new is to be examined, If their greatness feldom elevates, their accutenefs often furprizes; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious abfurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be fometimes found buried perhaps in groffnefs of expreffion, but useful to thofe who

know

know their value; and fuch as, when they are expanded to perfpicuity, and polished to elegance, may give luftre to works which have more propriety though lefs copioufnefs of fentiment.

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extenfive and various knowledge; and by Jonfon, whofe manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines than in the caft of his fentiments.

When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate fucceffors, of whom any remembrance can be faid to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller fought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphyfic ftyle only in his lines upon Hobfon the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predeceffors, having, as much fentiment and more mufick. Suckling neither improved verfification, nor abounded, in conceits. The fashionable ftyle remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton difdained it.

CRITICAL REMARKS are not eafily underftood without examples; and I have therefore collected inftances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers) was eminently diftinguished.