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XVII. On the death of Mrs. C. Philips.

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PRE FAC E.

T would be using moft writers of

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name very ill, to treat them with that freedom, which I have pre fumed to take with Mr. Cowley. But every thing, he wrote, is either fo good or fo bad, that, in all reafon, a feparation fhould be made; left the latter, which, unhappily, is the greater part, fhould, in the end, ftifle and overlay the former.

THE reafon of this ftriking difference in the compofitions of the same man, whose genius and learn

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ing are unquestionable, is, That he generally followed the tafte of his time, which was the worst imáginable; and rarely his own, which was naturally excellent as may be feen in the few pieces of his poetry, here felected from the reft; and, efpecially, in his profe-works, which (except the notes on his Pindaric Odes, and Daviders) are given entire, and have no commoti merit.

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BUT the talents, by which he is diftinguished, as a polite writer, are the least of his praife. There is fomething in him, which pleafes above his wit, and in fpite of it. It is that moral air, and tender fenfibility of mind, which every one perceives and loves in reading Mr. Cowley.

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