living characters, and confines himself to the fubjects of his own times, like this courtly author, bids fairer to become popular, than he that is employed in the higher scenes of poetry, which are more remote from common manners. It may be remarked laftly of Waller, that there is no paffion in his love verses, and and that one elegy of Tibullus, excels a volume of the most refined panegyric,

THE next imitation is of COWLEY, in two pieces, on a garden, and on weeping, in which POPE has properly enough, in conformity to his original, extorted fome moral, or darted forth fome witticism on every object he mentions: It is not enough to fay that the laurels fheltered the fountains from the heat of the day, but this idea must be accompanied with a conceit.

Daphne, now a tree, as once a maid,

Still from Apollo vindicates her fhade.

The

The flowers that grow on the water-fide could not be fufficiently described without saying,

that

The pale Narciffus on the bank, in vain,

Transformed, gazes on himself again.

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

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

Let not this ftrained affectation of striving to be witty upon all occafions, be thought exaggerated, or a caricatura of Cowley. It is painful to cenfure a writer of so amiable a mind, fuch integrity of manners, and fuch a sweetness of temper. His fancy was brilliant, strong, and sprightly; but his taste false

and

and unclaffical, even though he had much learning. In his latin compofitions, his fix books on plants, where the fubject might have led him to a contrary practice, he imitates Martial rather than Virgil, and has given us more Epigrams than Descriptions. I do not remember to have seen it observed, that Cowley had a moft happy talent of imitating the eafy manner of Horace's epiftolary writings; I must therefore infert a specimen 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 cenfes ?

Parcius hæc, fodes, neve inclementibus urge
Infelicem hominem dictis; nam fata trahunt me
Magna reluctantem, et velut equum in vincla minacem.
Helleborum fumpfi, fateor, pulchreque videbar
Purgatus morbi; fed Luna potentior herbis
Infanire iterum jubet, et fibi vendicat ægrum.

There is another epiftle alfo, well worthy pe

Vol. II.

P

rufal

qufal, to his friend Mat. Clifford *, at the end of the fame volume. POPE, in 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 perufed with common patience by a lover of antiquity. He that would fee Pindar's manner truly imitated, may read Masters'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 alfo his epigrammatic verfion of it.

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

↑ Another line likewife of POPE exactly characterises him.

The penfive Cowley' maral lay.Vol. VI. p. 37.

!

Η εκ οράας ολοπόρφυρον

Στίλβοντ' 8 φλογι

Σιδονίης αλος, αλ

-λ, αίματι ταζομενω

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.

. Avory, avosys

Πύλας οπωπων

Και πηγας βλεφαρων

Λυσαν, ψεκαζε, δενε γαιαν

COWLEY.

Open, oh! open wide the fountains of thine eyes,

And let them call

Their ftock 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.

His general preface; his difcourfe concerning Cromwell; his effays on liberty, on obfcurity, on agriculture, on greatness, and on himself, are full of pleafing and virtuous fentiments, expreffed without any affectation, fo that he appears to be one of the beft profe writers of his time.

Compare Cowley's ode on prefenting his book to the Bodleian library, with one of Milton on the fame fubject, 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.