thence you know whither." I was almost in the very pounces of the great bird of prey: When, lo, ere the last words were fully spoke, The frowns, with which he strook the trembling fiend, In his fair hand (what need was there of more ?) Or were, could not, alas! by me be known, He knows his foe too strong, and must be gone; Page 100. Across his breast an azure ruban went, I observed, that the plan of this discourse was poetical; and the conclusion is according to rule— "Nec Deus intersit, pisi dignus vindice nodus " But, to take the full beauty of the contrivance, we are to reflect, that the tutelar genius of England is here introduced, not merely to unravel the intricacy of the scene, but to form a striking contrast to the foul fiend, who had usurped his place; and still further, to disgrace the usurper, by a portrait of the rightful heir to the British crown, presented to us under an angelic form, and in all the force and beauty of poetic colouring. HURD. VOL. III. ESSAYS, IN VERSE AND PROSE *. * In these discourses (as in every thing, indeed, which Mr. Cowley wrote in prose) we have a great deal of good sense, embellished by a lively, but very natural expression. The sentiments flow from the heart, and generally in a vein of pure and proper English.-What a force must he have put on himself, when he complied with the false taste of his age, in his poetical, which he too modestly thought his best works?- -But the pieces of poetry, inserted in these Essays, whether originals or translations, are, with all their seeming negligence of style and numbers, extremely elegant. The prevailing character of them is that of the author, a sensible reflecting melancholy. On occasion, however, this character gives way to another, not so natural to him, yet sustained with equal grace, that of an unforced gaiety; which breaks out, every where, in many delicate sallies of wit and hu mour, but is most conspicuous in his imitations of Horace. HURD. |