The true taste of Tears:

Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come,
And take my tears, which are Love's wine,
And try your mistress' tears at home;

For all are falfe, that taste not just like mine.

This is yet more indelicate :

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,

DONNE.

As that which from chaf'd mufk-cat's pores doth trill,

As the almighty balm of th' early Eaft,

Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast,
And on her neck her fkin fuch luftre fets,
They feem no fweat-drops, but pearl coronets :
Rank sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.

DONNE.

THEIR expreffions fometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be

pathetic:

As men in hell are from difeafes free,

So from all other ills am I,

Free from their known formality: But all pains eminently lie in thee.

VOL. I.

E

COWLEY.

THEY

THEY

HEY were not always ftrictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their illuftrations were true; it was enough that they were popular. Bacon remarks, that fome falfehoods are continued by tradition, because they fupply commodious allufions.

It gave a piteous groan, and fo it broke;
In vain it fomething would have spoke :
The love within too strong for 't was,
Like poifon put into a Venice-glass.

IN

COWLEY.

N forming defcriptions, they looked out not for images, but for conceits. Night has been a common fubject, which poets have contended to adorn. Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as follows:

Thou feeft me here at midnight, now all reft:
Time's dead low-water; when all minds diveft
To morrow's business, when the labourers have
Such reft in bed, that their laft church-yard
grave,

Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this,
Now when the client, whose last hearing is
To-morrow, fleeps; when the condemned man,
Who when he opes his eyes, muft fhut them then

5

Again

Again by death, although fad watch he keep,
Doth practise dying by a little fleep,
Thou at this midnight feeft me.

T must be however confeffed of these wri

IT

ters, that if they are upon common fubjects often unneceffarily and unpoetically fubtle; yet where fcholaftick speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acutenefs may justly be admired. What Cowley has written upon Hope, fhews an unequalled fertility of invention:

Hope, whofe weak being ruin'd is,
Alike if it fucceed, and if it mifs;
Whom good or ill does equally confound,
And both the horns of Fate's dilemma wound.
Vain fhadow, which doft vanish quite,
Both at full noon and perfect night!
The ftars have not a poffibility
Of bleffing thee;

If things then from their end we happy call,
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.

Hope, thou bold tafter of delight,

Who, whilst thou should'st but taste, devour'st
it quite !

Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'ft us poor,
By clogging it with legacies before!

The joys which we entire fhould wed, Come deflower'd virgins to our bed; Good fortunes without gain imported be, Such mighty custom's paid to thee: For joy, like wine, kept clofe does better taste; If it take air before, its fpirits wafte.

To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that stays at home, with a pair of compaffes, it may be doubted whether abfurdity or ingenuity has the better claim:

Our two fouls therefore, which are one,
Though I muft go, endure not yet

A breach, but an expanfion,

Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two fo
As ftiff twin-compaffes are two,
Thy foul the fixt foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre fit,

Yet when the other far doth roam,

It leans, and hearkens after it,

And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who muft
Like th' other foot, obliquely run.

Thy

Thy firmness makes my circle juft,

And makes me end where I begun.

DONNE.

In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or vicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pur suit of something new and ftrange; and that the writers fail to give delight, by their defire of exciting admiration.

HAVING thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style and fentiments of the metaphyfical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almoft the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best.

His Mifcellanies contain a collection of fhort compofitions, written fome as they were dictated by a mind at leifure, and fome as they were called forth by different occafions; with great variety of ftyle and fentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur. Such an affemblage of diverfified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded. To choose the beft, among many good, is one of the most E 3

hazar