ing pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences inftead of images, and fhews not what may be fuppofed to have been feen, but what thoughts the fight might have fuggefted. When Virgil defcribes the stone which Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight:

Saxum circumfpicit ingens,

Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat

Limes agro pofitus, litem ut difcerneret arvis.

Cowley fays of the stone with which Cain flew his brother,

I faw him fling the ftone, as if he meant
At once his murther and his monument.

Of the sword taken from Goliah, he says,

A fword fo great, that it was only fit
To cut off his great head that came with it.

Other poets defcribe death by fome of its common appearances; Cowley says, with a learned allufion to fepulchral lamps real or fabulous,

"Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious

blade,

And

And open'd wide those secret veffels where
Life's light goes out, when firft they let in air.

But he has allufions vulgar as well as learned. In a vifionary fucceffion of kings:

Joas at first does bright and glorious show,
In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow.

Defcribing an undisciplined army, after having faid with elegance,

His forces feem'd no army, but a crowd Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud; he gives them a fit of the ague.

The allufions however are not always to vulgar things he offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution :

The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head A well-wrought heaven of filk and gold was fpread.

Whatever he writes is always polluted with fome conceit :

Where the fun's fruitful beams give metals birth, Where he the growth of fatal gold does fee, Gold, which alone more influence has than he.

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In one paffage he starts a fudden question, to the confusion of philosophy :

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?
The oak, for courtship moft of all unfit,

And rough as are the winds that fight with it.

His expreffions have sometimes a degree of meannefs that furpaffes expectation :

Nay, gentle guests, he cries, fince now you're in,
The ftory of your gallant friend begin.

In a fimile defcriptive of the Morning:

As glimmering stars juft at th' approach of day,
Cafhier'd by troops, at last drop all away.

The dress of Gabriel deferves attention:

He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright,
That e'er the midday fun pierc'd through with
light,

Upon his cheeks a lively blufh he spread,
Wash'd from the morning beauties deepest red
An harmless flattering meteor fhone for hair,
And fell adown his fhoulders with loofe care;
He cuts out a filk mantle from the fkies,
Where the most sprightly azure pleas'd the eyes;
VOL I.
This

G

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This he with ftarry vapours fprinkles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;
Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,

The choiceft piece cut out, a fcarfe is made.

This is a juft fpecimen of Cowley's imagery what might in general expreffions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the foftest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and been difmiffed to improve the "idea in our different proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got firft his fkin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his fcarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and taylor.

Sometimes he indulges himself in a digreffion, always conceived with his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious:

I' th' library a few choice authors stood,

Yet 'twas well ftor'd; for that small store was good;

Writing, man's fpiritual phyfic, was not then Itielf, as now, grown a disease of men.

Learning

Learning (young virgin) but few fuitors knew; The common proftitute fhe lately grew,

And with the fpurious brood loads now the prefs; Laborious effects of idleness.

As the Davideis affords only four books, though intended to confift of twelve, there is no opportunity for fuch criticifms as Epick poem's commonly fupply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly fhewn by the third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or fhewn but upon few occafions, the full extent and the nice difcriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyffey than the Iliad; and many artifices of diverfification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best models. The paft is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vifion but he has been fo lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult. to imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising again the same modes of difpofing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to ftop. By this abruption, pofterity G 2

loft