COWLEY, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasures in the minds of men, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another. Wit, like all other things subject by their nature to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, appeared a race of writers, that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to give some account. The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to show their learning was their whole endeavour: but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry they only wrote verses, and very often such verses, as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables. If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry rix linn, an imitative art, these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have imitated any thing; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect. Those however who deny them to be poets allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit, but maintains, that they surpass him in poetry. If wit be well described by Pope, as being " that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language. If, by a more noble and more adequate conception, that be considered as wit, which is at once natural and new, that, which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that, which he that never found it wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found. But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors, a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased. From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections, As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that unifor mity of sentiment, which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds; they never enquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature, as bengs looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure, as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had never been said before. Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetic; for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought, which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in positions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinction. Those writers, who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation. Their attempts were always analytic; they broke every image into fragments, and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who dissects a sun-beam with a prism, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a summer noon. What they wanted however of the sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy be hind them, and produced combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined. Yet great labour, directed by great abilitics, is never wholly lost: if they fre quently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise sometimes struck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a writer, by de scriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables. In perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry: either something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value, and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to clegance, may give lustre to works, which have more propriety, though less copiousness, of sentiment. This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his fol lowers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggedness of his lines, than in the cast of his sentiments. When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysic style only in his lines upon Hobson the carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment and more music. Suckling neither improved versification, nor abounded in conceits. The fashionable style remained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it. CRITICAL remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this species of poets (for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers) was eminently distin. guished. As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Knowledge. The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew, The phoenix Truth did on it rest, And built his perfum❜d nest: That right Porphyrian tree, which did true logic shew. Each leaf did learned notions give, And th' apples were demonstrative: So clear their colour and divine, The very shade they cast did other lights outshine. On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age. Love was with thy life entwin'd, Close as heat with fire is join'd; A pow'rful brand prescrib'd the date Of thine, like Meleager's fate. Th' antiperistasis of age More enflam'd thy amorous rage. In the following verses we have an allusion to a rabbinical opinion concerning manna. Variety I ask not: give me one To live perpetually upon. The person, Love does to us fit, Like manna, has the taste of all in it. Thus Donne shows his medicinal knowledge in some encomiastic verses. In every thing there naturally grows A balsamum, to keep it fresh and new, And virtue and such engredients, have made Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said. Though the following lines of Donne, on the last night of the in them too scholastic, they are not inelegant. This twilight of two years, not past nor next, Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new. Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true Yet more abstruse and profound is Donne's reflection upon man as a microcosm. If men be worlds, there is in every one All the world's riches: and in good men, this Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but unnatural, all their books are full. To a Lady who made Posies for Rings. They, who above do various circles find, Say, like a ring, th' equator Heaven does bind. When Heaven shall be adorn'd by thee, (Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be) For it wanteth one as yet, Though the Sun pass through't twice a year, The Sun which is esteem'd the god of wit. COWLEY. The difficulties, which have been raised about identity in philosophy, are by Cowley with still more perplexity applied to love. Five years ago (says Story) I lov'd you, And that my mind is chang'd yourself may see. Were more inconstant far: for accidents Must of all things most strangely inconstant prove, If from one subject they t'another move; My members then the father members were, From whence these take their birth which now are here. If then this body love what th' other did, 'Twere incest, which by Nature is forbid. The love of different women is, in geographical poetry, compared to travels. through different countries. Hast thou not found each woman's breast Or wild, and uninhabited? What joy could'st take, or what repose, The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone. COWLEY. A lover, burnt up by his affection, is compared to Egypt. The fate of Egypt I sustain, And never feel the dew of rain From clouds which in the head appear; But all my too much moisture owe To overflowings of the heart below. COWLEY. The lover supposes his lady acquainted with the ancient laws of augury and rites of sacrifice. And yet this death of mine, I fear, Will ominous to her appear: When, sound in every other part, Her sacrifice is found without an heart. For the last tempest of my death Shall sigh out that too, with my breath. That the chaos was harmonised, has been recited of old; but whence the different sounds arose remained for a modern to discover. Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew, Earth made the base, the treble flame arose. COWLEY. The tears of lovers are always of great poetical account; but Donne has extended them into worlds. If the lines are not easily understood, they may be read again. On a round ball A workman, that hath copies by, can lay An Europe, Afric, and an Asia, And quickly make that, which was nothing, all: Which thee doth wear, A globe, yea world, by that impression grow, Till thy tears, mixt with mine, do overflow This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so. |