considered as a fair specimen of the usual diction of Cowley. Let us, however, turning over a few leaves, take the commencement of any succeeding essay. He opens the sixth, on Greatness, in the following manner : "Since we cannot attain to greatness, says the Sieur de Montagn, let us have our revenge by railing at it this he spoke but in jest. I believe he desired it no more than I do, and had less reason, for he enjoyed so plentiful and honourable a fortune in a most excellent country, as allowed him all the real conveniences of it, sepa rated and purged from the incommodities. If I were but in his condition, I should think it hard measure, without being convinced of any crime, to be sequestered from it, and made one of the principal officers of state. But the reader may think that what I now say is of small authority, because I never was, nor ever shall be put to the trial: I can therefore only make my protestation: If ever I more riches did desire Than cleanliness and quiet do require, "I know very many men will despise, and some pity me for this humour, as a poor spirited fellow; but I'm content, and, like Horace, thank God for being so. Dii bene fecerunt, inopis me quodque pusilli finxerunt animi. I confess, I love littleness almost in all things. A little convenient estate, a little chearful house, a little company, and a very little feast, and if I were ever to fall in love again (which is a great passion, and therefore, I hope, I have done with it) it would be, I think, with prettiness, rather than with majestical beauty *" Here we behold a style widely different from any which the nation had been in the habit of admiring. The improvement is obvious and great; and to Cowley we may justly ascribe the formation of a basis on which has since been constructed the present correct and admirable fa→ bric of our language. His words are pure and wellchosen, the collocation simple and perspicuous, and the members of his sentences distinct, harmonious, not clogged with supernumerary words, nor dragging at the close. The year which closed the life of Cowley witnessed likewise the death of JEREMY TAYLOR, a theologian of great popularity, and whose writings contributed not a little to improve the style as well as the morals of the nation. His bestknown work, The Rule and Exercises of Holy *Vol. ii. p. 742, 743. Living and Dying, and which was published about the era of the Restoration, is remarkable, not only for brilliancy of imagery, but, considering the period in which he wrote, for purity and simplicity of diction. His sentences are usually clear and compact, and, where the occasion calls for it, are modulated with uncommon sweetness and harmony. The following are specimens which display both the richness of his imagina tion, and the beauty of his expression. "Some are called at age at fourteen, some at one and twenty, some never; but all men late enough, for the life of a man comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But as when the sun approaching towards the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to the cock, and calls up the lark to mattens, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those which deck'd the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil, because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a man tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shews a fair face and a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly: so is a man's reason and his life *” "It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness of youth, the fair cheeks and the full eyes of childhood, from the vigourousness and strong flexure of the joints of five and twenty, to the hollowness and dead paleness, to the loathsomness and horror of a three-days burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very strange. But so I have seen a rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with the dew of heaven, as a lamb's fleece: but when a ruder breath had forced open its virgin-modesty, and dismantled its too youthful and unripe retirements, it began to put on darkness, and to decline to softness, and the symptoms of a sickly age: it bowed the head, and broke its stalk, and at night having lost some of its leaves and all its beauty, it fell into the portion of weeds and worn-out faces. The same is the portion of every man and every woman; the heritage of worms and serpents, rottenness and cold dishonour †." * Holy Dying, 8vo. 23d edition, page 17, 1719. -Several years elapsed, however, before the examples of Cowley and Taylor had their due weight. In the mean time, namely in 1673, CLARENDON closed his elaborate History of the Rebellion. This celebrated work, estimable for its accuracy, impartiality, and variety of incident, is written in a style which was once highly admired, but is now justly condemned for its prolixity and involution. Clarendon has dropped the inversions of Hooker and Milton; but he has drawn out his periods to such a length, and embarrassed them with so many parentheses, and with such a number of slenderly connected particulars, that the reader, though occasionally gratified by sonorous and dignified phraseology, is soon bewildered amid the labyrinth of his sentences, and compelled in almost every page to retrace with care its various mazes, in order to ascertain a meaning. Of these periods of a mile the closing sentence of the annexed passage affords a curious instance. I shall mark its commencement and termination by capitals. "It was by many impatiently wondered at then, and, no doubt, will be more censured hereafter, that notwithstanding all these invasions, and breaches upon the regal power, and all these vast preparations to destroy him, the king, hitherto, put not himself into a posture of safety; |