human
Can you write me a poem about samuel johnson in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?
assistant
Sure, here's a poem about samuel johnson in the style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
  Samuel Johnson, born at Lichfield in the year 1709, on the 7th of
Easter Eve.  In 1777 his memorandum, set down among prayers and
regarded by the London publishers as an interference with the
honorary copyright which booksellers then respected among
themselves to call a meeting of proprietors of honorary or actual
respectable booksellers in London accepted the invitation to this
The meeting of booksellers, happy in the support of Johnson's
intellectual power, appointed also a committee to engage the best
five.
Milton, the sense of Milton's genius is not less evident than the
Agmondesham, in Buckinghamshire, whose family was originally a
branch of the Kentish Wallers; and his mother was the daughter of
His father died while he was yet an infant, but left him a yearly
He was educated, by the care of his mother, at Eton; and removed
afterwards to King's College, in Cambridge.  He was sent to
Parliament in his eighteenth, if not in his sixteenth year, and
frequented the court of James the First, where he heard a very
remarkable conversation, which the writer of the Life prefixed to
certain:
formality of Parliament?'  The Bishop of Durham readily answered,
nostrils.'  Whereupon the king turned and said to the Bishop of
Winchester, 'Well, my Lord, what say you?'  'Sir,' replied the
Winchester there?'"
felicity like instinct, a style which perhaps will never be
versification was, in his first essay, such as it appears in his
afterwards much needed, or much endeavoured, to improve.  Denham
corrected his numbers by experience, and gained ground gradually
The next poem, of which the subject seems to fix the time, is
supposed by Mr. Fenton to be the "Address to the Queen," which he
obligations to her frequent pregnancy proves that it was written
when she had brought many children.  We have therefore no date of
Neither of these pieces that seem to carry their own dates could
have been the sudden effusion of fancy.  In the verses on the
promises of the king's kindness to the descendants of Buckingham,
afterwards with other poems.
inheritance, he took care early to grow richer, by marrying Mrs.
Being too young to resist beauty, and probably too vain to think
himself resistible, he fixed his heart, perhaps half-fondly and
appellation of "sugar," and implies, if it means anything, a
spiritless mildness, and dull good-nature, such as excites rather
kindness, is never honoured or admired.
Yet he describes Sacharissa as a sublime predominating beauty, of
amazement rather than fondness, whose chains he wishes, though in
madness."
were then."
In this part of his life it was that he was known to Clarendon,
among the rest of the men who were eminent in that age for genius
excellence comprised in wit.
praises.  Who they were, whom he dignifies with poetical names,
imagination, which he who flatters them never can approve.  There
supposed by the courtiers not to favour them.
When the Parliament was called in 1640, it appeared that Waller's
complaints of imaginary grievances:  "They," says he, "who think
"protection against Pulpit Law."
appointed a law to observe."
impediment which naturally we endeavour to remove is penury, and
want of things without which we cannot live."
The speech is vehement; but the great position, that grievances
ought to be redressed before supplies are granted, is agreeable
considered by the discontented party as a man sufficiently trusty
shows that he did not disappoint their expectations.  He was
He was not, however, a bigot to his party, nor adopted all their
"There is no doubt but the sense of what this nation had suffered
"We have already showed that Episcopacy and the evils thereof are
commended in this House, to a proposition of like nature, but of
less consequence; they gave no other reason of their refusal but
this, 'Nolumus mutare Leges Angliae:' it was the bishops who so
answered them; and it would become the dignity and wisdom of this
"I see some are moved with a number of hands against the bishops;
regare grew quickly to be a Legem ferre:  and after, when their
legions had found that they could make a Dictator, they never
suffered the Senate to have a voice any more in such election.
"There are two reasons chiefly alleged against our Church
government.
"First, Scripture, which, as some men think, points out another
form.
"Second, the abuses of the present superiors.
"For Scripture, I will not dispute it in this place; but I am
which seem to favour that, as there are now alleged against the
instances of poor men that have received hard measure from their
however, to sit in the rebellious conventicle; but "spoke," says
which could not be believed, when all men knew what liberty Mr.
Waller, as he continued to sit, was one of the commissioners
nominated by the Parliament to treat with the king at Oxford; and
Oxford:  he was sent with several others to add pomp to the
The engagement, known by the name of Waller's plot, was soon
afterwards discovered.  Waller had a brother-in-law, Tomkyns, who
they might overpower the fury of sedition, by refusing to comply
with the ordinance for the twentieth part, and the other taxes
levied for the support of the rebel army, and by uniting great
Lord Conway joined in the design, and, Clarendon imagines,
incidentally mingled, as he was a soldier, some martial hopes or
Parliament, and the neutrals.  How far they proceeded does not
appear; the result of their inquiry, as Pym declared, was, that
within the walls, for one that was for the Royalists, there were
three against them; but that without the walls, for one that was
times, and more than this, is done without fear; but such was the
safe.
Sir Nicholas flattered himself with an opinion, that some
provocation would so much exasperate, or some opportunity so much
Nicholas imparted.
This commission could be only intended to lie ready till the time
hostility.
Crispe would undoubtedly have put an end to the session of
The discovery of Waller's design is variously related.
In "Clarendon's History" it is told, that a servant of Tomkyns,
Goode, who stole some of his papers; and if he had not strangely
dreamed the night before, that his sister had betrayed him, and
power, receiving intelligence from the sister, would employ the
servant of Tomkyns to listen at the conference, that they might
The plot was published in the most terrific manner.
On the 31st of May (1643), at a solemn fast, when they were
listening to the sermon, a messenger entered the church, and
having yet traced nothing but that letters had been intercepted,
They perhaps yet knew little themselves, beyond some general and
indistinct notices.  "But Waller," says Clarendon, "was so
He undoubtedly confessed much which they could never have
Tomkyns was seized on the same night with Waller, and appears
likewise to have partaken of his cowardice; for he gave notice of
It can raise no wonder that they formed one plot out of these two
agent employed in both, and found the commission of array in the
hands of him who was employed in collecting the opinions and
affections of the people.
evidence against them but the confession of Waller, of which
therefore I cannot imagine why you should hide it so far as to
This persuasion seems to have had little effect.  Portland sent
(June 29) a letter to the Lords, to tell them that he "is in
One of his arguments with Portland is, that the plot is already
The Parliament then proceeded against the conspirators, and
committed their trial to a council of war.  Tomkyns and Chaloner
were hanged near their own doors.  Tomkyns, when he came to die,
said it was a "foolish business;" and indeed there seems to have
necessity be communicated to many who could not be expected to be
plot.
The Earl of Northumberland, being too great for prosecution, was
admitted to bail.  Hassel, the king's messenger, who carried the
letters to Oxford, died the night before his trial.  Hampden
were inserted in the commission of array were not capitally
biographer, "condemn him with untempered severity, because he was
character included not the poet, the orator, and the hero."
At last it became necessary, for his support, to sell his wife's
house.  If he would do anything, he could not do less.
Cromwell, now Protector, received Waller, as his kinsman, to
familiar conversation.  Waller, as he used to relate, found him
sufficiently versed in ancient history; and, when any of his
He repaid the Protector for his favours (1654) by the famous
Panegyric, which has been always considered as the first of his
poetical productions.  His choice of encomiastic topics is very
judicious; for he considers Cromwell in his exaltation, without
inquiring how he attained it; there is consequently no mention of
combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world by the
advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those, who
have long practised perfidy, grow faithless to each other.
invite him to the crown, he, after a long conference, refused it,
ascribing the highest degree of "power and piety" to Charles the
First, then transferring the same "power and piety" to Oliver
Cromwell; now inviting Oliver to take the Crown, and then
In the first Parliament summoned by Charles the Second (March 8,
Bacchanalian assemblies; and Mr. Saville said, that "no man in
England should keep him company without drinking but Ned Waller."
writer, to a man who, though he lived a great part of a long life
however, is said in his account of the year seventy-five, when
Waller was only seventy.  His name as a speaker occurs often in
Grey's Collections, but I have found no extracts that can be more
He did not suffer his reputation to die gradually away, which may
never accepted any office of magistracy.
alleging that it could be held only by a clergyman.  It is known
that of the fifth of November; then, if the Lords and Commons had
sermons, was chosen by the Fellows.
That he asked anything else is not known; it is certain that he
obtained nothing, though he continued obsequious to the court
through the rest of Charles's reign.
At the accession of King James (in 1685) he was chosen for
successively to those whom it may be the fashion to celebrate.
When the king knew that he was about to marry his daughter to Dr.
Having now attained an age beyond which the laws of nature seldom
seems to have turned his mind upon preparation for the decisive
hour, and therefore consecrated his poetry to devotion.  It is
As the disease increased upon him, he composed himself for his
departure; and calling upon Dr. Birch to give him the holy
with delight.  He related, that being present when the Duke of
have lived long enough to see there is nothing in them; and so, I
He died October 21, 1687, and was buried at Beaconsfield, with a
He left several children by his second wife, of whom his daughter
disinherited, and sent to New Jersey as wanting common
understanding.  Edmund, the second son, inherited the estate, and
account has descended.
dexterity he had gotten a very rich wife in the city, against all
good conversation, where he was received and esteemed with great
where he was not the less esteemed for being very rich.
He had been even nursed in parliaments, where he sat when he was
very young; and so, when they were resumed again (after a long
melancholic, inclined him to), he seemed often to speak upon the
want of courage to support him in any virtuous undertaking; an
offended and provoked; and continued to his age with that rare
felicity, that his company was acceptable where his spirit was
odious; and he was at least pitied where he was most detested."
"He was very little known till he had obtained a rich wife in the
That Clarendon might misjudge the motive of his retirement is the
thirty.  As his first pieces were perhaps not printed, the
succession of his compositions was not known; and Clarendon, who
cannot be imagined to have been very studious of poetry, did not
rectify his first opinion by consulting Waller's book.
procured him admission into the company of the friends of
The account of Waller's parliamentary eloquence is seconded by
Of his insinuation and flattery it is not unreasonable to believe
monarchy.  His deviation towards democracy proceeded from his
connexion with Hampden, for whose sake he prosecuted Crawley with
It is confessed that his faults still left him many friends, at
least many companions.  His convivial power of pleasing is
universally acknowledged; but those who conversed with him
intimately, found him not only passionate, especially in his old
age, but resentful; so that the interposition of friends was
sometimes necessary.
His wit and his poetry naturally connected him with the polite
writers of his time:  he was joined with Lord Buckhurst in the
translation of Corneille's Pompey; and is said to have added his
help to that of Cowley in the original draft of the Rehearsal.
lived in exile; for we are told, that at Paris he lived in
His unlucky plot compelled him to sell a thousand a year; of the
first years, and a squanderer in his last.
anything ludicrous or familiar.  He seems always to do his best;
though his subjects are often unworthy of his care.
pleases himself with a performance, which owes nothing to the
subject.  But compositions merely pretty have the fate of other
pretty things, and are quitted in time for something useful; they
The numbers are not always musical; as,
Fair Venus, in thy soft arms
The god of rage confine:
For thy whispers are the charms
Which only can divert his fierce design.
What though he frown, and to tumult do incline;
Thou the flame
Kindled in his breast canst tame
With that snow which unmelted lies on thine.
He seldom indeed fetches an amorous sentiment from the depths of
composition of the Theriaca.
His thoughts are sometimes hyperbolical and his images unnatural
The plants admire,
No less than those of old did Orpheus' lyre;
If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd,
They round about her into arbours crowd;
Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand,
Like some well-marshall'd and obsequious band.
In another place:
While in the park I sing, the listening deer
Attend my passion, and forget to fear:
When to the beeches I report my flame,
They bow their heads, as if they felt the same.
To gods appealing, when I reach their bowers
With loud complaints they answer me in showers.
To thee a wild and cruel soul is given,
More deaf than trees, and prouder than the Heaven!
On the head of a stag:
O fertile head! which every year
Could such a crop of wonder bear!
The teeming earth did never bring,
So soon, so hard, so large a thing:
Which might it never have been cast,
Each year's growth added to the last,
These lofty branches had supplied
The earth's bold sons' prodigious pride:
Heaven with these engines had been scaled,
When mountains heap'd on mountains fail'd.
Sometimes having succeeded in the first part, he makes a feeble
His images of gallantry are not always in the highest degree
delicate.
Then shall my love this doubt displace
And gain such trust that I may come
And banquet sometimes on thy face,
But make my constant meals at home.
The sun in figures such as these
Joys with the moon to play:
To the sweet strains they advance,
Which do result from their own spheres;
As this nymph's dance
Moves with the numbers which she hears.
Chloris! since first our calm of peace
Was frighted hence, this good we find,
Your favours with your fears increase,
And growing mischiefs make you kind.
So the fair tree, which still preserves
Her fruit, and state, while no wind blows,
In storms from that uprightness swerves;
And the glad earth about her strows
With treasure from her yielding boughs.
Some other nymphs, with colours faint,
And pencil slow, may Cupid paint,
And a weak heart in time destroy;
She has a stamp, and prints the boy;
Can, with a single look, inflame
The coldest breast, the rudest tame.
Of these pretty compositions, neither the beauties nor the faults
obtain credit from the young and unexperienced, as misleading
expectation, and misguiding practice.
Of his nobler and more weighty performances, the greater part is
panegyrical:  for of praise he was very lavish, as is observed by
No satyr stalks within the hallow'd ground,
But queens and heroines, kings and gods abound;
Glory and arms and love are all the sound.
In the first poem, on the danger of the prince on the coast of
Spain, there is a puerile and ridiculous mention of Arion at the
beginning; and the last paragraph, on the cable, is in part
ridiculously mean, and in part ridiculously tumid.  The poem,
however, is such as may be justly praised, without much allowance
The two next poems are upon the king's behaviour at the death of
Buckingham, and upon his Navy.
'Twas want of such a precedent as this
Made the old heathens frame their gods amiss.
In the poem on the Navy, those lines are very noble which suppose
"surface," or to say that the empire of the sea would be worth
little if it were not that the waters terminate in land.
So all our minds with his conspire to grace
The Gentiles' great apostle and deface
Those state obscuring sheds, that like a chain
Seem'd to confine, and fetter him again:
Which the glad saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand.
So joys the aged oak, when we divide
The creeping ivy from his injured side.
His praise of the Queen is too much exaggerated; and the thought,
Of the Battle of the Summer Islands, it seems not easy to say
seriousness.  The versification is studied, the scenes are
The panegyric upon Cromwell has obtained from the public a very
appeared before in the English language.  Of the lines some are
grand, some are graceful, and all are musical.  There is now and
English on by saluting St. Lucar with cannon, "to lambs awakening
Alive, in equal flames of love they burn'd,
And now together are to ashes turn'd.
The verses to Charles, on his return, were doubtless intended to
counterbalance the panegyric on Cromwell.  If it has been thought
The remaining pieces it is not necessary to examine singly.  They
they were the work of Waller's declining life, of those hours in
which he looked upon the fame and the folly of the time past with
forced to confess superior, is hastening daily to a level with
eighty-fifth year improving his chronology, a few days before his
eighty-two any part of his poetical power.
His Sacred Poems do not please like some of his other works; but
before the fatal fifty-five, had he written on the same subjects,
Let no pious ear be offended if I advance, in opposition to many
authorities, that poetical devotion cannot often please.  The
Contemplative piety, or the intercourse between God and the human
higher state than poetry can confer.
The employments of pious meditation are Faith, Thanksgiving,
Of sentiments purely religious, it will be found that the most
As much of Waller's reputation was owing to the softness and
smoothness of his numbers, it is proper to consider those minute
particulars to which a versifier must attend.
He certainly very much excelled in smoothness most of the writers
The critical decision has given the praise of strength to Denham,
His excellence of versification has some abatements.  He uses the
His rhymes are sometimes weak words:  "so" is found to make the
rhyme twice in ten lines, and occurs often as a rhyme through his
His double rhymes, in heroic verse, have been censured by Mrs.
Phillips, who was his rival in the translation of Corneille's
He sometimes uses the obsolete termination of verbs, as "waxeth,"
rejected them.
Praise, however, should be due before it is given.  The author of
verse many words beginning with the same letter.  But this knack,
Holofernes fully displays it.
poets; the deities, which they introduced so frequently, were
considered as realities, so far as to be received by the
hearing that, as Hercules had his "club" he has his "navy."
But of the praise of Waller, though much may be taken away, much
justice, of himself and Guarini, when, having perused the Pastor
poetry, the reader may judge how much he improved it.
Erminia's steed (this while) his mistresse bore
Through forrests thicke among the shadie treene,
Her feeble hand the bridle raines forelore,
Halfe in a swoune she was for fear I weene;
But her flit courser spared nere the more,
To beare her through the desart woods unseene
Of her strong foes, that chas'd her through the plaine
And still pursu'd, but still pursu'd in vaine.
Like as the wearie hounds at last retire,
Windlesse, displeased, from the fruitlesse chace,
When the slie beast Tapisht in bush and brire,
No art nor paines can rowse out of his place:
The Christian knights so full of shame and ire
Returned backe, with faint and wearie pace!
Yet still the fearfull Dame fled, swift as winde
Nor euer staid, nor euer lookt behinde.
Through thicke and thinne, all night, all day, she driued,
Withouten comfort, companie, or guide,
Her plaints and teares with euery thought reuiued,
She heard and saw her greefes, but nought beside.
But when the sunne his burning chariot diued
In Thetis wane, and wearie teame vntide,
On Iordans sandie banks her course she staid,
At last, there downe she light, and downe she laid
Her teares, her drinke; her food, her sorrowings,
This was her diet that vnhappie night;
But sleepe (that sweet repose and quiet brings)
To ease the greefes of discontented wight,
Spred forth his tender, soft, and nimble wings,
In his dull armes foulding the virgin bright;
And loue, his mother, and the graces kept
Strong watch and warde, while this faire Ladie slept
The birds awakte her with their morning song,
Their warbling musicke pearst her tender eare,
The murmuring brookes and whistling windes among
The rattling boughes, and leaues, their parts did beare;
Her eies vnclos'd beheld the groues along
Of swaines and shepherd groomes, that dwellings weare;
And that sweet noise, birds, winds, and waters sent,
Prouokt again the virgin to lament.
Her plaints were interrupted with a sound,
That seem'd from thickest bushes to proceed,
Some iolly shepherd sung a lustie round,
And to his voice had tun'd his oaten reed;
Thither she went, an old man there she found,
(At whose right hand his little flock did feed)
Sat making baskets, his three sonnes among
That learn'd their father's art, and learn'd his song.
Beholding one in shining armes appeare
The seelie man and his were sore dismaid;
But sweet Erminia comforted their feare,
Her ventall vp, her visage open laid
You happie folke, of heau'n beloued deare,
Work on (quoth she) upon your harmless traid,
These dreadfull armes I beare no warfare bring
To your sweet toile, nor those sweet tunes yon sing.
But father, since this land, these townes and towres,
Destroied are with sword, with fire and spoile,
How may it be unhurt, that you and yours
In safetie thus, applie your harmlesse toile?
My sonne (quoth he) this pore estate of ours
Is euer safe from storm of warlike broile;
This wilderneese doth vs in safetie keepe,
No thundering drum, no trumpet breakes our sleepe.
Haply iust heau'ns defence and shield of right,
Doth loue the innocence of simple swains,
The thunderbolts on highest mountains light,
And seld or neuer strike the lower plaines;
So kings have cause to feare Bellonaes might,
Not they whose sweat and toile their dinner gaines,
Nor ever greedie soldier was entised
By pouertie, neglected and despised.
O Pouertie, chefe of the heau'nly brood,
Dearer to me than wealth or kingly crowne!
No wish for honour, thirst of others good,
Can moue my hart, contented with mine owne:
We quench our thirst with water of this flood,
Nor fear we poison should therein be throwne;
These little flocks of sheepe and tender goates
Giue milke for food, and wool to make us coates.
We little wish, we need but little wealth,
From cold and hunger vs to cloath and feed;
These are my sonnes, their care preserues from stealth
Their fathers flocks, nor servants moe I need:
Amid these groues I walks oft for my health,
And to the fishes, birds, and beastes give heed,
How they are fed, in forrest, spring and lake,
And their contentment for ensample take.
Time was (for each one hath his doting time,
These siluer locks were golden tresses than)
That countrie life I hated as a crime,
And from the forrests sweet contentment ran,
To Memphis' stately pallace would I clime,
And there became the mightie Caliphes man
And though I but a simple gardner weare,
Yet could I marke abuses, see and heare.
Entised on with hope of future gaine,
I suffred long what did my soule displease;
But when my youth was spent, my hope was vaine,
I felt my native strength at last decrease;
I gan my losse of lustie yeeres complaine,
And wisht I had enjoy'd the countries peace;
I bod the court farewell, and with content
My later age here have I quiet spent.
While thus he spake, Erminia husht and still
His wise discourses heard, with great attention,
His speeches graue those idle fancies kill,
Which in her troubled soule bred such dissention;
After much thought reformed was her will,
Within those woods to dwell was her intention,
Till fortune should occasion new afford,
To turne her home to her desired Lord.
She said therefore, O shepherd fortunate!
That troubles some didst whilom feele and proue.
Yet liuest now in this contented state,
Let my mishap thy thoughts to pitie moue,
To entertaine me as a willing mate
In shepherds life, which I admire and loue;
Within these plessant groues perchance my hart,
Of her discomforts, may vnload some part.
If gold or wealth of most esteemed deare,
If iewels rich, thou diddest hold in prise,
Such store thereof, such plentie haue I seen,
As to a greedie minde might well suffice:
With that downe trickled many a siluer teare,
Two christall streames fell from her watrie eies;
Part of her sad misfortunes then she told,
And wept, and with her wept that shepherd old.
With speeches kinde, he gan the virgin deare
Towards his cottage gently home to guide;
His aged wife there made her homely cheare,
Yet welcomde her, and plast her by her side.
The Princesse dond a poor pastoraes geare,
A kerchiefe course vpon her head she tide;
But yet her gestures and her lookes (I gesse)
Were such, as ill beseem'd a shepherdesse.
Not those rude garments could obscure, and hide
The heau'nly beautie of her angels face,
Nor was her princely ofspring damnifide,
Or ought disparag'de, by those labours bace;
Her little flocks to pasture would she guide,
And milke her goates, and in their folds them place,
Both cheese and butter could she make, and frame
Her selfe to please the shepherd and his dame.
The life of Milton has been already written in so many forms, and
estate in the times of York and Lancaster.  Which side he took I
His grandfather, John, was keeper of the forest of Shotover, a
Welsh family, by whom he had two sons, John, the poet, and
scholar considered him as worthy of an epistolary elegy.
College, in Cambridge, where he entered a sizar, Feb. 12, 1624.
He was at this time eminently skilled in the Latin tongue; and he
commend the earliness of his own proficiency to the notice of
posterity.
But the products of his vernal fertility have been surpassed by
Many of his elegies appear to have been written in his eighteenth
translator of Polybius, remark, what I think is true, that Milton
undoubtedly applauded; for they were such as few can form:  yet
indignity of corporal correction.
apparently not true; but it seems plain, from his own verses to
"Diodati", that he had incurred "rustication," a temporary
dismission into the country, with perhaps the loss of a term.
Me tenet urbs reflua quam Thamesis alluit unda,
Meque nec invitum patria dulcis habet.
Jam nec arundiferum mihi cura revisere Camum
Nec dudum vetiti me laris angit amor. -
Nec duri libet usque minas preferre magistri,
Caeteraque ingenio non subeunda meo.
Si sit hoc exilium patrias adiisse penates,
Et vacuum curis otia greta sequi,
Non ego vel profugi nomen sortemve recuso,
Laetus et exilii conditione fruor.
I cannot find any meaning but this, which even kindness and
education, inscribed to Hartlib, supersedes all academical
instruction, being intended to comprise the whole time which men
One of his objections to academical education, as it was then
conducted, is, that men designed for orders in the church were
bawds, prostituting the shame of that ministry which they had, or
This is sufficiently peevish in a man, who, when he mentions his
exile from the college, relates, with great luxuriance, the
These expressions are, I find, applied to the subscription of the
civil, raise his indignation.
His unwillingness to engage in the ministry, perhaps not yet
advanced to a settled resolution of declining it, appears in a
letter to one of his friends, who had reproved his suspended and
dilatory life, which he seems to have imputed to an insatiable
curiosity, and fantastic luxury of various knowledge.  To this he
persuade him, that the delay proceeds not from the delights of
When he left the University, he returned to his father, then
residing at Horton, in Buckinghamshire, with whom he lived five
understood, who shall inform us?
It might be supposed, that he who read so much should have done
President of Wales, in 1634; and had the honour of being acted by
liberty of borrowing from Homer:
--a quo ceu fonte perenni
Vatum Pieriis ora rigantur aquis.
He is supposed about this time to have written his Arcades; for
entertainment.
consent, and Sir Henry Wotton's directions; with the celebrated
precept of prudence, i pensieri stretti, ed il viso sciolto;
"thoughts close, and looks loose."
In 1638 he left England, and went first to Paris; where, by the
favour of Lord Scudamore, he had the opportunity of visiting
Grotius, then residing at the French court as ambassador from
perhaps not without some contempt of others, for scarcely any man
preservative from oblivion.
At Florence he could not indeed complain that his merit wanted
distinction.  Carlo Dati presented him with an encomiastic
From Rome he passed on to Naples, in company of a hermit, a
accomplishments to honour him with a sorry distich, in which he
commends him for everything but his religion:  and Milton, in
amusements while his countrymen were contending for their rights.
Here he reposed as in a congenial element, and became acquainted
after an absence of a year and three months.
He now hired a lodging at the house of one Russel a tailor in St.
allowance was not ample; and he supplied its deficiencies by an
honest and useful employment
sixteen years of age.  Those who tell or receive these stories
requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish
indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.
The purpose of Milton, as it seems, was to teach something more
solid than the common literature of schools, by reading those
authors that treat of physical subjects, such as the Georgic, and
But the truth is, that the knowledge of external nature, and the
sciences which that knowledge requires or includes, are not the
great or the frequent business of the human mind.  Whether we
materials for conversation; and these purposes are best served by
Let me not be censured for this digression as pedantic or
Of institutions we may judge by their effects.  From this wonder-
That in his school, as in everything else which he undertook, he
theology, of which he dictated a short system, gathered from the
writers that were then fashionable in the Dutch universities.
indulgence with some gay gentlemen of Gray's Inn.
Church, being willing to help the Puritans, who were, he says,
"inferior to the Prelates in learning."
Hall, Bishop of Norwich, had published an Humble Remonstrance, in
learned Usher; and to the confutation Milton published a reply,
under the Name of James, Lord Bishop of Armagh."
discovers, not with ostentatious exultation, but with calm
confidence, his high opinion of his own powers, and promises to
utterance and knowledge, and sends out His seraphim, with the
steady observation, and insight into all seemly and generous arts
He published the same year two more pamphlets, upon the same
question.  To one of his antagonists, who affirms that he was
simple is the answerer, if he think to obtain with me.  Of small
This is surely the language of a man who thinks that he has been
incontinence, gives an account of his own purity:  "That if I be
The style of his piece is rough, and such perhaps was that of his
periods, he greets us with a quantity of thumb-ring posies.--And
mentioned in one of his sonnets.  At last Michaelmas arrived; but
husband's habitation, and therefore very willingly forgot her
family of the lady were Cavaliers.
In a man whose opinion of his own merit was like Milton's, less
This innovation was opposed, as might be expected, by the clergy,
accusers, did soon dismiss him."
From this time it is observed that he became an enemy to the
Presbyterians, whom he had favoured before.  He that changes his
His wife and her relations now found that Milton was not an
lane of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and at one of his usual visits was
inclinable to reconciliation than to perseverance in anger or
revenge, and partly the strong intercession of friends on both
distressed, with other Royalists.
what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must
murmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be no
But whatever were his engagements, civil or domestic poetry was
never long out of his thoughts.
He had taken a larger house in Barbican for the reception of
scholars; but the numerous relations of his wife, to whom he
friends, and that neither his writings nor his way of teaching
savoured in the least of pedantry."
Thus laboriously does his nephew extenuate what cannot be denied,
warmest friends seem not to have found; they therefore shift and
Philips, evidently impatient of viewing him in this state of
obstruction to the design."  An event cannot be set at a much
greater distance than by having been only "designed, about some
Presbyterians, he wrote a treatise to justify it, "and to compose
Milton is suspected of having interpolated the book called "Icon
The papers which the king gave to Dr. Juxon on the scaffold the
regicides took away; so that they were at least the publishers of
wanted to accuse.
King Charles the Second, being now sheltered in Holland, employed
principles of society or the right of government, undertook the
unable to decide whose language was best, or whose arguments were
Salmasius, whose doctrine he considers as servile and unmanly, to
signifies only a MASK, in a sense not known to the Romans, by
applying it as we apply PERSON.  But as Nemesis is always on the
those supposed blunders, he says, as Ker, and I think some one
That the performance of Salmasius was not dispersed with equal
submission; and he had been so long not only the monarch, but the
That Salmasius was, from the appearance of Milton's book, treated
- Quid agis cum dira et foedior omni
Crimine persona est?
flattered with the credit of destroying him.
That his authority was lawful, never was pretended; he himself
services, and his flatteries, to a tyrant, of whom it was evident
He had now been blind for some years; but his vigour of intellect
About this time his first wife died in childbed, having left him
time married Catharine, the daughter of one Captain Woodcock, of
Polypragmatici (alias Miltoni) defensionem destructivam Regis et
Populi."  Of this the author was not known; but Milton and his
nephew Philips, under whose name he published an answer so much
corrected by him, that it might be called his own, imputed it to
suspected.
In this second Defence he shows that his eloquence is not merely
satirical; the rudeness of his invective is equalled by the
aequales inaequalis ipse honores sibi quaerit, aut digniori
concessos invidet, aut non intelligit nihil esse in societate
hominum magis vel Deo gratum, vel rationi consentaneum, esse in
civitate nihil aequius, nihil utilius, quam potiri rerum
maximus, et gloriosissimus, dux publici consilii, exercituum
Caesar, when he assumed the perpetual dictatorship, had not more
servile or more elegant flattery.  A translation may show its
virtue, overpowering and resistless, every man gives way, except
councils, the leader of unconquered armies, the father of your
- Poma alba ferebat
Quae post nigra tulit Morus.
As secretary to the Protector he is supposed to have written the
Declaration of the reasons for a war with Spain.  His agency was
considered as of great importance; for, when a treaty with Sweden
Milton's indisposition; and the Swedish agent was provoked to
Being now forty-seven years old, and seeing himself disencumbered
minute inspection and collation.  Nor would Milton probably have
begun it, after he had lost his eyes; but, having had it always
To compile a history from various authors, when they can only be
consulted by other eyes, is not easy, nor possible, but with more
For the subject of his epic poem, after much deliberation, long
choosing, and beginning late, he fixed upon "Paradise Lost," a
another destiny."
It appears, by some sketches of poetical projects left in
manuscript, and to be seen in a library at Cambridge, that he had
Adam, } with the Serpent     Chorus of Angels.
with others;}                Ignorance,  }
Mercy,   } debating what should become of man, if he fall.
Chorus of Angels singing a hymn of the Creation.
Chorus sing the marriage-song, and describe Paradise.
Lucifer contriving Adam's ruin.
Chorus fears for Adam, and relates Lucifer's rebellion and fall.
Eve,  } fallen.
Conscience cites them to God's examination.
Chorus bewails, and tells the good Adam has lost.
Adam and Eve driven out of Paradise.
-- -- presented by an angel with Labour, Grief, Hatred, }
Hope,    } comfort him and instruct him.
Chorus briefly concludes.
Such was his first design, which could have produced only an
allegory or mystery.  The following sketch seems to have attained
The angel Gabriel, either descending or entering; showing, since
Gabriel, as by his name signifying a prince of power, tracing
Paradise with a more free office, passes by the station of the
Chorus, and, desired by them, relates what he knew of man; as the
cites him to the place whither Jehovah called for him.  In the
appears, reasons with him, convinces him.  The Chorus admonishes
These are very imperfect rudiments of "Paradise Lost;" but it is
pleasant to see great works in their seminal state, pregnant with
delightful entertainment than to trace their gradual growth and
meditation.
comprehension was extended by various knowledge, and his memory
stored with intellectual treasures.  He was skilful in many
languages, and had, by reading and composition, attained the full
Oliver was now dead; Richard constrained to resign; the system of
published, to such men as he thought friends to the new
answered.
The obstinate enthusiasm of the commonwealth-men was very
remarkable.  When the king was apparently returning, Harrington,
Restoration, Notes upon a Sermon preached by one Griffiths,
But whatever Milton could write, or men of greater activity could
office; the importance of his writings, thought it convenient to
The king, with lenity of which the world has had perhaps no other
immediately co-operated in the murder of the king.  Milton was
"Obstructors of Justice," another book of the same tendency, and
very diligently pursued.
Not long after (August 19) the flutter of innumerable bosoms was
stilled by an Act, which the king, that his mercy might want no
appears to be mistaken."
Forgotten he was not; for his prosecution was ordered; it must be
Morrice, and Sir Thomas Clarges:  and undoubtedly a man like him
narration can be traced no higher; it is not known that he hid it
punishment which the power of Government can commonly inflict
veneration of his abilities, and compassion for his distresses,
which made it fit to forgive his malice for his learning.  He was
illustrious enemy, depressed by fortune and disarmed by nature?
The publication of the "Act of Oblivion" put him in the same
condition with his fellow-subjects.  He was, however, upon some
attendant; and therefore, by the recommendation of Dr. Paget,
married Elizabeth Minshul, of a gentleman's family in Cheshire,
life was short.  The third, as Philips relates, oppressed his
children in his lifetime, and cheated them at his death.
Soon after his marriage, according to an obscure story, he was
considered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers of
ecclesiastical opinions, and from this time devoted himself to
from his elevation to rescue children from the perplexity of
grammatical confusion, and the trouble of lessons unnecessarily
repeated.
from us in their own countries.  Elwood complied with the
In a short time he took a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to
Milton's removals and habitations.  He lived longer in this place
tragedy.  Voltaire tells a wild and unauthorised story of a farce
He long had promised to adorn his native country by some great
performance, while he had yet perhaps no settled design, and was
stimulated only by such expectations as naturally arose from the
survey of his attainments, and the consciousness of his powers.
What he should undertake it was difficult to determine.  He was
"long choosing, and began late."
tolerable.
In the intervals of his pain, being made unable to use the common
would conveniently retain, to employ some friend in writing them,
necessity it must continually go on, or why it might not be laid
aside and resumed, it is not easy to discover.
This dependence of the soul upon the seasons, those temporary and
astris.  The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find,
with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or
exhausted.  But while this notion has possession of the head, it
produces the inability which it supposes.  Our powers owe much of
success seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it is
admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a
cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance; for who can
contend with the course of nature?
decrepitude of nature.  It was suspected that the whole creation
Another opinion wanders about the world, and sometimes finds
wholly cleared his head, when he feared lest the CLIMATE of his
country might be TOO COLD for flights of imagination.
Into a mind already occupied by such fancies, another, not more
contemporaries, with the hope of growing every day greater in the
Of his artifices of study, or particular hours of composition, we
dictate perhaps forty lines in a breath, and then reduce them to
half the number."
Milton called for his daughter "to secure what came," may be
disburdening his memory, if his daughter could have performed the
What he has told us, and we cannot now know more, is, that he
composed much of this poem in the night and morning, I suppose
before his mind was disturbed with common business; and that he
poured out with great fluency his "unpremeditated verse."
thoughts were once adjusted, the words would come at his command.
At what particular times of his life the parts of his work were
written, cannot often be known.  The beginning of the third book
shows that he had lost his sight, and the introduction to the
seventh, that the return of the king had clouded him with
Milton, being now cleared from all effects of his disloyalty, had
But the charge itself seems to be false; for it would be hard to
studies or his amusements, without persecution, molestation, or
insult.  Such is the reverence paid to great abilities, however
When the plague (1665) raged in London, Milton took refuge at
particular passages, and among them to the simile of the sun
payment of five pounds, with a stipulation to receive five pounds
hundred copies.
The sale gave him in two years a right to his second payment, for
history of "Paradise Lost" a deduction thus minute will rather
gratify than fatigue.
That in the reigns of Charles and James the "Paradise Lost "
received no public acclamations is readily confessed.  Wit and
literature were on the side of the court:  and who that solicited
regicides?  All that he himself could think his due, from "evil
tongues" in "evil days," was that reverential silence which was
pleasure or accomplishment, and who buy the numerous products of
modern typography, the number was then comparatively small.  To
probably did not together make one thousand copies.
without assistance; its admirers did not dare to publish their
opinion; and the opportunities now given of attracting notice by
advertisements were then very few; the means of proclaiming the
publication of new books have been produced by that general
Revolution put an end to the secrecy of love, and "Paradise Lost"
Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton
disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own merit with
steady consciousness, and waiting without impatience the
vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future
generation.
Mr. Philips tells us, "that though our author had daily about him
languages of whatever book he should, at one time or other, think
employment could not be always concealed, but broke out more and
more into expressions of uneasiness; so that at length they were
all, even the eldest also, sent out to learn some curious and
convey meaning.  If few men would have had resolution, to write
books with such embarrassments, few likewise would have wanted
ability to find some better expedient.
Three years after his "Paradise Lost" (1667) he published his
"History of England," comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey of
On this history the licenser again fixed his claws, and before he
censures of the Saxon monks were taken away, lest they should be
applied to the modern clergy; and a character of the Long
Parliament, and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which the
author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which, being
The same year were printed "Paradise Regained;" and "Samson
Agonistes," a tragedy written in imitation of the ancients, and
never designed by the author for the stage.  As these poems were
thirteen hundred copies of a volume in quarto, bought for two
His last poetical offspring was his favourite.  He could not, as
Elwood relates, endure to hear "Paradise Lost" preferred to
high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been
fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has
necessarily most of the grace of novelty.  Milton, however it
happened, had this prejudice, and had it to himself.
To that multiplicity of attainments, and extent of comprehension,
rudiments, now, in the last years of his life, composed a book of
concinnata;" that is, "A new Scheme of Logic, according to the
His polemical disposition again revived.  He had now been safe so
regard conscience which is not grounded in Scripture."
He now reprinted his juvenile poems, with some additions.
Latin;" to which, being too few to make a volume, he added some
academical exercises, which perhaps he perused with pleasure, as
Upon his grave there is supposed to have been no memorial; but in
inscription bestowed more words upon himself than upon Milton.
When the inscription for the monument of Philips, in which he was
Milton has the reputation of having been in his youth eminently
recommends the use in his book on education.
His eyes are said never to have been bright; but, if he was a
dexterous fencer, they must have been once quick.
His domestic habits, so far as they are known, were those of a
delicacy of choice.  In his youth he studied late at night; but
exercise for an hour; then dined, then played on the organ, and
So is his life described; but this even tenour appears attainable
obliquely in an elbow-chair, with his leg thrown over the arm.
Fortune appears not to have had much of his care.  In the civil
Church, he had grasped an estate of about sixty pounds a year
belonging to Westminster Abbey, which, like other sharers of the
plunder of rebellion, he was afterwards obliged to return.  Two
sold his library before his death, and left his family fifteen
hundred pounds, on which his widow laid hold, and only gave one
hundred to each of his daughters.
diligence.  The books in which his daughter, who used to read to
Euripides is, by Mr. Cradock's kindness, now in my hands:  the
margin is sometimes noted; but I have found nothing remarkable.
Of the English poets he set most value upon Spenser, Shakespeare,
applicable to him, "Magis habuit quod fugeret, quam quod
conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have regarded the
Providence, yet grew old without any visible worship.  In the
distribution of his hours, there was no hour of prayer, either
praying acceptably in the state of innocence, and efficaciously
after their fall.  That he lived without prayer can hardly be
His political notions were those of an acrimonious and surly
impoverishment.
Milton's Republicanism was, I am afraid, founded in an envious
hatred of greatness, and a sullen desire of independence; in
that he felt not so much the love of liberty as repugnance to
authority.
beings.  That his own daughters might not break the ranks, he
Of his family some account may be expected.  His sister, first
educated; and by her second, two daughters.
Milton had children only by his first wife:  Anne, Mary, and
Clark, a weaver in Spitalfields, and lived seventy-six years, to
To this gentlewoman Addison made a present, and promised some
delicate, though temperate, in his diet.
In 1750, April 5th, Comus was played for her benefit.  She had so
laudable; what he has once written he resolves to preserve, and
speak as a critic; but I have heard them commended by a man well
qualified to decide their merit.  The Latin pieces are lusciously
exquisite imitation of the ancient writers, by the purity of the
diction, and the harmony of the numbers, than by any power of
Those who admire the beauties of this great poet sometimes force
singular.  All that short compositions can commonly attain is
One of the poems on which much praise has been bestowed is
effusion of real passion; for passion runs not after remote
easy, vulgar, and therefore disgusting; whatever images it can
discoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by these
We drove afield, and both together heard
What time the grey fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night.
Among the flocks, and copses, and flowers, appear the heathen
praises will confer no honour.
impiety, of which, however, I believe the writer not to have been
Such is the power of reputation justly acquired, that its blaze
author.
Of the two pieces, "L'Allegro" and "il Penseroso," I believe,
opinion is uniform; every man that reads them, reads them with
disposed; but rather how, among the successive variety of
The CHEERFUL man hears the lark in the morning; the PENSIVE man
hears the nightingale in the evening.  The CHEERFUL man sees the
cock strut, and hears the horn and hounds echo in the wood; then
plenty, and looks up to the distant tower, the residence of some
narratives of superstitious ignorance.
Both mirth and melancholy are solitary, silent inhabitants of the
The man of CHEERFULNESS, having exhausted the country, tries what
spectator, as, when the learned comedies of Jonson, or the wild
dramas of Shakespeare, are exhibited, he attends the theatre.
The PENSIVE man never loses himself in crowds, but walks the
Both his characters delight in music; but he seems to think that
release.
For the old age of Cheerfulness he makes no provision:  but
asperity.
sufficiently apart.  No mirth can, indeed, be found in his
melancholy; but I am afraid that I always meet some melancholy in
"Paradise Lost."  Milton appears to have formed very early that
system of diction, and mode of verse, which his maturer judgment
approved, and from which he never endeavoured nor desired to
deviate.
employed in the praise and defence of virtue.  A work more truly
poetical is rarely found; allusions, images, and descriptive
together in search of berries too far to find their way back, and
This, however, is a defect over-balanced by its convenience.
representation, that no precedents can support it.
The discourse of the Spirit is too long; an objection that may be
enjoyment, and take no dangerous hold on the fancy.
The following soliloquies of Comus and the Lady are elegant but
tedious.  The song must owe much to the voice if it ever can
delight.  At last the Brothers enter with too much tranquillity;
and, when they have feared lest their Sister should be in danger,
praise of chastity, and the younger finds how fine it is to be a
philosopher.
Then descends the Spirit in form of a shepherd; and the Brother,
The dispute between the Lady and Comus is the most animated and
affecting scene of the drama, and wants nothing but a brisker
reciprocation of objections and replies to invite attention, and
detain it.
The songs are vigorous and full of imagery; but they are harsh in
inelegantly splendid, and tediously instructive.
Those little pieces may be despatched without much anxiety; a
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling
therefore relates some great event in the most affecting manner.
History must supply the writer with the rudiments of narration,
which he must improve and exalt by a nobler art, must animate by
dramatic energy, and diversify by retrospection and anticipation;
realising fiction.  Nor is he yet a poet till he has attained the
seems to have been the process only of Milton; the moral of other
arduous:  "to vindicate the ways of God to man;" to show the
reasonableness of religion, and the necessity of obedience to the
To convey this moral there must be a FABLE, a narration artfully
The subject of an epic poem is naturally an event of great
importance.  That of Milton is not the destruction of a city, the
their original happiness and innocence, their forfeiture of
immortality, and their restoration to hope and peace.
Of the other agents in the poem, the chief are such as it is
Of which the least could wield
Those elements, and arm him with the force
Of all their regions;
superior, so far as human reason can examine them, or human
In the examination of epic poems much speculation is commonly
employed upon the CHARACTERS.  The characters in the "Paradise
exalted and most depraved being."  Milton has been censured by
extricated himself with great happiness.  There is in Satan's
wicked.
The other chiefs of the celestial rebellion are very judiciously
discriminated in the first and second books; and the ferocious
character of Moloch appears, both in the battle and the council,
with exact consistency.
To Adam and to Eve are given, during their innocence, such
But with guilt enter distrust and discord, mutual accusation, and
marvellous is probable.  The substance of the narrative is truth;
human, some slight exceptions may be made; but the main fabric is
partake of that good and evil which extend to themselves.
topic of critical remarks, here is no room to speak, because
everything is done under the immediate and visible direction of
Of EPISODES, I think there are only two--contained in Raphael's
relation of the war in Heaven, and Michael's prophetic account of
To the completeness or INTEGRITY of the design nothing can be
mutilation.  Here are no funeral games, nor is there any long
The questions, whether the action of the poem be strictly ONE,
rather from books than from reason.  Milton, though he entitled
Lucan's authority will not be suffered by Quintilian to decide.
However, if success be necessary, Adam's deceiver was at last
After the scheme and fabric of the poem, must be considered its
component parts, the sentiments and the diction.
The SENTIMENTS, as expressive of manners, or appropriated to
characters, are, for the greater part, unexceptionably just.
Splendid passages, containing lessons of morality, or precepts of
motions, with the answer returned by Adam, may be confidently
opposed to any rule of life which any poet has delivered.
degree fervid and active, to which materials were supplied by
unrestrained indulgence, and his conceptions therefore were
He seems to have been well acquainted with his own genius, and to
The appearances of nature, and the occurrences of life, did not
satiate his appetite of greatness.  To paint things as they are
furnish sentiment and action to superior beings; to trace the
counsels of hell, or accompany the choirs of heaven.
But he could not be always in other worlds; he must sometimes
Whatever be his subject, he never fails to fill the imagination.
But his images and descriptions of the scenes or operations of
nature do not seem to be always copied from original form, nor to
elements, like Argo between the Cyanean rocks, or Ulysses between
contribute variety to the narration, and produce an alternate
exercise of the memory and the fancy.
expands the adventitious image beyond the dimensions which the
telescope, and all the wonders which the telescope discovers.
Of his moral sentiments it is hardly praise to affirm that they
mercy.
From the Italian writers it appears that the advantages of even
In Milton every line breathes sanctity of thought, and purity of
manners, except when the train of the narration requires the
forbearance; how confidence of the Divine favour is forfeited by
worship proper to a fallen and offending being, we have all to
learn, as we have all to practise.
The poet, whatever be done, is always great.  Our progenitors in
general and prevailing quality in this poem; sublimity variously
modified--sometimes descriptive, sometimes argumentative.
The defects and faults of "Paradise Lost"--for faults and defects
The generality of my scheme does not admit the frequent notice of
author's blindness obliged him to employ; a supposition rash and
The plan of "Paradise Lost" has this inconvenience, that it
comprises neither human actions nor human manners.  The man and
imagination place himself; he has, therefore, little natural
curiosity or sympathy.
restless and insidious enemies in the fallen angels, and in the
hell we are surely interested, as we are all to reside hereafter
either in the regions of horror or bliss.
unaccustomed emotion in the mind; what we knew before, we cannot
learn; what is not unexpected, cannot surprise.
Of the ideas suggested by these awful scenes, from some we recede
salutary inflictions, as counterpoises to our interests and
passions.  Such images rather obstruct the career of fancy than
incite it.
Pleasure and terror are indeed the genuine sources of poetry; but
content with calm belief and humble adoration.
Known truths, however, may take a different appearance, and be
conveyed to the mind by a new train of intermediate images.  This
mind peculiar to himself.  Whoever considers the few radical
positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what
energetic operation he expanded them to such extent, and ramified
But original deficiency cannot be supplied.  The want of human
Another inconvenience of Milton's design is, that it requires the
show angels acting but by instruments of action; he therefore
invested them with form and matter.  This, being necessary, was
vapours, he has a body; when he animates the toad, he seems to be
contending angels are evidently material.
sinning."  This likewise happened to the uncorrupted angels, who
cover to be battered.  Uriel, when he rides on a sunbeam, is
material; Satan is material when he is afraid of the prowess of
The confusion of spirit and matter, which pervades the whole
children, and gradually neglected as knowledge is increased.
existence.  To exalt causes into agents, to invest abstract ideas
precedents can justify absurdity.
Milton's allegory of Sin and Death is undoubtedly faulty.  Sin is
bulky for ideal architects.
opinion of its beauty.
before his departure.
To find sentiments for the state of innocence was very difficult;
notions, especially when the philosophy is false, might have been
deer," before deer were yet timorous, and before Adam could
understand the comparison.
Dryden remarks, that Milton has some flats among his elevations.
This is only to say, that all the parts are not equal.  In every
work, one part must be for the sake of others; a palace must have
soared so high, or sustained his flight so long?
Milton, being well versed in the Italian poets, appears to have
disgraced his work with the Paradise of Fools; a fiction not in
itself ill-imagined, but too ludicrous for its place.
His play on words, in which he delights too often; his
whole, that they scarcely deserve the attention of a critic.
wisdom.  The basis of "Paradise Regained" is narrow; a dialogue
without action can never please like a union of the narrative and
If "Paradise Regained" has been too much depreciated, "Samson
In this tragedy are, however, many particular beauties, many just
Milton would not have excelled in dramatic writing; he knew human
resemblance to that of any former writer; and which is so far
removed from common use, that an unlearned reader, when he first
opens his book, finds himself surprised by a new language.
This novelty has been, by those who can find nothing wrong in
desirous to use English words with a foreign idiom.  This, in all
learning the vehicle of so much instruction and so much pleasure,
reconcile the nation to Raleigh's wild attempt upon Guiana, and
probably written by Raleigh himself.  These petty performances
communicate its rules to another; where metre is scanty and
which is called the "lapidary style;" has neither the easiness of
continuance.  Of the Italian writers without rhyme, whom Milton
condescend to rhyme.
therefore owes reverence to that vigour and amplitude of mind to
which all generations must be indebted for the art of poetical
poems, only because it is not the first.
Abraham Cowley was born in the year one thousand sir hundred and
eighteen.  His father was a grocer, whose condition Dr. Sprat
suspect that his father was a sectary.  Whoever he was, he died
charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet.
Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps
sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind,
treatise.
By his mother's solicitation he was admitted into Westminster
This is an instance of the natural desire of man to propagate a
wonder.  It is surely very difficult to tell anything as it was
heard, when Sprat could not refrain from amplifying a commodious
incident, though the book to which he prefixed his narrative
contained its confutation.  A memory admitting some things, and
being an "enemy to constraint," he spared himself the labour.
While he was yet at school he produced a comedy called "Love's
Two years after his settlement at Cambridge, he published "Love's
At the beginning of the civil war, as the prince passed through
Cambridge in his way to York, he was entertained with the
representation of "The Guardian," a comedy which Cowley says was
lustre on all to whom it was extended.
About the time when Oxford was surrendered to the Parliament, he
correspondence as the royal cause required, and particularly in
filled all his days and two or three nights in the week.
duties, or obliging themselves to be true to love."
resolution to tell his passion.
This consideration cannot but abate in some measure the reader's
pleasing has in different men produced actions of heroism, and
from April to December, in 1650, are preserved in "Miscellanea
This expression, from a secretary of the present time, would be
considered as merely ludicrous, or at most as an ostentatious
consulted on this great occasion the Virgilian lots, and to have
given some credit to the answer of his oracle.
Some years afterwards, "business," says Sprat, "passed of course
dismissed without the security of a thousand pounds given by Dr.
him, and indeed it does not seem to have lessened his reputation.
into a prison, will be willing enough to retire to some place of
quiet and of safety.  Yet let neither our reverence for a genius,
activity was virtue, his retreat was cowardice.
power (which was much taken notice of by the royal party), he
This is no favourable representation; yet even in this not much
obedience.  He may engage to do nothing, but not to do ill.
trusted without security, for the bond of his bail was never
returned into France, where he resumed his former station, and
stayed till the restoration.
"He continued," says his biographer, "under these bonds till the
friend, but by his friend's permission.
A doctor of physic, however, he was made at Oxford in December,
There is no reason for supposing that he ever attempted practice:
display the qualities of herbs, in elegiac verse; the third and
At the same time were produced, from the same university, the two
purity or elegance, accommodates the diction of Rome to his own
conceptions.
says Wood, "by certain persons, enemies to the Muses."
party.
What firmness they expected, or what weakness Cowley discovered,
cannot be known.  He that misses his end will never be as much
pleased as he that attains it, even when he can impute no part of
For the rejection of this play it is difficult now to find the
reason:  it certainly has, in a very great degree, the power of
fixing attention and exciting merriment.  From the charge of
That he might shorten this tedious suspense, he published his
Savoy-missing Cowley came into the court,
Making apologies for his bad play;
Every one gave him so good a report,
That Apollo gave heed to all he could say:
Nor would he have had, 'tis thought, a rebuke,
Unless he had done some notable folly;
Writ verses unjustly in praise of Sam Tuke,
Or printed his pitiful Melancholy.
His vehement desire of retirement now came again upon him.  "Not
"He was now," says the courtly Sprat, "weary of the vexations and
that moved him to follow the violent inclination of his own mind,
called upon him, and represented to him the true delights of
solitary studies, of temperate pleasures, and a moderate revenue
below the malice and flatteries of fortune."
that may hereafter pant for solitude.
unable to move or turn myself in my bed.  This is my personal
hanging.  Another misfortune has been, and stranger than all the
monstri simile.  I do hope to recover my late hurt so far within
five or six days (though it be uncertain yet whether I shall ever
sapienti."
He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of
He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and King
Charles pronounced, "That Mr. Cowley had not left behind him a
irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general
only as a slender supplement.
Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and,
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
If the father of criticism had rightly denominated poetry [Greek
text], AN IMITATIVE ART, these writers will, without great wrong,
intellect.
Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits.
If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been
often thought, but was never before so well expressed," they
diction.  But Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he
industry they were ever found.
But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more
improvement dearly bought, and though he sometimes admires, is
seldom pleased.
affections.  As they were wholly employed on something unexpected
impassive and at leisure; as epicurean deities, making remarks on
novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things
could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dignity of a
writer, by descriptions copied from descriptions, by imitations
borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary
similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables.
copiousness of sentiment.
Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much
As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being
admired than understood, they sometimes drew their conceits from
The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew;
The phoenix truth did on it rest,
And built his perfumed nest,
That right Porphyrian tree which did true logic show.
Each leaf did learned notions give,
And the apples were demonstrative;
So clear their colour and divine,
The very shads they cast did other lights outshine.
On Anacreon continuing a lover in his old age:
Love was with thy life entwined,
Close as heat with fire is join'd;
A powerful brand prescribed the date
Of thine, like Meleager's fate.
Th' antiperistasis of age
More enflam'd thy amorous rage.
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.
In everything there naturally grows
A balsamum to keep it fresh and new,
If 'twere not injured by extrinsic blows:
Your youth and beauty are this balm in you.
But you, of learning and religion,
And virtue and such ingredients, have made
A mithridate, whose operation
Keeps off, or cures what can be done or said.
This twilight of two years, not past nor next,
Some emblem is of me, or I of this,
Who, meteor-like, of stuff and form perplext,
Whose what and where in disputation is,
If I should call me anything, should miss.
I sum the years and me, and find me not
Debtor to th' old, nor creditor to th' new.
That cannot say, my thanks I have forget,
Nor trust I this with hopes; and yet scarce true
This bravery is, since these times show'd me you--DONNE.
If men be worlds, there is in every one
Something to answer in some proportion;
All the world's riches; and in good men, this
Virtue, our form's form, and our soul's soul, is
Of thoughts so far-fetched, as to be not only unexpected, but
unnatural, all their books are full.
To a lady, who wrote posies for rings:
They, who above do various circles find,
Say, like a ring, th' equator Heaven does bind
When Heaven shall be adorned by thee,
(Which then more Heaven than 'tis will be)
'Tis thou must write the poesy there,
For it wanteth one as yet,
Then the sun pass through't twice a year,
The sun, which is esteem'd the god of wit.--COWLEY.
Five years ago (says story) I loved you,
For which you call me most inconstant now;
Pardon me, madam, you mistake the man;
For I am not the same that I was then:
No flesh is now the same 'twas then in me,
And that my mind is changed yourself may see.
The same thoughts to retain still, and intents
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.
Hast thou not found each woman's breast
(The land where thou hast travelled)
Either by savages possest,
Or wild, and uninhabited?
What joy could'st take, or what repose,
In countries so uncivilis'd as those?
Lust, the scorching dog-star, here
Rages with immoderate heat;
Whilst Pride, the ragged northern bear,
In others makes the cold too great.
And where these are temperate known,
The soil's all barren sand, or rocky stone.--COWLEY.
And never feel the dew of rain,
From clouds which in the head appear;
But all my too-much moisture ewe
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.
Th' ungovern'd parts no correspondence knew;
An artless war from thwarting motions grew;
Till they to number and fixed rules were brought.
Water and air he for the tenor chose,
Earth made the base; the treble flame arose.--COWLEY.
understood, they may be read again:
On a round ball
A workman, that bath copies by, can lay
And quickly make that which was nothing, all.
So doth each tear,
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mixed with mine do overflow
This world, by waters sent from thee my heaven dissolved so.
On reading the following lines, the reader may perhaps cry out
"Confusion worse confounded."
Hers lies a she sun, and a he moon here,
She gives the best light to his sphere,
Or each is both, and all, and so,
They unto one another nothing owe.--DONNE.
Who but Donne would have thought that a good man is a telescope?
Though God be our true glass through which we see
All, since the being of all things is He,
Yet are the trunks, which do to us derive
Things in proportion fit, by perspective
Deeds of good men; for by their living here,
Virtues, indeed remote, seem to be near.
Who would imagine it possible that in a very few lines so many
remote ideas could be brought together?
Since 'tis my doom, love's undershrieve,
Why this reprieve?
Why doth my she advowson fly
To sell thyself dust thou intend
By candles end,
And hold the contract thus in doubt,
Life's taper out?
Think but how soon the market fails,
Your sex lives faster than the males;
And if to measure age's span,
The sober Julian were th' account of man,
Whilst you live by the fleet Gregorian.--CLEVELAND.
Of enormous and disgusting hyperboles, these may be examples:
By every wind that comes this way,
Send me at least a sigh or two,
Such and so many I'll repay
As shall themselves make winds to get to you.--COWLEY.
In tears I'll waste these eyes,
By love so vainly fed:
So lust of old the deluge punished.--COWLEY.
All arm'd in brass, the richest dress of war,
(A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.
The sun himself started with sudden fright,
To see his beams return so dismal bright.--COWLEY.
A universal consternation:
His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws
Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,
Lashing his angry tail and roaring out.
Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;
Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;
Silence and horror fill the place around;
Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound.--COWLEY.
Their fictions were often violent and unnatural.
Of his mistress bathing:
The fish around her crowded, as they do
To the false light that treacherous fishers show,
And all with as much ease might taken be,
As she at first took me;
For ne'er did light so clear
Among the waves appear,
Though every night the sun himself set there.--COWLEY.
The poetical effect of a lover's name upon glass:
My name engraved herein
Both contribute my firmness to this glass:
Which, ever since that charm, hath been
As hard as that which graved it was.--DONNE.
He enjoys the calmy sunshine now,
And no breath stirring hears,
In the clear heaven of thy brow
No smallest cloud appears.
He sees thee gentle, fair and gay,
And trusts the faithless April of thy May.--COWLEY.
Nothing yet in thee is seen,
But when a genial heat warms thee within,
A new-born wood of various lines there grows;
Hers buds an L, and there a B,
Here sprouts a V, and there a T,
And all the flourishing letters stand in rows.--COWLEY.
Physic and chirurgery for a lover:
Gently, ah gently, madam, touch
The wound, which you yourself have made;
That pain must needs be very much
Which makes me of your hand afraid.
Cordials of pity give me now,
For I too weak of purgings grow.--COWLEY.
The world and a clock
Mahol th' inferior world's fantastic face
Through all the turns of matter's maze did trace;
Great Nature's well-set clock in pieces took;
On all the springs and smallest wheels did look
Of life and motion, and with equal art
Made up the whole again of every part.--COWLEY.
The moderate value of our guiltless ore
Yet why should hallow'd vestal's sacred shrine
Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?
These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,
Than a few embers, for a deity.
Had he our pits, the Persian would admire
No sun, but warm's devotion at our fire:
He'd leave the trotting whipster, and prefer
Our profound Vulcan 'bove that waggoner.
For wants he heat, or light? or would have store
Of both? 'tis here:  and what can suns give more?
Nay, what's the sun but, in a different name,
A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame?
Then let this truth reciprocally run,
The sun's heaven's coalery, and coals our sun.
Death, a voyage:
No family
E'er rigg'd a soul for Heaven's discovery,
With whom more venturers might boldly dare
Venture their stakes with him in joy to share.--DONNE.
Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and
A lover neither dead nor alive:
Then down I laid my head
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
Ah, sottish soul, said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly;
Fool to resume her broken chain,
And row her galley here again!
Fool, to that body to return
Where it condemned and destined is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be,
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou should'st come to live it o'er again in me?--COWLEY.
A lover's heart, a hand grenado:
Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come
Into the self same room;
'Twill tear and blow up all within,
Like a grenade shot into a magazine.
Then shall Love keep the ashes and torn parts,
Of both our broken hearts;
Shalt out of both one new one make;
From hers th' allay, from mine the metal take.--COWLEY
The poetical propagation of light:
The prince's favour is diffused o'er all,
From which all fortunes names, and natures fall:
Then from those wombs of stars, the Bride's bright eyes,
At every glance a constellation flies,
And sows the court with stars, and doth prevent
In light and power, the all-ey'd firmament:
First her eye kindles other ladies' eyes,
And all is warmth, and light, and good desire.--DONNE.
That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality is by
Cowley thus expressed:
Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand
Than woman can be placed by Nature's hand;
And I must needs, I'm sure, a loser be,
To change thee as thou'rt there, for very thee.
In none but us are such mix'd engines found,
As hands of double office; for the ground
We till with them; and them to heaven we raise
Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,
Doth but one half, that's none.
That which I should have begun
In my youth's morning, now late must be done;
And I, as giddy travellers must do,
Which stray or sleep all day, and having lost
Light and strength, dark and tired, must then ride post.
All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is
Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie
After enabled but to suck and cry.
Think, when 'twas grown to most, 'twas a poor inn,
A province pack'd up in two yards of skin,
And that usurp'd, or threaten'd with a rage
Of sicknesses or their true mother, age.
But think that death hath now enfranchised thee;
Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;
Think, that a rusty piece discharged is flown
In pieces, and the bullet is his own,
And freely flies:  this to thy soul allow,
Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch'd but now.
They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting.  Cowley thus
apostrophises beauty:
Thou tyrant which leav'st no man free!
Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!
Thus he addresses his mistress:
Thou who, in many a propriety,
So truly art the sun to me,
Add one more likeness, which I'm sure you can,
And let me and my sun beget a man.
Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:
Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracts have been
So much as of original sin,
Such charms thy beauty wears, as might
Desires in dying confest saints excite.
Thou with strange adultery
Dost in each breast a brothel keep;
Awake all men do lust for thee,
And some enjoy thee when they sleep.
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 false, that taste not just like mine.--DONNE.
This is yet more indelicate:
As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chas'd musk-cat's pores doth trill,
As th' almighty balm of th' early east;
Such are the sweet drops of my mistress' breast.
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:
Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress' brow defiles.--DONNE.
As men in hell are from diseases free,
So from all other ills am I,
Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee.--COWLEY.
They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from
which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that
continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions.
It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:
In vain it something would have spoke;
The love within too strong for't was,
Like poison put into a Venice-glass.--COWLEY.
In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for
conceits.  Night has been a common subject, which poets have
contended to adorn.  Dryden's Night is well known; Donne's is as
follows:
Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest:
Time's dead low-water; when all minds divest
To-morrow's business; when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;
Now when the client, whose last hearing is
To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,
Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the
Again by death, although sad watch he keep;
Doth practise dying by a little sleep:
Thou at this midnight seest me.
It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are
Hops, whose weak being mind is,
Alike if it succeed and if it miss;
Whom good or ill does equally confound,
And both the horns of fate's dilemma wound;
Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite,
Both at full noon and perfect night!
The stars have not a possibility
Of blessing thee;
If things then from their end we happy call
'Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
Hope, thou bold tester of delight,
Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour'st it quite!
Thou bring'st us an estate, yet leav'st us poor
By clogging it with legacies before!
The joys, which we entire should wed,
Come deflowr'd virgins to our bed;
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
Such mighty custom's paid to thee:
For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste
If it take air before its spirits waste.
Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if th' other do.
And, though it in the centre sit,
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 must
Like th' other foot obliquely run.
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.--DONNE.
delight, by their desire of exciting admiration.
himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his
preference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in his
raptures at the value of a kingdom.  I will, however, venture to
which it now bears.
Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own
Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part,
That shows more cost than art.
Rather than all things wit, let none be there.
Several lights will not be seen,
If there be nothing else between.
Men doubt, because they stand so thick i' th' sky,
If those be stars which paint the galaxy.
It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his
distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion;
The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun, and happily
sufficiently observed:  the few decisions and remarks, which his
The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of
His two metrical disquisitions FOR and AGAINST Reason are no mean
English verses which he is known to have written, seems to have
copied, though with the inferiority of an imitator.
The Holy Book like the eighth sphere doth shine
With thousand lights of truth divine,
So numberless the stars, that to our eye
It makes all but one galaxy.
Yet Reason must assist too; for, in seas
So vast and dangerous as these,
Our course by stars above we cannot know
Without the compass too below.
After this says Bentley:
Who travels in religious jars,
Truth mix'd with error, shade with rays
Like Whiston wanting pyx or stars,
In ocean wide or sinks or strays.
therefore closed his Miscellanies with the verses upon Crashaw,
To the Miscellanies succeed the Anacreontics, or paraphrastical
gaiety, in which even the morality is voluptuous, and which teach
readers, and perhaps, if they would honestly declare their own
perceptions, to far the greater part of those whom courtesy and
ignorance are content to style the learned.
present habitudes of thought.  Real mirth must always be natural,
Levity of thought naturally produces familiarity of language, and
introduced, is practised, not by those who talk to be understood,
The Anacreontics, therefore, of Cowley, give now all the pleasure
The principal artifice by which "The Mistress" is filled with
found it full-blown in modern Italy.  Thus Sannazaro:
Aspice quam variis distringar Lesbia curis!
Uror, et heu! nostro manat ab igne liquor:
Sum Nilus, sumque AEtna simul; restringite flammas
O lacrimae, aut lacrimas ebibe flamma meas.
One of the severe theologians of that time censured him as having
kindness and cruelty, her disdain and inconstancy, produce no
trifling, always admire as ingenious, and always condemn as
unnatural.
The Pindaric Odes are now to be considered; a species of
composition, which Cowley thinks Pancirolus might have counted in
show precisely what Pindar spoke, but his manner of speaking.  He
Pindar would not have written.
reader of less skill seem thrown together by chance, are
commentary.
The spirit of Pindar is indeed not everywhere equally preserved.
Great Rhea's son,
If in Olympus' top, where thou
Sitt'st to behold thy sacred show,
If in Alpheus' silver flight,
If in my verse thou take delight,
My verse, great Rhea's son, which is
Lofty as that and smooth as this.
In the Nemaean Ode, the reader must, in mere justice to Pindar,
observe, whatever is said of the original new moon, her tender
forehead and her horns, is superadded by his paraphrast, who has
The table, free for ev'ry guest,
No doubt will thee admit,
And feast more upon thee, than thou on it
But in this thankless world the giver
Is envied even by the receiver;
'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion
Rather to hide than own the obligation:
Nay, 'tis much worse than so;
It now an artifice does grow
Wrongs and injuries to do,
Lest men should think we owe.
In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own subjects, he
Begin the song, and strike the living lyre:
Lo how the years to come, a numerous and well-fitted quire,
All hand in hand do decently advance,
And to my song with smooth and equal measure dance;
While the dance lasts, how long soe'er it be,
My music's voice shall bear it company;
Till all gentle notes be drown'd
In the last trumpet's dreadful sound.
But stop, my Muse -
Hold thy Pindaric Pegasus closely in,
Which does to rage begin -
- 'Tis an unruly and hard-mouth'd horse -
'Twill no unskilful touch endure,
But flings writer and reader too that sits not sure.
The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the
metaphysical race, is that of pursuing his thoughts to their last
particulars is turned more upon the original than the secondary
Of this we have a very eminent example in the ode entitled the
"Muse," who goes to "take the air" in an intellectual chariot, to
Let the POSTILLION Nature mount, and let
The COACHMAN Art be set;
And let the airy FOOTMEN, running all beside,
Make a long row of goodly pride;
Figures, conceits, raptures, and sentences,
In a well-worded dress,
And innocent loves, and pleasant truths, and useful lies,
In all their gaudy LIVERIES.
Mount, glorious queen, thy travelling throne,
And bid it to put on;
For long though cheerful is the way,
And life, alas! allows but one ill winter's day.
In the same ode, celebrating the power of the Muse, he gives her
prescience, or, in poetical language, the foresight of events
Thou into the close nests of Time dost peep,
And there with piercing eye
Through the firm shell and the thick white float spy
Years to come a-forming lie,
Close in their sacred fecundine asleep.
The same thought is more generally, and therefore more poetically
faults of Cowley:
Omnibus mundi Dominator horis
Aptat urgendas psr inane pennas,
Pars adhuc nido latet, et futuros
Crescit in annos.
revive "the noblest and highest writing in verse," makes this
address to the new year:
Nay, if thou lov'st me, gentle year,
Let not so much as love be there,
Vain, fruitless love I mean; for, gentle year,
Although I fear
There's of this caution little need,
Yet, gentle year, take heed
How thou dost make
Such a mistake;
Such love I mean alone
As by thy cruel predecessors has been shown:
For, though I have too much cause to doubt it,
I fain would try, for once, if life can live without it.
The reader of this will be inclined to cry out with Prior -
Ye critics, say,
How poor to this was Pindar's style!
syllables to twelve.  The verses of Pindar have, as he observes,
continuity of thought.
If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, "the highest and
preferred for its near affinity to prose."
This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the
The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of
poetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with
fancy.  The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the
appearance of a fabric august in the plan, but mean in the
poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenser, and
Whatever is said of Cowley, is meant of his other works.  Of the
"Davideis" no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor
emerges in conversation.  By the "Spectator" it has been once
quoted; by Rymer it has once been praised; and by Dryden, in "Mac
English literature.
performance of the work.
vain; all addition to that which is already sufficient for the
purposes of religion seems not only useless, but in some degree
profane.
history of Lucifer, who was, he says,
Once general of a gilded host of sprites,
Like Hesper leading forth the spangled nights;
But down like lightning, which him struck, he came
And roar'd at his first plunge into the flame.
declarations of her zeal utters these lines:
Do thou but threat, loud storms shall make reply,
And thunder echo to the trembling sky;
Whilst raging seas swell to so bold an height,
As shall the fire's proud element affright,
Th' old drudging sun, from his long-beaten way,
Shall at thy voice start, and misguide the day.
The jocund orbs shall break their measured pace,
And stubborn poles change their allotted place.
Heaven's gilded troops shall flutter here and there,
Leaving their boasting songs tuned to a sphere.
Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an
allegorical being.
It is not only when the events are confessedly miraculous, that
uncommunicable; so that it is difficult even for imagination to
place us in the state of them whose story is related, and by
consequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, nor can
To the subject thus originally indisposed to the reception of
poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could
reconcile impatience, or attract curiosity.  Nothing can be more
Saxum circumspicit ingens,
Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat
Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis.
Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother,
I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant
At once his murther and his monument.
Of the sword taken from Goliath, he says,
A sword so great, that it was only fit
To cut off his great head that came with it.
Other poets describe Death by some of its common appearances.
Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps real or
fabulous,
'Twixt his right ribs deep pierced the furious blade,
And open'd wide those secret vessels where
Life's light goes out, when first they let in air.
But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned in a visionary
succession of kings:
Joas at first does bright and glorious show,
In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow.
His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd
Heartless, unarm'd, disorderly, and loud,
he gives them a fit of the ague.
The king was placed alone, and o'er his head
A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread.
Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:
Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth,
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see,
Gold, which alone more influence has than he.
In one passage he starts a sudden 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 most of all unfit,
And rough as are the winds that fight with it?
Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you're in,
The story of your gallant friend begin.
In a simile descriptive of the morning:
As glimmering stars just at th' approach of day,
Cashier'd by troops, at last all drop away.
The dress of Gabriel deserves attention:
He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright,
That e'er the mid-day sun pierced through with light;
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Wash'd from the morning beauties' deepest red:
An harmless flatt'ring meteor shone for hair,
And fell adown his shoulders with loose care;
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies,
Where the most sprightly azure pleased the eyes;
This he with starry vapours sprinkles all,
Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall;
Of a new rainbow ere it fret or fade,
The choicest piece cut out, a scarf is made.
told, and been dismissed to improve the idea in our different
proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he
continued till it is tedious:
I' th' library a few choice authors stood,
Yet 'twas well stored, for that small store was good;
Writing, man's spiritual physic, was not then
Itself, as now, grown a disease of men.
Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew;
The common prostitute she lately grew,
And with the spurious brood loads now the press;
Laborious effects of idleness.
As the "Davideis" affords only four books, though intended to
consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism as
Epic poems commonly supply.  The plan of the whole work is very
disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing
"Davideis" can be missed, it is for the learning that had been
diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained.
Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by
His way once chose, he forward threat outright.
Nor turned aside for danger or delight.
Rymer has declared the "Davideis" superior to the "Jerusalem" of
Tasso, "which," says he, "the poet, with all his care, has not
compared; for the resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is only
commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso represents
Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember
Ha sotto i piedi e fato e la natura
Ministri humili, e'l moto, e ch'il misura.
never delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve.
Still, however, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capacious by
nature, and replenished by study.
In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found that he
pathetic, and rarely sublime; but always either ingenious or
learned, either acute or profound.
It is said by Denham in his elegy,
To him no author was unknown,
Yet what he writ was all his own.
borrowed little.
His character of writing was indeed not his own; he unhappily
continually stealing from his brows.
He was in his own time considered as of unrivalled excellence.
Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that
such resemblance to the noble epigram of Grotius on the death of
Although I think thou never found wilt be,
Yet I'm resolved to search for thee;
The search itself rewards the pains.
So, though the chymic his great secret miss
(For neither it in Art or Nature is),
Yet things well worth his toil he gains:
And does his charge and labour pay
With good unsought experiments by the way.--COWLEY.
Some that have deeper digg'd Love's mine than I,
Say, where his centric happiness doth lie:
I have loved, and got, and told;
But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,
I should not find that hidden mystery;
Oh, 'tis imposture all!
And as no chymic yet th' elixir got,
But glorifies his pregnant pot,
If by the way to him befal
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.
Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest
esteem.
It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his
offended; and which would not be borne in the present age, when
devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate.
Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will
His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,
Which Nature meant some tall ship's mast should be.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walked with.
that only, which custom has given them.  Language is the dress of
The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents
Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or
without care.  He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any
It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather than
fortuitous:  he sinks willingly down to his general carelessness,
His contractions are often rugged and harsh:
One flings a mountain, and its rivers too
Torn up with 't.
His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the
like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the
His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and
The words "do" and "did," which so much degrade in present
estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley
Where honour or where conscience DOES not bind
No other law shall shackle me;
Slave to myself I ne'er will be;
Nor shall my future actions be confined
By my own present mind.
Who by resolves and vows engaged DOES stand
For days, that yet belong to fate,
DOES like an unthrift mortgage his estate,
Before it falls into his hand;
The bondman of the cloister so,
All that he DOES receive DOES always owe.
And still as Time comes in, it goes away,
Not to enjoy, but debts to pay!
Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell!
Which his hour's work as well as hours DOES tell:
Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell.
He says of the Messiah,
Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound,
In another place, of David,
Yet bid him go securely, when he sends;
Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes attempted an improved and
Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space.
"I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of
divers other places of this poem, that else will pass as very
careless verses:  as before,
"In the second book:
"In the third,
"In the fourth,
incongruous and unsociable ideas.  What there is peculiar in the
sound of the line expressing "loose care," I cannot discover; nor
Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:
He, who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting stay
Till the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone,
The author of the "Davideis" is commended by Dryden for having
intended to complete them; that this opinion is erroneous, may be
unfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verse, a
After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany
them must not be forgotten.  What is said by Sprat of his
conversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion of his
pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could
supply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers the