thrown together by chance, are concatenated without any abruption. Though the English ode cannot be called a translation, it may be very properly confulted as a commentary.

The fpirit of Pindar is indeed not every where equally preferved. The following pretty lines are not fuch as his deep mouth was used to pour :

Great Rhea's fon,

If in Olympus' top where thou
Sitt'ft to behold thy facred fhow,
If in Alpheus filver flight,

If in my verfe thou take delight,
My verfe, great Rhea's fon, which is
Lofty as that, and smooth as this..

In the Nemeæan Ode the reader muft, in mere juftice to Pindar, obferve that whatever is faid of the original new moon, her tender forehead and her horns, is fuperadded by his paraphraft, who has many other plays of words and fancy unfuitable to the original, as,

The table free for every gueft,

No doubt will thee admit,

And feast more upon thee, than thou on

it.

He fometimes extends his author's thoughts without improving them. In the Olympionick an oath is mentioned in a fingle word, and Cowley spends three lines in swearing by the Caftalian Stream. We are told of Theron's boun

ty, with a hint that he had enemies, which Cowley thus enlarges in rhyming profe:

But in this thanklefs world the giver
Is envied even by the receiver;
'Tis now the cheap and frugal fashion
Rather to hide than own the obliga-

tion:

Nay, 'tis much worse than fo;
It now an artifice does grow
Wrongs and injuries to do,

Left men fhould think we owe.

It is hard to conceive that a man of

the first rank in learning and wit, when he was dealing out fuch minute morality in fuch feeble diction, could imagine, either waking or dreaming, that he imitated Pindar.

In the following odes, where Cowley chooses his own fubjects, he fometimes rifes to dignity truly Pindarick; and, if fome deficiencies of language be forgiven, his ftrains are fuch as thofe of the Theban bard were to his contemporaries :

Begin the fong, and ftrike 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 fong with fmooth and equal meafure dance;

While the dance lafts, how long foe'cr

it be,

My mufick's voice fhall bear it company;

Till all gentle notes be drown'd
In the last trumpet's dreadful found.

After fuch enthufiafm, who will not lament to find the poet conclude with lines like these !

But ftop, my Mufe

Hold thy Pindarick Pegasus closely in, Which does to rage begin

'Tis an unruly and a hard-mouth'd

horfe

"Twill no unskilful touch endurę, But flings writer and reader too that fits not fure.

The fault of Cowley, and perhaps of all the writers of the metaphyfical race, is that of purfuing his thoughts to their last ramifications, by which he loses

the