suggested. When Virgil describes the stone which Turnus lifted against Æneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight: Saxum circumspicit ingens, Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother, I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant Of the sword taken from Goliah, 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 pierc'd 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 shew, Describing an undisciplined army, after having said with elegance," His forces seem'd no army, but a crowd, he gives them a fit of the ague. The allusions, however, are not always to vulgar things; he offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution : The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread. Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit : Where the sun's fruitful beams give metals birth, In one passage he starts a sudden question to the confusion of philosophy: Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace, His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses expectation : Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you're in, In a simile descriptive of the Morning : As glimmering stars just at the approach of day, The dress of Gabriel deserves attention: He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, Wash'd from the morning beauties' deepest red; The choicest piece cut out, a scarfe is made. This is a just specimen of Cowley's imagery: what might in general expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the softest or brighest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and been dismissed to improve the idea in our different proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and tailor. Sometimes he indulges himself in a digression, always conceived with his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious: I' th' library a few choice authors stood, Yet 'twas well stor'd, for that small store was good; Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew ; And with the spurious brood loads now the press; As the Davideis affords only four books, though intended to consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticism as Epick poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly shewn by the third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or shewn but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nice discriminations cannot be ascertained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyssey than the Iliad: and many artifices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best models. The past is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising again the same modes of disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incumbrance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost more instruction than delight. If the continuation of the Davideis can be missed, it is for the learning that had been diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained. every Had not his characters been depraved, like other part, by improper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero : His way once chose, he forward thrust outright, And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michol, are very justly conceived and strongly painted. Rymer has declared the Davideis superior to the Jerusalem of Tasso, "which," says he, "the poet, "with all his care, has not totally purged from "pedantry." If by pedantry is meant that minute knowledge which is derived from particular sciences and studies, in opposition to the general notions supplied by a wide survey of life and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry, far more frequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why they should be compared; for the resemblance of Cowley's work to Tasso's is only that they both exhibit the agency of celestial and infernal spirits, in which however they differ widely; for Cowley supposes them commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso represents them as promoting or obstructing events by external agency. Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember only the description of Heaven, in which the different manner of the two writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowely's is scarcely description, unless it be possible to describe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is not in Heaven. Tasso endeavours to represent the splendours and pleasures of the regions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that Tasso's description affords some reason for Rymer's censure. He says of the Surpreme Being, Hà sotto i piedi e fato e la natura Ministri humili, e'l mote, e ch'il misura. |