roneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration which is due to great comprehenfion of knowledge, and great fertility of fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the greatness of one part is difgraced by the littleness of another; and total negligence of language gives the nobleft conceptions the appearance of a fabric auguft in the plan, but mean in the materials. Yet furely those verses are not without a juft claim to praife; of which it may be faid with truth, that no man but Cowley could have written them.

The Davideis now remains to be confidered; a poem which the author defigned to have extended to twelve books, merely, as he makes no fcruple of declaring, becaufe the Eneid had that number; but he had leifure or perfeverance only to write the third part. Epick poems have been left unfinished by Virgil, Statius, Spenfer, and Cowley. That we have not the whole Davideis is, however, not much to be regretted; for in this undertaking Cowley is, tacitly at leaft, confefled to have mifcarried. There are not many examples of fo great a work, produced by an author generally read, and generally praifed, that has crept through a century with fo little regard. Whatever is faid of Cowley, is meant of his other works. Of the Davideis no mention is made; it never appears in books, nor emerges in converfation. By the Spectator it has once been quoted, by Rymer it has once been praised, and by Dryden, in "Mac Flecknoe," it has once been imitated; nor do I recollect much other notice from its publication till now, in the whole fucceffion of English literature.

Of

Of this filence and neglect, if the reafon be inquired, it will be found partly in the choice of the fubject, and partly in the performance of the work.

Sacred History has been always read with fubmiffive reverence, and an imagination over-awed and controlled. We have been accustomed to acquiefce in the nakedness and fimplicity of the authentic narrative, and to repofe on its veracity with fuch humble confidence, as fuppreffes curiofity. We go with the hif-" torian as he goes, and ftop with him when he stops. All amplification is frivolous and vain; all addition to that which is already fufficient for the purposes of religion, feems not only useless, but in fome degree profane.

Such events as were produced by the visible interpofition of Divine Power are above the power of human genius to dignify. The miracle of Creation, however it may teem with images, is best described with little diffufion of language: He spake the word, and they were made.

We are told that Saul was troubled with an evil spirit; from this Cowley takes an opportunity of defcribing hell, and telling the hiftory of Lucifer, who was, he fays,

Once general of a gilded hoft of fprites,

Like Hefper leading forth the spangled nights;

But down like lightning, which him ftruck, he came,
And roar'd at his firft plunge into the flame.

Lucifer makes a fpeech to the inferior agents of mischief, in which there is fomething of heathenifm, and therefore of impropriety; and, to give efficacy to his words, concludes by lafhing his breast with his long

E 4

tail.

tail. Envy, after a paufe, fteps out, and among other declarations of her zeal utters thefe lines:

Do thou but threat, loud forms fhall make reply,
And thunder echo to the trembling sky.
Whilft raging feas fwell to fo bold an height,
As fhall the fire's proud element affright.

Th' old drudging Sun, from his long-beaten way,
Shall at thy voice ftart, and mifguide the day.
The jocund orbs fhall break their meafur'd pace,
And stubborn poles change their allotted place.
Heaven's gilded troops fhall flutter here and there,
Leaving their boasting songs tun'd to a sphere.

Every reader feels himself weary with this useless talk of an allegorical Being.

It is not only when the events are confeffedly miraculous, that fancy and fiction lose their effect: the whole fyftem of life, while the Theocracy was yet vifible, has an appearance fo different from all other fcenes of human action, that the reader of the Sacred Volume habitually confiders it as the peculiar mode of exitence of a diftinct fpecies of mankind, that lived and afted within inners uncommunicable; fo that it is difficult even for imagination to place us in the state of them whofe ftory is related, and by confequence their joys and griefs are not easily adopted, nor can the attention be often interested in any thing that befalls them.

To the fubject thus originally indifpofed to the reception of poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could reconcile impatience, or attract curiofity. Nothing can be more disgusting than a narrative fpangled with conceits, and conceits are all that the Davideis fupplics.

One of the great fources of poetical delight is defcrip. tion, or the power of prefenting pictures to the mind.

Cowley

Cowley gives inferences inftead of images, and fhews not what may be supposed to have been feen, but what thoughts the fight might have fuggefted. When Virgil describes the ftone which Turnus lifted against Eneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight: Saxum circumfpicit ingens,

Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat
Limes agro pofitus, litem ut difcerneret arvis.

Cowley fays of the ftone with which Cain flew his brother,

I faw him fling the ftone, as if he meant
At once his murther and his monument.
Of the fword taken from Goliah, he fays,
A fword fo great, that it was only fit

To cut off his great head that came with it.

Other poets describe death by fome of its common appearances; Cowley fays, with a learned allufion to fepulchral lamps real or fabulous,

'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious blade,

And open'd wide those fecret veffels where

Life's light goes out, when first they let in air.

But he has allufions vulgar as well as learned. In a vifionary fucceffion of kings:

Joas at firft does bright and glorious show,

In life's fresh morn his fame does early crow.

Defcribing an undifciplined army, after having faid with elegance,

His forces feem'd no army, but a crowd

Heartless, unarm'd, diforderly, and loud,

he gives them a fit of the ague,

The

The allufions however are not always to vulgar things: he offends by exaggeration as much as by di

minution:

The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head

A well-wrought heaven of filk and gold was fpread. Whatever he writes is always polluted with some

conceit :

Where the fun's fruitful beams give metals birth,
Where he the growth of fatal gold does fee,

Gold, which alone more influence has than he.

In one paffage he starts a fudden queftion, to the confufion of philofophy:

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?
The oak, for courtship moft of all unfit,

And rough as are the winds that fight with it.

His expreffions have fometimes a degree of meannefs that furpaffes expectation:

Nay, gentle guefts, he cries, fince now you're in,

The ftory of your gallant friend begin.

In a fimile defcriptive of the Morning:

As glimmering ftars juft at th' approach of day,
Cashier'd by troops, at last drop all away.
The drefs of Gabriel deferves attention:

He took for fhin a cloud moft foft and bright,
That e'er the midday fun pierc'd through with fight,
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread,
Wath'd from the morning beauties deepest red;
An harmless flattering meteor fhone for hair,
And fell adown his fhoulders with loofe care;
He cuts out a filk mantle from the fkes,
Where the moft fprightly azure pleas'd the eyes;