And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care
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In the third, Brass was his helmet, his boots brass, and o'erHis breast a thick plate of strong brass he wore. "In the fourth, Like some fair pine o'erlooking all th' ignobler wood. "And, Some from the rocks cast themselves down headlong. "And many more: but it is enough to instance in a few. The thing is,that the disposition of words and numbers should be such, as that,out of the order and sound of them, the things themselves may berepresented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind themselvesto; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught I can find.The Latins (qui musas colunt severiores) sometimes did it; and theirprince, Virgil, always, in whom the examples are innumerable, and takennotice of by all judicious men, so that it is superfluous to collectthem." I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained therepresentation or resemblance that he purposes. Verse can imitate onlysound and motion. A _boundless_ verse, a _headlong_ verse, and a verseof _brass_, or of _strong brass_, seem to comprise very incongruousand unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound of the lineexpressing _loose care_, I cannot discover; nor why the _pine_ is_taller_ in an alexandrine than in ten syllables. But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example ofrepresentative versification, which, perhaps, no other English line canequal: Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise:He, who defers this work from day to day,Does on a river's bank expecting stayTill the whole stream that stopp'd him shall be gone,_Which runs, and, as it runs, for ever shall run on_. Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled alexandrines, atpleasure, with the common heroick of ten syllables; and from him Drydenborrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He consideredthe verse of twelve syllables as elevated and majestick, and has,therefore, deviated into that measure, when he supposes the voice heardof the supreme being. The author of the Davideis is commended by Dryden for having written itin couplets, because he discovered that any staff was too lyrical foran heroick poem; but this seems to have been known before by May andSandys, the translators of the Pharsalia and the Metamorphoses. In the Davideis are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect by theauthor, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intendedto complete them: that this opinion is erroneous, may be probablyconcluded, because this truncation is imitated by no subsequent Romanpoet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat ofrecitation; because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because allthat can be done by a broken verse, a line intersected by a _caesura_and a full stop, will equally effect. Of triplets, in his Davideis, he makes no use, and, perhaps, did not, atfirst, think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changedhis mind, for, in the verses on the government of Cromwell, he insertsthem liberally with great happiness. After so much criticism on his poems, the essays which accompany themmust not be forgotten. What is said by Sprat of his conversation, thatno man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, maybe applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his verse and hisprose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural,and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yetobtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hard-laboured;but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness. It has been observed by Felton, in his essay on the Classicks, thatCowley was beloved by every muse that he courted; and that he hasrivalled the ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy. It may be affirmed, without any encomiastick fervour, that he brought tohis poetick labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages areembellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that he wasthe first who imparted to English numbers the enthusiasm of the greaterode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified forsprightly sallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those whofreed translation from servility, and, instead of following his authorat a distance, walked by his side; and that if he left versificationyet improvable, he left likewise, from time to time, such specimens ofexcellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it. * * * * * The insertion of Cowley's epitaph may be interesting to our readers. EpitaphiumAutorisIn Ecclesia D. Petri apud WestmonasteriensesSepulti.Abrahamus Cowleius,Anglorum Pindarus, Flaccus, Maro,Deliciae, Decus, Desiderium, Aevi sui,Hic juxta situs est. Aurea dum volitant late tua scripta per orbem,Et fama aeternum vivis, divine poeta,Hic placida jaceas requie: custodiat urnamCana fides, vigilentque perenni lampade musaeSit sacer iste locus; nee quis temerarius ausitSacrilega turbare manu venerabile bustum.Intacti maneant; maneant per saecula dulcesCowleii cineres, serventque immobile saxum. Sic vovatqueVotumque suum apud posteros sacratum esse voluitQui viro incomparabili posult sepulchrale marmor,Georgius Dux Buckinghamiae.Excessit e vita Anno Aetatis suae 49° et honorifica pompa elatusex AedibusBuckinghamianis, viris illustribus omnium ordinum exequiascelebrantibus,sepultus est die 3° M. Augusti, Anno Domini 1667. [Footnote 6: This volume was not published before 1633, when Cowley wasfifteeyears old. Dr. Johnson, as well as former biographers, seems tohave been misled by the portrait of Cowley being, by mistake, marked withthe age of thirteen years. R.] [Footnote 7: He was a candidate this year at Westminster school forelection to Trinity college, but proved unsuccessful.] [Footnote 8: In the first edition of this life, Dr. Johnson wrote, "whichwas never inserted in any collection of his works;" but he altered theexpression when the Lives were collected into volumes. The satire wasadded to Cowley's works by the particular direction of Dr. Johnson. N.] [Footnote 9: Consulting the Virgilian lots, Sortes Virgilianae, is amethod of divination by the opening of Virgil, and applying to thecircumstances of the peruser the first passage in either of the two pagesthat he accidentally fixes his eye on. It is said, that king Charlesthe first, and lord Falkland, being in the Bodleian library, made thisexperiment of their future fortunes, and met with passages equallyominous to each.
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