verse and prose, that Cowley published in his later years, and some of the verse we give in our selections. There are no general features however by which we can distinguish these poems from the rest of his work: sometimes, as in the beautiful stanzas which we quote from the Hymn to Light, or in the verses which close the Essay on Solitude, or in the Ode on the Royal Society, he rises to his highest point; sometimes, as in what he wrote on the death of 'the matchless Orinda,' and in the poem on The Garden, he sinks to his lowest.

Addison's Essay1 and Johnson's Life have said the last word on Cowley's 'mixed wit,' 'metaphysics,' or 'conceits'; and we need hardly dwell at any greater length on what is the first, most obvious, and most disastrous quality of his muse. He owes to it his poetical effacement with posterity, as he owed to it his first success with his contemporaries; and it would be ungracious as well as uncritical to fasten our attention solely upon that canker of his style. He lived at the end of one intellectual epoch and at the beginning of another; he held of both, and he was marred by the vices of the decadence as much as, but no more than, he was glorified by the dawning splendours of the new age. What had been the extravagance of a young and uncontrolled imagination in Lyly and Sidney became the pedantry of ingenuity in the sane and learned Cowley, the master of two or three positive sciences and of all the literatures of Europe. But this pedantry was not all. 'I cannot conclude this head of mixed wit,' says Addison, 'without owning that the admirable poet out of whom I have taken the examples of it had as much true wit as any author that ever writ, and indeed all other talents of an extraordinary genius.' Not, perhaps, all other talents of an extraordinary genius, but knowledge, reflection, calmness and clearness of judgment; in a word, the gifts of the age of science and of prose which set in with the Restoration; and with these a rhetorical and moral fervour that made him a power in our literature greater, for the moment, than any that had gone before.

EDITOR.

1

Spectator, no. 62.

A WISH.

[First printed in Poetical Blossomes, 2nd edition.]

This only grant me, that my means may lie
Too low for envy, for contempt too high.
Some honour I would have

Not from great deeds, but good alone.
The unknown are better than ill known;
Rumour can ope the grave.

Acquaintance I would have, but when 't depends
Not on the number, but the choice of friends.

Books should, not business, entertain the light,
And sleep, as undisturb'd as death, the night.
My house a cottage, more

Than palace, and should fitting be,

For all my use, not luxury.

My garden painted o'er

With nature's hand, not art's; and pleasures yield, Horace might envy in his Sabine field.

Thus would I double my life's fading space,
For he that runs it well, twice runs his race.
And in this true delight,

These unbought sports, this happy state,
I would not fear nor wish my fate,
But boldly say each night,

To-morrow let my sun his beams display,
Or in clouds hide them; I have liv'd to-day.

2.

[From The Miscellanies.]

ODE OF WIT.

Tell me, O tell, what kind of thing is wit,
Thou who master art of it!

For the first matter loves variety less;
Less women love 't, either in love or dress.

A thousand different shapes it bears,
Comely in thousand shapes appears.
Yonder we saw it plain; and here 'tis now,
Like spirits in a place, we know not how.
London that vents of false ware so much store,
In no ware deceives us more.

For men led by the colour, and the shape,
Like Zeuxis' birds fly to the painted grape ;

Some things do through our judgment pass
As through a multiplying glass;

And sometimes, if the object be too far,
We take a falling meteor for a star.

Hence 'tis a wit, that greatest word of fame,
Grows such a common name;

And wits by our creation they become,
Just so, as titular Bishops made at Rome.
'Tis not a tale, tis not a jest

Admir'd with laughter at a feast, Nor florid talk which can that title gain; The proofs of wit for ever must remain.

'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet
With their five gouty feet.

All everywhere, like man's, must be the soul,
And reason the inferior powers control.

Such were the numbers which could call

The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceas'd; and now we see
No towns or houses rais'd by poetry.

Yet 'tis not to adorn, and gild each part ;
That shows more cost, than art.

Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;
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.

'Tis not when two like words make up one noise,
Jests for Dutch men, and English boys.
In which who finds out wit, the same may see
In anagrams and acrostics poetry.

Much less can that have any place

At which a virgin hides her face;

Such dross the fire must purge away; 'tis just The author blush, there where the reader must.

'Tis not such lines as almost crack the stage,
When Bajazet begins to rage.

Nor a tall metaphor in the bombast way,
Nor the dry chips of short-lung'd Seneca ;
Nor upon all things to obtrude,

And force some odd similitude.

What is it then, which like the power divine
We only can by negatives define?

In a true piece of wit all things must be,
Yet all things there agree.

As in the ark, join'd without force or strife,
All creatures dwelt; all creatures that had life.
Or as the primitive forms of all

(If we compare great things with small)

Which without discord or confusion lie,
In that strange mirror of the Deity.

But love that moulds one man up out of two,
Makes me forget and injure you.

I took you for myself sure when I thought
That you in anything were to be taught.
Correct my error with thy pen;

And if any ask me then,

What thing right wit, and height of genius is,
I'll only shew your lines, and say, 'Tis this.

ON THE DEATH OF MR. WILLIAM HERVEY.

It was a dismal and a fearful night,

Scarce could the Morn drive on th' unwilling light, When sleep, death's image, left my troubled breast, By something more like death possest.

My eyes with tears did uncommanded flow,

And on my soul hung the dull weight

Of some intolerable fate.

What bell was that? Ah me! Too much I know.

My sweet companion, and my gentle peer,
Why hast thou left me thus unkindly here,
Thy end for ever, and my life to moan?
O thou hast left me all alone!
Thy soul and body when death's agony
Besieg'd around thy noble heart,

Did not with more reluctance part
Than I, my dearest friend, do part from thee.

My dearest friend, would I had died for thee!
Life and this world henceforth will tedious be,
Nor shall I know hereafter what to do

If once my griefs prove tedious too.
Silent and sad I walk about all day,

As sullen ghosts stalk speechless by
Where their hid treasures lie;
Alas, my treasure's gone, why do I stay?