Part 6 (2/2)
The second line has in it more of pedantry than, perhaps, can be found in any other stanza of the poem.
In the perusal of the Davideis, as of all Cowley's works, we find wit and learning unprofitably squandered. Attention has no relief; the affections are never moved: we are sometimes surprised, but never delighted; and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still, however, it is the work of Cowley; of a mind capacious by nature, and replenished by study.
In the general review of Cowley's poetry it will be found, that he wrote with abundant fertility, but negligent or unskilful selection; with much thought, but with little imagery; that he is never pathetick, and rarely sublime; but always either ingenious or learned, either acute or profound.
It is said by Denham, in his elegy,
To him no author was unknown, Yet what he writ was all his own.
This wide position requires less limitation, when it is affirmed of Cowley, than, perhaps, of any other poet.--He read much, and yet borrowed little.
His character of writing was, indeed, not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was predominant. He saw a certain way to present praise; and, not sufficiently inquiring by what means the ancients have continued to delight through all the changes of human manners, he contented himself with a deciduous laurel, of which the verdure, in its spring, was bright and gay, but which time has been continually stealing from his brows.
He was, in his own time, considered as of unrivalled excellence.
Clarendon represents him as having taken a flight beyond all that went before him; and Milton is said to have declared, that the three greatest English poets were Spenser, Shakespeare, and Cowley.
His manner he had in common with others; but his sentiments were his own. Upon every subject he thought for himself; and such was his copiousness of knowledge, that something at once remote and applicable rushed into his mind; yet it is not likely that he always rejected a commodious idea merely because another had used it: his known wealth was so great, that he might have borrowed without loss of credit.
In his elegy on sir Henry Wotton, the last lines have such resemblance to the n.o.ble epigram of Grotius on the death of Scaliger, that I cannot but think them copied from it, though they are copied by no servile hand.
One pa.s.sage in his Mistress is so apparently borrowed from Donne, that he probably would not have written it, had it not mingled with his own thoughts, so as that he did not perceive himself taking it from another:
Although I think thou never found wilt be, Yet I'm resolv'd to search for thee: The search itself rewards the pains.
So, though the chymic his great secret miss (For neither it in art or nature is,) Yet things well worth his toil he gains;
And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments by the way. COWLEY.
Some that have deeper digg'd love's mine than I, Say, where his centric happiness doth lie: I have lov'd, and got, and told; But should I love, get, tell, till I were old; I should not find that hidden mystery; Oh, 'tis imposture all!
And as no chymic yet th' elixir got, But glorifies his pregnant pot, If by the way to him befall Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, So lovers dream a rich and long delight, But get a winter-seeming summer's night. DONNE.
Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest esteem.
It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledges his obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson; but I have found no traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to have been his purpose; and from Donne he may have learned that familiarity with religious images, and that light allusion to sacred things, by which readers far short of sanct.i.ty are frequently offended; and which would not be borne, in the present age, when devotion, perhaps, not more fervent, is more delicate.
Having produced one pa.s.sage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will recompense him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed from him.
He says of Goliah:
His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree, Which nature meant some tall s.h.i.+p's mast should be.
Milton of Satan:
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great admiral, were but a wand, He walked with.
His diction was, in his own time, censured as negligent. He seems not to have known, or not to have considered, that words, being arbitrary, must owe their power to a.s.sociation, and have the influence, and that only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought: and, as the n.o.blest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanicks; so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy, and the most splendid ideas drop their magnificence, if they are conveyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.
Truth, indeed, is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and const.i.tute that intellectual gold which defies destruction; but gold may be so concealed in baser matter, that only a chymist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words, that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction.
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