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life, were two or three villages on the bank of the Thames. During this recess, his mind was rather exercised on what was to come, than what was passed he suffered no more business nor cares of life to come near him, than what were enough to keep his soul awake, but not to disturb it. Some few friends and books, a cheerful heart and innocent conscience, were his constant companions. His poetry indeed he took with him, but he made that an anchorite as well as himself; he only dedicated it to the service of his Maker, to describe the great images of religion and virtue wherewith his mind abounded. And he employed his music to no other use, than, as his own David did towards Saul, by singing the praises of God and of nature, to drive the evil spirit out of men's minds.

Of his works that are published, it is hard to give one general character, because of the difference of their subjects, and the various forms and distant times of their writing. Yet this is true of them all, that in all the several shapes of his style, there is still very much of the likeness and impression of the same mind; the same unaffected modesty, and natural freedom, and easy vigour, and cheerful passions, and innocent mirth, which appeared in all his manners. We have many things that he writ in two very unlike conditions, in the university and the court. But in his poetry as well as his life, he mingled with excellent skill what was good in both states. In his

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life, he joined the innocence and sincerity of the scholar with the humanity and good behaviour of the courtier. In his poems, he united the solidity and art of the one with the gentility and gracefulness of the other.

If any shall think that he was not wonderfully curious in the choice and elegance of all his words, I will affirm with more truth, on the other side, that he had no manner of affectation in them; he took them as he found them made to his hands; he neither went before, nor came after, the use of the age. He forsook the conversation, but never the language, of the city and court. He understood exceeding well all the variety and power of poetical numbers; and practised all sorts with great happiness. If his verses in some places seem not as soft and flowing as some would have them, it was his choice, not his fault. He knew that, in diverting men's minds, there should be the same variety observed, as in the prospects of their eyes where a rock, a precipice, or a rising wave, is often more delightful than a smooth even ground, or a calm sea. Where the matter required it, he was as gentle as any man. But where higher virtues were chiefly to be regarded, an exact ǹumerosity was not then his main care. This may serve to answer those who upbraid some of his pieces with roughness, and with more contractions than they are willing to allow. But these admirers of gentleness without sinews should know, that different

arguments must have different colours of speech: that there is a kind of variety of sexes in poetry, as well as in mankind: that, as the peculiar excellence of the feminine kind is smoothness and beauty, so strength is the chief praise of the masculine.

He had a perfect mastery in both the languages in which he writ but each of them kept a just distance from the other; neither did his Latin make his English too old, nor his English make his Latin too modern. He excelled both in prose and verse; and both together have that perfection, which is commended by some of the ancients above all others, that they are very obvious to the conception, but most difficult in the imitation.

His fancy flowed with great speed; and therefore it was very fortunate to him, that his judgment was equal to manage it. He never runs his reader nor his argument out of breath. He perfectly practises the hardest secret of good writing, to know when he has done enough. He always leaves off in such a manner, that it appears it was in his power to have said much more. In the particular expressions there is still much to be applauded, but more in the disposition and order of the whole. From thence there springs a new comeliness, besides the feature of each part. His invention is powerful, and large as can be desired. But it seems all to arise out of the nature of the subject, and to be just fitted for the thing of

which he speaks. If ever he goes far for it, he dissembles his pains admirably well.

The variety of arguments that he has managed is so large, that there is scarce any particular of all the passions of men, or works of Nature and Providence, which he has passed by undescribed. Yet he still observes the rules of decency with so much care, that whether he inflames his reader with the softer affections, or delights him with inoffensive raillery, or teaches the familiar manners of life, or adorns the discoveries of philosophy, or inspires him with the heroic characters of charity and religion to all these matters, that are so wide asunder, he still proportions a due figure of speech, and a proper measure of wit. This indeed is most remarkable, that a man who was so constant and fixed in the moral ideas of his mind, should yet be so changeable in his intellectual, and in both to the highest degree of excellence.

If there needed any excuse to be made, that his love-verses should take up so great a share in his works, it may be alleged, that they were composed when he was very young. But it is a vain thing to make any kind of apology for that sort of writings. If devout or virtuous men will superciliously forbid the minds of the young to adorn those subjects about which they are most conversant, they would put them out of all capacity of performing graver matters, when they come to them. For the exercises of all

men's wits must be always proper for their age, and never too much above it: and by practice and use in lighter arguments, they grow up at last to excel in the most weighty. I am not therefore ashamed to commend Mr. Cowley's Mistress. I only except one or two expressions, which I wish I could have prevailed with those that had the right of the other edition, to have left out. But of all the rest, I dare boldly pronounce, that never yet so much was written on a subject so delicate, that can less offend the severest rules of morality. The whole passion of love is inimitably described, with all its mighty train of hopes, and joys, and disquiets. Besides this amorous tenderness, I know not how, in every copy, there is something of more useful knowledge very naturally and gracefully insinuated; and every where there may be something found, to inform the minds of wise men, as well as to move the hearts of young men or women.

The occasion of his falling on the Pindaric way of writing, was his accidental meeting with Pindar's works, in a place where he had no other books to direct him. Having then considered at leisure the height of his invention, and the majesty of his style, he tried immediatly to imitate it in English. And he performed it without the danger that Horace presaged to the man who should dare to attempt it.

If any are displeased at the boldness of his metaphors, and length of his digression, they contend not against Mr. Cowley, but Pindar himself; who was so