Whatever are his liberally praised.

defects, no poet has been more Lord Clarendon has said, he

made a flight above all men: Addison, in his account of the English poets, that he improved upon the Theban bard: the duke of Buckingham, upon his tombstone, that he was the English Pindar, the Horace, the Virgil, the Delight, the Glory of his Time. And, with respect to the harshness of his numbers, the eloquent Spratt tells us, that if his verses in some places seem not as soft and flowing as one would have them, it was his choice, and not his fault.

Such is the applause lavished on a writer who is now seldom read. That he could ever be esteemed as a Pindaric poet, is a curious literary phænomenon. He totally mistook his own genius, when he thought of imitating Pindar. He totally mistook the genius of Pindar, when he thought his own incoherent sentiments and numbers bore the least resemblance to the wild, yet regular sublimity of the Theban. He neglected even those forms, the strophe, the antistrophe, and epode, which even imitative dulness can copy. Sublime imagery, vehement pathos, poetic fire, which constitute the essence of the Pindaric ode, are incompatible with witty conceits, accurate anitheses, and vulgar expression. All these imply the coolness of deliberate composition, or the meanness of a little mind; both of them most repugnant to the truly Pindaric ode, in which all is rapturous and noble. Wit of any kind would be improperly displayed in such composition; but to increase the absurdity, the wit of Cowley is often false.

If the end of poetry is to please, harmony of verse is essential to poetry, for, without it, poetry cannot please. It is not possible, that any whose ear has been attuned to the melody of good composition, should read a single ode of Cowley without being shocked with discord. There is often nothing left but the jingle at the end, to distinguish poems renowned for their sublimity from affected prose. Such poetry may justly incur the ridiculous title of prose run mad.

Yet is there sometimes interwoven a purple patch, as Horace calls it; a fine expression, a truly poetical thought, an harmonious couplet; but it occurs not often enough to repay the reader for the toilsome task of wading through a tedious assemblage of disproportionate and discordant stanzas. Of such consist his Pindarics; which, though they procured him the greatest share of his reputation, deserved it least. Many of his other poems, if we consider the rude state of versification, and the bad taste of the times, have great merit; and had he made Tibullus his model, instead of Pindar, his claim to the first rank of elegiac poets had not been called in question. The tenderness of love, and the soft language of complaint, were adapted to his genius. But he chose to tread in the footsteps of Alcæus, as he says himself, who, according to the Halicarnassian, combined the μεγαλοφυες και ηδυ, the grand and the sweet.

That he had a taste for Latin poetry, and wrote in it with elegance, the well-known epitaph on himself, upon his retirement, and an admirable imitation of Horace, are full proofs. But surely, his rhetori

cal biographer makes use of the figure hyperbole, when he affirms that Cowley has excelled the Romans themselves. He was inferior to many a writer of less fame in the Muse Anglicanæ. But still he had great merit; and I must confess I have read some of his Latin verses with more pleasure than any of his English afforded. The good ones are few; the bad and the barbarous greatly predomi

nate.

But, after all the honours that have been accumulated on his name as a poet, his great merit consisted in prosaic composition. In this department he is an elegant, a pleasing, a judicious writer. His love of retirement and contemplation qualified him for a moralist; and it is much to be lamented, that he did not devote a greater part of his time to a kind of writing which appeared natural to him, and in which he excelled. The language of his heart shines forth in the little he has left us, and we cannot but love it.

Much more of that language would have descended to posterity, if his friends, from a mistaken opinion of propriety, had not suppressed his private letters. Dr. Spratt and Mr. Clifford were avowedly possessed of many; and the very reason assigned by the biographer for their suppression, should have operated in their publication. The letters that pass between particular friends, says he, if they are written as they ought to be, that is, I suppose, in an artless manner, can scarcely ever be fit to see the light. How great an injury would polite learning have sustained, if the friends of Cicero had thought like Spratt and Clifford !

They would better have consulted the reputation of the poet, had they pronounced the Pindarics unfit to see the light. Editors, in general, would act more honourably, in exhibiting only the best of their author's productions, than in praising, as well as publishing, all that has fallen from his pen. But, in truth, to have left out any part of his poems, would, in that age, have been an unpardonable omission; for who should dare to mutilate a Pindar?

Time, the great arbiter of reputation, has already begun to strip the poet of his borrowed honours. A critic, whose genius and judgment keep pace with each other, and who illuminates every subject on which he treats, has allotted Cowley his just species of praise, and has given the world, in a judicious selection of his works, all that they possessed of real value.

Of these the prose forms a principal part. It is written in a style sufficiently flowing to prove that Cowley was not destitute of a musical ear; a circumstance which countenances the opinion of those who maintain that he affected a rugged style. Was it a compliance with the taste of the age, that induced him to affect deformity? Unfortunate compliance with a deplorable taste! He, as well as they whom he imitated, Donne and Jonson, were unquestionably possessed of great learning and ingenuity; but they all neglected the graces of composition, and will therefore soon be numbered among those once celebrated writers, whose utility now consists in filling a vacancy on the upper shelf of some dusty and deserted library.

NO. CLXXII.

CURSORY AND

GENERAL HINTS ON

THE CHOICE OF BOOKS.

THE scarcity of books, a few centuries ago, was the principal obstacle to the advancement of learning. The multitude of them is become, in the present age, scarcely less injurious to its interests, by distracting the student in his choice, and by diffusing an incorrect and undistinguishing taste.

To read all books on all subjects would require an uninterrupted attention during the longest life even of an Antediluvian. To read only the most celebrated, written in a few languages, is an em. ployment sufficient to fill up every hour of laborious application. For the sake then of saving time, and of directing the judgment of the inexperienced, it becomes an useful attempt to suggest some general hints, which may tend to facilitate selection.

One rule of the greatest consequence is, to read only, or chiefly, the original treatises in all the va rious departments of science and of literature. Nearly the same space of time, though not the same degree of attention, is necessary to peruse the faint copies of imitative industry, as would appropriate to the student the solid productions of native genius. This rule is more particularly to be observed on the first entrance on study. The foundation must be laid deep, and formed of solid materials. The superstructure will often admit slight and superficial appendages. When we have studied the fine relics of those who have lived before us, we may derive much pleasure from attending to the additional la