samuel johnson
To the subject, thus originally indisposed to the reception of poetical embellishments, the writer brought little that could reconcile impa-tience, or attract curiosity. Nothing can be more disgusting than a narrative spangled with conceits, and conceits are all that the ‘Davideis’ supplies.
One of the great sources of poetical delight is description, or the power of presenting pictures to the mind. Cowley gives inferences instead of images, and shews not what may be supposed to have been seen, but what thoughts the sight might have suggested. When Virgil describes the stone which Turnus lifted against Aeneas, he fixes the attention on its bulk and weight:
1710
Saxum circumspicit ingens,
Saxum antiquum, ingens, campo quod forte jacebat
Limes agro positus, litem ut discerneret arvis”.
Cowley says of the stone with which Cain slew his brother,
I saw him fling the stone, as if he meant At once his murther and his monument.
Of the sword taken from Goliah, he says, A sword so great, that it was only fit To take off his great head that came with it.SAMUEL JOHNSON
Other poets describe death by some of its com-mon appearances; Cowley says, with a learned allusion to sepulchral lamps, real or fabulous,
‘Twixt his right ribs deep pierc’d the furious blade,
And open’d wide those secret vessels where Life’s light goes out, when first they let in air.
But he has allusions vulgar as well as learned. In a visionary succession of kings:
1730
Joas at first does bright and glorious show, In life’s fresh morn his fame does early crow.
Describing an undisciplined army, after hav-ing said with elegance,
His forces seem’d no army, but a crowd, Heartless, unarm’d, disorderly, and loud;
he gives them a fit of the ague.
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The allusions however are not always to vul-gar things: he offends by exaggeration as much as by diminution:
1740
The king was plac’d alone, and o’er his head A well-wrought heaven of silk and gold was spread.
Whatever he writes is always polluted with some conceit:
Where the sun’s fruitful beams give metals birth,76
THE LIFE OF COWLEY
Where he the growth of fatal gold does see, Gold, which alone more influence has than he.
In one passage he starts a sudden question, to the confusion of philosophy:
Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands grace,
Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?
The oak, for courtship most of all unfit,
1750
And rough as are the winds that fight with it.
His expressions have sometimes a degree of meanness that surpasses expectation:
Nay, gentle guests, he cries, since now you’re in, The story of your gallant friend begin.
In a simile descriptive of the Morning:
As glimmering stars just at th’ approach of day, Cashier’d by troops, at last drop all away.
1760
The dress of Gabriel deserves attention:
He took for skin a cloud most soft and bright, That e’er the midday sun pierc’d through with light;
Upon his cheeks a lively blush he spread, Wash’d from the morning beauties’ deepest red; An harmless flattering meteor shone for hair, And fell adown his shoulders with loose care;
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He cuts out a silk mantle from the skies, Where the most sprightly azure pleas’d the eyes; This he with starry vapours sprinkles all, Took in their prime ere they grow ripe and fall; Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade, The choicest piece cut out, a scarfe is made.
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1770
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This is a just specimen of Cowley’s imagery:
what might in general expressions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invested with the softest or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and been dis-missed to improve the idea in our different pro-portions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his scarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and taylor.
1780
Sometimes he indulges himself in a digres-sion, always conceived with his natural exuber-ance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious:
I’ th’ library a few choice authors stood, Yet ’twas well stor’d, for that small store was good;
1790
Writing, man’s spiritual physic, was not then Itself, as now, grown a disease of men.
Learning (young virgin) but few suitors knew;
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THE LIFE OF COWLEY
The common prostitute she lately grew, And with the spurious brood loads now the
press;
Laborious effects of idleness.
1800
As the ‘Davideis’ affords only four books, though intended to consist of twelve, there is no opportunity for such criticisms as Epick poems commonly supply. The plan of the whole work is very imperfectly shewn by the third part. The duration of an unfinished action cannot be known. Of characters either not yet introduced, or shewn but upon few occasions, the full extent and the nice discriminations cannot be ascer-tained. The fable is plainly implex, formed rather from the Odyssey than the Iliad; and many arti-fices of diversification are employed, with the skill of a man acquainted with the best models.
1810
The past is recalled by narration, and the future anticipated by vision: but he has been so lavish of his poetical art, that it is difficult to imagine how he could fill eight books more without practising again the same modes of disposing his matter; and perhaps the perception of this growing incum-brance inclined him to stop. By this abruption, posterity lost more instruction than delight. If the continuation of the ‘Davideis’ can be missed, it is for the learning that had been diffused over it, and the notes in which it had been explained.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Had not his characters been depraved like every other part by improper decorations, they would have deserved uncommon praise. He gives Saul both the body and mind of a hero:
His way once chose, he forward thrust outright, Nor turn’d aside for danger or delight.
And the different beauties of the lofty Merah and the gentle Michol are very justly conceived and strongly painted.
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1830
Rymer has declared the ‘Davideis’ superior to the Jerusalem of Tasso, ‘which,’ says he, ‘the poet, with all his care, has not totally purged from ped-antry. If by pedantry is meant that minute knowledge which is derived from particular sci-ences and studies, in opposition to the general no-tions supplied by a wide survey of life and nature, Cowley certainly errs, by introducing pedantry far more frequently than Tasso. I know not, indeed, why they should be compared; for the resemblance of Cowley’s work to Tasso’s is only that they both exhibit the agency of celestial and infernal spirits, in which however they differ widely; for Cowley supposes them commonly to operate upon the mind by suggestion; Tasso represents them as pro-moting or obstructing events by external agency.
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THE LIFE OF COWLEY
Of particular passages that can be properly compared, I remember only the description of Heaven, in which the different manner of the two writers is sufficiently discernible. Cowley’s is scarcely description, unless it be possible to describe by negatives; for he tells us only what there is not in heaven. Tasso endeavours to rep-resent the splendours and pleasures of the re-gions of happiness. Tasso affords images, and Cowley sentiments. It happens, however, that Tasso’s description affords some reason for Ry-mer’s censure. He says of the Supreme Being,
1850
Hà sotto i piedi e fato’ e la natura, Ministri humili, e ‘l moto, e ch’ il misura.
1860
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 un-profitably squandered. Attention has no relief; the affections are never moved; we are some-times surprised, but never delighted, and find much to admire, but little to approve. Still, how-ever, it is the work of Cowley, of a mind capa-cious by nature, and replenished by study.
1870
In the general review of Cowley’s poetry it will be found, that he wrote with abundant fertil-ity, but negligent or unskilful selection; with muchコ
SAMUEL JOHNSON
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 100, To him no author was unknown;
Yet what he writ was all his own.
1880
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.
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His character of writing was indeed not his own: he unhappily adopted that which was pre-dominant. He saw a certain way to present praise, and not sufficiently enquiring 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 steal-ing from his brows.
1890
He was in his own time considered as of un-rivalled 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.
1900
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 noble epigram of Grotius upon the death of Scaliger, 102 that I cannot but think them copied from it, though they are copied by no servile hand.
1910
One passage 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:
1920
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 nor Nature is) Yet things well worth his toil he gains: And does his charge and labour pay With good unsought experiments by the way 103.
COWLEY.
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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 befal Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal, So lovers dream a rich and long delight, But get a winter-seeming summer’s night104.
Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd105 remarks, were then in the highest esteem.
1940
It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley al-ways acknowledged his obligation to the learn-ing 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 sanctity are frequently offended; and which would not be borne in the present age, when devotion, per-haps not more fervent is more delicate.
1950
Having produced one passage taken by Cow-ley from Donne, I will recompense him by an-other 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 ship’s mast should be106
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 walk’d with 107.
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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 association, and have the influence, and that only, which custom has given them. Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien, or most graceful action, would be degraded and obscured by a garb ap-propriated 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 con-veyed by words used commonly upon low and trivial occasions, debased by vulgar mouths, and contaminated by inelegant applications.
1970
Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unal-terable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so con-cealed in baser matter that only a chymist can re-cover 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 im-purities, as not to pay the cost of their extraction.
The diction, being the vehicle of the thoughts, first presents itself to the intellectual eye: and if the first appearance offends, a further knowledge is not often sought. Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing, must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unex-pected; that which elevates must always surprise. What is perceived by slow degrees may gratify us with the consciousness of improvement, but will never strike with the sense of pleasure.
1990
Of all this, Cowley appears to have been without knowledge, or without care. He makes no selection of words, nor seeks any neatness of phrase: he has no elegances either lucky or elabo-rate; as his endeavours were rather to impress sen-tences upon the understanding than images on the fancy, he has few epithets, and those scattered without peculiar propriety or nice adaptation. It seems to follow from the necessity of the subject, rather than the care of the writer, that the diction of his heroick poem is less familiar than that of his slightest writings. He has given not the same numbers, but the same diction, to the gentle Ana-creon and the tempestuous Pindar.
His versification seems to have had very little of his care; and if what he thinks be true, that his numbers are unmusical only when they are ill read, the art of reading them is at present lost; for they are commonly harsh to modern ears He has
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indeed many noble lines, such as the feeble care of Waller never could produce. The bulk of his thoughts sometimes swelled his verse to unex-pected and inevitable grandeur; but his excellence of this kind is merely fortuitous: he sinks will-ingly down to his general carelessness, and avoids with very little care either meanness or asperity.
2020
His contractions are often rugged and harsh: One flings a mountain, and its rivers too Torn up with’t108
His rhymes are very often made by pro-nouns or particles, or the like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the energy of the line.
His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not slide easily into the latter.
The words do and did, which so much des grade in present estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley little censured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad an effect, at least to our ears, will ap-pear by a passage, in which every reader will la-ment to see just and noble thoughts defrauded of their praise by inelegance of language:
Where honour or where conscience does not bind, No other law shall shackle me; Slave to myself I ne’er will be; Nor shall my future actions be confin’d By my own present mind. Who by resolves and vows engag’d does stand For days, that yet belong to fate, Does like an unthrift mortgage his estate, Before it falls into his hand, The bondman of the cloister so, All that he does receive does always owe.
And still as Time comes in, it goes away, Not to enjoy, but debts to pay! Unhappy slave, and pupil to a bell! Which his hours’ work as well as hours does tell: Unhappy till the last, the kind releasing knell109.
His heroick lines are often formed of mono-syllables, but yet they are sometimes sweet and sonorous.
He says of the Messiah, Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound, And reach to worlds that must not yet be found. In another place, of David,
Yet bid him go securely, when be sends; ‘Tis Saul that is his foe, and we his friends. The man who has his God, no aid can lack; And we who bid him go, will bring him back111.
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Yet amidst his negligence he sometimes at-tempted an improved and scientifick versifica-tion; of which it will be best to give his own ac-count subjoined to this line,
2070
Nor can the glory contain itself in th’ endless space.
‘I am sorry that it is necessary to admonish the most part of readers, that it is not by negligence that this verse is so loose, long, and, as it were, vast; it is to paint in the number the nature of the thing which it describes, which I would have observed in divers other places of this poem, that else will pass for very careless verses: as before,
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And over-runs the neighb’ring fields with violent course.
‘In the second book,
Down a precipice deep, down he casts them all–‘And,
And fell a-down his shoulders with loose care.
‘In the third,
Brass was his helmet, his boots brass, and o’er
His breast a thick plate of strong brass he wore.
‘In the fourth,
Like some fair pine o’er-looking all th’ igno-bler wood.
2090
‘And,
Some from the rocks cast themselves down headlong.
‘And many more: but it is enough to in-stance 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 be represented. This the Greeks were not so accurate as to bind themselves to; neither have our English poets observed it, for aught I can find. The Latins (qui musas colunt severiores”) sometimes did it, and their prince,
Virgil, always: in whom the examples are innu-merable, and taken notice of by all judicious men, so that it is superfluous to collect them.’
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I know not whether he has, in many of these instances, attained the representation or resem-blance that he purposes. Verse can imitate only sound and motion. A boundless verse, a headlong verse, and a verse of brass or of strong brass, seem to comprise very incongruous and unsociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the sound of the line expressing loose care, I cannot discover; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexandrine than in ten syllables.
2110
But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of representative versifica-tion, which perhaps no other English line can equal:
Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.
He who defers this work from day to day,
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Does on a river’s bank expecting stay Till the whole stream that stopp’d him shall be gone,
Which runs, and as it runs, forever shall run on 13
113 Begin, be bold
. run on from Cowley’s translation of
Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleasure with the common heroick of ten syllables, and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He considered the verse of twelve syl-lables as elevated and majestick, and has there-fore deviated into that measure when he sup-poses the voice heard of the Supreme Being.
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The author of the ‘Davideis’ is commended by Dryden for having written it in couplets, be-cause he discovered that any staff was too lyrical for an heroick poem; but this seems to have been known before by May and Sandys¹¹¹, the transla-tors of the Pharsalia and the Metamorphoses.
In the ‘Davideis’ are some hemistichs, or verses left imperfect by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he supposes not to have intended to complete them: that this opinion is erroneous may be probably concluded, because this trunca-tion is imitated by no subsequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; because in one the sense is now unfinished; and because all that can be done
by a broken verse, a line intersected by a cæsura and a full stop will equally effect.
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Of triplets in his ‘Davideis’ he makes no use, and perhaps did not at first think them allow-able; but he appears afterwards to have changed his mind, for in the verses on the government of Cromwell he inserts them liberally with great happiness.
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After so much criticism on his Poems, the Es-says which accompany them must not be forgot-ten. What is said by Sprat of his conversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid equability, which has never yet obtained 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 Felton¹15, in his Es-say on the Classicks, that Cowley was beloved by every Muse that he courted; and that he has rivalled the Ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy.
It may be affirmed, without any encomias-tick fervour, that he brought to his poetick la-bours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could supply; that he was the first who imparted to English numbers the enthusi-asm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the less; that he was equally qualified for spritely sallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among those who freed translation from servility, and, instead of following his author at a distance, walked by his side; and that if he left versification yet im-provable, he left likewise from time to time such specimens of excellence as enabled succeeding poets to improve it.