samuel johnson
Town, lying there one night. I write this in pain, and can say no more: Verbum sapienti. 22,
He did not long enjoy the pleasure or suffer the uneasiness of solitude; for he died at the Porch-house in Chester in 1667, in the 49th year of his age.
He was buried with great pomp near Chaucer and Spenser; and king Charles pronounced, ‘that Mr. Cowley had not left a better man behind him in England.’ He is represented by Dr. Sprat as the most amiable of mankind; and this posthumous praise may be safely credited, as it has never been contradicted by envy or by faction.
Such are the remarks and memorials which I have been able to add to the narrative of Dr. Sprat; who, writing when the feuds of the civil war were yet recent, and the minds of either party easily irritated, was obliged to pass over many transactions in general expressions, and to leave curiosity often unsatisfied. What he did not tell cannot, however, now be known. I must therefore recommend the perusal of his work, to which my narration can be considered only as a slender supplement.Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.
Wit, like all other things subject by their na-ture to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not im-proper to give some account.
520Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.
Wit, like all other things subject by their na-ture to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not im-proper to give some account.
The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole en-deavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables.
If the father of criticism has rightly denomi-nated poetry τέχνη μιμετκη, an imitative art,
23Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and, instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.
Wit, like all other things subject by their na-ture to the choice of man, has its changes and fashions, and at different times takes different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century appeared a race of writers that may be termed the metaphysical poets; of whom, in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not im-proper to give some account.
The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole en-deavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables.
If the father of criticism has rightly denomi-nated poetry τέχνη μιμετκη, an imitative art,
The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and to shew their learning was their whole en-deavour; but, unluckily resolving to shew it in rhyme, instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and very often such verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by counting the syllables
If the father of criticism has rightly denomi-nated poetry τέχνη μιμετκη, an imitative art,
these writers will, without great wrong, lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have imitated anything; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted the forms of mat-ter, nor represented the operations of intellect.
Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden confesses24 of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne in wit, but maintains that they surpass him in poetry.
If Wit be well described by Pope, as being ‘that which has been often thought, but was never before so well expressed25,’ they certainly never attained, nor ever sought it; for they en-deavoured to be singular in their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope’s account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous: he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.
If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be considered as Wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowl-560
edged to be just; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natu-ral; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found.
But Wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philosophi-cally considered as a kind of discordia concors 26; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently un-like. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ran-sacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allu-sions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.
From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were not
on something cessful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds: they never enquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of hu-man nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure; as Epicurean dei-ties” making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had been never said before.
Nor was the sublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehension and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is sudden astonishment, and the second rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by dispersion. Great thoughts are always general, and consist in posi-tions not limited by exceptions, and in descrip-
tions not descending to minuteness. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its origi. nal import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of distinc-tion. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observa-tion. Their attempts were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments: and could no more represent, by their slender conceits and laboured particularities, the prospects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who dissects a sun-beam with a prism, can exhibit the wide efful-gence of a summer noon.
What they wanted however of the sublime, they endeavoured to supply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.
Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly lost: if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewise some-times struck out unexpected truth: if their con-ceits were far-fetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least necessary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphysical poet, nor assume the dig-
nity of a writer, by descriptions copied from de-scriptions, by imitations borrowed from imita-tions, by traditional imagery, and hereditary similes, by readiness of rhyme, and volubility of syllables.
in perusing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry; either something already learned is to be retrieved, or something new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious absurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be sometimes found, buried perhaps in grossness of expression, but useful to those who know their value; and such as, when they are expanded to perspicuity, and polished to elegance, may give lustre to works which have more propriety though less copiousness of sentiment.
This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marini 28 and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extensive and various knowledge; and by Jonson, whose manner resembled that of
Donne more in the ruggedness” of his lines than in the cast of his sentiments.
When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators than time has left behind. Their immediate successors, of whom any remembrance can be said to remain, were Suckling, Waller, Denham, Cowley, Cleiveland, and Milton. Denham and Waller sought another way to fame, by improving the harmony of our numbers. Milton tried the metaphysick style only in his lines upon Hobson the Carrier. Cowley adopted it, and excelled his predecessors, having as much sentiment, and more musick. Suckling neither improved versification abounded in conceits. The fashionable style re-mained chiefly with Cowley; Suckling could not reach it, and Milton disdained it. nor
Critical Remarks are not easily understood without examples; and I have therefore collected instances of the modes of writing by which this 6 species of poets, for poets they were called by themselves and their admirers, was eminently distinguished.
As the authors of this race were perhaps more desirous of being admired than under-stood, they sometimes drew their conceits from recesses of learning not very much frequented by common readers of poetry. Thus Cowley on Knowledge:
The sacred tree midst the fair orchard grew; The phœnix Truth did on it rest, And built his perfum’d nest, That right Porphyrian tree which did true logick shew.
Each leaf did learned notions give, And th’ apples were demonstrative: So clear their colour and divine, The very shade they cast did other lights out-shine