Lives of the English Poets : Waller, Milton, Cowley

Dost in each breast a brothel keep;
Awake all men do lust for thee,
And some enjoy thee when they sleep.

The true taste of tears:

Hither with crystal vials, lovers, come,
And take my tears, which are love’s wine,
And try your mistress’ tears at home;
For all are false, that taste not just like mine.—Donne.

This is yet more indelicate:

As the sweet sweat of roses in a still,
As that which from chas’d musk-cat’s pores doth trill,
As th’ almighty balm of th’ early east;
Such are the sweet drops of my mistress’ breast.
And on her neck her skin such lustre sets,
They seem no sweat drops, but pearl coronets:
Rank, sweaty froth thy mistress’ brow defiles.—Donne.

Their expressions sometimes raise horror, when they intend perhaps to be pathetic:

As men in hell are from diseases free,
So from all other ills am I,
Free from their known formality:
But all pains eminently lie in thee.—Cowley.

They were not always strictly curious, whether the opinions from which they drew their illustrations were true; it was enough that they were popular.  Bacon remarks, that some falsehoods are continued by tradition, because they supply commodious allusions.

It gave a piteous groan, and so it broke:
In vain it something would have spoke;
The love within too strong for’t was,
Like poison put into a Venice-glass.—Cowley.

In forming descriptions, they looked out not for images, but for conceits.  Night has been a common subject, which poets have contended to adorn.  Dryden’s Night is well known; Donne’s is as follows:

Thou seest me here at midnight, now all rest:
Time’s dead low-water; when all minds divest
To-morrow’s business; when the labourers have
Such rest in bed, that their last church-yard grave,
Subject to change, will scarce be a type of this;
Now when the client, whose last hearing is
To-morrow, sleeps; when the condemned man,
Who, when he opes his eyes, must shut them the
Again by death, although sad watch he keep;
Doth practise dying by a little sleep:
Thou at this midnight seest me.

It must be, however, confessed of these writers, that if they are upon common subjects often unnecessarily and unpoetically subtle; yet, where scholastic speculation can be properly admitted, their copiousness and acuteness may justly be admired.  What Cowley has written upon Hope shows an unequalled fertility of invention:

Hops, whose weak being mind is,
Alike if it succeed and if it miss;
Whom good or ill does equally confound,
And both the horns of fate’s dilemma wound;
Vain shadow! which dust vanish quite,
Both at full noon and perfect night!
The stars have not a possibility
Of blessing thee;
If things then from their end we happy call
’Tis Hope is the most hopeless thing of all.
Hope, thou bold tester of delight,
Who, whilst thou shouldst but taste, devour’st it quite!
Thou bring’st us an estate, yet leav’st us poor
By clogging it with legacies before!
The joys, which we entire should wed,
Come deflowr’d virgins to our bed;
Good fortunes without gain imported be,
Such mighty custom’s paid to thee:
For joy, like wine kept close, does better taste
If it take air before its spirits waste.

To the following comparison of a man that travels, and his wife that stays at home, with a pair of compasses, it may be doubted whether absurdity or ingenuity has the better claim:

Our two souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth if th’ other do.
And, though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must
Like th’ other foot obliquely run.
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.—Donne.

In all these examples it is apparent, that whatever is improper or vicious, is produced by a voluntary deviation from nature in pursuit of something new and strange; and that the writers fail to give delight, by their desire of exciting admiration.

Having thus endeavoured to exhibit a general representation of the style and sentiments of the metaphysical poets, it is now proper to examine particularly the works of Cowley, who was almost the last of that race, and undoubtedly the best.

His Miscellanies contain a collection of short compositions, written some as they were dictated by a mind at leisure, and some as they were called forth by different occasions; with great variety of style and sentiment, from burlesque levity to awful grandeur.  Such an assemblage of diversified excellence no other poet has hitherto afforded.  To choose the best, among many good, is one of the most hazardous attempts of criticism.  I know not whether Scaliger himself has persuaded many readers to join with him in his preference of the two favourite odes, which he estimates in his raptures at the value of a kingdom.  I will, however, venture to recommend Cowley’s first piece, which ought to be inscribed “To my Muse,” for want of which the second couplet is without reference.  When the title is added, there wills till remain a defect; for every piece ought to contain in itself whatever is necessary to make it intelligible.  Pope has some epitaphs without names; which are therefore epitaphs to be let, occupied indeed for the present, but hardly appropriated.

The “Ode on Wit” is almost without a rival.  It was about the time of Cowley that wit, which had been till then used for intellection, in contradistinction to will, took the meaning, whatever it be, which it now bears.

Of all the passages in which poets have exemplified their own precepts, none will easily be found of greater excellence than that in which Cowley condemns exuberance of wit:—