Complete Works of Samuel Johnson

by Samuel Johnson

  All arm’d in brass, the richest dress of war,

  (A dismal glorious sight!) he shone afar.

  The sun himself started with sudden fright,

  To see his beams return so dismal bright. COWLEY.

  An universal consternation:

  His bloody eyes he hurls round, his sharp paws

  Tear up the ground; then runs he wild about,

  Lashing his angry tail, and roaring out.

  Beasts creep into their dens, and tremble there;

  Trees, though no wind is stirring, shake with fear;

  Silence and horror fill the place around;

  Echo itself dares scarce repeat the sound. COWLEY.

  Their fictions were often violent and unnatural.

  Of his mistress bathing:

  The fish around her crowded, as they do

  To the false light that treacherous fishers shew,

  And all with as much ease might taken be,

  As she at first took me;

  For ne’er did light so clear

  Among the waves appear,

  Though every night the sun himself set there. COWLEY.

  The poetical effect of a lover’s name upon glass:

  My name engrav’d herein

  Doth contribute my firmness to this glass;

  Which, ever since that charm, hath been

  As hard as that which grav’d it was. DONNE.

  Their conceits were sentiments slight and trifling. On an inconstant woman:

  He enjoys the calmy sunshine now,

  And no breath stirring hears;

  In the clear heaven of thy brow,

  No smallest cloud appears.

  He sees thee gentle, fair and gay,

  And trusts the faithless April of thy May. COWLEY

  Upon a paper, written with the juice of lemon, and read by the fire:

  Nothing yet in thee is seen,

  But when a genial heat warms thee within,

  A new-born wood of various lines there grows:

  Here buds an L, and there a B;

  Here sprouts a V, and there a T;

  And all the flourishing letters stand in rows. COWLEY.

  As they sought only for novelty, they did not much inquire, whether their allusions were to things high or low, elegant or gross; whether they compared the little to the great, or the great to the little.

  Physick and chirurgery for a lover:

  Gently, ah gently, madam, touch

  The wound, which you yourself have made;

  That pain must needs be very much,

  Which makes me of your hand afraid,

  Cordials of pity give me now,

  For I too weak for purgings grow. COWLEY.

  The world and a clock:

  Mahol th’ inferior world’s fantastic face

  Thro’ all the turns of matter’s maze did trace;

  Great nature’s well-set clock in pieces took;

  On all the springs and smallest wheels did look

  Of life and motion, and with equal art

  Made up the whole again of every part. COWLEY.

  A coal-pit has not often found its poet; but, that it may not want its due honour, Cleiveland has paralleled it with the sun:

  The moderate value of our guiltless ore

  Makes no man atheist, and no woman whore;

  Yet why should hallow’d vestal’s sacred shrine

  Deserve more honour than a flaming mine?

  These pregnant wombs of heat would fitter be,

  Than a few embers, for a deity.

  Had he our pits, the Persian would admire

  No sun, but warm ‘s devotion at our fire:

  He’d leave the trotting whipster, and prefer

  Our profound Vulcan ‘bove that wagoner.

  For wants he heat, or light? or would have store

  Of both? ’tis here: and what can suns give more?

  Nay, what’s the sun, but in a different name,

  A coal-pit rampant, or a mine on flame!

  Then let this truth reciprocally run,

  The sun’s heaven’s coalery, and coals our sun.

  Death, a voyage:

  No family

  E’er rigg’d a soul for heaven’s discovery,

  With whom more venturers might boldly dare

  Venture their stakes, with him in joy to share. DONNE.

  Their thoughts and expressions were sometimes grossly absurd, and such as no figures or license can reconcile to the understanding.

  A lover neither dead nor alive:

  Then down I laid my head,

  Down on cold earth; and for awhile was dead,

  And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled;

  Ah, sottish soul, said I,

  When back to its cage again I saw it fly;

  Fool to resume her broken chain,

  And row her galley here again!

  Fool, to that body to return

  Where it condemn’d and destin’d is to burn!

  Once dead, how can it be,

  Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,

  That thou should’st come to live it o’er again in me? COWLEY.

  A lover’s heart, a hand grenado:

  Wo to her stubborn heart, if once mine come

  Into the self-same room;

  ’Twill tear and blow up all within,

  Like a grenado shot into a magazin.

  Then shall love keep the ashes and torn parts,

  Of both our broken hearts;

  Shall out of both one new one make;

  From hers th’ allay, from mine the metal take. COWLEY.

  To poetical propagation of light;

  The prince’s favour is diffus’d o’er all,

  From which all fortunes, names, and natures fall:

  Then from those wombs of stars, the bride’s bright eyes,

  At every glance a constellation flies,

  And sowes the court with stars, and doth prevent,

  In light and power, the all-ey’d firmament:

  First her eye kindles other ladies’ eyes,

  Then from their beams their jewels’ lustres rise:

  And from their jewels torches do take fire,

  And all is warmth, and light, and good desire. DONNE.

  They were in very little care to clothe their notions with elegance of dress, and, therefore, miss the notice and the praise which are often gained by those who think less, but are more diligent to adorn their thoughts.

  That a mistress beloved is fairer in idea than in reality, is, by

  Cowley, thus expressed:

  Thou in my fancy dost much higher stand,

  Than woman can be plac’d by nature’s hand;

  And I must needs, I’m sure, a loser be,

  To change thee, as thou’rt there, for very thee.

  That prayer and labour should cooperate, are thus taught by Donne:

  In none but us are such mix’d engines found,

  As hands of double office: for the ground

  We till with them; and them to heaven we raise:

  Who prayerless labours, or, without this, prays,

  Doth but one half, that’s none.

  By the same author, a common topick, the danger of procrastination, is thus illustrated:

  That which I should have begun

  In my youth’s morning, now late must be done;

  And I, as giddy travellers must do,

  Which stray or sleep all day, and, having lost

  Light and strength, dark and tir’d must then ride post.

  All that man has to do is to live and die; the sum of humanity is comprehended by Donne in the following lines:

  Think in how poor a prison thou didst lie;

  After enabled but to suck and cry.

  Think, when ’twas grown to most, ’twas a poor inn,

  A province pack’d up in two yards of skin,

  And that usurp’d, or threaten’d with a rage

  Of sicknesses, or their true mother,
age.

  But think that death hath now enfranchis’d thee;

  Thou hast thy expansion now, and liberty;

  Think, that a rusty piece discharg’d is flown

  In pieces, and the bullet is his own,

  And freely flies: this to thy soul allow,

  Think thy shell broke, think thy soul hatch’d but now.

  They were sometimes indelicate and disgusting. Cowley thus apostrophises beauty:

  Thou tyrant, which leav’st no man free!

  Thou subtle thief, from whom nought safe can be!

  Thou murderer, which hast kill’d; and devil, which would’st damn me!

  Thus he addresses his mistress:

  Thou who, in many a propriety,

  So truly art the sun to me,

  Add one more likeness, which I’m sure you can,

  And let me and my sun beget a man.

  Thus he represents the meditations of a lover:

  Though in thy thoughts scarce any tracks have been

  So much as of original sin,

  Such charms thy beauty wears, as might

  Desires in dying confest saints excite.

  Thou with strange adultery

  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 chaf’d musk-cat’s pores doth trill,

  As the 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 horrour, when they intend, perhaps, to be pathetick:

  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 then

  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 subtile; yet, where scholastick 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:

  Hope, whose weak being ruin’d 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 dost 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 taster of delight,

  Who, whilst thou should’st 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 deflower’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 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 vitious 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 will still 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:

  Yet ’tis not to adorn and gild each part,

  That shews more cost than art.

  Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;

  Rather than all things wit, let none be there.

  Several l
ights will not be seen,

  If there be nothing else between.

  Men doubt, because they stand so thick i’th’ sky,

  If those be stars which paint the galaxy.

  In his verses to lord Falkland, whom every man of his time was proud to praise, there are, as there must be in all Cowley’s compositions, some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His elegy on sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible.

  It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his encomiastick poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes.

  In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a studious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called forth to action can display. He knew how to distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion; but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be the worse for being true. The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as, therefore, this property was not assigned it by chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently at ease that could attend to such minuteness of physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so much to move the affections, as to exercise the understanding.

  The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of fancy, such facility of expression, such varied similitude, such a succession of images, and such a dance of words, it is in vain to expect, except from Cowley. His strength always appears in his agility; his volatility is not the flutter of a light, but the bound of an elastick mind. His levity never leaves his learning behind it; the moralist, the politician, and the critick, mingle their influence even in this airy frolick of genius. To such a performance Suckling could have brought the gaiety, but not the knowledge; Dryden could have supplied the knowledge, but not the gaiety.

  The verses to Davenant, which are vigorously begun and happily concluded, contain some hints of criticism very justly conceived and happily expressed. Cowley’s critical abilities have not been sufficiently observed: the few decisions and remarks, which his prefaces and his notes on the Davideis supply, were, at that time, accessions to English literature, and show such skill as raises our wish for more examples.

  The lines from Jersey are a very curious and pleasing specimen of the familiar descending to the burlesque.

  His two metrical disquisitions for and against reason are no mean specimens of metaphysical poetry. The stanzas against knowledge produce little conviction. In those which are intended to exalt the human faculties, reason has its proper task assigned it; that of judging, not of things revealed, but of the reality of revelation. In the verses for reason, is a passage which Bentley, in the only English verses which he is known to have written, seems to have copied, though with the inferiority of an imitator.