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:-


Yet 'tis not to adorn and gild each part,
That shows more cost than art.
Jewels at nose and lips but ill appear;
Rather than all things wit, let none be there.
Several lights 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,