If the Pindaric style be, what Cowley thinks it, "the highest and
noblest kind of writing in verse," it can be adapted only to high
and noble subjects; and it will not be easy to reconcile the poet
with the critic, or to conceive how that can be the highest kind of
writing in verse which, according to Sprat, "is chiefly to be
preferred for its near affinity to prose."

This lax and lawless versification so much concealed the
deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle,
that it immediately overspread our books of poetry; all the boys and
girls caught the pleasing fashion, and they that could do nothing
else could write like Pindar. The rights of antiquity were invaded,
and disorder tried to break into the Latin: a poem on the
Sheldonian Theatre, in which all kinds of verse are shaken together,
is unhappily inserted in the "Musae Anglicanae." Pindarism
prevailed about half a century; but at last died gradually away, and
other imitations supply its place.

The Pindaric Odes have so long enjoyed the highest degree of
poetical reputation, that I am not willing to dismiss them with
unabated censure; and surely though the mode of their composition be
erroneous, yet many parts deserve at least that admiration which is
due to great comprehension of knowledge, and great fertility of
fancy. The thoughts are often new, and often striking; but the
greatness of one part is disgraced by the littleness of another; and
total negligence of language gives the noblest conceptions the
appearance of a fabric august in the plan, but mean in the
materials. Yet surely those verses are not without a just claim to
praise; of which it may be said with truth, that no man but Cowley