If by the way to him befal
Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,
So lovers dream a rich and long delight,
But get a winter-seeming summer's night.


Jonson and Donne, as Dr. Hurd remarks, were then in the highest
esteem.

It is related by Clarendon, that Cowley always acknowledged his
obligation to the learning and industry of Jonson: but I have found
no traces of Jonson in his works: to emulate Donne appears to have
been his purpose.; and from Donne ~he may have learnt that
familiarity with religious images, and that light allusion to sacred
things, by which readers far short of sanctity are frequently
offended; and which would not be borne in the present age, when
devotion, perhaps not more fervent, is more delicate.

Having produced one passage taken by Cowley from Donne, I will
recompense him by another which Milton seems to have borrowed from
him. He says of Goliath:


His spear, the trunk was of a lofty tree,
Which Nature meant some tall ship's mast should be.


Milton of Satan: