One flings a mountain, and its rivers too
Torn up with 't.


His rhymes are very often made by pronouns, or particles, or the
like unimportant words, which disappoint the ear, and destroy the
energy of the line.

His combination of different measures is sometimes dissonant and
unpleasing; he joins verses together, of which the former does not
slide easily into the latter.

The words "do" and "did," which so much degrade in present
estimation the line that admits them, were in the time of Cowley
little censured or avoided; how often he used them, and with how bad
an effect, at least to our ears, will appear by a passage, in which
every reader will lament to see just and noble thoughts defrauded of
their praise by inelegance of language:


Where honour or where conscience DOES not bind
No other law shall shackle me;
Slave to myself I ne'er will be;
Nor shall my future actions be confined
By my own present mind.
Who by resolves and vows engaged DOES stand
For days, that yet belong to fate,
DOES like an unthrift mortgage his estate,
Before it falls into his hand;