praised, and too much neglected at another.

Wit, like all other things, subject by their nature to the choice of
man, has its changes and fashions, and, at different times, takes
different forms. About the beginning of the seventeenth century,
appeared a race of writers, that may be termed the metaphysical poets;
of whom in a criticism on the works of Cowley, it is not improper to
give some account.

The metaphysical poets were men of learning, and, to show their learning
was their whole endeavour; but, unluckily resolving to show it in rhyme,
instead of writing poetry, they only wrote verses, and, very often, such
verses as stood the trial of the finger better than of the ear; for the
modulation was so imperfect, that they were only found to be verses by
counting the syllables.

If the father of criticism has rightly denominated poetry, 'technae
mimaetikhae', an imitative art, these writers will, without great wrong,
lose their right to the name of poets; for they cannot be said to have
imitated any thing; they neither copied nature nor life; neither painted
the forms of matter, nor represented the operations of intellect.

Those, however, who deny them to be poets, allow them to be wits. Dryden
confesses of himself and his contemporaries, that they fall below Donne
in wit; but maintains, that they surpass him in poetry.

If wit be well described by Pope, as being "that which has been often
thought, but was never before so well expressed," they certainly never
attained, nor ever sought it; for they endeavoured to be singular in
their thoughts, and were careless of their diction. But Pope's account