Lives of the Poets, Volume 1 by Samuel Johnson
page 46 of 602 (07%)
page 46 of 602 (07%)
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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, some striking thoughts, but they are not well wrought. His elegy on sir Henry Wotton is vigorous and happy; the series of thoughts is easy and natural; and the conclusion, though a little weakened by the intrusion of Alexander, is elegant and forcible. It may be remarked, that in this elegy, and in most of his encomiastick poems, he has forgotten or neglected to name his heroes. In his poem on the death of Hervey, there is much praise, but little passion; a very just and ample delineation of such virtues as a studious privacy admits, and such intellectual excellence as a mind not yet called forth to action can display. He knew how to distinguish, and how to commend, the qualities of his companion; but, when he wishes to make us weep, he forgets to weep himself, and diverts his sorrow by imagining how his crown of bays, if he had it, would crackle in the fire. It is the odd fate of this thought to be the worse for being true. The bay-leaf crackles remarkably as it burns; as, therefore, this property was not assigned it by chance, the mind must be thought sufficiently at ease that could attend to such minuteness of physiology. But the power of Cowley is not so much to move the affections, as to exercise the understanding. The Chronicle is a composition unrivalled and alone: such gaiety of |
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