he gives them a fit of the ague.

The allufions however are not always to vulgar things:

The king was plac'd alone, and o'er his head

A well-wrought heav'n of filk and gold was fpread.

Whatever he writes is always polluted with fome conceit :

Where the fun's fruitful beams give metals birth,.

Where he the growth of fatal gold does fee,

Gold, which alone more influence has than he.

In one paffage he ftarts a fudden queftion, to the confufion of philofo

phy:

Ye learned heads, whom ivy garlands

grace,

Why does that twining plant the oak embrace?

The oak, for courtship moft of all unfit, And rough as are the winds that fight with it.

His expreffions have fometimes a degree of meannefs that furpaffes expecta

tion:

Nay, gentle guefts, he cries, fince now you're in,

The story of your gallant friend begin.

In a fimile defcriptive of the morning: As glimm❜ring stars just at th' approach of day,

Cafhier'd by troops, at laft drop all away.

The drefs of Gabriel deferves atten

tion :

He took for skin a cloud moft foft and

bright,

That e'er the midday fun pierc'd thro' with light,

Upon his cheeks a lively blush he fpread, Wash'd from the morning beauties deep

eft red,

An harmless flatt'ring meteor fhone for

hair,

And fell adown his fhoulders with loofe

care;

He cuts out a filk mantle from the skies, Where the most fpritely azure pleas'd

the eyes;

This he with starry vapours fprinkles all, Took in their prime ere they grow ripe

and fall;

Of a new rainbow, ere it fret or fade,

The choiceft piece cut out, a scarfe is made.

This is a juft fpecimen of Cowley's imagery: what might in general expreffions be great and forcible, he weakens and makes ridiculous by branching it into small parts. That Gabriel was invefted with the foftcft or brightest colours of the sky, we might have been told, and dismissed to improve the idea in our different proportions of conception; but Cowley could not let us go till he had related where Gabriel got first his skin, and then his mantle, then his lace, and then his fcarfe, and related it in the terms of the mercer and the taylor.

Some

Sometimes he indulges himself in a digreffion, always conceived with his natural exuberance, and commonly, even where it is not long, continued till it is tedious:

I' th' library a few choice authors stood, Yet 'twas well ftor'd; for that small ftore was good;

Writing, man's fpiritual phyfic, was not then

Itself, as now, grown a disease of men. Learning (young virgin) but few fuitors

knew ;

The common prostitute she lately grew,

And with the spurious brood loads now the prefs;

Laborious effects of idleness!

As