rowed his metaphysical turn from Donne.

-The same.

When Cowley grew sick of the court he took a house, first at Battersea, then at Barnes, and then at Chertsey; always farther and farther from the town.

Cowley in the latter part of his life showed a sort of aversion for women, and would leave the room when they came in: it was probably from a disappointment in love.

He was much in love with his Leonora, who is mentioned at the end of that good ballad of his on his different mistresses. She was married to Dean Sprat's brother; and Cowley never was in love with any body after. The same.

Cowley's allowance at last was not above 300l. a year. He died at Chertsey; and his death was occasioned by a mean accident, whilst his great friend Dean Sprat was with him on a visit there. They had been together to see a neighbour of Cowley's, who, according to the fashion of

those times, made them too welcome. They did not set out for their walk home till it was late, and had drunk so deep that they lay out in the fields all night. This gave Cowley the fever that carried him off. -The same.

DENHAM.

Sir John Denham's celebrated couplet on the Thames owes a great part of its fineness to the frequency and variety of the

pauses:

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull; Strong, without rage; without o'erflowing, full.

Mr. Auditor Benson.

There is none of our poets of that class [the class of Dorset and Rochester] that ever was more judicious than Sir John Denham.-Mr. Pope. [At the end of his Cooper's Hill, edit. 1709, Mr. Pope had written the following note:

This poem was first printed without the author's name in 1643. In that edition a great number of verses are to be found since entirely omitted; and very many

H

others since corrected and improved. Some few the author afterwards added, and in particular the four celebrated lines on the Thames, "O! could I flow like thee," &c. all with admirable judgment; and the whole read together is a very strong proof of what Mr. Waller says,

"Poets lose half the praise they should have got, "Could it be known what they discreetly blot." Though it might be a very useful lesson for a poet to compare those two editions exactly, and to consider at each alteration how and why it was altered, it may not be amiss to adjoin here the following list of alterations in that poem:

Edit. 1709.

V. 12. "More boundless," &c. Seven verses added instead of two bad ones.

24 to 26. Six verses only, instead of fourteen not near so good.

30 to 38 were scattered among others far inferior.

40. Four verses omitted, in which he had compared Windsor Castle to a big-bellied

woman.

77 to 82. Six verses, instead of eight far inferior.

86. Two omitted.

100 to 115. Fifteen verses only, instead of twenty far inferior.

121. Rased.

127 to 132. Altered much for the better. 149 to 156. Added.

165 and 166. Altered.

171 to 196. Much omitted and much

added; of the Thames.

327. Six party lines omitted.

342. Party lines omitted.

357. Other of the same kind omitted in

the close.

STANLEY.

Stanley's poems* consist chiefly of trans

* See p. 88.

lations, but of well chosen pieces. His treatise of the sentiments of the old philosophers is very good.-The same.

OTWAY.

Otway has written but two tragedies, out of six, that are pathetic. I believe he did it without much design, as Lillo has done his Barnwell. It is a talent of nature rather than an effect of judgment to write so movingly. The same.

Otway had an intimate friend, one Blakiston, who was shot: the murderer fled towards Dover, and Otway pursued him; in his return he drank water when violently heated, and so got the fever which was the death of him*.—Mr. Dennis, the Critic.

BUTLER.

Butler set out on too narrow a plan, and

* Dennis, in his preface to his observations on Pope's translation of Homer, 8vo. 1717, says, that Otway died in an alehouse. This, however, is not inconsistent with this account.-M.