Esse qui secum nequit occupatus, Tædio, aut caras male collocabit Tu Deum longis comitata sæclis Impetus mentis nimium evagantes Claudere cursum 1. Languidos mentis fluidæ calores, *"Ah wretched and too solitary he, Unless he call in sin or vanity Tho' God himself, thro' countless ages, thee His sole companion chose to be, Thee, sacred solitude, alone, Before the branchy head of numbers three Sprang from the trunk of one." Ibid. "Thou, tho' men think thine an unactive part, Dost break and tame th' unruly heart, Which else would know no settled place, Making it move well-manag'd by thy art, With swiftness and with grace." Ibid. § Thou the faint beams of reason's scatter'd light Dost like a burning glass unite, Dost multiply the feeble heat, And fortify the strength, till thou dost bright, Quid mihi æterno populum, fluentem Eximam stultos numero tuorum, Eximam densum genus improborum, Vicus obscurus prope, Solitudo, The following ode is, with one or two transpositions, a literal version of the poet's beautiful English lines in the Essay "on the Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches," beginning Why dost thou heap up wealth which thou must quit ?” "Ode. "Quid relinquendos, moriture, nummos, Si relinquendos; dominum relinquunt Quid struis pulchros thalamos in altum "Whilst this hard truth I teach, methinks, I see The monster London laugh at me; I should at thee too, foolish city, If it were fit to laugh at misery; But thy estate I pity! Let but the wicked men from out thee go, Nam tuas te res agitare credis ? Ardelio ingens. Longa momento meditantur uno, Lineæ puncto brevis in supremo Jure formicæ cumulant acervos Cura cicadas. Gloriæ mendax nitor atque honorum Si diem vitæ valuisset, uti sol, Pingere totum. At brevem post se sonitum relinquens Transit, illustri loca multa inaurans O rudis pulchræ prope contuenti Iridis instar ! Magna contemnens, miseranosque magnos, Vive, Coulei; lege tuta parvâ Hospitem cœlorum, imitare alaudam, Sis licet nubes super ire cantu Doctus, in terris humilem memento Ponere nidum.” ART. DCCXLIV. No. XLV. The same subject continued, "A nostris procul est omnis vesica libellis, Musa nec insano syrmate nostra tumet." MART. HAVING in my last paper given Cowley's Latin versions of his odes on Solitude and Riches, I now proceed to insert his version of his beautiful Hymn to Light, whence Warton has extracted stanzas, which furnish him with instances of our poet's inferiority to Milton in classical purity. But perhaps the ingenious critic's zeal for Milton has made him a little too severe on his rival. If he has made a bold and perhaps rash endeavour to clothe his metaphysical conceits in the Latin language, and has sometimes failed accordingly, he has surely sometimes succeeded beyond all hope; there are passages, in which his happiness appears to me really astonishing; and though Johnson went a little too far on the occasion, there is certainly great acuteness in his remarks; and there is, I think, more originality in the Latin poems of Cowley than of Milton. There are many passages in the following ode which affect me with exquisite pleasure. Hymnus, in Lucem. "Pulchra de nigrå sobole parente, Massa Severa! Risus O terræ sacer et polorum! O salus rerum, et decus omne, salve; Omnium mater bona cum calore Juncta marito ! Unde, momento, quibus e pharetris Carceres ipsos simul, atque metam Ocyor strictes, rapidâ angelorum Aureo lunæ bene læta curru Auream astrorum peragrare sylvam, et Vere nocturno reparata semper. Visere prata, Regiam gaudens habitare solis More in æternam Sythico vagantem, et Divitem mundi redeunte gyro Ducere pompam; Inter et tantos humilis triumphos Pauperes dignata hilarare parvâ Lampede vepres. Discolorato glomerans racemo Avolat; mixtas sine more formas Trudit et urget. |