So contraries on Ætna's top [m] confpire, [m] So contraries, on Ætna's top] By making the frofts on Etna's top, a comparifon only, and not enlarging directly on the contrary qualities of cold and beat, taken fometimes in the literal sense,' and fometimes in the metaphorical, the poet has kept clear, in a good degree, of that mixt wit (as Mr. Addifon calls it), in which he fo much excelled and delighted. The fire of Hobbes' genius, breaking out under the fnow of his gray hairs, might have been fet in fo many different lights by our ingenious author, and have been worked up by him into fuch a variety of amufing contrafts, that the temperate use of his darling faculty, in this inftance, deferves our commendation. [n] The defcription of the neighbourhood of fire and fnow upon Ætna (but not the application of it), is imitated out of Claud. I. i. de Raptu Prof. "Sed quamvis nimio fervens exuberet æftu, "Lambit contiguas innoxia flamma pruinas." Where, methinks, is fomewhat of that which Seneca objects to Ovid, Nefcivit quod benè ceffit relinquere. When he met with a fancy that pleased him, he could not find in his heart to quit, or ever to have done with it. Tacitus has the like expreffion of Mount Libanus, Præcipuum montium Libanum, mirum dicu, tantos inter ardores opacum, fidumque nivibus; fhady among fuch great heats, and faithful to the fnow ; which is too poetical for the profe even of a romance, much more of an hiftorian. Sil. Italic. of Ætna, 1. xiv. "Summo cana jugo cohibet (mirabile dictu) "Vicinam flammis glaciem, æternoque rigore "Ardentes horrent fcopuli, ftat vertice celfi "Collis hyems, calidaque nivem tegit atra favillâ." See likewife Seneca, Epift. 79. COWLEY. VOL. I. H A fecure A fecure peace the faithful neighbours keep, And, if we weigh, like thee, Nature, and caufes, we fhall fee That thus it needs must be, To things immortal time can do no wrong, young. 1 XV. O XV. LIFE AND FAM E. H life, thou nothing's younger brother [o]! So like, that one might take one for the other [p]! In all the cobwebs of the schoolmen's trade {~], As 'tis, to be, or, not to be. [] Because nothing preceded it, as privation does all being; which perhaps is the sense of the diftinction of days in the story of the creation; night fignifying the privation, and day, the fubfequent being, from whence the evening is placed firft, Gen. i. 5. "And the evening and the morning were the firft day." CowLEY. [p] Ob life, thou nothing's younger brother! So like, that one might take one for the other!] i. e. Life is less than nothing, but, as being come of nothing, is very like it. Mr. Cowley's poetry (as here) is often much disfigured by the double affectation of wit and familiarity. He would fay an out-of-the-way thing, in a trivial manner. But fuch was the court-idea, in his time, of writing, like a gentleman. [2] Τί δὲ τίς, τί δ ̓ ἔτις; Σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωπος. Pindar. What is fomebody, or what is nobody? Man is the dream of a fhadow. COWLEY. [r] The diftinctions of the schoolmen may be likened to cobwebs (I mean many of them, for fome are better woven) either because of the too much fineness of the work, which makes it flight, and able to catch only little creatures; or because they take not the materials from nature, but spin it out of themselves. COWLEY. Dream of a shadow [s]! a reflection, made From the falfe glories of the gay reflected bow [], Is a more folid thing than thou Vain weak-built ifthmus [u], which doft proudly rife Up betwixt two eternities [w]; [s] Dream of a badow!] Juftly admired by Plutarch as a moft ingenious and expreffive hyperbole, Vol. ii. p. 104. ed. Xyland. Par. 1624. [t] The rainbow is in itself of no colour; thofe that appear are but reflections of the fun's light received differently, T "Mille trahit varios adverfo fole colores:" as is evident by artificial rainbows; and yet this fhadow, this almoft nothing, makes fometimes another rainbow (but not fo diftinct or beautiful) by reflection CowLEY. INT [u] Ifthmus is a neck of land that divides a peninfula from the continent, and is betwixt two fcas, Γῆ ἀμφιθάλασσα. In which manner this narrow paffage of life divides the past time from the future, and is at last swallowed up into eternity. CowLEY. [w] Abmus;-betwixt two eternities;] A fublime idea, which lay unnoticed in this ode, till Mr. Pope produced it into observation →→→→ "Placed on this ifthmus of a middle ftate, Eff. on Man, Ep. i. 3.. Not but our philofophical poet had his eye, alfo, on M. Pafcal qu'est-ce que l'homme dans la nature ? "Un neant à l'égard de l'infini, un tout à l'égard du "neant, un milieu entre rien et tout. Il eft infiniment "éloigné des deux extrêmes; et son être n'est moins "diftant du neant d'où il est tiré, que de l'infini où il eft englouti." Penfées, c. xxii. Yet Yet canft nor wave nor wind fuftain ; But, broken and o'erwhelm'd, the endlefs oceans meet again. And with what rare inventions do we strive, Ourselves then to survive? Wife, fubtle arts, and fuch as well befit Some with vaft coftly tombs would purchase it, Here lies the great - Falfe marble, where? The fools and architects to please : 3. His [] father-in-law [a] an higher place does claim In the feraphic entity of fame [b]. [x] Pompey the great. CowLEY. He, An irony; that is, oh life which Epicures laugh at and contemn. COWLEY. [z] Cæfar, whofe daughter Julia was married to Pompey; an alliance fatal to the commonwealth; which, as Tully fays, ought never to have been made, or never ended, CoWLEY. [a] His father-in-law] This, again, is in the fa H 3 iniliar |