'O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

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

It is a curious fact that this exquisite apostrophe, which is one of the gems of our language, does not occur in the first edition of Cooper's Hill. There are no other lines in that poem which approach these in elegance and force, and it occurs to the mind of the present writer that they may possibly have been contributed by Waller. This, however, is unlikely, and it would be unfair, without shadow of proof, to deprive Denham of his chief claim to immortality. The two passages we select give the reader a fair idea of the general manner of this poem, which has certainly been over-praised. The style is obscure and the wit laboured, while it probably contains more errors against the rules of grammar than any other poem in the language; but Denham is at all times a singularly ungrammatical writer. Of his other long poems, by far the best is the Elegy on Cowley, which was written but a very few months before his own death, and after a long attack of insanity. In this poem he is brighter and more easy than in any other long composition, and it contains some interesting critical matter. Denham was highly esteemed for his comical vein, and his lampoons are not devoid of wit, though incredibly brutal and coarse. He is very unlike the amorous poets of his age in this, that he has left behind him not one copy of love-verses; and his best poem is written in dispraise of love. Among the royalist lyrists there is but one, Cleveland, who forms a connecting link between Denham and the old lyric school. His satires and squibs are closely allied to those of Cleveland, and he has something of the same cynical and defiant attitude of mind. He adored literature with the worship of one who practises it late in life, and without much ease; his conception of the ideal dignity of the poet's function contrasts oddly with the indecorous matter that he puts forth as comic poetry. There was nothing about him very original, for Cooper's Hill, which was destined to inspire Windsor Forest, had been itself preceded by Ben Jonson's Penshurst. But he forms an important link in the chain of transition, and ranks chronologically second among our Augustan poets.

EDMUND W. Gosse

VIEW OF LONDON FROM COOPER'S HILL

Through untraced ways and airy paths I fly,
More boundless in my fancy than my eye,—
My eye, which swift as thought contracts the space
That lies between, and first salutes the place
Crowned with that sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether 'tis a part of earth or sky
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain or descending cloud,—
Paul's, the late theme of such a Muse whose flight
Has bravely reached and soared above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword or time or fire,
Or zeal more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, while thee the best of poets sings,
Preserved from ruin by the best of kings.
Under his proud survey the city lies,

And like a mist beneath a hill doth rise,

Whose state and wealth, the business and the crowd,
Seems at this distance but a darker cloud,

And is to him who rightly things esteems
No other in effect but what it seems,

Where, with like haste, though several ways, they run,
Some to undo, and some to be undone;

While luxury and wealth, like war and peace,

Are each the other's ruin and increase;

As rivers lost in seas some secret vein
Thence reconveys, there to be lost again.
O happiness of sweet retired content!
To be at once secure and innocent!

PRAISE OF THE THAMES.

[From Cooper's Hill.]

My eye, descending from the hill, surveys
Where Thames amongst the wanton valleys strays;
Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,
By his old sire to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,

Like mortal life to meet eternity;

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold,
His genuine and less guilty wealth to explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing,
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay,
Nor, with a sudden and impetuous wave,
Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave;
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows,

First loves to do, then loves the good he does;
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying towers,

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours,
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,
Cities in deserts, woods in cities plants;
So that to us no thing, no place is strange,

While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.

O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

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

AGAINST LOVE.

Love making all things else his foes
Like a fierce torrent overflows
Whatever doth his course oppose.

This was the cause the poets sung,
Thy Mother from the sea was sprung,
But they were mad to make thee young.

Her father, not her son, art thou;
From our desires our actions grow,

And from the cause the effect must flow.

Love is as old as place or time;
'Twas he the fatal tree did climb,
Grandsire of Father Adam's crime.

Love drowsy days and stormy nights

Makes, and breaks friendship, whose delights
Feed, but not glut our appetites.

How happy he, that loves not, lives!
Him neither hope nor fear deceives,
To Fortune who no hostage gives.
How unconcerned in things to come!
If here he frets, he finds at Rome,
At Paris, or Madrid his home.
Secure from low and private ends,
His life, his zeal, his wealth attends
His prince, his country and his friends.

SONG.

[From The Sophy, Act V.]

Morpheus, the humble god, that dwells
In cottages and smoky cells,

Hates gilded roofs and beds of down,
And though he fears no prince's frown,
Flies from the circle of a crown.

Come, I say, thou powerful god,
And thy leaden charming-rod,
Dipt in the Lethean lake,

O'er his wakeful temples shake,
Lest he should sleep and never wake.

Nature, alas! why art thou so
Obliged to thy greatest foe?
Sleep that is thy best repast,

Yet of death it bears a taste,

And both are the same thing at last.

FROM THE 'ELEGY ON COWLEY.'

Old Chaucer, like the morning-star,
To us discovers day from far;

His light those mists and clouds dissolved
Which our dark nation long involved;

But he descending to the shades,
Darkness again the age invades.
Next, like Aurora, Spenser rose
Whose purple blush the day foreshows.
The other three, with his own fires,
Phoebus, the poets' god, inspires;

By Shakespeare's, Jonson's, Fletcher's lines
Our stage's lustre Rome's outshines.
These poets near our princes sleep,
And in one grave their mansion keep;
They lived to see so many days,

Till time had blasted all their bays;
But cursed be the fatal hour

That plucked the fairest, sweetest flower

That in the Muses' garden grew,

And amongst withered laurels threw.

Time, which made them their fame outlive,
To Cowley scarce did ripeness give.
Old mother-wit and nature gave

Shakespeare and Fletcher all they have;