If we may differ from such a high authority as 'Old Rowley,' we would venture to doubt whether Cowley was the best--certainly he was not the greatest--man then in England. Milton was alive, and the 'Paradise Lost' appeared in the very year when the author of the 'Davideis' departed. Cowley gives us the impression of having been an amiable and blameless, rather than a good or great man. At all events, there was nothing _active_ in his goodness, and his greatness could not be called magnanimity. He was a scholar and a poet misplaced during early life; and when he gained that retirement for which he sighed, he had, by his habits of life, lost his capacity of relishing it. 'He that would enjoy solitude,' it has been said, 'must either be a wild beast or a god;' and Cowley was neither. How different his grounds of dissatisfaction with the world from those of Milton! Cowley was wearied of ciphering, and his 'Cutter of Coleman Street' had been cut; that was nearly the whole matter of his complaint; while Milton had fallen from being the second man in England into poverty, blindness, contempt, danger, and the disappointment of the most glorious hopes which ever heaved the bosom of patriot or saint. We find the want of greatness which marked the man characterising the poet. Infinite ingenuity, a charming flexibility and abundance of fancy, a perception of remote analogies almost unrivalled, great command of versification and language, learning without bounds, and an occasional gracefulness and sparkling ease (as in 'The Chronicle') superior to even Herrick or Suckling, are qualities that must be conceded to Cowley. But the most of his writings are cold and glittering as the sun-smitten glacier. He is seldom warm, except when he is proclaiming his own merits, or bewailing his own misfortunes. Hence his 'Wish,' and even his 'Complaint,' are very pleasing and natural specimens of poetry. But his 'Pindaric Odes,' his 'Hymn to Light,' and most of his 'Davideis,' while displaying great power, shew at least equal perversion, and are more memorable for their faults than for their beauties. In the 'Davideis,' he describes the attire of Gabriel in the spirit and language of a tailor; and there is no path so sacred or so lofty but he must sow it with conceits,--forced, false, and chilly. His 'Anacreontics,' on the other hand, are in general felicitous in style and aerial in motion. And in his Translations, although too free, he is uniformly graceful and spirited; and his vast command of language and imagery enables him often to improve his author--to gild the refined gold, to paint the lily, and to throw a new perfume on the violet, of the Grecian and Roman masters.