Denham and Cowley belong to the same period, but were quite distinct from each other: the one was grave and prosing, the other melancholy and fantastical. There are a number of good lines and good thoughts in the Cooper’s Hill. And in Cowley there is an inexhaustible fund of sense and ingenuity, buried in inextricable conceits, and entangled in the cobwebs of the schools. He was a great man, not a great poet. But I shall say no more on this subject. I never wish to meddle with names that are sacred, unless when they stand in the way of things that are more sacred. Withers is a name now almost forgotten, and his works seldom read; but his poetry is not unfrequently distinguished by a tender and pastoral turn of thought; and there is one passage of exquisite feeling, describing the consolations of poetry in the following terms: ‘She doth tell me where to borrow Comfort in the midst of sorrow; Makes the desolatest place[6] To her presence be a grace; And the blackest discontents Be her fairest ornaments. In my former days of bliss Her divine skill taught me this, That from every thing I saw, I could some invention draw; And raise pleasure to her height, Through the meanest object’s sight, By the murmur of a spring, Or the least bough’s rusteling, By a daisy whose leaves spread Shut when Titan goes to bed; Or a shady bush or tree, She could more infuse in me, Than all Nature’s beauties can, In some other wiser man. By her help I also now Make this churlish place allow Some things that may sweeten gladness In the very gall of sadness. The dull loneness, the black shade, That these hanging vaults have made, The strange music of the waves, Beating on these hollow caves, This black den which rocks emboss, Overgrown with eldest moss, The rude portals that give light More to terror than delight, This my chamber of neglect, Wall’d about with disrespect, From all these and this dull air, A fit object for despair, She hath taught me by her might To draw comfort and delight. Therefore, thou best earthly bliss, I will cherish thee for this. Poesie; thou sweet’st content That ere Heav’n to mortals lent: Though they as a trifle leave thee, Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee, Though thou be to them a scorn, That to nought but earth are born: