can only be exceeded, by the abject and despicable crouching and fawning
of Jaffier to the man he had so basely betrayed, and their subsequent
reconciliation. There is not a production in the whole realms of
fiction, that has less pretension to manly, or even endurable feeling,
or to common propriety. The total defect of a moral sense in this piece
is strongly characteristic of the reign in which it was written. It has
in the mean while a richness of melody, and a picturesqueness of action,
that enables it to delude, and that even draws tears from the eyes
of, persons who can be won over by the eye and the ear, with almost
no participation of the understanding. And this unmeaning rant and
senseless declamation sufficed for the time to throw into shade those
exquisite delineations of character, those transcendent bursts of
passion, and that perfect anatomy of the human heart, which render the
master-pieces of Shakespear a property for all nations and all times.

While Shakespear was partly forgotten, it continued to be totally
unknown that he had contemporaries as inexpressibly superior to the
dramatic writers that have appeared since, as these contemporaries were
themselves below the almighty master of scenic composition. It was the
fashion to say, that Shakespear existed alone in a barbarous age, and
that all his imputed crudities, and intermixture of what was noblest
with unparalleled absurdity and buffoonery, were to be allowed for to
him on that consideration.

Cowley stands forward as a memorable instance of the inconstancy of
fame. He was a most amiable man; and the loveliness of his mind shines
out in his productions. He had a truly poetic frame of soul; and he
pours out the beautiful feelings that possessed him unreservedly and
at large. He was a great sufferer in the Stuart cause, he had been a
principal member of the court of the exiled queen; and, when the king
was restored, it was a deep sentiment among his followers and friends
to admire the verses of Cowley. He was "the Poet." The royalist rhymers
were set lightly by in comparison with him. Milton, the republican, who,
by his collection published during the civil war, had shewn that he was
entitled to the highest eminence, was unanimously consigned to oblivion.
Cowley died in 1667; and the duke of Buckingham, the author of the
Rehearsal, eight years after, set up his tomb in the cemetery of the
nation, with an inscription, declaring him to be at once "the