COWLEY.

Hurd's discussion on "Gondibert," in his "Commentaries," is
the most important piece of criticism; subtle, ingenious, and
exquisitely analytical. But he holds out the fetter of
authority, and he decides as a judge who expounds laws; not
the best decision, when new laws are required to abrogate
obsolete ones. And what laws invented by man can be immutable?
D'Avenant was thus tried by the laws of a country, that of
Greece or Rome, of which, it is said, he was not even a
denizen.

It is remarkable that all the critics who condemn D'Avenant
could not but be struck by his excellences, and are very
particular in expressing their admiration of his genius. I
mean all the critics who have read the poem: some assuredly
have criticised with little trouble.

[323] It is written in the long four-lined stanzas, which Dryden
adopted for his _Annus Mirabilis_; nearly 2000 of such stanzas
are severe trials for the critical reader.--ED.

[324] I select some of these lines as examples.

Of Care, who only "seals her eyes in cloisters," he says,

"She visits cities, but she dwells in thrones."

Of learned Curiosity, eager, but not to be hurried--the
student is

"Hasty to know, though not by haste beguiled."

He calls a library, with sublime energy,

"The monument of vanish'd minds."

Never has a politician conveyed with such force a most
important precept:

------------"The laws,
Men from themselves, but not from power, secure."

Of the Court he says,

"There prosperous power sleeps long, though suitors wake."

"Be bold, for number cancels bashfulness;
Extremes, from which a King would blushing shrink,
Unblushing senates act as no excess."

And these lines, taken as they occur:

"Truth's a discovery made by travelling minds."
"Honour's the moral conscience of the great."
"They grow so certain as to need no hope."
"Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds."

I conclude with one complete stanza, of the same cast of
reflection. It may be inscribed in the library of the student,
in the studio of the artist, in every place where excellence
can only be obtained