68 JOHNSON. 



finer or more correct than the estimate of his prose style, 

 and the concluding summary of his general merits as a 

 poet particularly, is not only full, but composed with a 

 simplicity and elegance which we shall in vain seek in 

 Johnson's earlier writings. " Perhaps no nation ever pro- 

 duced a writer that united his language with such a 

 variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, 

 perhaps the completion of our metre, the refinement of 

 our language, and much of the correctness of our senti- 

 ments. By him we were taught sapere et fari, to think 

 naturally and express forcibly. He taught us that it was 

 possible to reason in rhyme. He showed us the true 

 bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, 

 adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy meta- 

 phor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden ; Later- 

 itiam invenit, marmoream reliquit ; he found it brick and 

 he left it marble." 



The ' Cowley' was by Johnson preferred to all his other 

 lives, owing probably to the masterly dissertation upon the 

 metaphysical poets, a name which appears to have been 

 very inaccurately chosen, as their writings have nothing of 

 metaphysics but its occasional obscurity, and are rather 

 distinguished by pedantic display of misplaced learning, 

 and constant striving after wit, equally unseasonable and 

 far-fetched. Johnson's * Essay' is, however, admirable in 

 every particular : full of sound remarks, eloquently com- 

 posed, sparkling with wit, rich in illustration, and, above 

 all, amply attaining its object, by giving a description of 

 the thing, the subject-matter, at once faithful and striking. 

 It must certainly be placed at the head of all his writings. 

 The criticisms on Cowley's various poems are equally to 

 be admired. Nothing can be more discriminating, more 



