It was revived by Johnson, and is now generally
accepted by historians of English literature. It is used by Johnson,
as it was used by Dryden, to express the love of remote analogies,
which was a mark of the poetry of Donne and those who wrote more or
less after the manner of Donne. But it has a deeper meaning than was
probably intended by its inventors. It is no unapt term to indicate
the vein of weighty thought and brooding imagination which runs like
a thread of gold through all the finer work of these poets. Johnson
did no harm in calling attention to the extravagance of much of the
imagery beloved by the lyric poets of the Stuart period. But it is
unpardonable that he should have had no eye for the nobler and subtler
qualities of their genius, and equally unpardonable that he should
have drawn no distinction between three men so incomparable in degree
and kind of power as Cleveland, Cowley, and Donne. Some remarks on the
place of the metaphysical poets in English literature will be found
in the Introduction.
Cowley, like other poets who have written with narrow views, and,
instead of tracing intellectual pleasure to its natural sources in the
mind of man, paid their court to temporary prejudices, has been at one
time too much praised, and too much neglected at another.
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