Lest, breathing all too rudely, I should wound
And mar that magic excellence of sound;
Then, sense returning with return of day,
Have chid the night, which fled so fast away.
Such my pursuits, and such my joys of yore,
Such were my mates, but now my mates no more.
Placed out of Envy's walk, (for Envy, sure,
Would never haunt the cottage of the poor,
Would never stoop to wound my homespun lays,)
With some few friends, and some small share of praise,
Beneath oppression, undisturb'd by strife,

In peace I trod the humble vale of life.

Gotham, b. iii. v. 389-448.

Descriptive poetry, p. 175.—One who in Cowper's days had seated himself in the seat of the critic, delivered an unfavourable opinion of descriptive poems. "That poetry," he said, "which is employed in rural description lies under many disadvantages. Though there is a variety, there is, likewise, an uniformity in the works of nature, which renders it difficult to embellish such subjects with images that have not been exhibited by former writers. With regard to the moralizing of rural paintings, it is almost always attended with quaintness and a forced manner;-nor is it difficult to investigate the cause: all moral truths are of an abstracted nature, and when we attempt to illustrate them by objects of the senses, the transition from the natural simplicity of the latter to the refinement of the former, is incompatible with that ease which we expect to find in poetical descriptions, and interrupts that attention which we are always inclined to afford. The descriptive poet should leave the discovery of the moral to the sagacity of his readers; by which means they will be flattered with the indulgence of their own penetration: and this a skilful writer may always effect, by rendering the moral conclusion obvious, without drawing it himself."-Monthly Review, vol. xxxvii. p. 16.

Mason composed his plays upon an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakespeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama, p. 177.

How oft I cried, "Oh come, thou tragic Queen!
March from thy Greece with firm majestic tread,
Such as when Athens saw thee fill her scene,
When Sophocles thy choral Graces led;
Saw thy proud pall its purple length devolve;
Saw thee uplift the glittering dagger high;
Ponder, with fixed brow, thy deep resolve,

Prepared to strike, to triumph, and to die.
Bring then to Britain's plain that choral throng;
Display thy buskin'd pomp, thy golden lyre;
Give her historic forms the soul of song,

And mingle Attic art with SHAKESPEARE'S fire!"
Ah, what, fond boy, dost thou presume to claim?"
The Muse replied: "Mistaken suppliant, know,
To light in SHAKESPEARE's breast the dazzling flame,
Exhausted all PARNASSUS Could bestow.

True, Art remains; and if, from his bright page
Thy mimic power one vivid beam can seize,
Proceed; and in that best of tasks engage,

Which tends at once to profit, and to please."
She spake; and Harewood's towers spontaneous rose,
Soft virgin warblings echoed through the grove;
And fair ELFRIDA pour'd forth all her woes,

The hapless pattern of connubial love.
More awful scenes old Mona next display'd;
Her caverns gloom'd, her forests waved on high,
While flamed within their consecrated shade

The genius stern of British liberty.

Epistle to Hurd.

Mason ingenuously confessed that he was too much elated by

popular applause, p. 177.

Too long, alas, my inexperienced youth,

Misled by flattering Fortune's specious tale,

Has left the rural reign of peace and truth,

The huddling brook, cool cave, and whispering vale;

Won to the world, a candidate for praise,
Yet, let me boast, by no ignoble art,
Too oft the public ear has heard my lays,

Too much its vain applause has touch'd my heart.
Elegy written in the Garden of a Friend, 1758.

Mason's Elfrida and Caractacus represented with success, p. 177. -I saw them both, in my boyhood, at Bath and Bristol, and well remember Mrs. Siddons as Elfrida, before she appeared in London.

Elfrida," says the Monthly Review, (Dec. 1772,) “overcame all our common prejudices against the ancient form of tragedy, especially against the Chorus. Mr. Colman, therefore, deserves praise for introducing on the stage, under his direction, so elegant a performance: and as a proof of the skill and judgement with which he has endeavoured to render it a pleasing exhibition to every class of the spectators, we must add, for the information of our distant readers, that it hath been received with a much warmer, more general, and more lasting approbation than, perhaps, even the most sanguine admirers of the poem could have expected from a work which the author never intended for theatrical representation."

Spenser depreciated, p. 179.

Ye haunt not that licentious grove

Where Spenser's desperate champions rove;
Your chaste ear loves not to be told
Of blatant Beasts, of dread Despair,
With glaring eyes, with clotted hair,
And brutal chivalries of old.

Thus it is that Michael Wodhull blasphemes Spenser in an Ode to the Dryads; and the Monthly Reviewers (Jan. 1764) were "glad to find that he agreed with them in disapproving the filthy images, and the loathsome, bloody allegories of the Faery Queen!"

In an earlier volume this journal had praised Spenser, but called for a translation into modern English!

In reviewing an anonymous poem on the Seasons, in imitation of Spenser, (1751,) the critic, who says that the author's imagi

nation glows with a warmth superior to that of Spenser, has the following notable remarks.

"If the exploded words which render the English writers of Queen Elizabeth's days almost unintelligible to the present age, are justly exploded, and totally disused in every other branch of literature, why, in the name of common sense, are they every now and then raised from the dead by our poets? Is the modern English, as it appears in the works of an Addison, a Swift, or a Bolingbroke, at all the worse for the want of such words as eftsoons, wend, reckless, muchel, eft, erst, and many thousands still more barbarous, and very justly condemned to those glossaries where they ought to rest in peace? If our author would give us a good translation of Spenser's works into modern English, free from those unintelligible words and phrases, which to his misfortune, he was obliged to use, we are persuaded that admirable poet would be read by many who cannot endure the unpoetical harshness of his original language. Nor, indeed, is his laboured stanza at all agreeable to those who love ease in reading; it is mere slavery to many to preserve at once clear ideas of his sense, and of the mechanism, order, and jingle of his versification and rhymes."-May, 1751, p. 520.

Pope's epic, p. 196.-" Under the title of Alfred," it is said in the letter, more probably by an error in Cowper's recollection, than a printer's bold alteration of an unknown name to a known one.

Pope wrote an epic poem when very young; it was in rhyme, and was called Alcander. He planned another many years afterwards upon the story of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Brutus; and this he meant to be in blank verse. Cowper's mistake seems to have proceeded from a confused recollection of the name of the first, and the subject of the second; the former began with Al, the latter was taken from our early history; and so he hit upon Alfred.

A more ludicrous error of association, occurring in a similar way, came under my own observation. Among the four-footed acquaintance with whom I used to exchange a greeting when we met, was a terrier, named Esop. A friend who accompanied me often enough in my walks to notice the salutations that passed between us, always called him Jacob; the connecting link in his mind was Esau.

Letter referred to, p. 224.

TO MRS. NEWTON, AT MR. PRINDER'S, NORTHAMPTON.

I HOPE, my dear madam, this will meet you well, and safely returned thus far on your journey. Though it will be a sincere pleasure to me to see you and dear Mr. Newton again, yet I beg you will not put yourselves to the least inconvenience or hurry to reach home, till the most fit and agreeable time. The Lord is very gracious to us; for though the cloud of affliction still hangs heavy on Mr. Cowper, yet he is quite calm and persuadable in every respect. He has been for these few days past more open and communicative than heretofore. It is amazing how subtilly the cruel adversary has worked upon him; and wonderful to see how the Lord has frustrated his wicked machinations; for though he has not seen good to prevent the most violent temptations and distressing delusions, yet he has prevented the mischievous effects the enemy designed by them: a most marvellous story will this dear child of God have to relate, when, by his Almighty power, he is set at liberty. As nothing short of Omnipotence could have supported him through this sharp affliction, so nothing less can set him free from it. I allow that means are, in general, not only lawful but also expedient; but in the present case, we must, I am convinced, advert to our first sentiment, that this is a peculiar and exempt one, and that the Lord Jehovah will be alone exalted when the day of deliverance comes.

I must beg the favour of you to buy for me two pounds of chocolate, half a pound or ten ounces of white sixpenny worsted, half a dozen lemons, and two sets of knitting needles, six in a set, one the finest that can be got, of iron and steel, the other a size coarser. Sally nor Judy know of my writing, else I am sure they would desire me to insert their duty. Pray present my affectionate remembrance to Mr. Newton, and my sincere respects to Mr. and Mrs. Prinder, and Miss Smith; and believe me to be, my dearest madam, your truly affectionate and highly indebted friend,

Oct. 7, 1773.

M. UNWIN.

Mr. Newton saw the unfitness of fiery and sulphureous preaching, p. 256.-" Very alarming books are not the most suitable for