The clown, his works suspended, gape and stare,
And seem to think that I conversed with air.
When the sun, beating on the parched soil,
Seemed to proclaim an interval of toil;
When a faint languor crept through every breast,
And things most used to labor wished for rest;
How often underneath a reverend oak,
Where, safe, and fearless of the impious stroke,
Some sacred Dryad lived; or in some grove,
Where, with capricious fingers, Fancy wove
Her fairy bower, whilst Nature all the while
Looked on, and viewed her mockeries with a smile,
Have we held converse sweet! how often laid,
Fast by the Thames, in Ham's inspiring shade,
Amongst those poets which make up your train,
And after death pour forth the sacred strain, —
Have I, at your command, in verse grown gray,
But not impaired, heard Dryden tune that lay
Which might have drawn an angel from his sphere,
And kept him from his office listening here.

1 When dreary Night, with Morpheus in her train,
Led on by Silence to resume her reign,

With darkness covering, as with a robe,

The scene of levity, blanked half the globe,
How oft, enchanted with your heavenly strains,
Which stole me from myself, which in soft chains
Of music bound my soul, how oft have 1,
Sounds more than human floating through the sky,
Attentive sat, whilst Night, against her will,
Transported with the harm ny, stood still!

How oft in raptures, which man scarce could bear,
Have I, when gone, still thought the Muses there;
Still heard their music, and as mute as death,

Sat all attention, drew in every breath,

Lest, breathing all too rudely, I should wound
And mar that inagic 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, undisturbed by strife,

In peace I trod the humble vale of 1 fe.

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

Descriptive poetry, p. 49.- - One who in Cowper's days had seated himself in the seat of the critic, delivered an unfavorable 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, a 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 sim

1 Wilkes afterwards printed the two lines which had been properly struck out from this place. They were these:

Whilst Pope, with envy stung, inflamed with pride,
Piped to the vacant air on t'ther side.

plicity 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 Shaksperre had precluded all hope of excel·lence in any other form of drama, p. 50.

How oft I cried, "O come, tho tragic Queen!

March from thy Greece with firm, majestic tread,
Such as when Athens saw the fill her scene,
When Sophocles thy choral Graces led ;
Saw thy proud pall its purple length devolve;
Saw thee uplift the glitt ring dagger high;
Ponder, with fixed brow, thy deep resolve,

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

A id mingle Attic art with SHAKSPEARE's fire!"
"An, what, fond boy, dot thou presume to claim?"
The Muse replied, "Mistaken suppliant, know,
To light in SHAKSPEARE'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 be t 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 poured forth all her woes,

The hapless pattern of connubial love.
More awful scenes ol! Mona next displayed;
Her caverns gloomed, her forests waved on high,
While fund within their con errated shade
The genius stern of British liberty.

Epistle to Hurd.

Mason ingenuously confessed that he was too much elated by popular applause, p. 50.

Too long, alas, my inexperienced youth,

Mi-le 1 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 ignobl› art,

Too oft the public ear has heard my lys;

Too much its vain applause has touched my heart.

Elegy written in the Garden of a Friend, 1758.

Mason's Elfrida and Caractacus represented with success, p. 50. -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 for n of tragedy, especially against the Chorus. Mr. Colman, therefore, deserves praise for introducing on the stage, under his direction, so elegant à performance;

and as a proof of the skill and judgment with which he has endeavored 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. 52.

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 imagination gws 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 just y 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 labored 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. 63.-"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. 83.

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 inost 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 Onnipotence 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 Jawful, 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 favor 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. 106. Very alarming books are not the most suitable for ignorant folks, and especially, if, as is generally the case, gross ignorance is found combined with great wickedness. The evil and desert of sin, and its certain and terrible consequences, unless repented of and forsaken, ought doubtless to be insisted on; but it is the grace of the gospel that softens and wins the heart. By nature and practice we are in a state of alienation from God; we form hard thoughts of him, and therefore do not like to think of him at all, because we know not his name,- his true character. The gospel tells us that God is love, and gives this astonishing proof, that he gave his own Son to die for his enemies. Many daring sinners need not be told that their state is dangerous; they feel it, and the more the thought is pressed upon

them, the more their enmity against God is increased; they know they can neither resist nor escape; they have nothing to hope, but every thing to fear, and therefore they hate him.

66

"A friend of mine was desired to visit a woman in prison; he was informed of her evil habits of life, and therefore spoke strongly of the terrors of the Lord, and the curses of the law: she heard him awhile, and then laughed in his face upon this he changed his note, and spoke of the Savior, and what he had done and suffered for sinners. He had not talked long in this strain before he saw a tear or two in her eyes: at length she interrupted him by saying, Why, sir, do you think there can be any hope of mercy for me? He answered, 'Yes, if you feel your need of it, and are willing to seek it in God's appointed way. I am sure it is as free for you as for myself.' She replied, Ah, if I had thought so, I should not have been in this prison. I long since settled it in my mind that I was utterly lost; that I had sinned beyond all possibility of forgiveness; and that made me desperate.' He visited her several times, and when she went away, (for she was transported,) he had good reason to hope that she was truly converted. He gave me this relation more than forty years ago, and it has been, I hope, of some use to me through the course of my ministry. Christ crucified, is the wisdom and power of God." - Letter from Mr. Newton. Roberts's Life of H. Moore, vol. iii. p. 7.

In a letter to Mr. Thornton, he says, "To the best of my judgment, I preach a full Savior, and a free gospel. But the Lord's work here is in such a line, that it is usually long before my people can triumph. I know no people, (taken collectively,) more spiritual and humble, who set a higher value upon the means of grace, walk more affectionately towards each other, and towards their minister, or give less cause to the world to speak evil of the way; but it is usually a good while before they obtain a firm assurance, though, I bless God, they do obtain it gradually. Dear Mary Lambert, who, I believe, could sing the song in Isaiah xii. as steadfastly and joyfully as most people upon earth, was fourteen years in much exercise and temptation, before the Lord turned her mourning into joy, though she was an earnest seeker, and an exemplary walker, from her first awakening. Something like this is the experience of most of them. It has been sometimes a trouble to me that they have been so slow to receive comfort; but when I have seen their simplicity, steadfastness, and humility, and that the Lord has, in many instances, made the subsequent building of grace striking and glorious, in proportion to the time he employs in laying the foundation, and giving them a deep sense of what is in their hearts, I have been more reconciled. and willing that He should take his own method, as indeed He will, for He keeps the key of comfort in his own hand. 'Indeed I can seldom triumph myself; but, blessed be his name, I have peace. I know whom I have believed, and his Spirit bears witness with my conscience that I have no allowed pursuit, but to serve him with my all, to obtain more of his image and more of his presence. The much that I feel within me contrary to his will, though it does not prevent my confidence, makes me walk softly."

Olney, Dec. 15, 1775.

Cowper never lost sight of the original in his corrections, and Pope utterly disregarded it, p. 134. When I was looking, says Spence, on his foul copy of the Iliad, and observing how very much it was corrected and