losing its influence is, that almost every poem of any considerable length, which obtained any celebrity during the half century between Pope and Cowper, was written in blank verse. With the single exception of Falconer's Shipwreck, it would be in vain to look for any rhymed poem of that age, and of equal extent, which is held in equal estimation with the works of Young, Thomson, Glover, Somervile, Dyer, Akenside, and Armstrong. Johnson said truly, that "rhyme can never be spared, but when the subject is able to support itself;" 6 but he was never more mistaken, nor did he ever advance an opinion which is more directly disproved, than when he asserted that "those who hope to please must condescend to rhyme."70

Gray and Mason are among the writers who, by raising the tone of poetry, contributed to excite a taste for something better than the school of Pope. In one of his first poems, Mason had, in a puerile fiction, ranked Chaucer, and Spenser, and Milton, below Pope, which is like comparing a garden shrub with the oaks of the forest. But he would have maintained no such absurdity in his riper years, for Mason lived to perceive and correct both his errors of opinion and his faults of style. It was something in that sickly age of tragedy to produce two such dramas as Elfrida and Caractacus; the success of which, when Colman (much to his honor) made the bold experiment of bringing them on the stage, proved that although the public had long been dieted upon trash, they could relish something of a worthier kind than Tamerlane, the Revenge, and the Grecian Daughter. Mason composed his plays upon an artificial model, and in a gorgeous diction, because he thought Shakspeare had precluded all hope of excellence in any other form of drama. He has ingenuously confessed that he was too much elated by popular applause; but he did not allow his judgment to be warped by supposing that what the public had applauded must necessarily be good. He learned to think that the romantic or mixed drama is that which is best suited to the English stage, and he gradually weeded his style.

The piece which he composed upon what he called " the old English model," lay by him some thirty years, and was not published till towards the close of his life. He was the only person in those days who ventured to follow our old dramatists; for the revival of Shakspeare's plays upon the stage produced no visible effect upon contemporary playwrights. But when Garrick had made the name of Shakspeare popular, a race of Shakspearean commentators arose, who introduced a sort of taste for the books of Shakspeare's age; and as they worked in the rubbish, buried treasures, of which they were not in search, were brought to light, for those who could understand their value. Thus, though in their cumbrous annotations, the last laborer always added more rubbish to the heaps which his predecessors had accumulated, they did good service by directing attention to our earlier literature. The very homage which they paid to Shakspeare tended to impress the multitude with an opinion of the paramount importance of his works, and a belief in excellences of which they could have no perception. They who had any books for show considered Shakspeare, from this time, as a necessary part of the furniture of their shelves. Even the Jubilee, and its after representation at the theatres, contributed to confirm this useful persuasion. Thousands who had not seen one of his plays, nor read a line of them, heard of Shakspeare, and understood that his name was one of those of which it became Englishmen to be proud.

Two works which appeared in the interval between Churchill and Cowper, promoted, beyond any others, this growth of a better taste than had prevailed for the hundred years preceding. These were Warton's History of English Poetry, and Percy's Reliques, the publication of which must form an epoch in the continuation of that history.. They only who have made themselves well acquainted with the current poetry and criticism of those days, can understand or imagine how thoroughly both had been corrupted and debased. Books which are now justly regarded as among the treasures of English literature, which are the delight of the old and the young, the learned and the unlearned, the high and the low, were then spoken of with

contempt; the Pilgrim's Progress as fit only for the ignorant and vulgar, Robinson Crusoe for children; and if any one but an angler condescended to look in Izaak Walton,71 it must be for the sake of finding something in the book to laugh at! And for Spenser, if the tiresome uniformity of his measure did not render the Faery Queen insupportable, that poem would be laid down in disgust almost as soon as it was taken up, because of the filthy images and loathsome allegories with which it abounds! These things were said, and said by those who had seated themselves in the chair of the critic, and assumed the office of directing and controlling public taste!

Even those who found some attractions in the imagery and story of this great poem, complained of its versification and its style. "It is great pity," said Oldmixon, "Spenser fell into that kind of versifying; and very odd that, after it had been so generally and justly condemned, a poet in our time should think to acquire merit by imitating

it.

The ruff and the fardingale might as well be renewed in dress, as the long stanza in poetry, where the sense is fettered up in eight or ten lines." One gentleman, being indued with a spirit of perverse industry and stupid perseverance, in which if he has ever been equalled, he has assuredly never been outdone, transposed the whole of the Faery Queen into blank verse. Luckily for himself, he was prudent enough to publish only the first canto as a specimen; the reason which he assigned for his undertaking was, that he "wished to render the poem more intelligible, having met with many persons, who, whilst they admired the imagery, invention, and sentiments of the author, did not choose to be at the pains to seek for them amongst his uncouth phrases and obsolete style"!

Yet in this stanza Thomson had composed the Castle of Indolence, and Shenstone his Schoolmistress, each being very far the best work of its author; and the publication of Percy's Reliques gave birth to a third poem in the same delightful measure, which, though the author, failing to work

"The Monthly Reviewers, in 1777, said, "We have sometimes amused ourselves by dipping into honest Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, merely as a rum book."

out his own conception, left it imperfect, will nevertheless hold its place with these, centuries hence, when time shall have winnowed the wheat in our granaries from the chaff, and purged the floor:-it was upon reading Percy's preliminary Dissertation, that Beattie conceived the intention of writing his Minstrel. No poem has ever given more delight to minds of a certain class, and in a certain stage of their progress, that class a high one, and that stage perhaps the most delightful in the course of their pilgrimage. It was to this class that the poet himself belonged; the scenes which he delineated were those in which he had grown up, the feelings and aspirations those of his own boyhood and youth, and the poem derived its peculiar charm from its truth.

--

This was an incidental effect of Percy's volumes. Their immediate consequence was to produce a swarm of "legendary tales," bearing, in their style, about as much resemblance to the genuine ballad, as the heroes of a French tragedy to the historical personages whose names they bear, or a set of stage-dancers to the lads and lasses of a village green, in the old times of the May-pole. But they were written by persons who had been trained in a bad school, and could not unlearn the lessons they had been taught. The more tricksy they were, and the more mawkish, the more they were extolled by contemporary critics; but they passed away with their generation; and it was seen in the next, how great a benefit Percy and Warton had conferred upon the young lovers and votaries of the art, by directing their attention to the early poets.

Cowper's Task appeared in the interval, when young minds were prepared to receive it, and at a juncture when there was no poet of any great ability or distinguished name in the field. Gray and Akenside were dead. Mason was silent. Glover, brooding over his Athenaid, was regarded as belonging to an age that was past. Churchill was forgotten. Einily and Bampfylde had been cut off in the blossom of their youth. Crabbe, having, by the publication of his Library, his Village, and his Newspaper, accomplished his heart's immediate desire, sought at that time for no further publicity; and Hayley ambled over the

course without a competitor. There never was a season at which such a poem could have appeared with more advantage; and perhaps there never was a poem of which the immediate success, as well as the permanent estimation, might with so much certainty have been predicted. The subject, or rather the occasion of the poem, had been fortuitous; and the key in which it was pitched, as being best suited to the theme, was precisely that which enabled the poet to exhibit the whole compass of his powers. It is remarkable that the work on which Cowper's fame is founded, should commence in a strain bearing no remote similarity to the earliest of his pieces which has been preserved. That piece was in imitation of the Splendid Shilling; the present theme was not, indeed, base in itself, but it could only be treated with playful gravity, which would have lost half its effect in any other measure than blank verse; and yet from a clear perception of its difficulties, 72 and the facility which he had acquired of composing in rhyme, Cowper would not have fixed upon that metre for any premeditated plan. But having thus pitched it, excursive as the poem became, it enabled him to rise and fall with the subject, and, passing in easy and graceful transition

From grave to gay, from lively to severe,

give to one of the most diversified poems in the language, the tone and character of an harmonious whole.

The Task was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts every where bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them, gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found

72 After the Task was finished, he says to Mr. Newton, "I do not mean to write blank verse again. Not having the music of rhymes, it requires so close an attention to the pause and the cadence, and such a peculiar mode of expression, as render it, to me at least, the most difficult species of poetry that I have ever meddled with."- Nov. 27, 1784.

His meaning must have related only to original composition, for he had then begun his translation. He had said before to Mr. Unwin, (Oct. 20, 1784,) "I do not intend to write any more blank verse. is more difficult than rhyme, and not so amusing in the composition."

It