Nor that I mean, while thus I knit

My thread-bare sentiments together,
To show my genius or my wit,

When God and you know I have neither;
Or such, as might be better shown

By letting poetry alone..

'Tis not with either of these views
That I presume t'address the Muse;
But to divert a fierce banditti,

(Sworn foes to ev'ry thing that's witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense:

The fierce banditti, which I mean,
Are gloomy thoughts, led on by spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin:

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows,
(I would say twenty sheets of prose),
Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold-and your's was such.
Thus the preliminaries settled,
I fairly find myself pitch-kettled *;
And cannot see, tho' few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.

First, for a thought-since all agree―
A thought-I have it-let me see-
Tis gone again-plague on't! I thought
I had it but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone!
Rake well the cinders;-sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough;
But I've another, critic-proof!
The virtuoso thus, at noon,
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded butterfly pursues

O'er hedge and diteli, thro' gaps and mews;
And after many a vain essay

To captivate the tempting prey,

Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe beneath his hat:

Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But, ah! 'tis lost as soon as found-
Culprit his liberty regains-

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.

*Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what i the Spectator's time would have been called bamboozled,

The sense was dark-'twas therefore fit
With simile t' illustrate it;

But as too much obscures the sight
As often as too little light,

We have our similes cut short

For matters of more grave import.

That Matthew's numbers run with ease,
Each man of common sense agrees,

All men of common sense allow,
That Robert's lines are easy too;

Where, then, the pref 'rence shall we place,
Or how do justice in this case?

Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains,
Smooth'd and refin'd the meanest strains;
Nor suffer'd one ill-chosen rhyme
T'escape him at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,

That, while the language lives, shall last.
An't please your ladyship (quoth I),
For 'tis my business to reply,

Sure so much labour-so much toil,
Bespeak at least a stubborn soil:
Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,

Who both write well, and write full speed!
Who throw their Helicon about

As freely as a conduit-spout!

Friend Robert, thus like chien savant,

Lets falls a poem en passant,

Nor needs his genuine ore refine!

'Tis ready polish'd from the mine.

It may be proper to observe, that this lively praise on the playful talents of Lloyd was written six years before that amiable, but unfortunate author published the best of his serious poems, The Actor,' a composition of considerable merit. It proved a prelude to the more powerful and popular Rosciad' of Churchill; who, after surpassing Lloyd as a rival, assisted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper resided in the Temple, he seems to have been personally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the time; and the interest which he probably took in their recent works tended to increase his powerful, though diffident, passion for poetry; and to train him imperceptibly to that masterly command of language which he displayed, almost as a new talent, at the age of fifty. One of his first associates has informed me that, before he quitted London, he frequently amused himself in translating from ancient and modern poets, and devoted his composition to the service of any friend who requested it. In a copy of Duncombe's 'Horace,' printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires translated by Cowper. The Duncombes, father and son, were amiable scholars, of a Hertfordshire family; and the elder Duncombe, in his printed letters, mentions Dr. Cowper (the father of the poet) as one of his friends, who possessed a talent for poetry, exhibiting at the same time a respectable specimen of his verse. The Duncombes, in the preface to their Horace,' impute the size of their work to the poe

6

tical contributions of their friends. At what time the two Satires I have mentioned were translated by William Cowper, I have not been able to ascertain; but they are worthy of his pen, and will therefore appear in the Appendix.

Speaking of his own early life, in a letter to Mr. Park, dated March, 1792, Cowper says, with that extreme modesty which was one of his most remarkable characteristics :-" From the age of twenty to thirty-three I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law; from thirty-three to sixty I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced author :-it is a whim that has served me longest and best, and will probably be my last."

Lightly as this unassuming poet has spoken of his own exertions, and late, as he appeared to himself, in producing his chief poetical works, he had received from nature a contemplative spirit, perpetually acquiring a store of mental treasure, which he at last unveiled, to delight and astonish the world with its unexpected magnificence. Even his juvenile verses discover a mind deeply impressed with sentiments of piety; and in proof of this assertion I select a few stanzas from an ode, written when he was very young, on reading 'Sir Charles Grandison.'

To rescue from the tyrant's sword

Th' oppress'd;-unseen and unimplored,
To cheer the face of woe;

From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right-a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe;

These, these, distinguish from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind;

Whose bosoms with these virtues heave-
O, with what matchless speed they leave
The multitude behind!

Then ask ye, from what cause on earth,
Virtues like these derive their birth?
Deriv'd from Heaven alone!
Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where faith and resignation join

To call the blessing down.

Such is that heart-but while the Muse
Thy theme, O RICHARDSON, pursues,
Her feeble spirits faint:

She cannot reach, and would not wrong,

That subject for an Angel's song,

The Hero and the Saint!

His early turn to moralize on the slightest occasion, will appear from the following verses, which he wrote at the age of eighteen; and in which those who love to trace the rise and progress of genius,

will, I think, be pleased to remark the very promising seeds of those peculiar powers which unfolded themselves in the richest maturity at a distant period, and rendered that beautiful and sublime poem, The Task, the most instructive and interesting of modern compositions. Young as the poet was when he produced the following lines, we may observe that he had probably been four years in the habit of writing English verse; as he has said in one of his letters, that he began his poetical career at the age of fourteen, by translating an elegy of Tibullus. I have reason to believe, that he wrote many poems in early life: and the singular merit of this juvenile composition is sufficient to make the friends of genius regret, that an excess of diffidence prevented him from preserving the poetry of his youth.

VERSES

Written at Bath, on finding the heel of a shoe, in 1748.

FORTUNE! I thank thee: gentle Goddess! thanks!
Not that my Muse, though bashful, shall deny

She would have thank'd thee rather, hadst thou cast
A treasure in her way; for neither meed
Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes,
And bowel-racking pains of emptiness,

Nor noontide feast, nor evening's cool repast,
Hopes she from this-presumptuous, tho', perhaps,
The cobbler, leather-carving artist! might.
Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon,
Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,

Vain glorious fool! unknowing what he found,

Spurn'd the rich gem, thou gav'st him. Wherefore, ah!
Why not on me that favour (worthier sure!)

Conferr'dst thou, Goddess! Thou art blind, thou says't:
Enough!-thy blindness shall excuse the deed.

Nor does my Muse no benefit exhale

From this thy scant indulgence!—even here,
Hints, worthy sage philosophy, are found;
Illustrious hints to moralize my song!
This pond'rous heel of perforated hide
Compact, with pegs indented, many a row,
Haply (for such its massy form bespeaks)
The weighty tread of some rude peasant clown
Upbore: on this supported, oft he stretched,
With uncouth strides, along the furrow'd glebe,
Flatt ning the stubborn clod, till cruel time
(What will not cruel time), on a wry step,
Sever'd the strict cohesion; when, alas!
He, who could erst, with even, equal pace,
Pursue his destin'd way, with symmetry
And some proportion form'd, now, on one side,
Curtail'd and maim'd, the sport of vagrant boys,
Cursing his frail supporter, treacherous prop!
With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on:
Thus fares it oft with other than the feet
Of humble villager-the statesman thus,
Up the steep road, where proud ambition leads,
Aspiring, first uninterrupted winds

His prosperous way; nor fears miscarriage foul,
While policy prevails, and friends prove true;
But that support soon failing, by him left,
On whom he most depended, basely left,
Betray'd, deserted; from his airy height
Headlong he falls; and thro' the rest of life,
Drags the dull load of disappointment on.

Of a youth who, in a scene like Bath, could produce such a meditation, it might fairly be expected, that he would, in riper life,

exempt from public haunt,

Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

These few words of Shakspeare have often appeared to me as an absolute portrait of Cowper, in those quiet and cheerful days when he exercised and enjoyed his rare poetical powers in privacy at the pleasant village of Weston. But before we contemplate the recluse in that scene, it is the duty of his Biographer to relate some painful incidents, that led him, by extraordinary steps, to his favourite

retreat.

Though extreme diffidence, and a tendency to despond, seemed early to preclude Cowper from all expectation of climbing to the splendid summit of the profession he had chosen, yet, by the interest of his family, he had prospects of emolument in a line of life that appeared better suited to the modesty of his nature, and to his moderate ambition.

In his thirty-first year, he was nominated to the offices of Reading Clerk, and Clerk of the Private Committees, in the House of Lords; a situation the more desirable, as such an establishment might enable him to marry early in life; a measure to which he was doubly disposed, by judgment and inclination. But the peculiarities of his wonderful mind rendered him unable to support the ordinary duties of his new office; for the idea of reading in public proved a source of torture to his tender and apprehensive spirit. An expedient was devised to promote his interest, without wounding his feelings. Resigning his situation of Reading Clerk, he was appointed Clerk of the Journals, in the same house of parliament. Of his occupation, in consequence of this new appointment; he speaks in the following letter to a lady, who will become known and endeared to my readers, in proportion to the interest they take in the writings of Cowper.

LETTER I.-To LADY HESKETH.

MY DEAR COUSIN, The Temple, August 9, 1763. Having promised to write to you, I make haste to be as good as my word. I have a pleasure in writing to you at any time, but especially at the present, when my days are spent in reading the Journals, and my nights in dreaming of them. An employment