bukes. Like Goldsmith, he at once laughs at and loves the object against whom his wit is directed. He is perhaps most happy in little complimentary effusions, of which there are several excellent specimens in the volume before us. The more broad and diverting pieces, among which "John Gilpin stands pre-eminent, are absolutely irresistible, and make one laugh from beginning to end without the least possibility of leaving a sting in the remembrance. Some have been disposed to wonder how such pieces could have been written, as they were, by Cowper, in the depth of mental anguish: but the fact is easily accounted for. There is in man, independently of his stronger sympathies, though intimately connected with them, a buoyancy of animal spirits which is sometimes highest when circumstances are most depressing and the heart the most deeply affected. We sometimes find it interrupting the course of sorrow, whilst we are striving to indulge it. Grief has a sanctity which that buoyancy nevertheless disturbs; and as the oppression of the mind be comes greater, so occasionally will the rising of this spring be more turbulent. Thus sorrow seems often to mock itself; misery to sport with its trappings; and an overcharged heart vents itself in punning and conceits. We find Shakspeare, whose knowledge of the human breast was almost oracular, representing Hamlet in the most terrible situations, in cited by heaven and hell to a deed for which he was wholly unfitted, distracted by the daily sight of flourishing villainy on the one hand, and scared by supernatural visions on the other; as trifling away his hours in jesting, and smiling even in the bitterness of his heart. And to turn to actual fact, the victims of the French Revolution are known to have made bon-mots even on their passage to the scaffold-and Cowper, while under an impression that he was consigned by the decree of heaven to eternal torment, prodducethe "Diverting History of Johnny Gilpin."

The dismal state of Cowper's mind has been frequently ascribed to the peculiar religious tenets which he adopted. Certain it is that they ultimately became the objects on which his disorder brooded, and formed the elements of those terrific fancies which perpetually haunted him. But we think it fair to observe, that there is no proof whatever of their having given rise to the distemper which afterwards operated so fatally. This enemy of his peace seems to have owed its birth, so far as it was not inherent in his constitution, in some measure to the hardships he endured at Westminster School-a seminary that was always uncongenial to his feelings. And his appointment to a public office, with the summons he soon received to a

trying exercise of its duties, so operated on his nerves, that they misgave him, and, in a state of delirium, he made several attempts on his own life, which he afterwards regarded as criminal, and which added to the blackness of his despair. On the alleged connection of his religion with his sufferings, it is only justice to quote the observations of the present editor.

"A most erroneous and unhappy idea has occupied the minds of some persons, that those views of Christianity which Cowper adopted, and of which, when enjoying the intervals of reason, he was so bright an ornament, had actually contributed to excite the malady with which he was afflicted. It is capable of the clearest demonstration that nothing was further from the truth. On the contrary, all those aberrations of sorrow, those delightful anticipations of heavenly rest, those healing consolations to a wounded spirit of which he was permitted to taste at the periods when uninterrupted reason resumed its sway, were unequivocally to be ascribed to the operation of those very principles and views of religion which, in the instance before us, have been charged with producing so opposite an effect. The primary aberrations of his mental faculties were wholly to be attributed to other causes. But the time was at hand when by the happy interposition of a gracious Providence he was to be the favored subject of a double emancipation. The captivity of his reason was about to terminate; and a bondage, though hitherto uninentioned, yet of a much longer standing, was on the point of being exchanged for the most delightful of all freedom.

A liberty unsung

By poets and by senators unprais'd;

E'en liberty of heart deriv'd from heav'n;

Bought with his blood who gave it to mankind,
And seal'd with the same token !**

p. xxi.

"On the 25th day of July, 1761, his brother, the Rev. John Cowper, Fellow of Bene't College Cambridge, having been informed by Dr. Cotton that his patient was much amended, came to visit him. The first sight of so dear a relative in the enjoyment of health and happiness, accompanied as it was by an immediate reference to his own very different lot, occasioned in the breast of Cowper many painful sensations; for a few moments, the cloud of despondency which had been gradually removing, involving his mind in his former darkness. Light, however, was approaching. His brother invited him to walk in the garden; where so effectually did he protest to him, that the apprehensions he felt were all a delusion, that he burst into tears, and cried out, If it be a delusion, then I am the happiest of human beings.' During the remainder of the day, which he spent with this affectionate brother, the truth of the above assertion became so increasingly evident to him, that when he arose the next morning he was perfectly well." pp. xxii-iii.

The following was one of Cowper's latest effusions, and exhibits in striking colours the dreadful influence of his malady on his spiritual perceptions. We have taken the liberty to omit the least interesting stanzas.

'The Task. Book v.

THE CAST-AWAY.

"Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
The Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went;
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast
With warmer wishes sent.

He lov'd them both, but lov'd in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.

He long survives who lives an hour
In ocean self upheld,

And so long he with unspent power
His destiny repell'd:

And ever as the minutes flew,
Intreated help, or cried- Adieu !'

At length his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in every blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,

That tells his name, his worth, his age,

Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed,
Alike immortalize the dead, →

I, therefore, purpose not nor dream,
Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allay'd;

No light propitious shone;

When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,

We perish'd each alone:

But I beneath a rougher sea

And whelm'd in deeper gulphs than he." pp. 242-244.

The following elegant little compliment may form a seasonable relief, to the dreariness of such a picture ;-it is addressed to a lady to whom some MSS. of the author were lent with an injunction not to copy them, and who returned them with an intimation that she had eluded the prohibition by storing them in her memory.

"To be rememberd thus is fame,

And in the first degree;

And did the few like her the same,
The press might sleep for me.

So Homer in the mem'ry stored
Of many a Grecian belle,

Was once preserv'd-a richer hoard,

But never lodg'd so well." p. 232, 3.

The following sonnet to Mrs. Unwin is in a higher strain. Though it is expressed in very noble poetry, it is most precious as a relic of that holy and subdued affection which the poet entertained towards this generous friend in the evening of her days.

"Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,

Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew,
And eloquence scarce giv'n to mortals, new
And undebas'd by praise of meaner things,
That 'ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,
And that immortalizes whom it sings.

But thou hast little need. There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright;

There thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,

p. 222.

And since thou own'st that praise I spare thee mine. " We forbear to quote the beautiful stanzas addressed to the same lady entitled "To Mary,"-though we think them for render plaintiveness and gentle pathos, almost unequalledbecause we presume that every lover of poetry or of goodness has treasured them in his heart already. We close our extracts with part of a fragment addressed to a venerable oak in the parish of Weston, which exhibits all the higher excellences and some of the characteristic defects of Cowper's style.

"Survivor sole, and hardly such, of all,

That once liv'd here, thy brethren, at my birth,
(Since which I number threescore winters past,)
A shatter'd veteran, hollow-trunked perhaps,
As now, and with excoriate forks deform,
Relics of ages! Could a mind endued
With truth from heaven created thing adore,
I might with reverence kneel and worship thee.

Thon wast a bauble once; a cup and ball,

Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay,
Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd
The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down
Thy yet close folded latitude of boughs

And all thy enbryo vastness at a gulp.
But Fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains
Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil
Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer,
With pointed hoof dibbling the ground, prepar'd
The soft receptacle in which, secure,

Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through.
Time made thee what thou wast-king of the woods;
And Time hath made thee what thou art-a cave
For owls to roost in. Once thy spreading boughs
O'erhung the campaign; and the numerous flocks,
That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope
Uncrowded yet safe shelter'd from the storm.
No flock frequents thee now. Thou hast outliv'd
Thy popularity, and art become

(Unless verse rescue thee awhile) a thing
Forgotten as the foliage of thy youth."

"One man alone the father of us all

Drew not his life from woman, never gaz'd,
With mute unconsciousness of what he saw,
On all around him; learn'd not by degrees,
Nor owed articulation to his ear;
But moulded by his maker into man
At once, upstood intelligent, survey'd
All creatures, with precision understood
Their purport, uses, properties, assign'd
To each his name significant, and fill'd
With love and wisdom render'd back to heaven
In praise harmonious the first air he drew.
He was excus'd the penalties of dull

Minority; no tutor charg'd his hand

With the thought-tracing quill, or tax'd his mind

With problems; history, not wanted yet,

Lean'd on her elbow, watching Time where cause

Eventful should supply her with a theme." p. 203, &c.

A great portion of the volume is occupied with translations from Milton and Vincent Bourne. The former are not among the happiest efforts of Cowper. To the majesty of our great epic poet he was unable to attain; his "admirable Grecisms " he could not imitate; his classical imagery he could scarcely relish. Milton was indeed a being with whom he could hold little fellowship. If for a moment he reaches his level, it is by the aid of stilts that he gains so unnatural an elevation: but with Vincent Bourne he is quite at home. The exquisite turns of his little poems were like his own sportive effusions, and he effectually caught their spirit. Had he translated Horace instead of