Ir antiquity of origin imparts a dignity to any institution, as a long line of ancestry confers a patent of nobility, poetry may claim and assert a right to be a genuine aristocratical art. Science and philosophy, in every successive age, have given birth to some new invention or discovery which the next race of savans have exploded. The nursing fathers of the public mind have ever and anon presented it with toys and gewgaws suitable for its amusement, which it invariably, like an overgrown baby, broke or cast aside as it was bidden. Every practical art, or speculative opinion, has changed its substance and its form. The mind has changed; the heart alone remains the same; and so the muse of poetry has painted its feelings, its passions, its sufferings-despair, grief, and agony-remorse, ambition, pride, jealousy, hatred, and revenge-thus forming a record where each man may peruse the history of himself-a study at all times replete with useful instruction. It is true there have been poets base enough to idolize and invest with impious honors the imperial destroyers of mankind, and who have made the abomination of lordly debauchees the theme of their laudations-who have pointed the arrows of wit against virtue, and lent to vice all the defensive armor that fancy, imagination, genius, or talent could supply. And others, who have perverted the spiritual essence into a dark and wild philosophy, that, like the upas-tree, shakes from every leaf a deadly mental poison-who have wielded the aegis of intellect and genius only to unfix the columns of a world's belief-and the winged omniscience of thought, to devastate and darken the hopes of mankind.

But happily for society, the skeptical poets are not a numerous race; and, generally speaking, in all save the intention, the effect of their works on the popular mind is innocuous. We deny not that here or there an artisan or a peasant may read and understand the terrible delineations of Shelley, for instance, and, through the veil of filmy incense, shaken from the censer of his rich poetry, discern and adopt his mystical abstractions -yet, we are emboldened to say that, to the majority of the classes, they are equally intelligible with the cabala, the sybilline leaves, or the maxims of Confucius.

Like those of Cowper, the works of Shelley are the converse of his life and manners. Known and pronounced by one who little prized such renown, a "perfect gentleman," he was never known, even in jest, to give utterance to a falsehood. Happy in the possession of plenty, if not of affluence, his charity was unconstrained; with few afflictions to embitter his domestic hearth, blessed with elastic health and buoyant spirits, the world presented no scene in which he could not find enjoyment. With a temperament almost ethereal, he recoiled from the commission of any grossness, sensuality, cruelty, or riot. How strange and anomalous is it, then, to find him searching out from the deep archives of fabulous mythology the traditionary gods of the ancients, and in his glowing pages, with all the power of more than mortal intellect, wielding them as arguments against all religion. Equally inscruta ble is it to find him, whose ample knowledge of man's history could so easily have furnished him with traits of virtuous love and heroic patriotism

feelings to which his nature seem to lean, judging from his life and deportment-portraying, instead of these, the most unnatural crimes-incest, parricide, murder, avarice, cruelty, and revenge-in the most impassioned language, and with all the varied imagery that the earth, the ocean, or the heavens could suggest. We cannot contradict the biographers of Shelley, when they represent him as contributing to the relief of misery-as humane, refined, and generous; still it accords not with these characteristics, to represent mankind as a band of bold usurping villains on the one hand, and pusillanimous knaves on the other; neither can we conceive that virtue can be promoted by the austere and gloomy dogmas of universal skepticism. We rise from the perusal of Shelley's poems with a sensation of terror. The spell of a fearful enchanter has been around us-ghostly shapes have glared upon us-we have floated on a midnight sea of gathered iniquities-we have strode amidst the hoarded crimes of ages-we have sat at a feast of spectres, whose fleshless limbs and shapeless sculls, the purpled robe and jeweled tiara of poetry could not conceal-we have reveled with demons dancing to the music of hu man groans-we have sailed down a steep and

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roaring torrent of triumphant vice, banked and bordered with the richest gems and rarest flowers of poetry; but amidst the glorious umbrage, the green and golden foliage, the shriek of violated innocence is heard, the fiery scowl of lust is seen, and the dark red hand of murder waters its verdure with the blood of hecatombs of victims; we have slept on the floor of a magnificent temple, and in our dreams the faith of our fathers and our own has been cast away, the holiest rites derided, the most hallowed and sacred things profaned; discord mingles with harmony, confusion with order, and hirsute deformity with symmetrical beauty

"Whilst Hope's fair brow grows dark with treach'ry's scowl,
And pity sings the anthem of despair,
And mercy turn'd to vengeance seems to howl
The 'hest of slaughter from the place of prayer.'"'

On awakening from this fear-fraught dream, in the lurid darkness of which frightful influences have haunted and oppressed us, we hasten to resume our fellowship with humanity, and "unthread the rude eye of rebellion, and welcome back again discarded faith," in the calm amenities of good, homely Cowper. The poetic thunder of Shelley scares peace from the human breast-the placid murmur of Cowper's "Helicon" lures it back, like a bird that has been chased from its eyrie. The muse of Shelley, like an eagle, soars against the sun, cleaves the thunder-cloud, and defies Omnipotence; that of Cowper cowers in the shade, seeks the solitude of the vale, and bends to the decrees of Providence. In the one, passion rages like a tornado, and withers like the simoom-in the other, it but chafes like a summer gale, or the fitful blast of autumn. In that, there is the concentrated radiance of the sun at noon mingling tower and rock, wood and mount, in one intolerable blaze of dazzling refulgence; in this, there is the serene mellowness of a summer eve, where all is fair, and fresh, and soothing. Shelley climbs the mountain, fires the midnight beacon, and unrolls in its light an awful history of moral turpitude, and proclaims, amidst the fanfare of the elements, the black catalogue of mankind's crimes. Cowper seeks out the lonely glen, sits by the cottage hearth, sympathizes with the feelings, and records the virtues of the domestic circle. The one luxuriates in the groves of Italy, and throws the gilding rays of his genius, like ruby glories, over her perfumed vineyards and her olive plains; the other sheds a halo on the yellow fields and green woodlands of his rural home, finds out its nameless sunny spots, its sequestered nooks, and knows every bird that sings amongst its wildwoods, and

every stream and brook that makes music in its valleys.

Shelley, with presumptuous finger, points to the destiny of man, mingles in the councils of fate, and arraigns the justice of the Eternaltakes from vice the corrective dread of future punishment-robs virtue of her garland of hope, and confirms the skeptic in his impious unbelief. Cowper, with a devoutness distinct and severed from that scowling fanaticism which arrogates a monopoly of divine favor, and imbued with a pity unallied to that partisan zeal, which, with intolerant pride, denounces as heretical every creed save its own-invests man with the grandest heritage of heaven, an immortality of existence, and humbly, but with fervor, asserts the being of a God. For it is the brightest gem in his poetic diadem, that in his works he taught unbounded faith, unextinguishable hope, and allembracing charity; faith in the existence of the Deity, hope in his grace, and charity like His-universal love to all mankind. Although the hope he taught dwelt not within his own bosom, for "at times, alas! not in his perfect mind," he wrapped himself in the clouds of irremediable despair, and in the end maddened and died, and "gave no sign."

Shelley having, with an angel's arm, troubled, without cleansing, the waters of corruption, won a fame that filled the earth, and just when that fame was highest, died amidst the waves of the lonely ocean. Cowper, with the fervor of a prophet, and the boldness of a patriot, rebuked vice and denounced oppression. With an aim more noble, though with a power less mighty, he warned the guilty and encouraged the good; and the laurels of renown he sought and received, were more those of the Christian and patriot than those of the poet. His whole life was pure and blameless; it had been a drama where nothing immoral or profane was enacted; and the curtain fell on his dying scene in a perfect atmosphere of pious sorrow, true friendship, and unfeigned love. Here this briefly-sketched comparison must end; beyond the veil that shrouds the future we strive not to look; it is as little our inclination as it is our province to speak of the destiny of either; in the place that knows no change they themselves are mute, and “a very little time will make us learned as they are, and as silent."

The poetry of Cowper ministers to a high and ennobling religion; a strain of lofty devotion permeates all his works. His numbers may be less musical than those of Pope, but they are less effeminate; they have not the classical smoothness and elaborate polish of Campbell, but they

are equally full of fire, and vigor, and truthfulness. He could not stop to weigh and balance his words, and range his syllables like trim battalions, or prune and clip his sentences like a hawthorn hedge, when the cause of freedom and religion called him to encounter vice, slavery, and impiety. Still we find that when the subject is of a solemn aspect, his words are grave and stately; if of a cheerful nature, they are sprightly; if pathetic, they are plaintive also; and above all, when he advocates the cause of the oppressed, they ring like a trumpet call; and, in denouncing the oppressor, they burn like incense on the altar of freedom.

Cowper makes every subject he treats of subservient to piety, yet that piety has no sullen disdain of the accessories of poetry. It worships in a temple whose altar is the cloud-crested mountain, and the floor of which the hand of nature has strewn with flowers of surpassing beauty. It scorns not to read its homilies from a book that can neither be abridged nor interpolated-the ample and illuminated missal of universal nature. It makes the sun the type of that bounty in which there is "no variableness nor shadow of turning." It sees in the moon's benign aspect an emblem of peace

"When on the extreme of heav'n's blue verge
The empress orb is sailing,

Like a silver bark, with a freight of peace,
To a world of war and wailing."

And when her rays, like the gentle pleading of a sinless child, soothe the surliness of winter, and tranquilly watch over the repose of nature, piety sees reflected on her benign face the serene splendor of heaven, whilst

"The stars in their unfading brilliance throned,

Suggest dread thoughts of realms that lie beyond."

To poetry such as Cowper's, the sea in its majestic placidity, when her soilless bosom undulates like the respirations of slumbering innocence, is an image of eternal rest; and when tempest-beaten, until the "yeasty waves confound and swallow navigation up," it speaks in terrible magnificence of His sublime power that bids it roar or makes its roaring cease. But let him speak for himself—

"Happy if full of days-but happier far,
If, ere we yet discern life's evening star,
Sick of the service of a world that feeds
Its patient drudges with dry chaff and weeds,
We can escape from custom's idiot sway,
To serve the sov'reign we were born to obey.
Then sweet to muse upon his skill display'd
(Infinite skill) in all that he has made!

nent.

Then with a glance of fancy to survey, Far as the faculty can stretch away,

Ten thousand rivers pour'd at his command
From urns that never fail, through every land
These, like a deluge with impetuous force,
Those winding modestly a silent course;
The cloud-surmounting Alps, the fruitful vales;
Seas, on which every nation spreads her sails,
The sun, a world, whence other worlds drink light;
The crescent moon, the diadem of night;
Stars countless, each in his appointed place,
Fast anchor'd in the deep abyss of space-
At such a sight to catch the poet's flame,
And with a rapture like his own exclaim,
These are thy glorious works, thou source of good!
How dimly seen, how faintly understood!

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As a moral instructor, Cowper stands pre-emiIn his highest effusions we are taught to love the pure and the beautiful, to admire and imitate the virtuous, and to pity but avoid the vicious. The purifying exaltation given to the mind by a perusal of any one of the divisions of the "Task" is calculated to outlive many of the lessons of those who teach the "ideas how to shoot" with grammatical exactness, and all the precision of the mathematics. And moreover, there is a happy confidence within us, whilst engaged in this study, that he who thus delights, instructs, and amuses us, enjoyed as much pleasure in his "Task" as we do in its teachings. Conceive one who, although uninstructed, yet feels an impulsive longing for something superior to, and beyond, the narrow sphere that bounds, and the degrading objects that beset him. In this mood let him sit down for the first time, perchance, to the humanizing volumes of the poet we are now recommending, and with the chastened philosophy, the warm affection, the dignified benevolence, the kind but firm expostulations, the sweetly natural descriptions, the neophyte's heart expands, his imagination brightens, his judgment is captivated. Formerly, like the Cymon of old John Dryden, he roamed in rustic clumsiness, "and whistled as he went, for want of thought." Anon, he discovers this sleeping "Ephegenia," this beauty in repose, and his soul assumes a port and bearing equal to the sentiments it has received. Nature, that source of sweet as well as sublime emotions, affords him unwonted pleasure, and every thought attunes itself to the seasons; hope and love come with the mild coyness of spring, and in the matronly maturity of summer he reads the handwriting of the world's Pre

server.

"And when ye gurly blasts doth bellow O'er woods yclad in russet yellow,"

and the forest giants, like strong wrestlers stripping for the contest, fling off their summer robes

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to combat the tempest, or, like stout ships that furl their sails and present their bare masts to the fury of the storm, they give only their bare arms to the gale, he applauds their stern hardihood, and, like them, summons resolution to battle with the storms of life. Amidst the very bleakest hour of winter's reign, when the howl of the wind is like a demon's anthem, he will find all the appliances of instruction in the pages of Cowper. It is there, also, that the patriot will find his love of liberty informed, regulated, and encouraged by the assertion of sound and sterling principles, honest and manly sentiments; but no demagoguism, no furious mob-rant or sanscullottes declamation, mars the effect of his eloquence, when, with prophetic fire, he hurls his anticipatory anathema on that quintessence of coward despotism, the Bastile of France. The swelling indignation with which he apostrophizes that hold and heart of slavery, is not surpassed by anything in his own, and rarely in that of any other author's works, if we except the pealing notes of Byron, when he "stood in Venice on the Bridge of Sighs;" and even in his lines there is perhaps too much of the cornelian polish to make them the index of true feeling :

"Then shame to manhood, and opprobrious more To France than all her losses and defeats,

Old or of later date, by sea or land,

Her house of bondage, worse than that of old,

Which God avenged on Pharaoh-the Bastile
Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts!
Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair,
That monarchs have supplied, from age to age,
With music, such as suit their sov'reign ears,
The sighs and groans of miserable men!
There's not an English heart that would not leap
To think that ye had fall'n at last; to know
That ev'n our enemies, so oft employ'd
In forging chains for us, themselves were free.
For he who values Liberty, confines
His zeal for her predominance within
No narrow bounds: her cause engages him
Whenever pleaded-'tis the cause of man."

Then follows a heart-harrowing picture of a pining captive," cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape," in the dull cold monotony of his living burial-place, counting the hour-bell and expecting no change-reading the sad biography of his predecessors on the bare and mouldy walls-taming the plethoric and bloated spider for amusement, or numbering the embossments of his iron door for recreation-the whole ending in a burst of fine poetic feeling too long for transcription, but with which we trust few readers are unacquainted. As a promoter of the great objects to which this publication is dedicated, Cowper has peculiar claims to our respect, esteem, and admiration. He who tunes his harp in laudation of piety, truth, and individual morality, cannot fail to advance popular freedom.

BY

I. EDEN-LIFE.

THE morning stars sang together! There was light and glory through the universe; yet one system lay still, lifeless, and dark in the wonderful of space. The Angels looked upon it and were inute, 'till God said, "Let there be light."

Then the great sun, hanging black and huge in the centre of the new system, brightened upon the eyes of the gold-winged throng—brightened -shone-dazzled! Faint and soft, at first, as the fartherest star; then like the glory of their own folded wings-then bursting and burning into magnificence of light!

The angels swelled an anthem of wonder and joy!

Revealed in the warm splendor of the sun, before them lay the system of new worldspure, beautiful, and lovely-charmed by the spell of the first radiance of their light.

They asked a name for one fair planet, and shouted it admiringly to other stars-Earth! Earth!

They looked upon its grandeur and its beauty -music, eloquence, and bloom. And while they looked, a MAN stood in his princely majesty, alone within the loveliest place of earth. Perfume floated in the morning air; leaves glistened and waved in the swaying foliage above his head; waves sparkled along the river that murmured before him; blossoms grew around his feet. With one white hand he pushed the flowing hair from his manly forehead, and glanced out upon this beauty and this mystery with his bright, dark, eloquent eyes.

Surprise was in his attitude, happiness in his expression. The wonder of life was being revealed to him.

All the loveliness of the world was embodied in his natural beauty-the grace of motion-the radiance of light-the sweetness of music; and to these were added his chief gift-his fearful, glorious gift of Intellect.

In this there were two principles-Love and Hate.

From these two, every passion, and emotion,

and power, making men wonderful, sublime, and terrible, sprung forth. These two were Life and Death-and Hate was the Will of man, and Love was the Spirit.

Now as he stood there, Hate slumbered in his bosom-Love woke to life and made happiness through his heart-a trembling, deep, and thrilling happiness; that grew more and more perfect, and developed within him-whose spell was unbroken and lengthened when the beautiful first woman stood in blushing radiance within his arms-whose power was absolute until the fatal Hate, taking the serpent form, struggled with the spiritual Dove.

Then the Paradise was no more-man went forth, taking the serpent and the dove with him —and they struggled forever in his bosom—struggled-struggled forever!

II. CAIN'S MARRIAGE.

There were many brave men and beautiful maidens dwelling east of Eden in the land of Nod.

The young men tilled the ground with cheerfulness and joy-the sweat was on their brows, but hope and love were in their hearts. And the dear maidens, walking in their blushing loveliness, brought sparkling water and fresh fruit to the weary laborers. It was an entrancing sight, the broad, fair fields, rich with the rustling grain and waving vines; with the reapers resting beneath cool, musical trees, their glad gaze following the graceful forms gliding here and there; with white arms upbearing the noon-tide meal, and shining hair floating, and fair feet glancing, and bright smiles glowing, and loving eyes darkling, and sweet words flowing!-a brave, entrancing sight; when the creation was yet new, and the crimson of roses, the gold of clouds, the blue of heaven, and the sparkle of streams were all in the freshness of their first beauty.

There was ONE among the number of young men who never went with them to the river-side -never danced with them in the forest shadenever sung with them the praises of the Creator -never gathered with them the purple grapes to toss unto the laughing maidens! Alone he