forth. Indeed, if there be one pre-eminent quality of these writings, it is that marked good sense which has recommended them to persons who have otherwise little relish for poetical beauties; and it is the same good sense, in unison with poetical beauties, which has recommended them even to infidels, who hated the Author's religion, just so far as they deemed it the religion of Christ; for by these every other faith is most liberally tolerated. No poet whatever has found readers, enthusiastic readers, of a greater variety of classes of mankind. This, of course, is attributable to the varied excellencies of his verse and prose equally; the latter, as prose, being of the purest standard, both in thought and diction, and, like his verse, betraying neither imbecility nor eccentricity.

Though Cowper was born a poet, if ever man was born one, and early displayed his talent, yet like a nestling bird, fledged at the end of summer, scarcely had he learned to sing and fly, before his wing was moulted, and his voice lost; nor, till after a long winter of silence and dreariness, did he again essay his powers, when warmed and quickened into rapture by an unexpected spring. Between the ages of fourteen and thirty-three, though living in companionship with the principal wits of the age, he appears to have produced nothing but an occasional trifle. The only piece of genuinely original character, chosen for its own sake, are the blank verses, composed in his eighteenth year, CC on finding the heel of an old shoe," in which the very style and tone of quaint and grave morality, that distinguish "The Task," are developed, and shown to be the "mother-tongue" of his muse. The following passage might have been penned the same day with the Sofa.

"This ponderous 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 furrowed glebe,
Flattening the stubborn clod, till cruel time,
(What will not cruel time?) or a wry step,

Sever'd the strict cohesion; when, alas!
He, who could erst, with even, equal pace,
Pursue his destined way, with symmetry,
And some proportion formed, now, on one side,
Curtailed and maimed, the sport of vagrant boys,
Cursing his frail supporter, treacherous prop!
With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on.

The two hymns which he wrote after leaving St. Albans, with about sixty others, marked C. in the Olney Collection, are nearly the whole of the exercises in verse which have been preserved between that time and the publication of his first volume in 1782. It seems strange, in this precocious age, when nobody that can count his fingers, and rhyme at the end of them, withholds his most jejune and casual performances from the press, that one of the greatest poetsone of the few who appear but at particular eras, and are destined to make such eras-should have waited till he was past middle life, before he discovered the hidden treasures of his mind, or, at least, before he began to work in earnest, and bring them forth to day; having been, till then, content to pick up and polish such specimens as lay scattered on the surface, beneath his feet, or offered themselves to his hand, as pledges of the wealth within his reach, whenever he should please to dig for it in the mine.

Of the hymns, it must suffice to say, that, like all his best compositions, they are principally communings with his own heart, or avowals of personal Christian experience. As such, they are frequently applicable to every believer's feelings, and touch unexpectedly the most secret springs of joy and sorrow, faith, fear, hope, love, trial, despondency, and triumph. Among those which allude to infirmities, the most difficult to be described, but often the source of excruciating anguish to the tender conscience-what thousands daily suffer, and are sometimes tempted to think that they suffer alone—may be mentioned, Book I. Hymns 64*

"The Lord will happiness divine
On contrite hearts bestow," &c.

and 67,* also Book III. Hymns 24+ and 28. The 725 Hymn of Book I. is written with the confidence of inspiration, and the authority of a prophet. Hymn 96,|| Book I. is a perfect allegory in miniature, without a failing point or confusion of metaphor, from beginning to end. Hymn 51,¶ Book III. presents a transformation which, if found in Ovid, might have been extolled as the happiest of his fictions. The action, imagery, and scene, in the second and third verses, are certainly not exceeded by any thing of the same character in the Metamorphoses. Hymn 12th,** Book II. closes with one of the hardiest figures to be met with out of the Hebrew Scriptures. The subject is, the prayer of pious parents for their young children. None but a poet of the highest order could have presented such a groupe as the following, without bombast or burlesque :

"Lord, we tremble, for we know
How the fierce malicious foc,
Wheeling round his watchful flight,
Keeps them ever in his sight.

Spread thy pinions, King of Kings!
Hide them safe beneath thy wings;
Lest the ravenous bird of prey

Stoop, and bear the brood away.'

Verses cannot go beyond this, and painting could not approach it.

Hymn 38,++ Book II. is in a strain of noble simplicity, expressive of confidence the most remote from presumption, and such as a heart at peace with God alone could enjoy, or utter. Hymn 55,‡‡ Book II.—

"My God, how perfect are thy ways," &c.
"The Saviour hides his face," &c.
"Lord, who hast suffered all for me, &c.

As birds their infant brood protect," &c.
"Thy mansion is the Christian's heart," &c.
"I was a grovelling creature once," &c.
** "Gracious God, our children see," &c.
++"My song shall bless the Lord of all," &c.
"The Saviour, what a noble flame
Was kindled in his breast," &c.

who can read and understand this, without feeling as if he could, in such a moment, forsake all, take up his cross, and follow that Saviour, who

Hymn 15,* Book III. is a lyric of high tone and character, rendered awfully interesting by the circumstances under which it was written-in the twilight of departing reason. The 19th Hymn, in the same Book, is a model of tender pleading, of believing, persevering prayer in trouble; and that which follows, (a brief parody on Bunyan's finest passage,) is admirable of its kind. The reader might imagine himself Christian on his pilgrimage, "the triumph and the trance" are brought so home to his own bosom.

But while Cowper, in association with his friend, the Rev. John Newton, was thus delightfully engaged, a second visitation of his tremendous malady brought him down from the mount of vision into the valley of humiliation, there to be haunted with unreal fears and hideous imaginings, which never thenceforward entirely left him. On emerging after a long eclipse, from this "blackness of darkness," though the true light never shone again upon him, in this world, "to the perfect day," he was encouraged to attempt poetical composition on a larger scale than heretofore, and with a direct view to publication. It was a happy suggestion of his friends; and though he undertook it with no sanguine ideas of success, yet that secret hope, which, almost unconsciously, exists in the noblest and humblest of gifted minds, feeling within them powers, as yet unproved, to influence other minds-that hope cheered him in his solitary labours, to which the fixed object of writing what was to be read in print, not only held, but helped and drew him forward till the contemplated work was done. The volume was published

" &c.

"God moves in a mysterious way,'
"God of my life, to Thee I call," &c.
66 My soul is sad, and much dismayed," &c.

in course, but, with all its originality of style, attracted very little notice. Nor was this surprising; for verse of any kind was scarcely a marketable commodity in those days, neither were his subjects or his sentiments calculated to dazzle or please on the sudden.

About this time, Cowper became acquainted with Lady Austen-for his fame, the most auspicious event of his life; since, while the brief but brilliant connection lasted, she was "a spirit of health" to the man, a good genius to the bard, and made the world her debtor so long as his best strains shall be remembered. Shy as he was, and most shy to the most gay, he was so insensibly and perfectly captivated by her lively company, that, while her presence was a charm to his troubled mind, her voice was an oracle to his muse. The fascination was mutual; but, while both perhaps thought that they were cultivating the purest friendship under heaven-the affection of a brother and a sister -Love, if we may personify it here, taking the disguise of a brother to the one, and that of a sister to the other, before the innocent but fatal imposture was discovered, had slain the peace of each, and separation, immediate, decisive separation, became necessary. There was no other alternative, unless Cowper had made a sacrifice, which he never could have made without rendering her with whom he parted, and her to whom he clave, supremely miserable, by plunging himself into irremediable despair; for it is probable that inveterate insanity would have been the issue to him had the affection, which he imagined he bore to Lady Austen as a sister, triumphed, in its real form, over that which he bore to Mrs. Unwin, in whatever character he loved her.

They parted;-but to Lady Austen, Cowper owed the most brilliant lucid interval of his life in that shade, which the day-spring from on high never visited with benigner illumination. To her also the gratitude of ages will be gladly conceded, for having inspired his finest productions. Yet their friendship did not live to see its own immortal offspring born from the press in 1785. They had met for the last time on earth,