The reader is the Poet's companion and confidant. The Task is not a dry didactic essay, a laboriously descriptive one, nor an intricate story, abounding with characters and incidents. Narrative, description, characters, and ethics, indeed, are all introduced in turn; but each so unobtrusively, that it is only regarded because it stands in its place, as a tower, a mountain, wood, or stream, occurs in the progress of a country-walk; or rather, as either the scenes or the sentiments might literally have occurred in personal interviews between the Poet and the reader. latter never loses sight of the former; and Cowper is so intelligent and animated a companion, that none would ever willingly forget his presence. We therefore read as if we heard the language from his lips, and feel as if we were looking in the face of the speaker.

The

"The Sofa" was the burden of the Task set him "by a lady." Accordingly, in metre as artificial and ingeniously turned as real cabinet-work, the genealogy of that accomplished piece of furniture is traced, with much quaintness and effort, through little more than a hundred lines; when, having said all that can be said of a sofa in that space, the Poet quits his Task, and, through six books, says all that he pleases of what can not be said of a sofa. Having lolled a few moments, after his labour, upon it, he starts up, exclaiming

"I have loved the rural walk through lanes
Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nibbling sheep,
And skirted thick with intertexture firm

Of thorny boughs; have loved the rural walk
O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink,
E'er since a truant boy I pass'd my bounds,
T enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames.'

This is a sufficient invitation to the reader; and away they post, the Poet and he, nor ever return to the sofa, or pause till the end of the first book.

Cowper was personally unacquainted with the more magnificent forms of nature, in mountains, valleys, forests, and ocean; yet no poet ever more affectionately loved, or faithfully depicted her; and there is no

perceptible deficiency of knowledge of her transcendently great and beautiful phenomena, though he knew nothing of these on a grander scale than the prospect from Shooter's Hill, and spent the principal part of his time in the metropolis, and amidst tame but pleasing inland scenery. The first book of The Task is amusingly descriptive of the latter, enlivened with poetically picturesque groupes, like that of the gipsies, or interesting solitary figures, like those of Crazy Kate and Omai; till the Author's genius, no more to be confined within the ring of the horizon, glances to the uttermost parts of the sea, and sings of "the isles so lately found." The passage, in reference to these, is very remarkable at this time, when such a passage could not be written:

"E'en the favoured isles
So lately found, although the constant sun
Cheer all their seasons with a grateful smile,
Can boast but little virtue; and inert

Through plenty, lose in morals what they gain
In manners-victims of luxurious case.
These therefore I can pity, placed remote
From all that science traces, art invents,
Or inspiration teaches; and enclosed
In boundless oceans, never to be passed
By navigators uninformed as they,

Or ploughed perhaps by British bark again."

"We found no bait

To tempt us in thy country. Doing good,
Disinterested good, is not our trade.
We travel far, 'tis true, but not for nought;
And must be bribed to compass Earth again
By other hopes and richer fruits than yours."

Could the philanthropic satirist rise from the dead, and hear what has been done in these very isles, within the last seven years only, in what a different strain would he allude to them and to his countrymen! With what joy would he blot from his pages the last quoted lines, and say,

"Doing good,

Disinterested good, is NOW our trade," &c.

The bounds of this article will not allow even an

enumeration of the miscellaneous contents of the several books of this poem, which, in one respect, resembles the celebrated "Night Thoughts,"-that, being limited to no particular subject, or even range of subjects, the rhapsodist feels himself privileged to expatiate, at his pleasure, on all that comes immediately or incidentally in his way. There are a few passages, which, in style and cast of sentiment, resemble those of that singular composition; but, on the whole, The Task is incomparably more attractive, and yet, in its religious influence, incomparably more impressive, in the best sense, than the sublime, but dark and comfortless "Complaint" of Young.

Book II.-The opening of this book, to the clause beginning with the well known line,

66 England, with all thy faults I love thee still,"

is above all common-place praise. It is the highest, the longest, the most triumphant flight of genius, kindled to intensest ardour, that may be found in any of the Author's works. Then follows, to the end, a vein of the finest but bitterest satire on statesmen, philosophers, clergymen, pleasure-takers, and worldlings in general. The frequency and poignancy of the contempt with which Cowper alludes to philosophy, (even natural and experimental,) both in The Task, and his other argumentative pieces, must sound in many ears illiberal, and would indeed be so, were not his sarcasms and invectives aimed solely at those who look for every thing in nature but God, and, whatever else they find in her, take special care not to find Him. One cause, probably, why he so often conjures up these pompous, self-sufficient oracles of infidelity, is, that about the period when he wrote, the works of the French encyclopedists were in their height of portentous reputation and pestilent influence. The life and adventures of Discipline, with the anarchy in public schools which has followed his demise, form a very lively allegorical sketch. The metaphor of the quiver and arrows in the context, is bold, and original in ap

plication, though borrowed from a noble scriptural comparison- As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth."

Book III.-The scenery here is the Garden, and the reveries that ensue are suitable to the place,—selfrecollections, in which sudden evanescent pleasantry occasionally mingles with overpowering pathos ;

"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since. With many an arrow deep infix'd
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by one who had himself
Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.
With gentle force soliciting the darts,

He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live."

Who, glancing through the book before us, can refrain from mentioning this inimitable, this inestimable passage, so pre-eminent for poetic beauty, tender melancholy, and the avowal of Christian experience? The sequel conveys interesting information concerning his personal situation at this time, and for many years preceding:

"Since then, with few associates, in remote
And silent woods I wander, far from those

My former partners of the peopled scene," &c.

Cowper belonged to a noble stock, whose other branches were all flourishing in the sunshine of the great world, while he thus lived in "distant shades," among strangers, an adopted son, brother, friend, till this very poem cast such a glory about his retreat, that his exalted relatives were glad to find him out, and not only own him, but plead their kindred, that he might own them. Surely the long and keen philippic on philosophical pursuits that follows, is liable to much misconception, if applied to the pursuits of genuine philosophy, which, whatever may be said against it by the most eloquent and pious of men, is nothing more nor less than the quest of truth-the truth of God

himself, wherever He has placed it within human search, in any of his works. The Poet has hardly done enough to atone for his well meant, but not well applied, ridicule of knowledge thus acquired, in the lines

"Philosophy baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a God to man,

Gives him his praise, and forfeits not her own," &c.

-In other respects, "The Garden" is a terrestrial paradise, and our Poet might be Adam in innocence cultivating it. His occupations are charmingly described. His horror of hunting, and detestation of great cities, are not less characteristically expressed. On the latter subject, we have a lamentation over past times," which, according to all poets, but especially all satirists, were far better than the present, and are praised beyond what they were, to make these appear worse than they are.

66

"Were England now,

What England was, plain, hospitable, kind,
And undebauch'd."

Let the reader proceed through twenty lines further, and then honestly ask-When were these times?-In no page of English history can they be discovered. We may indeed find several centuries after the Conquest, when great landholders habitually resided on their estates; but their houses were castles in those days, they themselves were feudal lords, and their tenants serfs-in plain English, slaves: or, in the middle age, after the wars of the barons were over, there might be more brute gormandizing and riotous hospitality, among the wealthy and their immediate dependents, than there is now in the elegant mansions of our nobility, which are only visited for a few short months in summer; but it is the perfect conviction of the writer of these strictures, that there never was a time when the peasantry, artizans, and