of the fame mind; the fame unaffected modefty which always rejects unfeasonable ambitions and ornaments of language; the fame eafy vigour; the fame ferene and cheerful hope derived from a steady and unshaken faith in the dogmas of Christianity. "I am not prepared to affirm, that Mr. Cowper derives any praise from the choice and elegance of his words; but he has the higher praife of having chosen them without affectation. He appears to have used them as he found them; neither introducing faftidious refinements, nor adhering to obfolete barbarifms. He understands the whole fcience of numbers, and he has practised their different kinds with confiderable happinefs; and if his verses do not flow fo foftly as the delicacy of a modern ear requires, that roughness, which is objected to his poetry, is his choice, not his defect. But this fort of critics, who admire only what is exquifitely polished, thefe lovers of gentleness without finews,"* ought to take into their cftimate that vaft effufion of thought which is fo abundantly poured over the writings of Mr. Cowper, without which hu man discourse is only an idle combination of founds and sylJables. "Let me haften, however, to that work which has more peculiarly given to Cowper the character of a poet. After an interval of a few years, his Task was ushered into the world. The occafion that gave birth to it was a trivial one. A lady had requested him to write a piece in blank verfe, and gave him the fofa for his fubject. This he expanded into one of the finest moral poems of which the English language has been productive. "It is written in blank verfe, of which the conftruction, though in fome respects resembling Milton's, is truly original and characteristic. It is not too ftately for familiar defcription, nor too depreffed for fublime and elevated imagery. If it has any fault, it is that of being too much laden with idiomatic expreffions, a fault which the author, in the rapidity with which his ideas and his utterance feem to have flowed, very naturally incurred. "In this poem his fancy ran with the most excurfive freedom. The poet enlarges upon his topics, and confirms his * Dr. Sprat's Life of Cowley. M m 3 argu argument by every variety of illuftration. He never, however, dwells upon them too long, and leaves off in fuch a manner, that it feems, it was in his power to have said more. "The arguments of the poem are various. The works of nature, the affociations with which they exhibit themselves, the defigns of Providence, and the paffions of men. Of one advantage the writer has amply availed himself. The work not being rigidly confined to any precife fubject, he has indulged himself in all the laxity and freedom of a miscellaneous poem. Yet he has ftill adhered fo faithfully to the general laws of congruity, that whether he infpires the fofter affections into his reader, or delights him with keen and playful raillery, or discourses on the ordinary manners of human nature, or holds up the bright pictures of religious confolation to his mind, he adopts, at pleasure, a diction just and appropriate, equal in elevation to the facred effufions of Chriftian rapture, and fufficiently easy and familiar for descriptions of domeftic life; skilful alike in foaring without effort and descending without meanness. "He who defires to put into the hands of youth a poem which, not deftitute of poetic embellishment, is free from all matter of a licentious tendency, will find in the Task a book adapted to his purpose. It would be the part of an abfurd and extravagant aufterity, to condemn thofe poetical productions in which the paffion of love conftitutes the primary feature. In every age that paffion has been the concernment of life, the theme of the poet, the plot of the stage. Yet there is a fort of amorous fenfibility, bordering almoft on morbid enthusiasm, which the youthful mind too frequently imbibes from the glowing fentiments of the poets. Their genius describes, in the moft fplendid colours, the operations of a passion which requires rebuke instead of incentive, and lends to the most grovelling fenfuality the enchantments of a rich and creative imagination. But in the Task of Cowper, their is no licentioufnefs of defcription. All is grave, and majestic, and moral. A vein of religious thinking pervades every page, and he difcourfes, in a train of the most finished poetry, on the infufficiency and vanity of human pursuits. "Nor is he always fevere. He is perpetually enlivening the mind of his reader by sportive descriptions, and by repre fenting, in elevated measures, ludicrous objects and circum stances, ftances, a fpecies of the mock-heroic, of which Philips * was the first author. In this latter fort of ftyle Mr. Cowper has difplayed great powers of verfification, and great talents for humour. Of this, the hiftorical account he has given of chairs, in the first book of the Tafk, is a striking specimen. The attention, however, is the most detained by thofe paffages, in which the charms of rural life, and the endearments of domeftic retirement, are pourtrayed. It is in vain to search in any poet of antient or modern times for more pathetic touches of reprefentation. The Task abounds with incidents, introduced as episodes, and interpofing an agreeable relief to the grave and serious parts of the poetry. Who has not admired his Crazy Kate? A defcription in which the calamity of a difordered reafon is painted with admirable exactness and fimplicity. “She begs an idle pin of all the meets.” I know of no poet who would have introduced fo minute a circumstance into his reprefentation; yet who is there that does not perceive that it derives its effect altogether from the minuteness with which it is drawn? "It were an endless task to point out the beauties of the poem. It is now established in its reputation, and, by univerfal confent, it has given Cowper a very high place amongit our national poets. Let those who cannot perceive its beauties, dwell with rapture on its defects. The taste or the fenfibility of that man is little to be envied who, in the pride of a faftidious criticism, would be reluctant in attributing to Mr. Cowper, the praife and character of a poet, because in the tide and rapidity of his fancy he has not been fcrupulous in the arrangement of a word or the adjustment of a cadence. "The next work, which Mr. Cowper published, was a tranflation of the Iliad, and the Odyffey. The defign was worthy of his talents. His object was to prefent the father of pocfy to the English reader, not in English habiliments, and modern attire, but in the graceful and antique habit of his own times. He therefore adopted blank verfe. Rhyme, by the uniformity of its cadence, and the reftrictions which it impofed, rendered the task of translation evidently a paraphrase, because the poet, who could not exprefs the meaning of his * The Splendid Shilling, author author in phrase, and diction, that would accord with his own numbers, must be, of neceffity, compelled to mix his own meaning with his author's, to foften, and dilute it, as it were, to his own verfification. This is the disadvantage of Mr. Pope's Homer; a work, which it were blafphemy to despise, and folly to undervalue, while variety and harmony of numbers retain their dominion over the mind of man. Yet no one will deny, that Mr. Pope has frequently forgotten Homer; and that in fome paffages he has impaired the ftrength, and debafed the majesty of his original. Let it be remembered, however, that it is no mean honour to any poet to have followed the bold and lofty steps of the divine bard; and that he is not to be cenfured, though he should lag behind him in his courfe through that fublime region, which Homer only could tread with safety, and with confidence. Quid enim contendat hirundo LUCRET. "It is a wanton and foolish criticism to compare the tranflation of Mr. Pope with that of Mr. Cowper. The merits of each are distinct and appropriate. Mr. Pope has exhibited Homer as he would have fung, had he been born in England. Mr. Cowper has attempted to pourtray him, as he wrote in Greece, adhering frequently to the peculiarities of his own idiom, and endeavouring to preferve his ftrength and energy, as well as his harmony and smoothness. "There are feveral fugitive pieces by Mr. Cowper which have not yet been published. I fhall close this article by prefenting two of them to the reader. The poplars are fell'd, and adieu to the shade, When, behold, on their fides, in the grafs they were laid, And I fate on the trees under which I had stray'd. The blackbitd has fought out another retreat, Shall refound with his fmooth-flowing ditty no more. My fugitive years are all hafling away, The change both my heart and my fancy employs ; FROM THE ANNUAL BILL OF MORTALITY, NORTHAMPTON, --Placidaq: ibi demum morte quicvit. VIRG. Then calm at length he breath'd his foul away. "Oh moft delightful hour by man "Experienc'd here below; "The hour that terminates his fpan, "His folly and his woc, "Worlds thould not bribe me back to tread "Again life's dreary waste; "To fee my days again o'erfpread "With all the gloomy past. My home, henceforth, is in the fkies, "All heaven unfolded to my eyes, "I have no fight for you." Thu |