XXIV.

GRAY AND COWPER.

THE two best male writers of letters, between Pope and Lamb, were both poets like them, which was almost the sole point of resemblance the four possessed in common. They all had wit, and something of humor, but each differed from his brother bard. Pope's wit was courtly and refined; Gray's, like his taste, fastidious; Cowper's measured and moral, like himself in public, timid and restrained; and Lamb's full of the whimsical crotchets which formed a portion of his individuality and temper.

Johnson has underrated Gray's Pindaric Poems as unjustly as Hazlitt has overrated his letters. There are noble and grand thoughts filled out, and expressed in language ardent and picturesque, in the poems of Gray, and there is a majestic sweep in the pinions of his muse, which he has finely described in his own line of the eagle, "Sailing wide in supreme dominion, through the azure depths of air." He is often cold, but when he warms, he glows. His fire is the genuine afflatus, and no pasteboard imitation or balloon inflation. At times he comes nearer to Milton than any poet since the author of Paradise Lost. But in his letters, elegantly as they are written (the English is remarkably choice for a stickler for the classics), he appears by no means in his fairest guise. His criticisms in many cases are inadequate and careless. He speaks slightingly of Thompson's charming poems, just then out. He relishes Gresset, however, and speaks with respect of Southern. Shaftesbury he anatomises keenly, but with justice. The Greeks and Romans always fare well at his hands, but his contemporaries he has little

sympathy for. His humor (his nearest friends thought there lay his forte) would be more readily appreciated if it were less elaborate-a fine humorist and good fellow was spoiled in the pedantic student. For, it must be confessed, Gray was scholastic to pedantry with his characteristic nicety and daintiness. We tire of few things so soon as fastidiousness, for it is impossible to love those whom we cannot satisfy or please. Yet we sympathise with the independence of the man who refused to retain a friendship for Walpole after he had discovered his hollowness and fickle nature; and we cannot but reverence the moroseness and admire the secluded life of one who despised the purse-pride of the wealthy, and from the lofty elevation of his genius looked down upon the arrogance of the great and noble. His spirit had all the vigor, something of the roughness, and an appearance (only an appearance) of the sterility of the hardy plants of the cold North; but like them it bore equally well the heats of July and the snows of December, and in itself containing a source of perennial fruitfulness, outbraved the mocks of jealousy and lived down the scorn of calumny. It still continues in all its original freshness.

The style of Cowper's letters is less elaborately elegant, is simpler and more agreeable than Gray's. He has more of nature. Gray's genius was high, but also ambitious; it lacked naiveté and unforced ease. His art, too, was rich and composite, but not so refined as to be concealed. Cowper's domestic habits, continual living with and among women (while Gray lived only by himself, or with a few friends), his moral bias, his physical indolence and timidity, his religious melancholy, gave a distinct coloring to all his productions. These appeared much more in his poetry than in his prose. In his letters he is cheerful, sometimes gay. His vein of

humor is quite unconscious, and the more delightful for that reason. He had, when unbiassed, a fund of most excellent sense, with a clear judgment. His natural feelings were pure as a child's. He seems to have been a man without guile: affectionate, confiding and constant. Yet he had a keen eye for folly, and a talent for moral satire next to Pope, and we are apt to think sincerer. He occasionally sketches a character with brevity and point. He discovers no very rich stores of acquired learning, but much wise reflection.

His quiet life was not without its experience and hours of contemplation. He loved nature, he loved innocent animals, he loved the society of virtuous women, and good men; and he worshipped in truth and with awful gratitude the Being he adored and loved. Cowper was a Christian poet, a rare title of honor. He might have filled a high political station. and been soon forgotten. Who now-a-days knows anything of the great lawyer, Lord Cowper? Who is not acquainted with the greater poet, William Cowper? Yet we are far from styling Cowper a great poet: compared with Milton, and Shakspeare, and Wordsworth, he ranks in the second or third class of poets, But he is first in that. He is the poet of domestic life; a moral satirist with generous indignation, but without gall; a Christian psalmist (no hymns are finer than some of his), and a judicious, pure-minded, sweet-tempered, warm-hearted friend, counsellor, and companion. Cowper's English is select and idiomatic. It is as racy as that of many writers more noticed for vigor, and yet it is quite free from the least taint of vulgarity. If he seldom soared very high, he never fell into coarseness; and his style is as free from moral and literary corruption, as his wit is free from acerbity, and his sentiment from affectation. With Cowper we shall conclude,

since Lamb has been made the subject of so much delicate criticism and fine writing since his death, that we cannot aim at novelty without disparaging better writers and better qualified judges, because personal friends, than any American writers can pretend to be.

XXV.

AMATEUR AUTHORS AND SMALL CRITICS.

AMONG the various divisions and subdivisions into which the trade of authorship is divided we recognise two classes; authors by profession, and amateur writers: those who regard study and composition as the business of their lives, and those who look upon them merely as incidental occupations. Now, we all know very well how absurd a thing it would be for a client to ask the services of an amateur lawyer, with an air of confidence in the request, and in the expectation of his faithful attention to business; so, too, with regard to the advice of an amateur physician; and, indeed, the analogy holds in every walk of life. Few do that well "for love" which can be better done for money. If it be true in the common concerns of life, that the laborer is worthy of his hire, it is much more to be so considered when we ascend in the scale of labor, and come finally to that which most tasks the intellect and requires the greatest number of choice. thoughts. Purely imaginative employmnnt, invention in fiction, the highest class (and indeed all but the most inferior department of poetry, the musa pedestris), must afford more of delight self-centered, and in a good degree independent of

pecuniary reward or the glory of a noble fame. Yet even poets cannot live without bread and broadcloth; and so far as their imperishable and spiritual commodities can be paid for, should be remunerated in a princely manner. But in speaking of authors and men of letters in general, we shall except the few grand poets from our remarks, and include rather the mass of good, than the minority of great, writers. We do not intend to comprehend in our list either the barely respectable scribes, who abound now-a-day as thickly as Dogberry's whortleberries; although among amateur authors we must not forget that for one really clever man (not to say man of genius) there are at the least estimate ninety and nine stupid fellows, who assume the cloak of gravity wherewithal to hide the defects of dullness.

A merchant is respected for shrewdness in turning a penny, for the accumulation of a fortune, and yet we hear of the mercenary rewards of authorship, and the base equivalent for the productions of genius: as if the more a man gave the less he should ask; build a palace at less cost than a cottage. At this rate a sign-painter would be entitled to higher pay than Raphael himself; and we might take our strongest arguments that men of genius should be nobly rewarded for their magnificent conceptions and labors, from the simple class of painters. The great old masters lived like princes, and were paid as the great lawyer and surgeon of our own time are paid. Yet they did not become lazy or careless; nor did wealth stifle the fine images of their brains, or palsy the masterly skill of their hands.

Thoughts form the merchandise of the writer, as stuffs and wares of the trader. If the one can convert his stock into current coin as readily as the other, on the mere ground of husbandry he deserves no little credit for his skill. Fame