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merit of genius, and its most unequivocal mode of manifestation."

Cowper told his friend that he never knew, before he mounted his Parnassian steed, at what rate he might choose to travel. If he was indisposed to haste, it was impossible to accelerate his pace; if otherwise, equally impossible to stop him. This he said, even while composing the "Tirocinium;" and he added, "The critics will never know that four lines of it were composed while I had an ounce and a half of ipecacuanha upon my stomach, and a wooden vessel called a pail between my knees; and that in the very article-in short, that I was delivered of the emetic and the verses in the same moment." He thought that was a proof of singular industry, and though it was not uncommon for poets to obtain great help from cathartics in the article of brilliancy, it was a new and original discovery to find that an emetic was a sovereign remedy for costiveness, and would be sure to produce a fluent and easy versification.

When Cowper's first volume was published, he sent it to his old school-fellows Colman and Lord Chancellor Thurlow. They neither of them paid the slightest attention either to the poem or its author, not having the common civility even to acknowledge the gift. This neglect was more than made up to Cowper, in the letter of sincere and

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characteristic applause which he received from Dr. Franklin; but for a season the rudeness of his old friends was the source of some justly indignant feelings in his bosom. From the Lord Chancellor the unkindness was the greater, because Cowper addressed to him, along with the volume, a letter referring to their early and cordial friendship, and entreating his lordship's pardon for the poem of which he was the subject. "The best excuse I can make,” said Cowper, "is, that it flowed almost spontaneously from the affectionate remembrance of a connection that did me so much honor.” Thurlow returned not the least acknowledgment or notice of this mark of continued regard on the part of a long intimate friend, and Cowper expressed his indignation in a poem sent to his dear friend Mr. Unwin:

Farewell, false hearts! whose best affections fail,
Like shallow brooks, which summer suns exhale!

66

"He has great abilities," said Cowper in a letter to Mr. Unwin, "but no religion." And in a letter in regard to the volume of poetry, and the religious instruction it was intended to convey: I have sent him the truth, and the truth which I know he is ignorant of." When this letter was published by Hayley, this pointed declaration, which might possibly have awakened some salutary anxiety, was omitted for fear of giving offense,

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because Thurlow was still living! The description of character in the poem was also suppressed, but the following beautiful conclusion was printed, containing a picture, drawn from life, of Cowper's happiness in the treasures of friendship God had given him:

Votaries of business and of pleasure prove
Faithless alike in friendship and in love;
Retired from all the circles of the gay,
And all the crowds that bustle life away,
To scenes where competition, envy, strife,
Beget no thunder-clouds to trouble life.

Let me the charge of some good angel find,
One who has known and has escaped mankind,
Polite, yet virtuous, who has brought away
The manners, not the morals, of the day.

With him, perhaps with her (for men have known
No firmer friendships than the fair have shown),
Let me enjoy, in some unthought of spot,

All former friends forgiven and forgot,
Down to the close of life's fast fading scene,
Union of hearts, without a flaw between;
'Tis grace, 'tis bounty, and it calls for praise,
If God give health, that sunshine of our days;
And if He add, a blessing shared by few,
Content of heart, more praises still are due.
But if He grant a friend, that boon possesst
Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the rest.
And giving one whose heart is in the skies,
Born from above, and made divinely wise,
He gives what bankrupt Nature never can,
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man,
Gold, purer far than Ophir ever knew,

A soul, an image of Himself, and therefore true.

CHAPTER XV.

POWER OF COWPER'S SATIRE.-ITS CHRISTIAN CHARACTER AND PURPOSE.POWER AND BEAUTY OF THOUGHT IN THE POEM OF

"TRUTH."-SUBLIMITY OF THE EXPOSTULATION."-COWPER'S ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY.

FOR every one of the subjects in this volume, Cowper had been richly prepared both by his spiritual discipline and his education in the schools and in society. The power of vigorous and caustic satire was never more admirably combined with affectionate feeling, an enlarged and comprehensive sympathy, generous and kindly wit and humor, a fervent love of the truth, and hatred of all hypocrisy. With his native amiable disposition and unaffected Christian charity, it was impossible for Cowper to be bitter against any thing but meanness, malignity, profane bigotry, and proud and fashionable sin. One would hardly have expected from this retired and shy observer, in that deep seclusion from which he looked forth through the loop-holes of his retreat, upon the Babel of this world, so keen a discernment and so graphic and faithful a portraiture of its manners and its life, its

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follies and its woes. The keenness of Cowper's satire is not bitterness, not acrimony, but truth, and the just severity of Christian truth and love against obstinate error, iniquity, pretension and pride. Here is the burning and unsparing pungency of Juvenal, along with a genial, gentle playfulness and Christian tenderness, of which the Roman satirist knew nothing. Cowper's satire is spontaneous, not artificial, not the ambition of severity, but as natural and playful as the humor in "John Gilpin ;" and therefore it is at once the most telling and effective, and at the same time the most interesting and attractive in the language. It is exceedingly seldom that satire so powerful is so penetrated with the spirit of goodnature and of love; and that a native faculty, so fitted and disposed for shrewd and biting notice and remark, is found so imbued with grace and gentleness.

But Cowper could pour out his whole soul in sacred invective and indignant rebuke of all forms of sacrilege and impiety, and could impress, in verse all compact with thought and earnestness, the sanctifying and beloved themes of the Gospel that inspired his heart. There was neither hesitation nor shrinking here, no disguise nor mitigation, no qualifying nor softening of the truth; but with the utmost plainness and point it was applied to the heart and conscience. With a dignity and