cellinus, as compared to that of Cicero or of Livy. A perpetual effort and struggle is made to supply the place of vigour; garish and dazzling colours are substituted for chaste ornament; and the hideous distortions of weakness for native strength. In my humble opinion, the study of Cowper's prose may, on this account, be as useful in forming the taste of young people as his poetry." Poets have almost invariably been charged with adulation, whenever they have ventured to eulogise an individual, however much he may have been distinguished by his virtues and his talents. In many cases, they have undoubtedly richly merited this censure; but there are some honourable exceptions, and amongst this class Cowper is pre-eminently distinguished. Of this wicked and foolish practice he had the utmost abhorrence; and in some instances it may be doubted whether he did not carry his aversion to flattery, almost to an opposite extreme; withholding praise where he knew it was due. The following lines occur almost at the commencement of his Table Talk. After painting the portrait of that most virtuous monarch, George the Third, in language as just as it is beautiful, he abruptly exclaims, "Guard what you say; the patriotic tribe - a bribe! In the character of Cowper there was not the slightest particle of ostentation; on no occasion did he assume any airs of consequence; he never aimed, or wished to be what he was not. Every thing in the shape of affectation was the object of his disgust. He loved simplicity without rudeness, and detested that squeamish mimicry of fine feeling which not unfrequently, either under the assumed garb of superior sanctity, or of ardent friendship, conceals the most pitiable imbecility and ignorance. It must be acknowledged that Cowper sometimes dipped his pen in gall. Some expressions the most bitterly sarcastic are to be found in his poems. Of his first volume it was said, by one of his friends, "There are many passages delicate, many sublime, many beautiful, many tender, many sweet, and many acrimonious." Cowper's satire, however, though keen and powerful as a whip of scorpions, was employed only to expose and punish the openly profligate, and the hypocritical professors of religion. Every thing in the shape of deception he ever held in perfect detestation. The castigation of vice, of ignorance, or of dissimulation, was his object, when he became a satirist. If he held up philosophy to ridicule, it was that glare of false philosophy, which, instead of being beneficial to men, only led them from the plain and beaten track of truth, into paths of error and misery. He never wantonly, for the sake only of his own gratification, inflicted his satiric lash on a single individual. He became a satirist, not to give vent to a waspish, revengeful, and malicious disposition, (to feelings of this kind he was an entire stranger) but for the same purpose as the holy prophets of old were satirists to expose, in mercy to mankind, the hideous deformity of those vices, which have ever been the fruitful parents of misery to mankind. The exquisite sensibility of Cowper, and the real goodness of his disposition, with his entire abhorrence of cruelty, whether practised by man towards his own species, or towards any part of the Creator's works, are evinced by the following striking lines. "I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility, the man By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots, If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth Than cruelty, most devilish of them all! Mercy, to him that shows it, is the rule And righteous limitation of its art, By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man; And he that shews none, being ripe in years, Shall seek it, and not find it, in his turn. From creatures that exist but for our sake, Of what he deems no mean or trivial trust! Liberty has always been the soul-inspiring theme of poets. On no subject has the muse sung in sweeter strains, or towered to more sublime heights. Cowper has given ample proofs that his muse felt all the fire of this ennobling theme. In his Table Talk, some beautiful lines will be found on this interesting subject, so dear to the heart of every Englishman; but in his most masterly production, the Task, he thus sings- ""Tis liberty alone that gives the flower And we are weeds without it. All constraint Their progress in the road of science; blinds To be the tenant of man's noble form. Of that one feature, can be well content, But once enslaved, farewell. I could endure The liberty of Cowper was not, however, that lawless restraint which, under the sacred name of liberty, would burst asunder all those bands that hold society together, and introduce confusion infinitely more to be dreaded than the most absolute despotism. It was not the wild and unrestrained liberty of the ferocious mob; it was the liberty that is compatible with wholesome restraint, and with the due administration of law. It was the liberty not of disorder but of discipline, as will be seen by the following beautiful lines "Let Discipline employ her wholesome arts; And liberty, preserved from wild excess, And fierce Licentiousness should bear the blame!" Powerful as were the charms of subjects like these to Cowper, there were others of a different character which he held as more dear, and ever regarded as more important. Like his great predecessor, Milton, he had made the sacred scriptures his constant study; not so much because he admired the sublime imagery of the holy penmen, (alive as he was to their beauties in this respect) as because he felt the full force of divine truth upon his heart; which, notwithstanding the severe pressure of his malady, would sometimes yield him an interval of pleasure. It was undoubtedly on one of these happy occasions that he penned the following lines, so strikingly descriptive of the refined pleasure with which the christian can view the works of nature. "He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared Calls the delightful scenery all his own : |