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of infancy to recover almost immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are sorry too for Mr. ——'s dangerous condition. But he that is well prepared for the great journey cannot enter on it too soon for himself, though his friends will weep at his departure.

      Yours,

       W. C.

      The immediate success of his first volume was very far from being equal to its extraordinary merit. For some time it seemed to be neglected by the public, although the first poem in the collection contains such a powerful image of its author as might be thought sufficient not only to excite attention but to secure attachment: for Cowper had undesignedly executed a masterly portrait of himself in describing the true poet: we allude to the following verses in "Table Talk."

      Nature, exerting an unwearied power,

       Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower;

       Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads

       The dancing Naiads thro' the dewy meads:

       She fills profuse ten thousand little throats

       With music, modulating all their notes;

       And charms the woodland scenes, and wilds unknown,

       With artless airs and concerts of her own;

       But seldom (as if fearful of expense)

       Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence—

       Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought,

       Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought:

       Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky

       Brings colours, dipt in heaven, that never die;

       A soul exalted above earth, a mind

       Skill'd in the characters that form mankind;

       And, as the sun in rising beauty drest

       Looks from the dappled orient to the west,

       And marks, whatever clouds may interpose,

       Ere yet his race begins, its glorious close—

       An eye like his to catch the distant goal—

       Or, ere the wheels of verse begin to roll,

       Like his to shed illuminating rays

       On every scene and subject it surveys:

       Thus grac'd, the man asserts a poet's name,

       And the world cheerfully admits the claim.

      The concluding lines may be considered as an omen of that celebrity which such a writer, in the process of time, could not fail to obtain. How just a subject of surprise and admiration is it, to behold an author starting under such a load of disadvantages, and displaying on the sudden such a variety of excellence! For, neglected as it was for a few years, the first volume of Cowper exhibits such a diversity of poetical powers as have very rarely indeed been known to be united in the same individual. He is not only great in passages of pathos and sublimity, but he is equally admirable in wit and humour. After descanting most copiously on sacred subjects, with the animation of a prophet and the simplicity of an apostle, he paints the ludicrous characters of common life with the comic force of a Moliere, particularly in his poem on Conversation, and his exquisite portrait of a fretful temper; a piece of moral painting so highly finished and so happily calculated to promote good humour, that a transcript of the verses cannot but interest the reader.

      Some fretful tempers wince at every touch;

       You always do too little or too much:

You speak with life, in hopes to entertain; Your elevated voice goes through the brain; You fall at once into a lower key; That's worse:—the drone-pipe of an humble-bee! The southern sash admits too strong a light; You rise and drop the curtain:—now it's night. He shakes with cold;—you stir the fire and strive To make a blaze:—that's roasting him alive. Serve him with ven'son, and he chooses fish; With sole, that's just the sort he would not wish. He takes what he at first profess'd to loath; And in due time feeds heartily on both; Yet, still o'erclouded with a constant frown, He does not swallow, but he gulps it down. Your hope to please him vain on every plan, Himself should work that wonder, if he can. Alas! his efforts double his distress; He likes yours little and his own still less. Thus, always teazing others, always teaz'd, His only pleasure is—to be displeas'd.

PART THE SECOND.

       Table of Contents

      Mr. Bull, to whom the following poetical epistle is addressed, has already been mentioned as the person who suggested to Cowper the translation of Madame Guion's Hymns. Cowper used to say of him, that he was the master of a fine imagination, or, rather, that he was not master of it.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.[150]

       Table of Contents

      Olney, June 22, 1782.

      My dear Friend,

      If reading verse be your delight,

       'Tis mine as much, or more, to write;

       But what we would, so weak is man,

       Lies oft remote from what we can.

       For instance, at this very time,

       I feel a wish, by cheerful rhyme,

       To soothe my friend, and had I power,

       To cheat him of an anxious hour;

       Not meaning (for I must confess,

       It were but folly to suppress,)

       His pleasure or his good alone,

       But squinting partly at my own.

       But though the sun is flaming high

       I' th' centre of yon arch, the sky,

       And he had once (and who but he?)

       The name for setting genius free;

       Yet whether poets of past days

       Yielded him undeserved praise,

       And he by no uncommon lot

       Was famed for virtues he had not;

       Or whether, which is like enough,

       His Highness may have taken huff,

       So seldom sought with invocation,

       Since it has been the reigning fashion

       To disregard his inspiration,

       I seem no brighter in my wits,

       For all the radiance he emits,

       Than if I saw through midnight vapour

       The glimm'ring of a farthing taper.

       O for a succedaneum, then,

       T' accelerate a creeping pen,

       O for a ready succedaneum,

       Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium

       Pondere liberet exoso,

       Et morbo jam caliginoso!

       'Tis here; this oval box well fill'd

       With best tobacco, finely mill'd,

       Beats all Anticyra's pretences

       To disengage the encumber'd senses.

      O Nymph of Transatlantic fame,

       Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name,

       Whether reposing on the side

       Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide,

       Or list'ning with delight not small

       To Niagara's distant fall,

       'Tis thine to cherish and to

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