great things with; and these little things are so fugitive, that, while a man catches at the subject, he is only filling his hand with smoke. I must do with it as I do with my linnet: I keep him for the most part in a cage, but now and then set open the door, that he may whisk about the room a little, and then shut him up again. My whisking wit has produced the following, the subject of which is more im, portant than the manner in which I have treated it seems to imply; but a fable may speak truth, and all truth is sterling." To this letter was annexed the beautiful fable of the Nightingale and the Glow-worm. He also corresponded frequently with the Reverend John Newton, whose fame as a divine had reached London, and who in consequence had been called to the charge of a very respectable congregation in that city. It was through the advice of this gentleman, as the reader has already seen, that Mrs Unwin was induced to settle at Olney; and certainly his presence and kind attention must have been a great comfort to her during the long and painful illness of their mutual friend. Many months of the most melancholy portion of that illness were passed under his roof; and Cowper, whose gratitude never slumbered, did not soon forget the obligation. When he afterwards commenced his literary career, Mr Newton was not only invited to criticise his writings freely, but requested to compose a preface, and stand as it were godfather to the firstborn of his literary children.

*

We next find him engaged in landscape-drawing, an employment of which he soon became passionately fond, and in which, considering his opportu nities and application, he appears to have made to

This preface was suppressed by the publisher, on the ground that it was of too sombre a cast. It was, however, bound up with several copies of the first edition, and has been inserted in all those published since 1790.-Southey's Works of Cowper, vol. iii. p. 2, note.

lerable progress. Men of genius are sometimes accused of affecting an indifference to those studies in which their talent lies, and exposing themselves to ridicule by pretending to arts of which they know nothing. But there was a truth and modesty in our author's nature, that never suffered him to give way to any of these weaknesses. "Amusements," he observes, writing to the Rev. William Unwin, "are necessary in retirement like mine, especially in such a sable state of mind as I labour under. The necessity of amusement makes me sometimes write verses,-it made me a carpenter, a bird-cage maker, a gardener,—and has lately taught me to draw, and to draw too, with such surprising proficiency in the art, considering my total ignorance of it two months ago, that when I show your mother my productions, she is all admiration and applause. I draw mountains, valleys, woods, and streams, and ducks and dab-chicks. I admire them myself, and Mrs Unwin admires them; and her praise and my praise put together are fame enough for me. O! I could spend whole days and moonlight nights in feeding upon a lovely prospect." And again, in renewing his correspondence with his cousin, Mrs Cowper, "You see me sixteen years older, at the least, than when I saw you last; but the effects of time seem to have taken place rather on the outside of my head than within it. What was brown is become grey, but what was foolish remains foolish still. Green fruit must rot before it ripens, if the season is such as to afford it nothing but cold winds and dark clouds that interrupt every ray of sunshine. My days steal away silently, and march on (as poor mad Lear would have made his soldiers march) as if they were shod with felt; not so silently but that I hear them; yet were it not that I am always listening to their flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I was much younger, I should deceive myself with an imagination that I am still young."

E

His epistles to his friends, with some minor poems, in all of which there appears a rich vein of humour, constituted his chief employment until the month of December 1780, when, at the advanced age of fifty, he prepared to appear before the world in the character of an author. At a period of life when the fancy of other men begins to fall into the sere and yellow leaf, his burst forth in all the luxuriance of spring; and at a time when many authors think of resigning the pen from a dread that they may not only outlive but actually outwrite their former reputation, he heroically took his up; and in a state of mind nearly bordering on despair, produced a series of poems which, in point of vigour, variety, and originality, have not been surpassed since the days of Shakspeare and Milton. Mrs Unwin, having experienced how indispensable employment was to her friend's existence, strongly advised him to persevere in a work which, however it might be received by the world, could not fail to have a very salutary effect upon his health. Nor were his own hopes of success much more sanguine. As he proceeded in his task, it is true, he seems to have acquired more confidence in himself; but still he dreaded the prevailing taste of the public, which, whatever might be the consequence, he determined not to flatter. In a word, he became an author as some men become missionaries, less with the hope of arriving at honour and emolument, than of being useful in his generation, and of promoting the interest of a cause, in comparison to which every thing in his eyes and heart was but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Popularity was at best but a secondary object; and he might have said of fame with much more truth than Pope ever could do,

"It comes unlook'd for, if it comes at all."

His course of life, from the time he settled in the country, had been much more that of an invalid than an

aspirant after literary renown. Often unable to support the fatigue of reading, he had engaged in no previous course of studies. When he left London he had disposed of his library, and for nearly seventeen years had seldom perused any thing more systematic than the second-hand literature to be found in maga zines and reviews; yet, with so little preparation, it will be acknowledged that there is no poverty of learning in his pages. But the truth is, persons of true genius arrive at the end and object of all human research by a much shorter process than other men, and, independently of reading, improve by the mere exercise of their own thoughts. Books are but the reflection of things, and he that is in possession of the original -that has the great volume of nature constantly spread before him-feels himself to stand but little in need of the labours of the translator.

66

In

By the month of March 1781, being little more than a quarter of a year from the time he began to compose, he had finished the poems entitled, Table Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expostulation; and soon afterwards, we are told, Johnson (his publisher) heroically set all peradventures at defiance, and took the whole charge of printing upon himself. a letter written about this time, he alludes to these productions with his usual sprightliness of fancy and felicity of expression: "My labours," he says, are principally the production of the last winter-all indeed except a few of the minor pieces. When I can find no other occupation, I think, and when I think, I am very apt to do it in rhyme. Hence it comes to pass, that the season of the year which generally pinches off the flowers of poetry unfolds mine, such as they are, and crowns me with a winter garland. In this respect, therefore, I and my contemporary bards are by no means upon a par. They write when the delightful influences of fine weather, fine prospects, and a brisk

motion of the animal spirits, make poetry almost the language of nature; and I, when icicles depend from all the leaves of the Parnassian laurel, and when a reasonable man would as little expect to succeed in verse as to hear a blackbird whistle. This must be my apology to you for whatever want of fire and animation you may observe in what you will shortly have the perusal of."

It is a common opinion, that certain seasons of the year are more favourable than others to poetical composition. Milton's vein, as is related by his nephew Philips, flowed most copiously in winter, or from the autumnal to the vernal equinox; while the muse of Thomson was most propitious in autumn; but we are much inclined to agree with Dr Johnson, that this alleged dependence of the soul upon the seasons those temporary and periodical ebbs and flows of intellect may be justly derided as the fumes of vain imagination. Sapiens dominabitur astris.

"The author that thinks himself weather-bound will find, with a little help from hellebore, that he is only idle or exhausted. But while this notion has possession of the head, it produces the inability which it supposes. Our powers owe much of their energy to our hopes; possunt quia posse videntur. When success seems attainable, diligence is enforced; but when it is admitted that the faculties are suppressed by a cross wind, or a cloudy sky, the day is given up without resistance, for who can contend with the course of nature!"*

The success of Cowper's first volume by no means justified the hopes of his friends. This may be partly ascribed to the tone of austerity in which many passages in it are written, added to a certain roughness and freedom of versification not attempted by any

Lives of the Poets.-Milton.