Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd
The cheerful haunts of man, to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears
And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur,
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk
Wide-scampering snatches up the drifted snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;
Then shakes his powder'd coat and barks for joy.
Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl
Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught,
But now and then with pressure of his thumb
To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube
That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud
Streams far behind him, scenting all the air."

HARTLEY. That is admirable, and as true to the life as a sun-picture. What nonsense Lord Houghton once perpetrated when he spoke at a public meeting of the "languid grace" of Cowper. Why, there is more manly vigour and pith in the Olney poet's verse than in a dozen of our living versifiers, including his Lordship in the number. By the way, STANLEY, when we commenced our talk about Cowper, you spoke of the cluster of poems which preceded "The Task," as though they had done nothing for the poet's fame, and were, in sooth, unworthy of his genius. I was going to question your assertion at the time, but am glad I did not, as I have since met with a fine passage in one of Wilson's Essays, which, with your permission, I will read.

STANLEY. By all means. Wilson's eloquence and

warmth of feeling often led him to indulge in strong assertions. But let that pass. I am quite willing to have my opinion opposed by so eloquent a writer.

HARTLEY. Listen then humbly, as in duty bound, to the utterance of this wonderful critic. 'Twere shame, indeed, not to agree with Christopher; for, although he often speaks vehemently, sound Saxon sense forms the fuel to his fire ::

"Cowper was a man, not only of the finest and profoundest sensibilities, but of very strong passions, which, cruelly thwarted and disappointed, and defrauded of their just joy in very early youth, shook the whole constitution of his being, and tainted it with melancholy and madness, or. aggravated and brought out the hereditary disease. His later life—indeed almost all his life, after he had reached the prime of manhood-was so calm and quiet in its outgoings to the outward eye, and for the most part was really so indeed: The hearth at which he and Mrs. Unwin sat--the Mary whose tender affection and its uncommon ties his genius has consecrated and immortalizedburned with such a seemingly cheerful and tender uniformity, except when disturbed by thoughts for which at times there was no relief, not even the voice from heaven: The poet was so devoted to his flowers, and his hot-house plants, and his pigeons, and his rabbits-that is to everything fair or harmless in animate or inanimate nature;-His intercourse with the world was so small, it being like that of some benevolent hermit who had sought refuge in retirement from the troubles that beset him in society, without being in the least an ascetic or his sympathies being either deadened or narrowed with the human beings living in another sphere;-All his more serious studies;-(we make no allusion to his religion, which was more than serious, always solemn and too often dreadful), were of a kind so remote from the every-day interests of the passing time, and even from the intellectual pursuits most popular and most powerful for good and for evil, in the

world which he had so nearly forsaken; His ambition and love of fame, which though deep and strong, and pure and high, because they were born and sustained by the consciousness of genius, that, beyond all things else, rejoiced in interpreting the word of God, as it is written in the fair volume of nature, and in the book which reveals what in nature is hidden, and beyond all finding out, were so linked with holy undertakings and achievements in which God alone should be glorified, that they seem to be hardly compatible with any permanent design of busying himself with drawing pictures of passions rife in common existence, so as to embody moral instruction in a satirical form ;-Altogether there seems something so soft, so sweet, so delicate, so tender, almost so fragile in the peculiar structure of his bodily frame-a spirit of cohesion among all his faculties both of thought and feeling so very unworldly, and such a refinement of manners about him, as may not be called fastidiousness, but rather a shrinking timidity, so that, like the sensitive plant, he was, as it were, paralysed by the least touch of rudeness, and perhaps unknown to his own heart, courted retirement the more to escape the chance of such shocks as carelessness or coarseness often unintentionally inflict;-That we are not prepared to think of such a being, if such Cowper were, standing forth a satirist of the follies and absurdities of his kind, no less than of their worst and most flagrant delinquencies, and to see him with a bold grasp shaking the blossom of the full-blown sins of the people. Yet this Cowper did; and his satire is sublime. There is not anywhere that we know of in the language such satires as his "Table Talk," "Progress of Error," "Truth," "Expostulation," "Hope," "Charity," "Conversation," "Retirement." Perhaps we ought to call those compositions by some other name; for they are full of almost all kinds of the noblest poetry. Never were the principles of the real wealth of nations more grandly expounded, illustrated, and enforced-national honour, faith, freedom, patriotism, independence, religion, all sung in magnificent strains, kindled alternately by the pride and indignation of a Briton exulting in, or ashamed of the land of saints and

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heroes. No want of individual portraits of fools, knaves, and even ruffians. The same man, who was well satisfied to sit day after day beside an elderly lady sewing caps and tippets, except when he was obliged to go and water the flowers, or feed the rabbits, rose up when Poetry came upon him, sinewy and muscular as a mailed man dallying for awhile with a twoedged sword, as if to try its weight and temper, when about to shear down the Philistines. Cowper goes forth in his holy ire like a man inspired and commissioned. You see his soul glowing and burning with fires kindled on the altar of religion. He comes strong from the study of the old prophets and, in some of his most magnificent marches, you think that you hear the Bible transformed into another shape of poetry, the essence being the same, nor are the sacred strains profaned by being sounded to a lyre smote by such a hand—a hand uplifted duly, many times and oft, besides night and morn, in prayer, and ever open as day to melting charity." How he sheds sudden day into the midnight darkness of London, lying bare with all her sins and iniquities! The dark city quakes as she is suddenly brightened, and stands confessed in all her guilt in which she dares not to glory, now that the hand of Heaven seems stretched forth to avenge and destroy. There is nothing in Byron of such sustained majesty as Cowper's expostulation with this Queen of the cities of the earth-nor even in Wordsworth. In a comparison or parallel between these two great bards Cowper and Wordsworth, which we intend ere long to attempt, we shall venture on some quotations even from the poetry of the author of "The Task," for we believe that by "The Task " he is chiefly known; nor is it wrong, or wonderful, that he should be-but assuredly in his earlier poems, there is more of the vivida vis animi, even of the mens divinior, although for reasons that will be afterwards given to those who wish or want them, they never can be so incorporated with the read poetry of England. Even as a personal satirist—that is, the satirist of particular views, as they are exhibited in individual characters whose portraits are unsparingly drawn, we know of nobody with whom Cowper

may not take rank; while as a general satirist of that mysterious compound of good and evil, man, we know nobody who may take rank with him, for spleen, rancour, bile, in his loftiest moods, he has none; there is a profound melancholy often mingling with his ire, for he knows that he is of the same blind race, whom he upbraids with their folly and their wickedness; he hates sin, but he loves and pities the sinner; his is not the railing of sanctimonious pride, but, as a Christian, he feels that he does 'well to be angry'; his morality is always pure and high, but his religion is a power purer and higher far-its denunciations are altogether of a different nature, appealing to other fears, and other sanctions, and in the spirit of religion alone will any satire ever be found from the lips of man which, because of its influence on human happiness and virtue, may be named sacred, holy, divine, and enrolled among the other records of immortal song."

STANLEY. Well, you see that Wilson himself owns that it is by "The Task" Cowper is chiefly known, and that it is neither wrong nor wonderful that he should be; and, moreover, I have a better answer still, so far as Wilson is concerned; for, in spite of his fanciful illustration of Cowper's rising up, "when poetry came upon him, sinewy and muscular as a mailed man," and of his assertion with regard to the poet's "sustained majesty," and the vivida vis animi which marks his earlier poems-when I turn to another essay of North's, entituled "A Few Words on Shakspeare "I find him altogether contradicting the bold assertions contained in the passage you have just read, by this simple dictum" the poetry of Cowper wants power."

TALBOT. Well done, STANLEY! Your memory has served you in good stead. I fear it was sometimes Wilson's wont, as I know it is the habit of some living

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