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20 to 33, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law. From 33 to 60 I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review in my hand, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others, a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At 50 years of age I commenced an author. It is a whim that has served me longest and best, and which will probably be my last. Thus you see I have had very little opportunity to become what is properly called learned. In truth, having given myself so entirely of late to poetry, I am not sorry for this deficiency; since great learning, I have been sometimes inclined to suspect, is rather a hindrance to the fancy than a furtherance."

THE Writings of Cowper, though not voluminous, are yet such as have secured to their author no mean rank among the standard poets of his country; an elevation not at this day attainable, without sound and prominent excellence.

The first volume of poems which he published consists of various pieces, on various subjects. It seems that he had been assiduous in cultivating a turn for grave and argumentative versification on moral and ethical topics. Of this kind is the Table Talk, and several other pieces in the collection.

The lighter poems are well known. Of these the verses supposed to be written by Alexander Selkirk, on the island of Juan Fernandes, are in high estimation. It would be absurd to give one general character of the pieces that were

published in this volume; yet this is true concerning Mr. Cowper's productions; that in all the varieties of his style, there may still be discerned the likeness of the same mind; the same unaffected modesty, which always rejects unseasonable ambitions and ornaments of language. He understands the whole science of numbers, and he has practised their different kinds with considerable happiness: and if his verses do not flow to swiftly as the delicacy of a modern ear rerequires, that roughness, which is objected to his poetry, is his choice, not his defect. But this sort of critics, who admire only what is exquisitely polished, these lovers of " gentleness without sinews," ought to take into their estimate that vast effusion of thought, which is so abundantly poured over the writings of Mr. Cowper, without which human discourse is only an idle combination of sounds and syllables.

What has, however, peculiarly given to Cowper the character of a poet is the Task. Though the occasion that gave birth to it was a trivial one, yet he expanded the performance into one of the finest moral poems of which the English language has been productive.

It is written in blank verse, of which the construction, though in some respects resembling Milton's, is truly original and characteristic. It is not too stately for familiar description, nor too depressed for sublime and elevated imagery. If it has any fault, it is that of being too much laden with idiomatic expression, a fault which the author, in the rapidity with which his ideas. and his utterance seemed to have flowed, very naturally incurred.

In this poem his fancy ran with the most excursive freedom. The poet enlarges upon his topics, and confirms his argument by every va riety of illustration. He never, however, dwells upon them too long, but leaves off in such a manner, that it seems it was in his power to have said more.

The arguments of the poem are various. The works of nature, the associations with which they exhibit themselves, the designs of Providence, and the passions of men. Of one advantage the writer as amply availed himself. The work not being rigidly confined to any precise subject, he has indulged himself in all the freedom of a miscellaneous poem. Yet he has still adhered so faithfully to the general laws of congruity, that whether he inspires the softer affections into his reader, or delights him with keen and playful raillery, or discourses on ordinary manners, or holds up the bright pictures of religious consolation to his mind, he adopts at pleasure a diction just and appropriate, equal in elevation to the sacred effusions of Christian rapture, and sufficiently easy and familiar for descriptions of domestic life; skilful alike in soaring without effort, and descending without meanness.

He who desires to put into the hands of youth a poem, which, not destitute of poetical embellishment, is free from all licentious tendency, will find in the Task a book adapted to his purpose. Here all is grave, and majestic, and moral. A vein of religious thinking pervades every page; and he discourses, in a strain of the most finished poetry, on the insufficiency and vanity of human pursuits.

He is perpetually

Nor is he always severe. enlivening the mind of his reader by sportive descriptions. The Task abounds with incidents, introduced as episodes, and interposing an agreeable relief to the grave and serious parts of the poetry. Who has not admired his Crazy Kate? A description, in which the calamity of a disordered reason is painted with admirable exactness and simplicity.

"She begs an idle pin of all she meets."

Perhaps no poet would have introduced so minute a circumstance into his representation; yet it derives its effect altogether from the minuteness with which it is drawn.

The next work which Mr. Cowper published, was a translation of the Iliad, and the Odyssey. The design was worthy of his talents. His object was to present the father of poesy to the English reader, not in English habiliments and modern attire, but in the graceful and antique habit of his own times. He, therefore, adopted blank verse to avoid the restrictions which rhyme imposes.

It is foolish to compare the translation of Pope with that of Cowper. The merits of each are distinct. Pope has exhibited Homer as he would have sung had he been born in England. Cowper has attempted to pourtray him as he wrote in Greece, adhering frequently to the peculiarities of his own idiom, and endeavoring to preserve his strength and energy, as well as kis harmony and smoothness.

THE following extracts from Mr. Cowper's letters, written to his cousin, Mrs. Cowper, are given as a specimen of the Christian temper by which he was habitually influenced. The first gives a brief account of his conversion, and clearly demonstrates that he considered man in his natural state as actuated by a heart of enmity against God, and that his recovery from that state is alone by Christ's atonement, applied to the soul by faith. The second evidences that his religion disposed him to spend his time in the service, and to the glory of his Redeemer, and that he contemned the fashionable methods of murdering time by vain amusements. In the third, his evangelical principles are plainly declared, and the influence of them manifested in his determinate choice to be devoted to God, though the consequence were the world's disapprobation. The fourth discovers a holy sympathy with his religious friends in trouble, and shows that he knew how to direct them to the only solid source of comfort. In the fifth is an account of the motives which induced him to write and publish his poems, and his desire that they might be useful in the reformation of a dissolute age.

( No. 1. )

"I would discourage in myself upon all occasions, even a pride that felt itself hurt upon a mere suspicion of neglect. I have so much