EPITAPH ON SAMUEL ROSE, ESQ Whose deeds constrain us to detest The day that gave them birth !! Not so when Stella's natal morn Revolving months restore, EPITAPH On the Death of SAMUEL ROSE, Esq. A PARTICULAR FRIEND OF COWPER. 247 ESTEEM'D, admir'd, and lost in manhood's prime : His early summons to the pure in heart. Friendship must weep, though Faith. with blameless pride Tells, how the christian triumph'd as he died. THE COLUBRIAD. [The occasion on which these lines were written is related by Cowper as follows, in a letter to the Rev. William Unwin in 1782.- Passing from the green house to the barn, I saw three kittens looking with a fixt attention on something which lay on the threshold of a door nailed up. I took but little notice of them at first; but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when behold-a viper! the largest I remember to have seen, rearing itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss at the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him, and returning in a few seconds missed him. He was gone, and I feared had escaped me. Still however the kitten sat watching immoveably upon the same spot. I concluded therefore, that, sliding between the door and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the yard. I went round immediately, and there found him in close conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity, being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined her to pat his head repeatedly with her fore-foot, with her claws however sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophic inquiry and examination. To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and performed upon him an act of decapitation, which, though not immediately mor. tal, proved so in the end. Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he when in the yard met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself in any of the out-houses, it is hardly possible but that some of the family must have been bitten. He might have been trodden upon without being perceived, and have slipped away before the fufferer could have distinguished what foe had wounded him. Three years ago we discovered one in the same place, which the barber slew with a trowel."] CLOSE by the threshold of a door, nail'd fast, Three kittens sat. Each kitten look'd aghast. I, passing swift and inattentive by, At the three kittens cast a careless eye; Not much concern'd to know what they did there, Caus'd me to stop, and to exclaim-“ What's this?” A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue. } Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws, Who, having never seen in field or house The like, sat still and silent, as a mouse. Her whisker'd face, she ask'd him-"Who are you?” " No doubt, but I shall find him in the yard.' For long ere now it should have been rehears❜d, 'Twas in the garden that I found him first. grown cat E'en there I found him. There the full That was of age, to combat with a rat, TWO INSCRIPTIONS. These [The following were written by Cowper at the re quest of Thomas Gifford, Esq. who sowed twenty acres with acorns on each side of his house. memorials he erected on the occasion, that, when posterity shall be curious to know the age of the oaks, their curiosity may be gratified. Mr. Gifford ordered his lapidary to cut the characters very deep and in stone extremely hard.] FIRST INSCRIPTION. OTHER stones the era tell I stand here to date the birth |