morality admits, and sporting with the utmost vivacity and wildness with Thurlow and others, when it was natural to expect that he would have been glad to court solitude for the purposes of study, as well as for the indulgence of his habitual shyness, if, indeed, at this period it was so habitual as we are taught to believe.

Although, therefore, it be inconsistent with the common theories of mania, to ascribe his first attack to his aversion to the situation which was provided for him, or to the operation of delicacy or sensibility on a healthy mind, it is certain that at that time, and when, by his own account, he was an entire stranger to the religious system which he afterwards adopted, he was visited by the first attack of his disorder, which was so violent and of such a length as to put an end to all prospect of advancement in his profession. It is particularly incumbent on all who venerate the sound and amiable mind of Cowper, the clearness of his understanding, and his powers of reasoning, to notice the date and circumstances of this first attack, because it has been the practice with superficial observers, and professed infidels, who are now running down all the important doctrines of revealed religion under the name of methodism, to ascribe Cowper's malady to his religious principles, and his religious principles to the company he kept. But important as it may be to repel insinuations of this kind, it is become less necessary since the publication of Mr. Hayley's Life, which affords the most complete vindication of Mr. Cowper's friends, and decidedly proves that his religious system was no more connected with his malady than with his literary pursuits; that his malady continued to return without any impulse from either, and that no means of the most judicious kind were omitted by himself or his friends to have prevented the attack, if human means could have availed. With respect to his friends, there can be nothing conceived more consolatory to him who wishes to cherish a good opinion of mankind, than to contemplate Cowper in the midst of those friends, men and women exquisitely tender, kind, and disinterested, animated by the most pure benevolence towards the helpless and interesting sufferer, enduring cheerfully every species of fatigue and privation, to administer the least comfort to him, and sensible of no gratification but what arose from their success in prolonging and gladdening the life on which they set so high a value.

To add much to this sketch, respecting the merit of Cowper as a poet, would be superfluous. After passing through the many trials which criticism has instituted, he remains, by universal acknowledgment, one of the first poets of the eighteenth century. Even without awaiting the issue of such trials, he attained a degree of popularity which is almost without a precedent, while the species of popularity which he has acquired is yet more honourable than the extent of it. No man's works ever appeared with less of artificial preparation; no venal heralds proclaimed the approach of a new poet, nor told the world what it was to admire. He emerged from obscurity, the object of no patronage, and the adherent of no party. His fame, great and extensive as it is, arose from gradual conviction, and gratitude for pleasure received. The genius, the scholar, the critic, the man of the world, and the man of piety, each found in Cowper's works something to excite their surprize and their admiration, something congenial with their habits and feelings, something which taste readily selected, and judgment decidedly confirmed. Cowper was found to possess that combination of energies" which marks the comprehensive mind of a great and inventive genius, and to furnish examples of

the sublime, the pathetic, the descriptive, the moral, and the satirical, so numerous, that nothing seemed beyond his grasp, and so original, that nothing reminds us of any former poet.

If this praise be admitted, it will be needless to inquire in what peculiar charms Cowper's poems consist, or why he, above all poets of recent times, has become the universal favourite of his nation. Yet as he appears to have been formed not only to be an ornament but a model to his brethren, it may not be useless to remind them, that in him the virtues of the man and the genius of the poet were inseparable, that in every thing he respected the highest interests of human kind, the promotion of religion, morality, and benevolence, and that while he enchants the imagination by the decorations of genuine poetry, and even condescends to trifle with innocent gaiety, his serious purposes are all of the nobler kind. He secures the judgment by depth of reflection on morals and manners, and by a vigour of sentiment, and a knowledge of human nature, such as every man's taste and every man's experience must confirm. In description, whether of objects of nature, or of artificial society, he has few equals, and whether he passes from description to reasoning, or illustrates the one by the other, he has found the happy art of administering to the pleasures of the senses, and those of the intellect with equal success. But what adds a peculiar charm to Cowper is, that his language is every where the language of the heart. The pathetic, in which he excels, is exclusively consecrated to subjects worthy of it. He obtrudes none of those assumed feelings by which some have obtained the character of moral, tender, and sympathetic, who in private life are known to be gross, selfish, and unfeeling. In Cowper we have every where the happiness to contemplate not only the most favourite of poets, but the best of men.