a. Your smooth eulogium to one crown address'd, Seems to imply a censure on the rest.

B. Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale,
Ask'd, when in Hell, to see the royal jail;
Approv'd their method in all other things:
But where, good sir, did you confine your kings?
There said his guide-the group is full in view.
Indeed? replied the don-there are but few.
.His black interpreter the charge disdain'd-
Few, fellow?-there are all that ever reign'd,
Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike
The guilty and not guilty both alike :
I grant the sarcasm is too severe,
And we can readily refute it here;
While Alfred's name, the father of his age,
And the Sixth Edward's grace the' historic page.
A. Kings then at last have but the lot of all:
By their own conduct they must stand or fall.
B. True. While they live, the courtly laureate
pay's

His quitrent ode, his peppercorn of praise;
And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write,
Adds, as he can, his tributary mite.

A subject's faults a subject may proclaim,
A monarch's errors are forbidden game!
Thus free from censure, overaw'd by fear,
And prais❜d for virtues, that they scorn to wear,
The fleeting forms of majesty engage
Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage;
Then leave their crimes for history to scan,
And ask with busy scorn, Was this the man!
I pity kings, whom Worship waits upon
Obsequious from the cradle to the throne;

Before whose infant eyes the flatt'rer bows,
And binds a wreath about their baby brows;
Whom Education stiffens into state,

And Death awakens from that dream too late.
Oh! if Servility with supple knees,

Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please;
If smooth Dissimulation, skill'd to grace
A devil's purpose with an angel's face;
If smiling peeresses, and simp'ring peers,
Encompassing his throne a few short years;
If the gilt carriage and the pamper'd steed,
That wants no driving, and disdains the lead;
If guards, mechanically form'd in ranks,
Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks,
Should'ring and standing as if struck to stone,
While condescending majesty looks on;
If monarchy consist in such base things,
Sighing, I say again, I pity kings!

To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood,
Ev'n when he labours for his country's good;
To see a band, call'd patriot for no cause,
But that they catch at popular applause,
Careless of all the' anxiety he feels,

Hook disappointment on the public wheels;
With all their flippant fluency of tongue,
Most confident, when palpably most wrong
If this be kingly, then farewell for me
All kingship; and may I be poor and free!
To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs,
To which the' unwash'd artificer repairs,
To' indulge his genius after long fatigue,
By diving into cabinet intrigue;

(For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation and mere play)

tury. 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 honour

able 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 surprise and their admi. ration-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 be yond 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 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.