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LXVII.

[By the works of the law shall no flesh living be justified. Self advancement an idolatry—a robbing of Christ.]

GRACE, triumphant in the throne,

Scorns a rival, reigns alone.

Come, and bow beneath her sway,
Cast your idol-works away.

Works of man, when made his plea,
Never shall accepted be;

Fruits of pride (vain-glorious worm!)
Are the best he can perform.

Self, the god his soul adores,
Influences all his powers;
Jesus is a slighted name,
Self-advancement all his aim :
But when God the Judge shall come,
To pronounce the final doom,

Then for rocks and hills to hide
All his works and all his pride!

Still the boasting heart replies,
What the worthy and the wise,
Friends to temperance and peace,
Have not these a righteousness?
Banish every vain pretence
Built on human excellence;
Perish every thing in man,
But the grace that never can.

LXVIII.

[God's providence mysterious, but ever merciful. Our own unbelief only can deprive us of this comfortable assurance. This is the last hymn composed by Cowper; his spirit had been darkening daily, till late in the autumn of 1772, when during one of his latest walks he composed these noble verses. The face of that nature which he loved, and of the Creator whom he thus praised, were to be hid from his sight for many years.]

GOD moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform ;
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,
The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace:
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,*
And scan his work in vain :
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

* John, xiii. 7.

NOTES TO TABLE TALK.

NOTE 1.- Page 1, line 6.

The laurel the very lightning spares.

Naturalists describe and class upwards of forty different species of laurel; but in all the quality of being a preservative against lightning, exists as a poetical attribute only. Both antiquity, however, and poetry have hallowed a superstition which probably derived its birth from the purposes to which the latter dedicated the shrub: there the belief is no fiction,

For the true laurel wreath which glory weaves,
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves!

NOTE 2.- Page 1, line 13.

BYRON.

Laurels, drench'd in pure Parnassian dews.

The whole of this spirited paragraph was an afterthought, added while the manuscript lay with the printer, but before it had been put to press. In the third line of the author's copy, as transmitted in a letter to Newton, the expression is the noblest, instead of unshaken in the printed poem. In his original writings, when once finished, few writers appear to have altered less than Cowper." Touching and retouching,' he indeed confesses to be his secret of writing well;" but it was during the progress of composition only that he thus laboured; a poem fairly transcribed was dismissed from his mind. Hence we are able to

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trace a very small number of emendations in his proof sheets, and hardly any difference between his own editions of his works. The few corrections, however, or alterations, now to be ascertained evince consummate taste; while the additions, as in the present instance, are always such as the world would regret to have lost.

NOTE 3. Page 2, line 4 from bottom.

Oh bright occasions of dispensing good.

This beautiful passage was written as descriptive of the character of George III. However some readers may differ in their estimate of its truth as applicable to the princely qualities of that monarch, few will doubt that it is a just tribute to the household virtues of the man.

NOTE 4.- Page 3, line 27.

Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale.

"The tale from Quevedo," says Hayley, "I have frequently heard recited by a judge of the most delicate discernment, as a very striking example of Cowper's talent for lively narration." Quevedo, a Spanish poet and miscellaneous writer, was born in 1580, at Madrid, where he died, aged sixty-five. The "Visions of Hell," whence the scene in the text is taken, and the "Comic Tales," the most esteemed of his writings, have been both translated into English.

NOTE 5. Page 5, line 5.

To be the table talk of clubs up stairs.

In London, whence all Cowper's ideas of public life are taken, and to which alone almost all his notions of political events have reference, the ground floor even in the meanest streets is applied to the grand purpose of traffic, hence "clubs up stairs."

NOTE 6. Page 5, line 6 from bottom.

Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay.

There is much quaint and humorous propriety in the selection of these names" to turn the course of Helicon." Brindley, a self-taught engineer, who was born in 1716, and died in 1772, is well known as the original constructor of several of the principal canals in England, and of the famous aqueduct over the Irwell. He used to say, that nature made rivers only as feeders to canals. His great patron in these undertakings was the Duke of Bridgewater.

NOTE 7.- Page 6, line 12 from bottom.

Thus with a rigour, for his good design'd.

"The modest author himself has confessed to me his own partiality to the verses in Table Talk which describe the character of a Briton." HAYLEY.

NOTE 8.- Page 7, line 7.

Born in a climate softer far than ours.

This description now applies neither to the survivor of the republic or the empire, nor to the Frenchman under a citizen king. What an awful ordeal has France passed through during the fifty years since the first publication of these verses! Yet from alternations of licence and despotism-of glory and abasement-of misery and exultation-of reckless despair and noble exertion, unparalleled in the history of nations, what has she gained? Nothing. Her people have become less gay without being more serious; her rulers not less absolute, but more oppressive; and her government, though more democratic, is not so liberal. The last explains the former inconsistencies. France has sacrificed to the idol Equality, the blood, the treasure, and the toil which should have been consecrated at the shrine of Liberty. Her fate reads a lesson to every country that would extend legislative powers to the many.

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When Tumult lately burst his prison door.

These lines allude to the riots of the Protestant association, instigated by Lord George Gordon in the winter of 1780, by which the metropolis was threatened with destruction:

And blazing London seem'd a second Troy.

NOTE 10. Page 9, line 7 from bottom.

Though the chief actor died upon the stage.

William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, born on the 15th November, 1708, fainted in the House of Peers 7th April, 1778, while in the act of speaking to persuade the Lords to vote against the Duke of Richmond's motion for recognizing the independence of the American colonies. From this shock he never recovered, but expired on the 11th of May following; thus it may with justice be said that he died upon the stage." "Were these to be my last words," he exclaimed, "I would lift up my voice against the dismemberment of this ancient and most noble monarchy." They were his last words-and uttered in vain! Demosthenes is here introduced with great propriety, since Chatham formed himself upon the model, and more than once transcribed with his own hands the favourite orations of the Athenian.

NOTE 11.- Page 10, line 13.

So Gideon earn'd a victory not his own.

Cowper excells all modern poets, Milton hardly excepted, in the propriety and beauty of his scriptural illustrations. It must, however, be confessed that this, the first example which occurs in his works, is neither happily imagined nor well applied. It is true, the most exalted of mortal agents is nothing more than a humble instrument of the divine will. But between the sufficiency of means and the consciousness of free agency permitted to man in the ordinary workings of Providence, and the prescribed and miraculous employment of Gideon, with contrivance so inadequate, so evidently beyond the course of nature, there can be no analogy in reason, in religion, or in poetry.

NOTE 12.- Page 10, line 15.

Poor England! thou art a devoted deer.

This alludes to the armed neutrality of the European powers formed in the autumn of 1780, by which they engaged to assist each other in resisting the right of searching neutral vessels claimed by Great Britain. The author, speaking of this very passage, has the following remark in one of his private letters. "As to the neutralities, I really think the Russian virago an impertinent puss for meddling with us, and engaging half a score of kittens of her acquaintance to scratch the poor old Lion, who, if he has been insolent in his day, has probably acted no otherwise than they themselves would have acted in his circumstances, and with his power to imbolden them."-March 5, 1781.

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