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NOTE 8.-Page 118, line 13.

And e'en the dipt and sprinkled live in peace.

The Baptists are dipt, the Catholics are sprinkled: the meaning is, all sects would live in peace, if the universally acknowledged principle, charity, were universal also in practice.

NOTE 9.- Page 118, line 17.

Nicholas Machiavelli, secretary to the republic of Florence, in which city he was born 1469, where he also died, disgraced, maimed by torture, and poor, in 1527. His most celebrated work, "The Prince," has rendered its author a reproach, as the apostle of perfidious and tyrannical politics. Its spirit and tendency have in this been certainly misrepresented or mistaken. The whole is a covert satire on tyranny; and tyrants, fearing this discovery, proscribed the book. An opinion once established, however false, becomes truth by prescription, and for two centuries Italians believed without reading the work; the rest of the world took their word on a point in their own literary history. We recommend the reader to peruse only the last chapter of the work, "On the means of freeing Italy from the barbarians," and then to say if the writer be the friend of servitude.

NOTES TO CONVERSATION.

NOTE 1.. Page 128, line 4.

Sips meek infusions of a milder herb.

Critics have admired the dexterity displayed in this passage, and the easy transition in the simile "respecting ladies and worms being driven away by the use of tobacco." It is rather remarkable, however, that two of Cowper's most intimate friends were noted for their "attachment to the weed." In a poem enclosed in a letter to one of these gentlemen, the poet thus expresses his regret for the passage here:

Forgive the bard, if bard he be,

Who once too wantonly made free
To touch with a satiric wipe
The symbol of thy power-the pipe.
May Newton, with renew'd delights,
Perform thine odoriferous rites;
And so may smoke-inhaling Bull
Be always filling, never full.

NOTE 2.- Page 130, line 14.

Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.

Of

Several passages in the present poem, and in Retirement, are interesting as touching upon points in the author's personal character. these, as Hayley remarks," he is here peculiarly severe on what he

considered his own peculiar defect, that excess of diffidence—that insurmountable shyness, which is apt to freeze the current of English conversation." The following little poem, written by Cowper in very early youth, takes an amusing view of this subject. It was addressed to his cousin, Miss T. J. Cowper.

William was once a bashful youth,
His modesty was such,

That one might say, to say the truth,
He rather had too much.

Some said that it was want of sense,
And others, want of spirit,
(So blest a thing is impudence,)
While others could not bear it.

But some a different notion had,
And at each other winking,
Observe, that though he little said,
He paid it off with thinking.

Howe'er, it happen'd, by degrees,
He mended, and grew perter,
In company was more at ease,
And dress'd a little smarter.

Nay, now and then, could look quite gay,
As other people do ;

And sometimes said, or tried to say,

A witty thing or so.

He eyed the women, and made free

To comment on their shapes,

So that there was, or seem'd to be,
No fear of a relapse.

The women said, who thought him rough,
But now no longer foolish,

"The creature may do well enough,
But wants a deal of polish."

At length improved from head to heel,
"Twere scarce too much to say,

No dancing beau was so genteel,
Or half so dégagé.

Now that a miracle so strange

May not in vain be shown,

Let the dear maid who wrought the change,
E'en claim him for her own!

NOTE 3.

Page 134, 9th line from bottom.

Did not they burn within us by the way?

66

Never was the tender simplicity of Scripture language more feelingly preserved than in this passage. Do not our hearts feel all?" For an affecting instance of the power of the original narrative, in St Luke, personally interesting to the poet, the reader may consult his Letters. Vol. I. p. 9.

NOTE 4.- Page 137, line 2.
Ambitious not to shine, or to excel,

But to treat justly what he loved so well.

These lines, so beautiful in their expression of sedate force, are believed, upon good authority, to point to Cowper's father; Hayley, however, states that in his experience he never knew one whose practice approached nearer to the description than the poet's own.

NOTE 5.- Page 139, 9th line from bottom.

Keep still the dear companion at their side.

See the Tusculan Questions and Oration for the poet Archias. The poet's admonition here is affecting, and his argument ought to be conclusive. The soul-engrossing devotedness of a virtuous and accomplished heathen to the volumes of a philosophy, beautiful indeed in idea, but whose themes are darkened, and interests transitory, is a reproach to the coldness with which the Christian regards that book whose beauty is heavenly, whose truth is inspiration, and whose concerns belong to eternity.

NOTES TO RETIREMENT.

NOTE 1.-Page 151, line 18.

Scenes of sorrow into glorious day.

The whole of this passage is happily conceived, and beautifully expressed. We discover, too, an interesting connection between Cowper's train of thought, and Sir Isaac Newton's, who said of himself and his sublime discoveries, that he was but as a child picking up a few stones and shells on the shore of the great ocean of truth.

NOTE 2.-Page 154, line 8.

'Tis God's just claim, prerogative divine.

This is the only passage in Cowper's poetry, where, more than by the slightest allusion, he treats of the subject of love. It is a theme which he appears to have studiously shunned, first in these earlier poems from the dread of awakening recollections of youth, which had cast their sadness, as he himself in youth expressed it,

O'er a long night now coming-that never may end;

and afterwards in the Task from considerations of later occurrence. On his early attachment we shall subjoin here some additional information received since the Life was written. The young lady, Theodora Jane Cowper, his cousin, to whom the poet gave his first affections, is

described as uniting the charms of an elegant person to the accomplishments of a superior understanding. The causes assigned in the Memoir, added to the idea he entertained, that the union of persons so nearly related was improper," induced Mr Ashley Cowper to withhold his consent to their union. A mutual sense of duty determined the youthful pair to suffer in silent obedience; the issue on the poet's health and understanding is known. The lady remained constant; neither time, absence, nor misfortune, could induce her to change, and she died unmarried, seventeen years after her sister Lady Hesketh, in October, 1824. Sixty years previously, the youthful bard had addressed her thus -and received the assurance so solemnly kept.

How quick the change from joy to wo,
How chequer'd is our lot below!
Seldom we view the prospect fair;
Dark clouds of sorrow, pain, and care,
(Some pleasing intervals between,)
Scowl over more than half the scene.
Last week with Delia, gentle maid!
Far hence in happier fields I stray'd:
Five suns successive rose and set,
And saw no monarch in his state,
Wrapt in the blaze of majesty,
So free from every care as I.
Next day the scene was overcast
Such day till then I never pass'd,-
For on that day, relentless fate!
Delia and I must separate.

Yet ere we look'd our last farewell,

From her dear lips this comfort fell,—

"Fear not that time, where'er we rove,

Or absence, shall abate my love."

These lines, and others introduced in the notes, are from poems addressed to Miss Cowper, under the name of Delia, and which that lady retained in her own possession till within a few years of her death, when she sent them to a friend, with directions that the packet should be opened after that event, which was accordingly done.

NOTE 3.-Page 156, line 12.

And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails.

This beautiful passage is extremely affecting, from being so obviously a description of the poet's own case, and of the causes of his retirement. Heberden, the amiable physician, mentioned in the commencement, was Cowper's medical friend while in London, where he was born, 1710, and where he died, at the age of ninety. We knew a pupil of Heberden's who recollected his frequently mentioning the poet with great tender

ness.

NOTE 4.-Page 160, line 16.

Then all the world of waters sleeps again.

These lines on the ocean are magnificent as the subject itself; the simile

That shines and rests, as infants smile and sleep,

which contains more of unexpected, yet natural beauty, than any other

of the same length in the language, reminds us of some juvenile verses by the poet on the picture of a sleeping infant —

Poets, says,

Sweet babe! whose image here express'd

Does thy peaceful slumbers shew;
Guilt or fear, to break thy rest,

Never did thy spirit know.

Soothing slumbers! soft repose,
Such as mock the painter's skill,
Such as innocence bestows,
Harmless infant! lull thee still.

NOTE 5.-Page 163, last line

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The author of the Pleasures of Hope, in his edition of the British "I know not to whom Cowper alludes in these lines, Nor his, who, for the bane of thousands born,

Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn."

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"It is singular that Campbell should have been ignorant of the fact that Voltaire erected a church at Ferney, with this inscription, Deo erexit Voltaire ;' and that to this the lines in question refer."-Manuscript Note on Byron's copy of Campbell's British Poets.

NOTES TO THE TASK.

BOOK I.

NOTE 1.-Page 174, line 9 from bottom.

Anxious in vain to find the distant floor.

Of all our

The deli

The essential character of Cowper's poetry is its truth. poets he is least indebted to imagination for his materials. neations in the Task especially, even to the description of furniture, are almost all portraits, faithfully copied from the realities around him. The original of these lines, for instance, seems to be alluded to in the following extract from one of Lady Hesketh's letters :-"When it proved a wet evening, and we had no temptation to walk, we continued sitting comfortably round our dining-table, without stirring till after supper. Our friend delights in a large chair; there are two of the latter comforts in my parlour. I am sorry to say, that he and I always spread ourselves out in them, leaving poor Mrs Unwin to find all the comfort she can in a small one, half as high again as ours, and considerably harder than marble. However, she protests it is what she likes, that she prefers a high chair to a low one, and a hard one to a soft one; and I hope she is sincere-indeed, I am persuaded she is."

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