NOTE 4.-Page 242, last line.

Or make me so.

The reader can hardly have failed to remark, that in the poet's numerous and varied descriptions of Nature, the effect of moonlight is never introduced as a chief incident, and even by allusion but rarely. The following extract from one of Lady Hesketh's letters is curiously illustrative of this point:-" Our good friend is always low at full moon, and quite different to what he is at any other time; yet with his wit pierces even the gloom occasioned by this planet; for as we returned last night in the coach from an airing, and after he had talked much of the causes and effects of this wonderful planet, he at last, after fixing his eyes steadfastly upon it, said laughingly,

I'll instant write a most severe lampoon,

Of which the subject shall be yonder moon.

He is now, I must say, quite freed from the lowering effects of this said moon; but told me this morning, that he was persuaded there was no human creature who did not experience more or less its effects; and added that if I had any crabs amongst my acquaintance, he was sure that if I attended to them, I should find them always much more peevish and ill-tempered at the new and full moon than at any other time; for he was sure it influenced the temper as well as the brain, when either was at all disordered. I told him my observations had not extended so far, but I should remember his advice, and take care not to irritate my cross friends at the full of the moon. I must add, it has no effect upon his temper, which appears equally sweet at all times."

NOTE 5.-Page 253, line 7 from bottom.

Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers.

"efforts

It has been noticed in the Life, that the more important of his youthful muse," to which Cowper seems here to allude, were lost; in the few that have been preserved, the only verses that even bear upon the text are the following:

Oh! to some distant scene, a willing exile
From the wild roar of this busy world,
Were it my fate with Delia to retire,

With her to wander through the sylvan shade,
Each morn, or o'er the moss-embrowned turf,
Where, blest as the prime parents of mankind
In their own Eden, we would envy none,
But, greatly pitying whom the world calls happy,
Gently spin out the silken thread of life!

BOOK V.

NOTE 1.-Page 260, line 27.

As she with all her rules can never reach.

This exquisite description, elaborated with a curious felicity and miniature exactness resembling the appearances which it delineates, refers to Lavendon Mill, a scene of sweet romantic beauty at the bottom of Clifton Hill, about two miles from Olney. This is still remembered as a frequent resting place in the poet's walks, for it was rural and secluded. The mill, however, no longer marks the spot; it was demolished about twenty years after these lines were written; we have seen its ruins, but are informed that a cotton spinning establishment now occupies its site!

NOTE 2.-Page 261, line 2 from bottom.

Treacherous and false, it smiled, and it was cold.

This description, beautiful in itself, possesses likewise a graceful propriety in the natural transition which it affords, enabling the poet easily to glide into a different, yet by this means, allied subject. The palace of ice was built in the environs of Petersburg, in 1740, upon the marriage of Catherine's favourite minister Gulitzir. According to an account written in the Russian language by Kraff, and published at the time, the dimensions were fifty-six feet in length, seventeen in breadth, and twenty-two in height. The edifice was of one story, of regular architecture, with statues, obelisks, and a portico, which latter conducted into a vestibule, whence folding doors admitted into the only two apartments, opening right and left, each beautifully painted and finished, as described in the text.

The poet here rather oversteps the limits of history. In ancient times, it was proposed to hew Athos into a resemblance of Alexander, and in our own day the Simplon was to have been fashioned into a statue of Napoleon; but both these conquerors desirous-and selfish as they were in the desire-of fame, rejected a gratification fit only for

Infirm and baby minds.

The most gigantic statues of Greece and Rome were for religious or honorary purposes; the vast sculptures of Egypt are, therefore, the only approach, and it is a distant one, to the allegation in the text.

NOTE 4.- Page 266, line 26.

Not to the man who fills it as he ought.

The most dangerous of all political principles, and the most absurd. Enlightened patriotism is attachment, not to men, but to institutions.

If, however, the poet's meaning be-and the passage will bear the interpretation-that every king should strive to conciliate personal, as well as constitutional love, the sentiment is as commendable in itself as it is forcibly expressed. Cowper, though, as appears from his letters, fond of political small talk, could boast of no great share of political wisdom. It was hardly worth while, then, to deceive the "good old king," George III. as to Cowper's letters, lest in reading them the sovereign, whose liberality had soothed the misfortunes of the writer, should have discovered that writer to have been ungrateful. Cowper's whiggery," says Hayley, "was pure and innocent whiggery."

66

NOTE 5.-Page 268, line 10 from bottom.

As dreadful as the Manichean god.

The Manichean creed recognizes two antagonist principles of equal power,-one of good, the other of evil; consequently, both deserving of worship, the former from gratitude, the latter from fear. The author, or rather systematizer of this heresy, who also gave it a name, was a native of Persia, and flourished in the third century. Philosophers and divines have wasted much useless discussion on this subject; the opinion is in reality the native sentiment of all ignorant, unregenerated, and superstitious minds. The refined speculations of infidel philosophy differ here in nothing, save in sophistry, from the miserable rites of the terror-stricken savage of New Zealand.

NOTE 6.-Page 269, line 9 from bottom.

For which our Hampdens and our Sidneys bled.

John Hampden, born in London, 1594, was killed in the civil war in 1643; Algernon Sidney, born about 1620, second son of the Earl of Leicester, was involved in the Rye House plot, and suffered in consequence. The former of these was a real lover of constitutional liberty, in as much as his exertions were ever directed against unconstitutional innovations; and though it be the custom to rank his patriotism all on one side, true freedom is endangered equally by the encroachments of popular right, as by the extension of the royal prerogative. Hampden, and Sidney too, except in the last doubtful act of his life, shewed that they were actuated by this truth.

NOTE 7.-Page 277, line 3.

"It is due to Cowper to fix our regard on the unaffectedness and authenticity of his works, considered as representations of himself, because he forms a striking instance of genius writing the history of its own secluded feelings, reflections, and enjoyments, in a shape so interesting as to engage the imagination like a work of fiction."-CAMPBELL. No one who has contemplated with care the life and character of the poet, can doubt for an instant that the truth of this remark is especially illustrated in the preceding passages, so evidently the history of his early struggles, and lapses, and unavailing repentings. But let not the concluding verses "engage" only the " imagination;" they point to the sole rule of conduct which can secure faltering virtue, or uncloak the hideousness of sin, namely, gospel religion. "Our poets have too frequently deviated into an incorrect system of morals, coldly delivereda smooth, polished, filed down Christianity—a medium system between

the religion of the gospel and the heathen philosophy-where we wander amidst a waste of sublimated feelings, and rise with heated minds, yet feel that something is still wanting. In Cowper, on the contrary, all is reality; there is no doubt - no vagueness of opinion, the only satisfactory object on which our affections can be fixed, is distinctly pointed out. A perfect line is drawn between truth and error; for, as gospel truth is the base of morality, it is the groundwork of his precepts.”. GIFFORD, Quarterly Review.

BOOK VI.

NOTE 1.-Page 282, last line.

Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.

The reader will remark a striking similarity between the general train of thought here, and the opening of Cowper's last projected work, the Four Ages; his own example at the very close of life thus proving

How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again.

NOTE 2.-Page 283, line 10.

And through the trees I view the embattled tower.

"The embattled tower " is Emberton church steeple; hence we perceive the connection between the introductory verses and the subsequent train of thought. Cowper must be supposed to have pursued his usual walk to the uplands, where the sound of village bells comes like a spell over his soul, awakening the undescribable, yet not painful mixture of feelings which accompanies the retrospect of early days. From this reverie he is recalled by the same " cadence sweet," which had roused the dormant fancies of many years, and instantly bursts away into his subject, commencing with a rural landscape reposing under a clear frosty noon after a stormy night.

NOTE 3.-Page 283, line 11 from bottom.

And learning wiser grow without his books.

The local scenery here described is on the grounds of Weston House, in a favourite haunt of the poet's-the Spinnie, or Shrubbery. The entrance was, (for they are cut down,) by a lonely alley, shaded by sycamores and oaks; in the midst of the shrubbery itself stands the moss-house, in which were placed the following verses :

Here, free from riot's hated noise,

Be mine, ye calmer, purer joys,

A book or friend bestows;

Far from the storms that shake the great,
Contentment's gale shall fan my seat,

And sweeten my repose.

The painted board with this inscription being stolen, Cowper substi tuted another, with the lines in the text.

NOTE 4.-Page 284, line 36.

All we behold is miracle; but seen

So duly, all is miracle in vain.

This doctrine of the poet, though abstractly true, would lead to great practical evils. The suspension or interruption of the laws of Nature is properly a miracle; their continuance and regularity bespeak the omnipotence and providence of the Creator. It is of consequence in the scheme of Christian evidence that this distinction be carefully preserved.

NOTE 5.- Page 288, line 23.

Or promising with smiles to call again.

"The effect of Cowper's ridicule is sometimes injured by the acrimony with which it is attended, and the slightness of its objects: he who spent years in making bird cages and rabbit hutches, should have viewed, as no mortal sins, a game at chess, or a morning's shopping."—JEFFREY.

NOTE 6.-Page 292, line 12.

Does law, so jealous in the cause of man,

Denounce no doom on the delinquent? None.

It is different in our day, which is either more virtuous or more hypocritical than the poet's. "Mercy to his beast" is now enforced upon the owner by act of parliament.

NOTE 7.-Page 295, line 18.

And taught a brute the way to safe revenge.

All judicious critics unite in their disapprobation of this episode of Misagathus. It may justly be characterized as the only instance of continued bad taste in the whole writings of Cowper. In itself, it is startling, improbable, and unpleasing; in reference to the general argument, it is inapplicable, and, indeed, contradictory. The entire portion of the book, relative to the treatment of animals, is too declamatory, and as to the insinuation that the use of animal food is sinful, decidedly false. The concluding paragraph, however, following the passage to which this note refers, is feeling, spirited, and just.

NOTE 8.-Page 297, line 14.

Messiah's eulogy for Handel's sake.

This passage was probably written during the revisal of the proof sheets, since the commemoration was solemnized in the summer of 1784, and in June of that year the poet thus writes to Newton on the same subject. "We are much pleased with your designed improvement of the late preposterous celebrity, and have no doubt that, in good hands, the foolish occasion will turn to good account. A religious service, instituted in honour of a musician, and performed in the house of God, is a subject that calls loudly for the animadversion of an enlightened minister; and would be no mean one for a satirist, could poet of that description be found spiritual enough to feel and to resent the profanation. It is reasonable to suppose that in the next year's Almanack we shall find the name of Handel among the red-lettered worthies, for it