The first volume of poems, which he published, consists of various pieces, on various subjects. It seems that he had been assiduous in cultivating a turn for grave and argumentative versification, on moral and ethical topics. Of this kind is the Table Talk, and several other pieces in the collection.

It would be absurd to give one general character of the pieces that were published in this volume: yet this is true concerning Mr. Cowper's productions; that in all the varieties of his style there may still be discerned the likeness and impression of the same mind; the same unaffected modesty which always rejects unseasonable ambitions and ornaments of language; the same easy vigour; the same serene and cheerful hope derived from a steady and unshaken faith in the principles of christianity.

I am not prepared to affirm that Mr. Cowper derives any praise from the choice and elegance of his words; but he has the higher praise of having chosen them without affectation. He appears to have used them as he found them; neither introducing fastidious refinements, nor adhering to obsolete barbarisms. He understands the whole science of numbers, and he has practised their different kinds with considerable happiness; and if his verses do not flow so softly as the delicacy of a modern ear requires, that roughness, which is objected to his poetry, is

his choice, not his defect.

But this sort of critics,

who admire only what is exquisitely polished, these lovers of "gentleness without sinews,"* ought to take into their estimate the vast effusion of thought which is so abundantly poured over the writings of Mr. Cowper, without which human discourse is only an idle combination of sounds and syllables.

After an interval of a few years, his Task was ushered into the world. The occasion that gave birth to it was a trivial one. A lady had requested him to write a piece in blank verse, and gave him the sofa for his subject. This he expanded into one of the finest moral poems of which the English language has been productive.

It is written in blank verse, of which the construction, though in some respects resembling Milton's, is truly original and characteristic. It is not too stately for familiar description, nor too depressed for sublime and elevated imagery. If it has any fault, it is that of being too much laden with idiomatic expression, a fault which the author, in the rapidity with which his ideas and his utterance seem to have flowed, very naturally incurred.

In this poem his fancy ran with the most excursive freedom. The poet enlarges upon his topics, and confirms his argument by every variety of illustra

* Dr. Sprat's Life of Cowley.

tion. He never, however, dwells upon them too long, and leaves off in such a manner, that it seems, it was in his power to have said more.

The arguments of the poem are various. The works of nature, the associations with which they exhibit themselves, the designs of Providence and the passions of men. Of one advantage the writer has amply availed himself. The work not being rigidly confined to any precise subject, he has indulged himself in all the laxity and freedom of a miscellaneous poem. Yet he has still adhered so faithfully to the general laws of congruity, that whether he inspires the softer affections into his reader, or delights him with keen and playful raillery, or discourses on the ordinary manners of human nature, or holds up the bright pictures of religious consolation to his mind, he adopts, at pleasure, a diction just and appropriate, equal in elevation to the sacred effusions of Christian rapture, and sufficiently easy and familiar for descriptions of domestic life; skilful alike in soaring without effort and descending without meanness.

He who desires to put into the hands of youth a poem, which, not destitute of poetic embellishment, is free from all matter of a licentious tendency, will find in the Task a book adapted to his purpose. It would be the part of an absurd and extravagant austerity, to condemn those poetical productions in which

the passion of love constitutes the primary feature.... In every age that passion has been the concernment of life, the theme of the poet, the plot of the stage. Yet there is a sort of amorous sensibility, bordering almost on morbid enthusiasm, which the youthful mind too frequently imbibes from the glowing sentiments of the poets. Their genius describes, in the most splendid colours, the operations of a passion which requires rebuke instead of incentive, and leads to the most grovelling sensuality the enchantments of a rich and creative imagination. But in the Task of Cowper, there is no licentiousness of description. All is grave, and majestic, and moral. A vein of religious thinking pervades every page, and he discourses, in a strain of the most finished poetry, on the insufficiency and vanity of human pursuits.

Nor is he always severe. He is perpetually enlivening the mind of his readers by sportive descriptions, and by representing, in elevated measures, ludicrous objects and circumstances, a species of the mock-heroic of which Philips was the first author. In this latter sort of style Mr. Cowper has displayed great powers of versification, and great talents for humour. Of this the historical account he has given of chairs, in the first book of the Task, is a striking specimen.

The attention, however, is the most detained by those passages, in which the charms of rural life, and

the endearments of domestic retirement, are pourtrayed. It is in vain to search in any poet of ancient or modern times for more pathetic touches of representation. The Task abounds with incidents, introduced as episodes, and interposing an agreeable relief to the grave and serious parts of the poetry. Who has not admired his crazy Kate? A description in which the calamity of a disordered reason is painted with admirable exactness and simplicity.

"She begs an idle pin of all she meets."

I know of no poets who would have introduced so minute a circumstance into his representation; yet who is there that does not perceive that it derives its effect altogether from the minuteness with which it is drawn?

It were an endless task to point out the beauties of the poem. It is now established in its reputation, and, by universal consent, it has given Cowper a very high place among the English poets.