The strings are swept with such a power, so loud, Before the keen inquiry of her thought, A terrible sagacity informs The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms; He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers; And, armed with strength surpassing human powers, And darts his soul into the dawning plan." To this may be added a couplet, never excelled in its kind. Contrasting the manly strain which he adopts, with the "creamy smoothness" of small poets, he says, "Give me the line, that ploughs its stately course, The first of these lines gives the launch of the noble bird upon the lake; the second, in its first hemistick, and the gasping cæsura, followed by the hard accented "conquering," intimates to perfection the obstacle of the thwarting current, and the power that overcomes, if not without effort, yet without exhaustion. There is another passage towards the close of this poem, (Table Talk,) commencing thus, "Nature exerting an unwearied power." and running through twenty-six lines, in which he displays insurpassable exuberance, beauty, and taste, both in sentiment and diction. Had Cowper's rhymes been all of this order of creation; fruitful as earth, active as fire, fluent as water, free as air, and pure as light, his first volume would not have ap peared, to be seen by no body but his bookseller and his friends. It must, however, be acknowledged, that he rarely rises into such ecstacy. "THE PROGRESS OF ERROR," is not a pleasing poem; but there are some singularly ingenious and grotesque ornaments introduced, to set off a harsh train of reasoning, on a very repulsive subject. Among these may be mentioned the portraits of "Folly and Innocence," of "Gorgonius," of "the young Nobleman and his Tutor, on the tour of Europe," &c. The hatching of "Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid," and the propagation of false opinions in the clause, "No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, Till half mankind were like himself possest," &c. are of another and severer character. "And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way, Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill, This is Hogarth himself in verse, attiring melancholy truth in ludicrous fiction. A book of fables, apologues, allegorical pictures, and conversation pieces, more entertaining and instructive than hasty readers of our Author would imagine, might be selected from these Poems, and the "Task," which is equally rich in such materials. These exquisite little sketches are often almost lost among the didactic reasonings with which they are interwoven. Many of them would be deemed excellent stories, even were they reduced to plain prose. "TRUTH," is by no means so splendid and powerful a poem as might have been expected. It is, perhaps, too polemical; and though its merits will bear microscopic inspection, they fail to strike the unassisted eye with any extraordinary effect. The characters, however, which appear in the sequel, are admirably delineated. The hermit "Girt with a bell-rope which the Pope has blessed;" the Hindoo, kindling "on his own bare head, The sacred fire, self-torturing his trade;" and the sanctimonious prude, "Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips, are portraits so faithful to poor human nature, arrayed in self-righteousness, that nobody who knows his own face in a looking-glass need doubt the family-likeness. "EXPOSTULATION" furnishes a fine example of our Author's talent for parable. "When nations are to perish in their sins, Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, Analyze this. A hireling shepherd is appointed to watch a fountain-he falls asleep on the brink— an enemy of his Master comes, and poisons the stream-the flocks drink of it, are infected with disease, and perish miserably. There is even an underplot, in which he himself acts the traitor, and taints the current with his own infusions. Much of this poem is on state-affairs; and political verse (especially that referring to persons and incidents of the day) sooner loses taste and relish than any other. Indeed, its interest is generally factitious; like medicated waters, the spirit is so volatile, that the draught must be taken off at once, and then it is highly exhilarating; but, suffered to stand, it presently becomes as stale as ditch puddle. The biography of England, as it may be called, from the couplet, "Now borne upon the wings of truth sublime, onward to the line Happy the nation where such men abound," is exceedingly spirited and just. "HOPE" These pieces show the themes of con versation most frequent in Cowper's home-circle; and they are pretty evidently the records, or rather the results, of arguments held with his friends at Olney, on politics and religion. In the poem just named, the paragraph, Though clasped and cradled in his nurse's arms," &c. contains a sprightly, yet affecting illustration of the fact, that the Man may be discovered in the Boy, though the former is then in miniature, and the latter the full size of life. There is a conversation scene, sparkling with pungent pleasantry, which yet cannot be read without shuddering, by any man who will have the courage to think, how many times a-year such dialogues are held by similar characters of every rank, in this Christian country, through the very heart of which lies "the broad road that leadeth to destruction," thronged by multitudes, deceived, deceiving others, but most intent on deceiving themselves, like the gentlemen over their wine, in the passage before us: "Adieu,' Vinosa cries, ere yet he sips, The purple bumper trembling at his lips," &c. Cowper delighted to honour good men and good deeds, though such as the world might not deem good in either case. In this poem he mentions the labours of Whitfield at home, and those of the Moravian missionaries in Greenland-the first time that either had flourished in song, and probably the last personages or themes that a courtly poet would have chosen; or even a religious one, not wholly above |