limer, as well as more distinct, than "to lie for ever dead in Stygian night with an unfed soul." The elegy "on the approach of spring,' and the following amatory one display great luxuriance and fertility of fancy, but they are too mythological, and have much in them of the young academician. Cowper has here done all for his originals that a master of language and of melody could effect. There is one philosophical piece of remarkable weight and energy, entitled "Nature unimpaired by Time," and a very singular and original one " On the Platonic idea," which are also given with full effect in a nervous diction, and blank verse that rivals Milton's own in stately motion and majestic ordinance. But both these pieces are excelled by that "To his father." A tribute of affection and filial gratitude so reverential, so sincere and simple in its manner, in the views and sentiments it unfolds so dignified and sublime, that great as had been the care, the tenderness, and liberality of this favoured parent, we feel him to have been nobly repaid. What a prospectus of future studies follows the large enumeration of past acquirements in the following lines.

"No! howsoe'er the semblance thou assume

Of hate, thou hatest not the gentle Muse,

My Father! for thou never bad'st me tread

The beaten path, and broad, that leads right on

To opulence, nor did'st condemn thy

The English reader may now compare the poem on the death of Damon with Lycidas. The subject of the two elegies being the same, and the affectation of the pastoral character deforming both, the inequality of poetical merit appears surprising. The use of a foreign language certainly cramped the genius of the poet, many men might have composed the Epitaphium Damonis, we feel that only Milton could have produced a single stanza of Lycidas. Few of these pieces now remain to claim our particular attention; that to Manso does not appear to us particularly excellent. The poem "On the 5th of November," was Kk

passed over by Cowper, as well as two or three smaller ones on the gun-powder plot, from a reluctance to "trouble the dying embers of ancient animosity," which we cannot but lament, however amiable its motive, since it has deprived us of that amongst Milton's Latin poems in which originality, and a kind of epic invention, are most conspicuous.

Deeply penetrated as was our great poet with the love of those ancient masters, in whose languages he was so thoroughly versed, and ambitious as he must have been to extend his reputation on the con. tinent, we ought to feel it as a most fortunate circumstance that he so early formed the resolution of intrusting his principal works to his native tongue, and his fame to the justice of his countrymen. By this very confidence our language has been rendered worthy of its great deposits; no one can now entertain Lord Bacon's apprehension that it should sometime" play the bankrupt with books;" those books have given it stability.

It was a proper tribute to the memory of Milton to render all his works accessible to all; and it is gratifying to see this tribute paid by him most able duly to discharge it-him upon whom, if upon any fell the mantle of the ascending bard, him to whom Milton would have said, though all prior and contemporary poets could have passed in review before him "My son, be thou only my interpreter."

The plan originally suggested by his bookseller, imposed upon Cowper the labour of a commentator as well as that of a translator. The poet entered upon the latter part of his task first, and that is completed whilst of the other, owing to the deplorable depression of mind which so long disabled him, only a very small part was accom

plished. Mr. Hayley informs us, that after illustrating by a running commentary the two first and part of the third book of Paradise Lost, Cowper had resolved to alter his plan, and throw his critical remarks into the shape of dissertations on each book. Two of these dissertations the editor believes to have been actually finished, but to have perished in the confusion of his papers; and the original annotations are all that now remain to us. These are such as make us keenly regret that we possess no more. By many readers they will be regarded as too theologica!; but exquisite is the feeling of poetical beauty and sublimity that they evince, and they contain remarks on the mechanism of blank verse and the diction of poetry, that will richly repay the perusal of every student of the muse.

In notes like the following, we obey with delight the guidance of a critic who, according to his own apt and beautiful metaphor, holds in his hand a plummet capable of sounding every depth explored by the most daring of human geniuses.

"LINE 488. As when from mountain tofis

"The reader loses half the beauty of this charming simile, who does not give particular attention to the numbers. There is a majesty in them not often equalled, and never surpassed even by this great poet himself; the movement is uncommonly slow; an effect produced by means already hinted at, the assemblage of a greater proportion of long syllables than usual. The pauses are also managed with great skill and judgment;

while the clouds rise, and the heavens gather blackness, they fall in those parts der most, and thus become expressive of of the verse, where they retard the rea the solemnity of the subject; but in the latter part of the simile, where the sun breaks out, and the scene brightens, they are so disposed as to allow the verse an easier, and less interrupted flow, more

For ever left the soul-affianc'd maid,

Though his heart sicken'd as he said-
Adieu;

And nurses still, with superstitious care, The sigh of fond remembrance and despair."

"Thrice lovely babe! thus hush'd to rest,
Upon thy warrior father's breast!
Avails it, that his eyes behold,
Thy rosy cheeks, thy locks of gold!
Avails it that he bends his ear,
So fondly thy soft breath to hear!
Or, that his rising smiles confess,
A gracious gleam of tenderness!
The sweetest spell will scarce have pow'r
To hold him for one absent hour!

Some plant that ceases thus to share,
A daily friend's auspicious care,
Relaxes in its feeble grasp,
The flow'ry tendrils soon unclasp,
Loose in the heedless æther play,
And every idle breeze obey!
Thus vainly had I sought to bind;
Thus watch'd that light, forgetful mind,
Till smiles and sunshine could restore,
My often-blighted hopes no more!"

And beats my heart again with joy ! And dances now my spirit light! The skiff that holds my darling boy

This moment burst upon my sight! Nor yet distinctly I perceive

Amid the crew his well-known form, But still his safety I believe,

I know he has escap'd the storm.
I feel as if my heart had wings,

And tender from excess of bliss,
His form, which airy fancy brings,
In fond emotion seem to kiss.
Welcome the wild, imperfect rest,
Which these bewilder'd spirits share !
Welcome this tumult of the breast,
After the shudder of despair!
My Robert he is brave and strong,
He will these flowing tears reprove.
Alas! how little know the young,

The tremor of a Mother's love.

For we are weak from many a care,

From many a sleepless, anxious hour, When fear and hope the bosom tear, And ride the brain with fevering power. But lo! he cheerly waves his hand!

I hear his voice! I see his face!

And eager now he springs to land,

To meet a Mother's fond embrace ! This failing heart! but joy to me,

If heaven in pity is thy guard; And of the pangs I feel for thee,

Protection be the dear reward!"

Possessing, as this lady evidently does in a high degree, the first requisite of a sentimental poet, ge nuine feeling, she ought not to be discouraged by the occasional imperfections, which we shall freely point out. In this instance, if we chasten, it is because we love; what we see already beautiful, we desire to see more beautiful; and future excellence, we wish to assist what appears to us a fair promise of in bringing to its full accomplish

ment.

proficiency. Let the "lines to a young gentleman" find no acceptance; let the "fragment" be coinpleted or expunged, and let not a few pretty stanzas protect "Edgar and Ellen." Ballad is not the province of our author. "The old shepherd's recollections" is a poem full of beauties, it bears the decided impress of a mind much above the ordinary standard, but its opening is neither happy nor perfectly distinct, and there is great awkwardness in so long a soliloquy. Though

we could allow the old man himself

to tell so many facts that he knew before, we cannot permit him to waste his exhortations and remarks "" upon the desert air." The poet should either furnish him with an auditor, or give the narration in her own person. The latter mode would perhaps be the best, as neither the language nor sentiments of the piece have any thing characteristic of an old shepherd; but then we should regret the lines where he describes the feelings with which he was inspired for Osborne, feelings which almost every one must have experienced in the season of ingenuous youth, but which we never remember to have seen so delicately and accurately described before.

We shall oblige our readers with the passage, only premising that there is a defect of grammar in the sentence where the simile of the diamond is introduced.

"Kind, gentle Osborne! half a century

Has silver'd o'er the crisp and yellow locks

Of thy young auditor, but memory still
Grasps the torn record of my weary
life,
And finds full many a page to tell of

thee!

Oh! ye who have a friend ye truly love, One whom your hearts can trust, whose excellence

Was not obtruded boastingly to view, But time and happy circumstance reveal'd,