He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks;
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern
Is to conduct it to the destined inn,

And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch!
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some;
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet

With tears, that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh the important budget! ushered in
With such heart-shaking music, who can say
What are its tidings? have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh—I long to know them all;
I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.
Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups,
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in.
Not such his evening who, with shining face,
Sweats in the crowded theatre, and squeezed
And bored with elbow-points through both his sides,
Out-scolds the ranting actor on the stage:
Nor his who patient stands till his feet throb,
And his head thumps, to feed upon the breath

Of patriots bursting with heroic rage,

Or placemen all tranquillity and smiles.

This folio of four pages, happy work!

Which not even critics criticise; that holds
Inquisitive attention, while I read,

Fast bound in chains of silence, which the fair,
Though eloquent themselves, yet fear to break ;
What is it but a map of busy life,

Its fluctuations, and its vast concerns?
Here runs the mountainous and craggy ridge
That tempts ambition. On the summit see
The seals of office glitter in his eyes;

He climbs, he pants, he grasps them! At his heels,

Close at his heels, a demagogue ascends,

And with a dexterous jerk soon twists him down,

And wins them but to lose them in his turn.

Here rills of oily eloquence, in soft
Meanders, lubricate the course they take;
The modest speaker is ashamed and grieved
To engross a moment's notice, and yet begs,
Begs a propitious ear for his poor thoughts,
However trivial all that he conceives.
Sweet bashfulness! it claims at least this praise;

The dearth of information and good sense
That it foretells us, always comes to pass.
Cataracts of declamation thunder here;
There forests of no meaning spread the page,
In which all comprehension wanders lost;
While fields of pleasantry amuse us there,
With merry descants on a nation's woes.
The rest appears a wilderness of strange
But gay confusion; roses for the cheeks,
And lilies for the brows of faded age,

Teeth for the toothless, ringlets for the bald,
Heaven, earth, and ocean plundered of their sweets,
Nectareous essences, Olympian dews,

A German char

latan and conjurer

Sermons, and city feasts, and favourite airs,
Æthereal journeys, submarine exploits,
And Katterfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
'Tis pleasant through the loopholes of retreat
To peep at such a world; to see the stir
Of the great Babel, and not feel the crowd;
To hear the roar she sends through all her gates
At a safe distance, where the dying sound
Falls a soft murmur on the uninjured ear.
Thus sitting, and surveying thus at ease
The globe and its concerns, I seem advanced
To some secure and more than mortal height,
That liberates and exempts me from them all...
Oh Winter! ruler of the inverted year,
Thy scattered hair with sleet like ashes filled,
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age; thy forehead wrapt in clouds,
A leafless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slippery way;

I love thee, all unlovely as thou seem'st,
And dreaded as thou art! Thou hold'st the sun
A prisoner in the yet undawning east,
Shortening his journey between morn and noon,
And hurrying him, impatient of his stay,
Down to the rosy west; but kindly still
Compensating his loss with added hours
Of social converse and instructive ease,
And gathering, at short notice, in one group
The family dispersed, and fixing thought
Not less dispersed by daylight and its cares.
I crown thee king of intimate delights,
Fireside enjoyments, home-born happiness,
And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturbed retirement, and the hours
Of long uninterrupted evening, know. . .

Come, Evening, once again, season of peace;
Return, sweet Evening, and continue long.
Methinks I see thee in the streaky west,
With matron-step slow-moving, while the night
Treads on thy sweeping train; one hand employed
In letting fall the curtain of repose

On bird and beast, the other charged for man

With sweet oblivion of the cares of day:
Not sumptuously adorned, nor needing aid,
Like homely-featured Night, of clustering gems;
A star or two just twinkling on thy brow
Suffices thee; save that the moon is thine
No less than hers: not worn indeed on high
With ostentatious pageantry, but set
With modest grandeur in thy purple zone,

Resplendent less, but of an ampler round.
Come then, and thou shalt find thy votary calm,
Or make me so. Composure is thy gift;
And whether I devote thy gentle hours

To books, to music, or the poet's toil;

To weaving nets for bird-alluring fruit ;

Or twining silken threads round ivory reels,

When they command whom man was born to please, I slight thee not, but make thee welcome still.

(From The Task, Book iv.) On the Loss of the 'Royal George.'

Toll for the brave!

The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore !

Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,

And laid her on her side.

A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset ;
Down went the Royal George
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!

Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.

It was not in the battle;

No tempest gave the shock;

She sprang no fatal leak;

She ran upon no rock.

His sword was in the sheath;
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up,

Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup

The tears that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound,

And she may float again

Full charged with England's thunder,
And plough the distant main.

But Kempenfelt is gone,

His victories are o'er ;
And he and his eight hundred
Must plough the wave no more.

The Castaway.
Obscurest night involved the sky,

The Atlantic billows roared,
When such a destined wretch as I,
Washed headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.

No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast

With warmer wishes sent.

He loved them both, but both in vain, Nor him beheld, nor her again.

Not long beneath the whelming brine, Expert to swim, he lay ;

Nor soon he felt his strength decline,

Or courage die away;

But waged with death a lasting strife, Supported by despair of life.

He shouted nor his friends had failed
To check the vessel's course,

But so the furious blast prevailed,
That, pitiless perforce,

They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.

Some succour yet they could afford;
And such as storms allow,

The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delayed not to bestow.

But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.

Nor, cruel as it seemed, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,

Alone could rescue them;

Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.

He long survives who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;

And so long he, with unspent power,

His destiny repelled;

And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried 'Adieu !'

At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in every blast,

Could catch the sound no more:
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.

No poet wept him; but the page
Of narrative sincere,

That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear :
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.

I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,

To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date :
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.

No voice divine the storm allayed,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatched from all effectual aid,

We perished, each alone :

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

From the Translation of the 'Iliad.' Think, oh Achilles, semblance of the Gods! On thy own father full of days like me, And trembling on the gloomy verge of life. Some neighbour Chief, it may be, even now, Oppresses him, and there is none at hand,

No friend to succour him in his distress.
Yet, doubtless, hearing that Achilles lives,
He still rejoices, hoping day by day,
That one day he shall see the face again
Of his own son from distant Troy returned.
But me no comfort cheers, whose bravest sons,
So late the flower of Ilium, all are slain.
When Greece came hither I had fifty sons;
Nineteen were children of one bed, the rest
Born of my concubines. A numerous house!
But fiery Mars hath thinn'd it. One I had,
One, more than all my sons the strength of Troy,
Whom standing for his country thou hast slain—
Hector-His body to redeem I come
Into Achaia's fleet, bringing, myself,
Ransom inestimable to thy tent.

Reverence the Gods, Achilles ! recollect
Thy father; for his sake compassion show
To me more pitiable still, who draw
Home to my lips (humiliation yet
Unseen on earth) his hand who slew my son.
(From Book xxiv.)

To Mrs Unwin.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings,
Such aid from Heaven as some have feigned they drew,
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new
And undebased by praise of meaner things,
That, ere through age or woe I shed my wings,
I may record thy worth with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,

. Verse that immortalizes whom it sings.
But thou hast little need. There is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look,
A chronicle of actions just and bright :
There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And, since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

On Dr Johnson.

Oct. 31, 1779. MY DEAR FRIEND,-I wrote my last Letter merely to inform you that I had nothing to say, in answer to which you have said nothing. I admire the propriety of your conduct, though I am a loser by it. I will endeavour to say something now, and shall hope for something in return. I have been well entertained with Johnson's biography, for which I thank you: with one exception, and that a swinging one, I think he has acquitted himself with his usual good-sense and sufficiency. His treatment of Milton is unmerciful to the last degree. A pensioner is not likely to spare a republican, and the Doctor, in order, I suppose, to convince his royal patron of the sincerity of his monarchical principles, has belaboured that great poet's character with the most industrious cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the shadow of one good quality. Churlishness in his private life, and a rancorous hatred of everything royal in his public, are the two colours with which he has smeared all the canvas. If he had any virtues, they are not to be found in the Doctor's picture of him, and it is well for Milton that some sourness in his temper is the only vice with which his memory has been charged; it is evident enough that if his biographer could have discovered more, he would not have spared him. As a poet, he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his Muse's wing, and trampled them under his great foot.

He has passed sentence of condemnation upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion from that charming poem to expose to ridicule (what is indeed ridiculous enough) the childish prattlement of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the prototype and pattern of them all. The liveliness of the description, the sweetness of the numbers, the classical spirit of antiquity that prevails in it, go for nothing. I am convinced by the way that he has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopped by prejudice against the harmony of Milton's. Was there ever anything so delightful as the music of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute. Variety with out end and never equalled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank-verse, and how apt it is in the mouth of some readers to degenerate into declamation. Oh! I could thrash his old jacket till I made his pension jingle in his pockets. I could talk a good while longer, but I have no room; our love attends you.—Yours affectionately, W. C.

Economy of Life.

November 30, 1783

MY DEAR FRIEND,-I have neither long visits to pay nor to receive, nor ladies to spend hours in telling me that which might be told in five minutes, yet often find myself obliged to be an economist of time, and to make the most of a short opportunity. Let our station be as retired as it may, there is no want of playthings and avocations, nor much need to seek them, in this world of ours. Business, or what presents itself to us under that imposing character, will find us out, even in the stillest retreat, and plead its importance, however trivial in reality, as a just demand upon our attention. It is wonderful how, by means of such real or seeming neces sities, my time is stolen away. I have just time to observe that time is short, and by the time I have made the observation time is gone. I have wondered in former days at the patience of the antediluvian world; that they could endure a life almost millenary with so little variety as seems to have fallen to their share. It is probable that they had much fewer employments than we. Their affairs lay in a narrower compass; their libraries were indifferently furnished; philosophical researches were carried on with much less industry and acuteness of penetration; and fiddles, perhaps, were not even invented. How then could seven or eight hundred years of life be supportable? I have asked this question formerly, and been at a loss to resolve it; but I think I can answer it now. I will suppose myself born a thousand years before Noah was born or thought of. I rise with the sun; I worship; I prepare my breakfast; I swallow a bucket of goat's milk and a dozen good sizeable cakes. I fasten a new string to my bow, and my youngest boy, a lad- of about thirty years of age, having played with my arrows till he has stript off all the feathers, I find myself obliged to repair them. The morning is thus spent in preparing for the chase, and it is become necessary that I should dine. I dig up my roots; I wash them; I boil them; I find them not done enough; I boil them again; my wife is angry; we dispute; we settle the point; but in the meantime the fire goes out and must be kindled again. All this is very amusing. I hunt; I bring home the prey; with the

skin of it I mend an old coat, or I make a new one. By this time the day is far spent ; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. Thus what with tilling the ground and eating the fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeval world so much occupied as to sigh over the shortness of life, and to find at the end of many centuries that they had all slipped through his fingers, and were passed away like a shadow. What wonder then that I, who live in a day of so much greater refinement, when there is so much more to be wanted, and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel myself now and then pinched in point of opportunity, and at some loss for leisure to fill four sides of a sheet like this. Thus, however, it is; and if the ancient gentlemen to whom I have referred, and their complaints of the disproportion of time to the occasions they had for it, will not serve me as an excuse, I must even plead guilty, and confess that I am often in haste when I have no good reason for being so.

The Candidate's Visit.

March 29, 1784. MY DEAR FRIEND,-It being his Majesty's pleasure that I should yet have another opportunity to write before he dissolves the Parliament, I avail myself of it with all possible alacrity. I thank you for your last, which was not the less welcome for coming, like an extraordinary gazette, at a time when it was not expected.

As, when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the water finds its way into creeks and holes of rocks, which in its calmer state it never reaches, in like manner the effect of these turbulent times is felt even at Orchardside, where in general we live as undisturbed by the political element as shrimps or cockles that have been accidentally deposited in some hollow beyond the water-mark by the usual dashing of the waves. We were sitting yesterday after dinner-the two ladies and myself-very composedly, and without the least apprehension of any such intrusion, in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding worsted, when, to our unspeakable surprise, a mob appeared before the window, a smart rap was heard at the door, the boys hallooed, and the maid announced Mr Grenville. Puss was unfortunately let out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his good friends at his heels, was refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door, as the only possible way of approach.

Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a window than be absolutely excluded. In a minute the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour were filled. Mr Grenville, advancing towards me, shook me by the hand with a degree of cordiality that was extremely seducing. As soon as he and as many more as could find chairs were seated, he began to open the intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote, for which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I had no influence, which he was not equally inclined to believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr Ashburner, the drapier, addressing himself to me at that moment, informed me that I had a great deal. Supposing that I could not be possessed of such a treasure without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first assertion by saying that if I had any I was utterly at a loss to imagine where it could be, or wherein it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr Grenville

squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most loving, kissing, kindhearted gentleman. He is very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair of very good eyes in his head, which not being sufficient, as it should seem, for the many nice and difficult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which he wore suspended by a riband from his buttonhole. The boys hallooed, the dogs barked, Puss scampered; the hero, with his long train of obsequious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves very merry with the adventure, and in a short time settled into our former tranquillity, never probably to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself, however, happy in being able to affirm truly that I had not that influence for which he sued; and for which, had I been possessed of it, with my present views of the dispute between the Crown and the Commons, I must have refused him, for he is on the side of the former. It is comfortable to be of no consequence in a world where one cannot exercise any without disobliging somebody. The town, however, seems to be much at his service, and, if he be equally successful throughout the county, he will undoubtedly gain his election. Mr Ashburner, perhaps, was a little mortified, because it was evident that I owed the honour of this visit to his misrepresentation of my importance. But had he thought proper to assure Mr Grenville that I had three heads, I should not, I suppose, have been bound to produce them.

To Lady Hesketh.

OLNEY, Feb. 9, 1786. MY DEAREST COUSIN,-I have been impatient to tell you that I am impatient to see you again. Mrs Unwin partakes with me in all my feelings upon this subject, and longs also to see you. I should have told you so by the last post, but have been so completely occupied by this tormenting specimen that it was impossible to do it. I sent the General a Letter on Monday that would distress and alarm him; I sent him another yesterday that will, I hope, quiet him again. Johnson has apologized very civilly for the multitude of his friend's strictures, and his friend has promised to confine himself in future to a comparison of me with the original [Homer], so that I doubt not we shall jog on merrily together. And now my dear, let me tell you once more that your kindness in promising us a visit has charmed us both-I shall see you again, I shall hear your voice, we shall take walks together; I will shew you my prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the Ouse, and its banks, everything that I have described. I anticipate the pleasure of those days not very far distant, and I feel a part of it at this moment. Talk not of an inn; mention it not for your life. We have never had so many visitors but we could easily accommodate them all, though we have received Unwin, and his wife, and his sister, and his son all at once. My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May or beginning of June, because before that time my greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it is the only pleasant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and spread the floor with mats, and there you shall sit with a bed of mignonette at your side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I mention the country will not be in complete beauty. And I will tell you what you shall find at your first entrance. Imprimis, as soon as you have

entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on either side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all my Hares, and in which lodges Puss at present. But he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die before you can see him. On the right hand stands a cupboard, the work of the same Author. It was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you stands a table which I also made, but a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament, and all my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the farther end of this superb vestibule you will find the door of the parlour into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs Unwin (unless we should meet her before), and where we will be as happy as the day is long. Order yourself, my Cousin, to the Swan at Newport, and there you shall find me ready to conduct you to Olney.

My dear, I have told Homer what you say about Casks and Urns, and have asked him whether he is sure that it is a Cask in which Jupiter keeps his wine. He swears that it is a Cask, and that it will never be anything better than a Cask to Eternity. So if the God is content with it, we must even wonder at his taste, and be so too. Adieu my dearest, dearest Cousin, W. C.

The standard edition of Cowper's works is that by Southey, with a Memoir (15 vols. 1834-37; reprinted in Bohn's Library, 1853-54). Others are those of Grimshawe (8 vols. 1835), the Aldine (1865), and the Globe (1870). There are selections of his poems by Mrs Oliphant (1883), of his letters by Benham (1884). The AntiThelyphthora, Cowper's first publication (1781), was an anonymous and vehement attack in verse on his cousin the Rev. Martin Madan's plea in defence of polygamy as the only expedient for abating the social evil; it is omitted from many editions of the works. See Lives by Hayley (2 vols. 1803; 4th ed., much extended, 4 vols. 1812), Goldwin Smith (Men of Letters' series, 1880), and Thomas Wright (1892). For the Olney period, compare The Diary of Samuel Teedon, schoolmaster at Olney (ed. Wright, 1902). And well worth reading are Sainte-Beuve's three delightful essays on Cowper, in the eleventh volume of the Causeries du Lundi, and Mrs Browning's 'Cowper's Grave.'

Robert Lloyd (1733–64), the friend of Cowper and Churchill, was the son of an under-master at Westminster School. He distinguished himself at Trinity College, Cambridge, but was irregular in his habits; about 1756 he became an usher under his father. The wearisome routine of this life soon disgusted him, and he attempted to earn a subsistence by his literary talents. His light and easy poem, The Actor (1760), attracted some notice, and was the precursor of Churchill's Rosciad. By contributing to periodicals as essayist, poet, and stage critic, Lloyd picked up a precarious subsistence, but his means were recklessly squandered in company with Churchill and other wits 'upon town.' He brought out two indifferent theatrical pieces, published his poems by subscription, and edited the St James's Magazine (1762–63), to which Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and others contributed. On Lloyd's being imprisoned for debt, Churchill generously allowed him a guinea a week, as well as a servant, and endeavoured to raise a subscription to extricate him from his embarrassments. Churchill died in November 1764, and 'Lloyd,' says Southey, 'had been apprised of his danger; but when the news of his death was somewhat

abruptly announced to him as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying, "I shall follow poor Charles," took to his bed, from which he never rose again: dying, if ever man died, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here: Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense and spirit and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.' Lloyd, in conjunction with Colman, parodied the odes of Gray and Mason, and the humour of their burlesques is not tinctured with malignity. The unlucky Lloyd, indeed, seems to have been one of the gentlest of witty observers and lively satirists, wrecked by the friendship of Churchill and the Nonsense Club. Both Churchill and Cowper copied and imitated his vivacious style.

The two following extracts are from 'The Temple of Favour' and 'The Author's Apology' Lloyd's poems are included in the collections of Anderson and Chalmers.

The Miseries of a Poet's Life.
The harlot muse, so passing gay,
Bewitches only to betray.
Though for a while with easy air
She smooths the rugged brow of care,
And laps the mind in flowery dreams,
With Fancy's transitory gleams;
Fond of the nothings she bestows,
We wake at last to real woes.
Through every age, in every place,
Consider well the poet's case;
By turns protected and caressed,
Defamed, dependent, and distressed.
The joke of wits, the bane of slaves,
The curse of fools, the butt of knaves;
Too proud to stoop for servile ends,
To lacquey rogues or flatter friends;
With prodigality to give,

Too careless of the means to live;
The bubble fame intent to gain,
And yet too lazy to maintain ;
He quits the world he never prized,
Pitied by few, by more despised,
And, lost to friends, oppressed by foes,
Sinks to the nothing whence he rose.

O glorious trade! for wit's a trade,
Where men are ruined more than made
Let crazy Lee, neglected Gay,
The shabby Otway, Dryden gray,
Those tuneful servants of the Nine-
Not that I blend their names with mine-
Repeat their lives, their works, their fame,
And teach the world some useful shame.

The Dismal Case of the Usher. Were I at once empowered to shew My utmost vengeance on my foe, To punish with extremest rigour, I could inflict no penance bigger