not less weighty than those that may obviously be made against the ordinary practice.

The first number appeared in May, 1788, and in the February following Cowper was employed in reviewing Glover's Athenaid. That poet would have thought himself fortunate if he had known to whom this favourite work of his old age had been committed. For though Cowper calls himself a supercilious reader, he was in truth as candid as he was competent. Speaking of Mrs. Piozzi's Travels, he says in one of his letters, "it is the fashion, I understand, to condemn them. But we, who make books ourselves, are more merciful to bookmakers. I would that every fastidious judge of authors were himself obliged to write! there goes more to the composition of a volume than many critics imagine. I have often wondered that the same poet who wrote the Dunciad should have written these lines,

That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Alas, for Pope, if the mercy he showed to others was the measure of the mercy he received! he was the less pardonable too, because experienced in all the difficulties of composition."

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"The Athenaid," says Cowper, to his cousin 61, sleeps while I write this. I have made tables of contents for twelve books of it, and have yet eight to analyse. I must then give somewhat like a critical account of the whole, as critical, at least as the brevity it will be necessary to observe will allow. A poem consisting of twenty books, could not, perhaps, hope for many readers who would go fairly through it; and this has possibly missed a part of the praise it might have received, had the story been comprised within more reasonable limits. I am the more persuaded that this is the case, having found in it many passages to admire. It is condemned, I dare say, by those who have never read the half of it. At the same time I do not mean to say that it is on the whole a first rate poem; but certainly it does not deserve to be cast away as lumber, the treatment which I am told it has generally met with."

Cowper would not have deemed this poem unreasonably long unless he had felt it to be tedious; and perhaps it would not have seemed tedious to him if he had not undertaken to

61 Feb. 4, 1789.

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analyse it and deliver a critical opinion upon its merits. novel, in three such volumes as the Athenaid, is not complained of for its length; and they who cared nothing for its poetical merits or demerits, of which they knew nothing, might have been agreeably entertained by the story, and have found in it that amusement which is all that the generality of readers seek. But Glover had brooded over his hidden treasure too long. More than fifty years elapsed from the publication of Leonidas before this continuation, or second part, appeared as a posthumous work three years after the author's decease. Had it been published while the reputation of the former poem was fresh, it might have pursued the triumph and partaken the gale, for its merits are not inferior, and it has more variety of characters and of incident. But the success of Leonidas, like that of Cato, had been factitious, and though it had hitherto supported itself, it could not buoy up the Athenaid. Glover had been an influential man in the city at a time when parties in the state ran high, and were nearly equally poised; he was possessed of more than ordinary talents and learning, as well as great mercantile knowledge, and just weight of character; and the party with which he acted rewarded his services against Sir Robert Walpole's administration, by extolling a respectable poem far above its deserts. Those passions had long since passed away; the latter part of his public life had been highly creditable to him in every point of view; but it was not of a kind to captivate popular applause, nor was there any knot of statesmen who had an interest in keeping up his celebrity: .. when that has fallen asleep, the temporary interest that may be excited by an author's death, is not sufficient to revive it. His poems nevertheless well deserve to be included in the next great collection of the English poets, and it is to be regretted that the whole of his works have not been collected.

"This reviewing business," said Cowper, "I find too much an interruption of my main concern, and when I return the books to Johnson, shall desire him to send me either authors less impatient, or no more till I have finished Ho

62

62 There is no other mention of his engagement with the Analytical Review in the letters which have come to my hands. But in July, 1791, he speaks of "loose cash in the hands of his bookseller,"-" a purse at Johnson's to which if need should arise he could recur at pleasure."-As S. C.-1.

FF

mer63." Occasional verses, on public events, or incidents arising in his own little circle, took up some portion of his time. These he was fond of writing,.. seeing and partaking in the pleasure they gave to the persons to whom they were addressed, and to those acquainted with the circumstances that gave rise to them. Lady Hesketh, proud of his fame, and eager for any thing which she thought likely to extend it, advised him to think of another volume. He replied, "I have considered, and had indeed before I received your last, considered of the practicability of a new publication; and the result of my thoughts on that topic is, that with my present small stock of small pieces the matter is not feasible. I have but few, and the greater part of those few have already appeared in the magazine; a circumstance which of itself would render a collection of them, at this time, improper. It is, however, an increasing fund; and a month perhaps seldom passes in which I do not add something to it. In time their number will make them more important, and in time possibly I may produce something in itself of more importance; then all may be packed off to the press together; and in the interim, whatsoever I may write shall be kept secret among ourselves, that being new to the public, it may appear, when it appears, with more advantage 649

In another letter to the same dear kinswoman he says, Running over what I have written, I feel that I should blush to send it to any but thyself. Another would charge me with being impelled by a vanity from which my conscience sets me clear, to speak so much of myself and my verses as I do. But I thus speak to none but thee, nor to thee do I thus speak from any such motive. I egotize in my letters to thee, not because I am of much importance to myself, but because to thee both Ego, and all that Ego does is interesting. God doth know that when I labour most to excel as a poet, I do it under such mortifying impressions of the vanity of all human. fame and glory, however acquired, that I wonder I can write at all 65,"

His greatest pleasure was in the society of those whom he the bargain for his Homer had not then been concluded, and he had given away the copyright of his two volumes, this I think must allude to the proceeds of his reviewing. 63 To Lady Hesketh, Feb. 15, 1789. 65 June 6, 1789.

64 April 14, 1789.

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loved. When Rose's visit in the summer of this year was postponed from June till August, he said to him, "a month was formerly a trifle in my account; but at my present age, I give it all its importance, and grudge that so many months should yet pass in which I have not even a glimpse of those I love, and of whom, the course of nature considered, I must ere long take leave for ever.-But I shall live till August." When Lady Hesketh arrived, he said, "This is the third meeting that my cousin and we have had in this country; and a great instance of good fortune I account it in such a world as this, to have expected such a pleasure thrice without being once disappointed67." And after both had departed, at the commencement of winter, his observation was, When a friend leaves us in the beginning of that season, I always feel in my heart a perhaps, importing that we have possibly met for the last time, and that the robins may whistle on the grave

of one of us before the return of summer'

68 "

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But it was his lot, happy indeed in this respect, to form new friendships as he advanced in years, instead of having to mourn for the dissolution of old ones by death. During seven-and-twenty years he had held no intercourse with his maternal relations, and knew not whether they were living or dead; the malady which made him withdraw from the world, seems in its milder consequences to have withheld him from making any inquiry concerning them; and from their knowledge he had entirely disappeared till he became known to the public. One of a younger generation was the first to seek him out. This was Mr. John Johnson, grandson of his mother's brother, Roger Donne, who had been rector of Catfield, in Norfolk. The youth was then a Cambridge student, and made the best use of a Christmas vacation by seeking and introducing himself to his now famous kinsman. Cowper's latent warmth of family feeling was immediately quickened; and he conceived an affection for "the wild, but bashful boy," as he called him, which increased in proportion as he knew him more, and which was amply requited.

Young Johnson had some poetical ambition at that time; he brought with him a manuscript poem of the pastoral kind, entitled the Tale of the Lute, or the Beauties of Audley End, and he produced it as coming from Lord Howard, with his 66 June 20. 67 To Mr. Rose, July 23. 6 Jan. 3, 1790.

lordship's request that Cowper would revise it. Cowper read it attentively, was much pleased with some parts, equally disliked others, and told him so "in such terms as one naturally uses when there seems to be no occasion to qualify or to alleviate censure."-It then came out that the youth was himself the writer, that Lord Howard not approving it altogether, and some friends of his own age having, on the contrary, commended it highly, he had come to a resolution of abiding by the judgement of the author of the Task, a measure to which Lord Howard had indeed advised him. Upon his expressing afterwards, by letter, some degree of compunction for this artifice, Cowper replied, "Give yourself no trouble on the subject of the politic device you saw good to recur to, when you presented me with your manuscript. It was an innocent deception, at least it could harm nobody save yourself; an effect which it did not fail to produce; and since the punishment followed it so closely, by me at least it may very well be forgiven. You ask how I can tell that you are not addicted to practices of the deceptive kind? And certainly if the little time that I have had to study you were alone to be considered, the question would not be unreasonable; but in general a man who reaches my years finds,

That long experience does attain

To something like prophetic strain.'

"I am very much of Lavater's opinion, and am persuaded that faces are as legible as books, only with these circumstances to recommend them to our perusal, that they are read in much less time, and are much less likely to deceive us." With regard to the poem itself he gave him this golden advice, -" remember that in writing, perspicuity is always more than half the battle. The want of it is the ruin of more than half the poetry that is published. A meaning that does not stare you in the face is as bad as no meaning, because nobody will take the pains to poke for it."

This ardent youth took with him, on his departure, several books of Homer to transcribe, volunteering his services in this way; he took also a letter of introduction to Lady Hesketh, who was as much pleased with him as Cowper had been. He had observed with what affection Cowper spoke of his mother; the only portrait of her was in possession of her niece, Mrs.