To show my genius, or my wit,

When God and you know I have neither;
Or such, as might be better shown
By letting Poetry alone.

'Tis not with either of these views
That I presume to address the Muse;
But to divert a fierce banditti,

(Sworn foes to every thing that's witty!)
That, with a black, infernal train,
Make cruel inroads in my brain,
And daily threaten to drive thence
My little garrison of sense:
The fierce banditti that I mean,
Are gloomy thoughts led on by spleen.
Then there's another reason yet,
Which is, that I may fairly quit
The debt, which justly became due
The moment when I heard from you:
And you might grumble, crony mine,
If paid in any other coin;

Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows
(I would say twenty sheets of prose)
Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much
As one of gold, and yours was such.
Thus, the preliminaries settled,
I fairy find myself pitch-kettled ;*
And cannot see, tho' few see better,
How I shall hammer out a letter.

First, for a thought-since all agree-
A thought I have it-let me see--

* Pitch-kettled, a favourite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expresive of being puzz ed; or what, in the Spectator's time, would have been called bamboozled.

'Tis gone again-Plague on't! I thought
.I had it but I have it not.

Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son,
That useful thing, her needle, gone;
Rake well the cinders;-sweep the floor,
And sift the dust behind the door;
While eager Hodge beholds the prize
In old Grimalkin's glaring eyes;
And Gammer finds it on her knees
In every shining straw she sees.
This simile were apt enough
But I've another critic-proof!
The Virtuoso thus at noon
Broiling beneath a July sun,
The gilded Butterfly pursues,

O'er hedge and ditch, through gaps and mews;
And after many a vain essay
To captivate the tempting prey,
Gives him at length the lucky pat,
And has him safe, beneath his hat :
Then lifts it gently from the ground;
But ah! 'tis lost as soon as found;
Culprit his liberty regains,

Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains.
The sense was dark; 'twas therefore fit

With simile t' illustrate it;

But as too much obscures the sight,

As often as too little light,

We have our similies cut short,

For matters of more grave import.

That Matthew's numbers run with ease,

Each man of common sense agrees;

All men of common sense allow,
That Robert's lines are easy too:

Where then the preference shall we place?
Or how do justice in this case?

Matthew (says Fame,) with endless pains,
Smooth'd, and refin'd, the meanest strains;
Nor suffer'd one ill-chosen rhyme

T'escape him at the idlest time;
And thus o'er all a lustre cast,

That, while the language lives, shall last.
An't please your Ladyship (quoth I,)
For 'tis my business to reply;

Sure so much labour, so much toil,
Bespeak at least a stubborn soil:
Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed,
Who both write well, and write full speed!
Who throw their Helicon about ›

As freely as a conduit spout!

Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant,

Let's fall a poem en passant ;
Nor needs his genuine ore refine,
'Tis ready polish'd from the mine.

It may be proper to observe, that this lively praise on the playful talent of Lloyd was written six years before the amiable but unfortunate author published the best of his serious poems, "The Actor," a composition of considerable merit, which proved a prelude to the more powerful and popular Rosciad of Churchill; who after surprising Lloyd as a rival, assisted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper resided in the Temple, he seems to have been personally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the time; and the interest which he probably took in their recent works tended to increase his powerful-though diffident passion for poetry, and to train him inperceptibly to that masterly command of language, which time and chance led him to display, almost as a new talent, at the age of fifty. One of his first associates has informed me, that before he quitted London he frequently amused himself

in translation from ancient and modern poets, and devoted his composition to the service of any friend who requested it. In a copy of Duncombe's Horace, printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires translated by Cowper. The Duncombes, father and son, were amiable scholars, of a Hertfordshire family; and the elder Duncombe, in his printed letters, mentions Dr. Cowper (the father of the Poet) as one of his friends, who possessed a talent for poetry, exhibiting, at the same time, a respectable specimen of his verse. The Duncombes, in the preface to their Horace, impute the size of their work to the poetical contributions of their friends. At what time the two Satires I have mentioned were translated by William Cowper, I have not been able to ascertain; but they are worthy his pen, and will, therefore appear in the Appendix to these volumes.

Speaking of his own early life, in a letter to Mr. Park, dated March, 1792, Cowper says, with that extreme modesty which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, "From the age of twenty to thirtythree, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law; from thirty-three to sixty I spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness; and where, when I had not either a Magazine or a Review, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age commenced an author: it is a whim that has served me longest and best, and will probably be my last."

I

Lightly as this most modest of Poets has spoken of his own exertions, and late as he appeared to himself in producing his chief poetical works, he had received from nature a contemplative spirit, perpetually acquiring a store of mental treasure, which he at last unveiled, to delight and astonish the world with its unexpected magnificence. Even his juvenile verses disco.

ver a mind deeply impressed with sentiments of piety; and, in proof of this assertion, I select a few stanzas from an Ode written, when he was very young, on reading Sir Charles Grandison.

To rescue from the tyrant's sword

The oppress'd;-unseen, and unimplor'd,
To cheer the face of woe;

From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right—a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe;

These, these distinguish, from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind;

Whose bosoms with these virtues heave,
O, with what matchless speed they leave
The multitude behind!

Then ask ye from what cause on earth
Virtues like these derive their birth?
Derived from Heaven alone,
Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where Faith and Resignation join
To call the blessing down.

Such is that heart :-But while the Muse
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,
Her feebler spirits faint:

She cannot reach, and would not wrong
That subject for an Angel's song,

The Hero and the Saint.

His early turn to moralize, on the slightest occasion, will appear from the following Verses, which he wrote at the age of eighteen; and which those who love to trace the rise and progress of genius will, I think, be