Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

31.

True friendship has in short a grace
More than terrestrial in its face,

That proves it heav'n-descended:

Man's love of woman not so pure,
Nor when sincerest, so secure,

To last 'till life is ended.

XXXI.

VARIATIONS.

-The noblest friendship ever shown
The Saviour's history makes known,
Tho' some have turn'd and turn'd it,
And, whether being craz'd, or blind,
Or seeking with a bias'd mind,

Have not (it seems) discern'd it.
Oh friendship, if my soul forego
Thy dear delights, while here below,
To mortify and grieve me,
May I myself at last appear,
Unworthy, base, and insincere,

Or may my friend deceive me!

This sprightly little poem contains the essence of all, that has been said on this interesting subject by the best writers of different countries. It is pleasing to reflect, that a man, who entertained such refined ideas of friendship, and expressed them so happily, was singularly fortunate in this very important article of human life. Indeed he was fortunate in this respect to such a degree, that providence seems to have supplied him most unexpectedly, at different periods of his troubled existence, with exactly such friends, as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. The truth of this remark is exemplified in the seasonable assistance, that his tender spirits derived from the kindness of Mrs. Unwin, at Huntingdon, of Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh, at Olney, and of his young kinsman, in Norfolk, who will soon attract the notice, and obtain the esteem of my reader, as the affectionate superintendant of Cowper's declining days. To the honour of human nature and of the present times, it will appear, that a sequestered poet, pre-eminent in genius and calamity, was beloved and assisted by his friends of both sexes, with a purity of zeal, and an inexhaustible ardour of affection, more resembling the friendship of the heroic ages, than the precarious attachments of the modern world.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

Three songs written for Lady Austen's harpsichord, •

Page:

.... 54

The origin of the pleasant poem of John Gilpin,.................. 60

.

1783.

26 To the Revd. J. Newton. On his ecclesiastical history;
remarkable mists,

27 To the same. On religious zeal,

28 To the same.
Dutch,..

29 To the same.

Gibbon, ...

Letter.

Page.

40 To the same. Account of Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton,

[ocr errors]

147

1784.

[blocks in formation]
[ocr errors]
« PoprzedniaDalej »