“ Observatur oculis ille vir, quo neminem ætas nostra graviorem, sanctiorem,
subtiliorem denique tulit: quem ego quum ex admiratione diligere cæpissem, quod eve-
nire contrà solet, magis admiratus sum, postquam penitus inspexi. Inspexi enim penis
tus: sihil a me ille secretum, non joculare, non serium, non triste, non lætum.”

Plinii Epist. Lib. 4, Ep. 17.

VOL. IV.

Ehichester :

PRINTED BY J. SEAGRAVE,

FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, LONDON.

1806.

LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

DAVIS

Τ

Η

Ε

LIFE OF COWPER.

Y

Let us return from a digression of sorrow, from the grave of Cowper's friend Rose, to Cowper himself in a state of chearfulness at Eartham, in the year 1792!.—Pleased, and enlivened as he was, by the new scenery around him, he failed not to testify, with great tenderness, his frequent remembrance of the friends most deservedly endeared to him in his own village.

LETTER I.

To Mrs. COURTENAY.

Eartham August 25, 1792.

Without waiting for an answer to my last, I send my dear Catharina the epitaph she Voi, 4,

Α .

desired, composed as well as I could compose it in a place where every object being still new to me, distracts my attention, and makes me as awkward at verse as if I had never dealt in it. Here it is.

EPITAPH ON FOP:

A DOG,

BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

*Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one, whose bones some honour claim;
No sycophant, although of spaniel race !
And though no hound, a martyr to the chace!
Ye squirrels, rabbits, leverets, rejoice!
Your ha unts no longer echo to his voice.
This record of his fate exulting view,
He died worn out with vain pursuit of you!

“ Yes!" the indignant shade of Fop replies, “ And worn with vain pursuit, man also dies !".

I am here, as I told you in my last, delightfully situated, and in the enjoyment of all that the most friendly hospitality can impart; yet do I neither forget Weston, nor my friends at Weston : On the contrary, I have at length, though much and kindly