My daughter-once the comfort of my age! Lured by a villain from her native home, Is cast, abandoned, on the world's wide stage, And doomed in scanty poverty to roam. My tender wife-sweet soother of my care! Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree, Fell-lingering fell, a victim to despair, And left the world to wretchedness and me. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man! Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door, Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span; Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store. SIR WILLIAM JONES. "It is not Sir William Jones's poetry,' says Mr Southey, 'that can perpetuate his name.' This is true: it was as an oriental scholar and legislator, an enlightened lawyer and patriot, that he earned Sir William Jones. his laurels. His varied learning and philological researches he was master of twenty-eight languages-were the wonder and admiration of his contemporaries. Sir William was born in London in 1746. His father was an eminent mathematician, but died when his son was only three years of age. The care of educating young Jones devolved upon his mother, who was well qualified for the duty by her virtues and extensive learning. When in his fifth year, the imagination of the young scholar was caught by the sublime description of the angel in the tenth chapter of the Apocalypse, and the impression was never effaced. In 1753 he was placed at Harrow School, where he continued nearly ten years, and became an accomplished and critical classical scholar. He did not confine himself merely to the ancient authors usually studied, but added a knowledge of the Arabic characters, and acquired sufficient Hebrew to read the Psalms. In 1764 he was entered of University College, Oxford. Here his taste for oriental literature continued, and he engaged a native of Aleppo, whom he had discovered in London, to act as his preceptor. He also assidu ously perused the Greek poets and historians. In his nineteenth year, Jones accepted an offer to be private tutor to Lord Althorp, afterwards Earl Spencer. A fellowship at Oxford was also conferred upon him, and thus the scholar was relieved from the fear of want, and enabled to pursue his favourite and unremitting studies. An opportunity of displaying one branch of his acquirements was afforded in 1768. The king of Denmark in that year visited England, and brought with him an eastern manuscript, containing the life of Nadir Shah, which he wished translated into French. Jones executed this arduous task, being, as Lord Teignmouth, his biographer, remarks, the only oriental scholar in England adequate to the performance. He still continued in the noble family of Spencer, and in 1769 accompanied his pupil to the continent. Next year, feeling anxious to attain an independent station in life, he entered himself a student of the Temple, and, applying himself with his characteristic ardour to his new profession, he contemplated with pleasure the 'stately edifice of the laws of England,' and mastered their most important principles and details. In 1774, he published Commentaries on Asiatic Poetry, but finding that jurisprudence was a jealous mistress, and would not admit the eastern muses to participate in his attentions, he devoted himself for some years exclusively to his legal studies. A patriotic feeling was mingled with this resolution. Had I lived at Rome or Athens,' he said, 'I should have preferred the labours, studies, and dangers of their orators and illustrious citizens-connected as they were with banishment and even death-to the groves of the poets or the gardens of the philosophers. Here I adopt the same resolution. The constitution of England is in no respect inferior to that of Rome or Athens.' Jones now practised at the bar, and was appointed one of the Commissioners of Bankrupts. In 1778, he published a translation of the speeches of Isæus, in causes concerning the law of succession to property at Athens, to which he added notes and a commentary. The stirring events of the time in which he lived were not beheld without strong interest by this accomplished scholar. He was decidedly opposed to the American war and to the slave-trade, then so prevalent, and in 1781 he produced his noble Alcaic Ode, animated by the purest spirit of patriotism, and a high strain of poetical enthusiasm. He was appointed one of the judges of the supreme court at Fort William, in Bengal, and the honour of knighthood was conferred upon him. He married the daughter of Dr Shipley, bishop of St Asaph; and in April 1783, in his thirty-seventh year, he embarked for India, never to return. Sir William Jones entered upon his judicial functions with all the advantages of a high reputation, unsullied integrity, disinterested benevolence, and unwearied perseverance. In the intervals of leisure from his duties, he directed his attention to scientific objects, and established a society in Calcutta to promote inquiries by the ingenious, and to concentrate the knowledge to be collected in Asia. In 1784, his health being affected by the climate and the closeness of his application, he made a tour through various parts of India, in the course of which he wrote The Enchanted Fruit, or Hindoo Wife, a poetical tale, and a Treatise on the Gods of Greece, Italy, and India. He also studied the Sanscrit language, being unwilling to continue at the mercy of the Pundits, who dealt out Hindoo law as they pleased. Some translations from oriental authors, and original poems and essays, he contributed to a periodical established at Calcutta, entitled The Asiatic Miscellany. He meditated an epic poem on the Discovery of England by Brutus, and had matured his design so far as to write the arguments of the intended books of his epic, but the poem itself he did not live to attempt. In 1789, Sir William translated an ancient Indian drama, Sacontala, or the Fatal Ring, which exhibits a picture of Hindoo manners in the century preceding the Christian era. He engaged to compile a digest of Hindoo and Mohammedan laws; and in 1794 he translated the Ordinances of Menu, or the Hindoo system of duties, religious and civil. His motive to this task, like his inducement to the digest, was to aid the benevolent intentions of our legislature in securing to the natives, in a qualified degree, the administration of justice by their own laws. Eager to accomplish his digest, Sir William Jones remained in India after the delicate health of Lady Jones compelled her departure in December 1793. He proposed to follow her in the ensuing season, but in April he was seized with inflammation of the liver, which terminated fatally, after an illness of one week, on the 27th of April 1794. Every honour was paid to his remains, and the East India Company erected a monument to his memory in St Paul's Cathedral. The attainments of Sir William Jones were so profound and various, that it is difficult to conceive how he had comprised them in his short life of forty-eight years. As a linguist, he has probably never been surpassed; for his knowledge extended to a critical study of the literature and antiquities of various nations. As a lawyer, he had attained to a high rank in England, and he was the Justinian of India. In general science, there were few departments of which he was ignorant: in chemistry, mathematics, botany, and music, he was equally proficient. With respect to the division of his time, Sir William Jones had written in India, on a small piece of paper, the following lines: Sir Edward Coke: Six hours in sleep, in law's grave study six, Four spend in prayer-the rest on nature fix. Rather: Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven, The poems of Sir William Jones have been collected and printed in two small volumes. An early collection was published by himself, dedicated to the Countess Spencer, in 1772. They consist of a few original pieces in English and Latin, and translations, from Petrarch and Pindar; paraphrases of Turkish and Chinese odes, hymns on subjects of Hindoo mythology, Indian Tales, and a few songs from the Persian. Of these, the beautiful lyric from Hafiz is the most valuable. The taste of Sir William Jones was early turned towards eastern poetry, in which he was captivated with new images, expressions, and allegories, but there is a want of chasteness and simplicity in most of these productions. The name of their illustrious author 'reflects credit,' as Campbell remarks, 'on poetical biography, but his secondary fame as a composer shews that the palm of poetry is not likely to be won, even by great genius, without exclusive devotion to the pursuit.' As respects sleep, the example of Sir Walter Scott may be added to that of Sir William Jones, for the great novelist has stated that he required seven hours of total unconsciousness to fit him for the duties of the day. An Ode, in Imitation of Alcæus. What constitutes a state? Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound, Not cities proud with spires and turrets crowned; Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; With powers as far above dull brutes endued As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude; But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain, And crush the tyrant while they rend the chain: And sovereign Law, that state's collected will, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill; And e'en the all-dazzling Crown Such was this heaven-loved isle, Than Lesbos fairer, and the Cretan shore ! Those sweet rewards, which decorate the brave, 'Tis folly to decline, And steal inglorious to the silent grave. A Persian Song of Hafiz. Sweet maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight, Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow, Oh! when these fair perfidious maids, In vain with love our bosoms glow: Can all our tears, can all our sighs, New lustre to those charms impart? Can cheeks, where living roses blow, Where nature spreads her richest dyes, Require the borrowed gloss of art? Speak not of fate: ah! change the theme, Though fools spurn Hymen's gentle powers, Our babes shall richest comforts bring; While they our wisest hours engage, No borrowed joys, they're all our own, While to the world we live unknown, Or by the world forgot: Monarchs we envy not your state; We look with pity on the great, And bless our humbler lot. Our portion is not large, indeed; But then how little do we need ! For nature's calls are few: In this the art of living lies, To want no more than may suffice, And make that little do. We'll therefore relish with content Whate'er kind Providence has sent, Nor aim beyond our power; For, if our stock be very small, 'Tis prudence to enjoy it all, Nor lose the present hour. To be resigned when ills betide, And pleased with favours given; Whose fragrance smells to heaven. We'll ask no long-protracted treat, Thus, hand in hand, through life we'll go ; Its checkered paths of joy and woe With cautious steps we 'll tread; Quit its vain scenes without a tear, Without a trouble or a fear, And mingle with the dead: While conscience, like a faithful friend, Shall through the gloomy vale attend, And cheer our dying breath; Shall, when all other comforts cease, Like a kind angel, whisper peace, And smooth the bed of death. WILLIAM COWPER. WILLIAM COWPER, 'the most popular poet of his generation, and the best of English letter-writers,' as Mr Southey has designated him, belonged emphatically to the aristocracy of England. His father, the Rev. Dr Cowper, chaplain to George II., was William Cowper. the son of Spencer Cowper, one of the judges of the court of Common Pleas, and a younger brother of the first Earl Cowper, lord chancellor. His mother was allied to some of the noblest families in England, descended by four different lines from King Henry III. This lofty lineage cannot add to the lustre of the poet's fame, but it sheds additional grace on his piety and humility. Dr Cowper, besides his royal chaplaincy, held the rectory of Great Berkhamstead, in the county of Hertford, and there the poet was born, November 15, 1731. In his sixth year he lost his mother-whom he tenderly and affectionately remembered through all his life-and was placed at a boarding-school, where he continued two years. The tyranny of one of his school-fellows, who held in complete subjection and abject fear the timid and home-sick boy, led to his removal from this seminary, and undoubtedly prejudiced him against the whole system of public education. He was next placed at Westminster School, where, as he says, he served a seven years' apprenticeship to the classics; and at the age of eighteen was removed, in order to be articled to an attorney. Having passed through this training -with the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow for his fellow-clerk-Cowper, in 1754, was called to the bar. He never, however, made the law a study: in the solicitor's office he and Thurlow were constantly employed from morning to night in giggling and making giggle,' and in his chambers in the Temple he wrote gay verses, and associated with Bonnel Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, and other wits. He contributed a few papers to the Connoisseur and to the St James's Chronicle, both conducted by his Cowper's friends. Darker days were at hand. father was now dead, his patrimony was small, and he was in his thirty-second year, almost 'unprovided with an aim,' for the law was with him a mere nominal profession. In this crisis of his fortunes his kinsman, Major Cowper, presented him to the office of clerk of the journals to the House of Lords -a desirable and lucrative appointment. Cowper accepted it; but the labour of studying the forms of procedure, and the dread of qualifying himself by appearing at the bar of the House of Lords, plunged him in the deepest misery and distress. The seeds of insanity were then in his frame; and after brooding over his fancied ills till reason had fled, he attempted to commit suicide. Happily this desperate effort failed; the appointment was given up, and Cowper was removed to a private madhouse at St Albans, kept by Dr Cotton. The cloud of horror gradually passed away, and on his recovery, he resolved to withdraw entirely from the society and business of the world. He had still a small portion of his funds left, and his friends subscribed a further sum, to enable him to live frugally in retirement. The bright hopes of Cowper's youth seemed thus to have all vanished: his prospects of advancement in the world were gone; and in the new-born zeal of his religious fervour, his friends might well doubt whether his reason had been completely restored. He retired to the town of Huntingdon, near Cambridge, where his brother resided, and there formed an intimacy with the family of the Rev. Morley Unwin, a clergyman resident in the place. He was adopted as one of the family; and when Mr Unwin himself was suddenly removed, the same connection was continued with his widow. Death only could sever a tie so strongly knit-cemented by mutual faith and friendship, and by sorrows of which the world knew nothing. To the latest generation the name of Mary Unwin will be united with that of Cowper, partaker of his fame as of his sad decline: By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light. After the death of Mr Unwin in 1767, the family were advised by the Rev. John Newton-a remarkable man in many respects-to fix their abode at Olney, in the northern division of Buckinghamshire, where Mr Newton himself officiated as curate. This was accordingly done, and Cowper removed with them to a spot which he has consecrated by his genius. He had still the river Ouse with him, as at Huntingdon, but the scenery is more varied and attractive, and abounds in fine retired walks. His life was that of a religious recluse; he ceased corresponding with his friends, and associated only with Mrs Unwin and Newton. The latter engaged his assistance in writing a volume of hymns, but his morbid melancholy gained ground, and in 1773 it became a case of decided insanity. About two years were passed in this unhappy state. On his recovery, Cowper took to gardening, rearing hares, drawing landscapes, and composing poetry. The latter was fortunately the most permanent enjoyment; and its fruits appeared in a volume of poems published in 1782. The sale of the work was slow; but his friends were eager in its praise, and it received the approbation of Johnson and Franklin. His correspondence was resumed, and cheerfulness again became an inmate of his retreat at Olney. This happy change was augmented by the presence of a third party, Lady Austen, a widow, who came to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of Olney, and whose conversation for a time charmed away the melancholy spirit of Cowper. She told him the story of John Gilpin, and the famous horseman and his feats were an inexhaustible source of merriment.' Lady Austen also prevailed upon the poet to try his powers in blank verse, and from her suggestion sprung the noble poem of The Task. This memorable friendship was at length dissolved. The lady exacted too much of the time and attention of the poet-perhaps a shade of jealousy on the part of Mrs Unwin, with respect to the superior charms and attractions of her rival, intervened to increase the alienation-and before The Task was finished, its fair inspirer had left Olney without any intention fascinating manners, had visited him; he had also formed a friendly intimacy with the family of the Throckmortons, to whom Weston belonged, and his circumstances were comparatively easy. His malady, however, returned upon him with full force, and Mrs Unwin being rendered helpless by palsy, the task of nursing her fell upon the sensitive and dejected poet. A careful revision of his Homer, and an engagement to edit a new edition of Milton, were the last literary undertakings of Cowper. The former he completed, but without improving the first edition: his second task was never finished. A deepening gloom settled on his mind, with occasionally bright intervals. A visit to his friend Hayley, at Eartham, produced a short cessation of his mental suffering, and in 1794 a pension of £300 was granted to him from the crown. He was induced, in 1795, to remove with Mrs Unwin to Norfolk, on a visit to some relations, and there Mrs Unwin died on the 17th of December 1796. The unhappy poet would not believe that his long-tried friend was actually dead; he went to see the body, and on witnessing the unaltered placidity of death, flung himself to the other side of the room with a passionate expression of feeling, and from that time he never mentioned her name or spoke of her again. He lingered on for more than three years, still under the same dark shadow of religious despondency and terror, but occasionally writing, and listening attentively to works read to him by his friends. His last poem was the Castaway, a strain of touching and beautiful verse, which shewed no decay of his poetical powers: at length death came to his release on the 25th of April 1800. So sad and strange a destiny has never before or since been that of a man of genius. With wit and humour at will, he was nearly all his life plunged in the darkest melancholy. Innocent, pious, and confiding, he lived in perpetual dread of everlasting punishment: he could only see between him and heaven a high wall which he despaired of ever being able to scale; yet his intellectual vigour was not subdued by affliction. What he wrote for amusement or relief in the midst of 'supreme distress,' surpasses the elaborate efforts of returning to it. In 1785 the new volume was of others made under the most favourable circumpublished. Its success was instant and decided. stances; and in the very winter of his days, his The public were glad to hear the true voice of fancy was as fresh and blooming as in the spring poetry and of nature, and in the rural descriptions and morning of existence. That he was constituand fireside scenes of The Task, they saw the features tionally prone to melancholy and insanity, seems of English scenery and domestic life faithfully deli- undoubted; but the predisposing causes were as neated. The Task,' says Southey, was at once surely aggravated by his strict and secluded mode descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive of life. Lady Hesketh was a better guide and comparts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful panion than John Newton; and no one can read mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant his letters without observing that cheerfulness was eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded inspired by the one, and terror by the other. The them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is iron frame of Newton could stand unmoved amidst often found wanting. The best didactic poems, shocks that destroyed the shrinking and apprewhen compared with The Task, are like formal hensive mind of Cowper. All, however, have now gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.' As gone to their account-the stern yet kind minister, soon as he had completed his labours for the publi- the faithful Mary Unwin, the gentle high-born cation of his second volume, Cowper entered upon relations who forsook ease, and luxury, and society an undertaking of a still more arduous nature-a to soothe the misery of one wretched being, and that translation of Homer. He had gone through the immortal being himself has passed away, scarcely great Grecian at Westminster School, and after-conscious that he had bequeathed an imperishable wards read him critically in the Temple, and he was impressed with but a poor opinion of the translation of Pope. Setting himself to a daily task of forty lines, he at length accomplished the forty thousand verses. He published by subscription, in which his friends were generously active. The work appeared in 1791, in two volumes quarto. In the interval the poet and Mrs Unwin had removed to Weston, a beautiful village about a mile from Olney. His cousin, Lady Hesketh, a woman of refined and Olney Church. 6 treasure to mankind. We have greater and loftier poets than Cowper, but none so entirely incorporated, as it were, with our daily existence-none so completely a friend-our companion in woodland wanderings, and in moments of serious thoughtever gentle and affectionate, even in his transient fits of ascetic gloom-a pure mirror of affections, regrets, feelings, and desires which we have all felt or would wish to cherish. Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, are spirits of ethereal kind: Cowper |