AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO THE Right Honourable Earl COWPER, YOUR family, my Lord, our country itself, and the whole literary world, sustained such a loss in the death of that amiable Man, and enchanting Author, who forms the subject of these Volumes, as inspired the friends of genius and virtue with universal concern. It soon became a general wish, that some authentic, and copious memorial of a character so highly interesting should be produced with all becoming dispatch; not only to render due honour to the dead, but to alleviate the regret of a nation taking a just, and liberal pride in the reputation of a Poet, who had obtained, and deserved, her applause, her esteem, her affection. If this laudable wish was very sensibly felt by the public at large, it glowed with peculiar warmth and eagerness in the bosom of the few, who had been so fortunate as to enjoy an intimacy with Cowper in some unclouded periods of his life, and who knew from such an intimacy, that a lively sweetness, the interest of literature, and for the honour of many poets, whose me movies have suffered from some biographers of a very different descrip tion, we may wish that the extensive series of poetical biography had been frequently enriched by the memoirs of such remembrancers, as feel only the influence of tenderness and truth.-Some poets indeed of recent times have been happy in this most desirable advantage. The Scottish favourite of nature, the tender and impetuous Burns, has found in Dr. Currie an ingenuous, eloquent, affectionate biographer; and in a Lady also (whose memoir of her friend the Bard is very properly annexed to his life) a zealous, and graceful advocate, singularly happy in vindicating his character from invidious detraction. We may observe, to the honour of Scotland, "that her national enthusiasm has for some years been very laudably exerted in cherishing the memory of her departed poets.—But to return to the Lady, who gave rise to this remark! The natural diffidence of her sex, uniting with extreme delicacy of health, induced her (eager as she is to promote the celebrity of her deceased Relation) to shrink from the idea of submitting herself, as an Author, to the formidable eye of the Public. Her knowledge of the very cordial regard, with which Cowper has honoured me, as one of his most confidential friends, led her to request, that she might assign to me that arduous office, which she candidly confessed she had not the resolution to assume. She confided to ta me care dor materins for the zori in rustion, as her affinity to The seccases we tra mas ter lands.—In recarving a collection of wory gruze Letter, and of zeil gosthumous little Plems, in the Tell-Arora mat whers of that belsted Correspondent, at the sight of masse hand I hate rien exuled, I felt the blended emotions of mekunowy morrer, mi of tapi sature. Yes! I was pleased that these futing gipers were entrusted to my care, because some inctdients induce me to believe, that of their rmered Author had been solicited to ponni 1 Biographer for unelf, he would have assigned to me this honourable talk: Yet inourable as I considered it, I was perrictly aware of the dificulties, and the dangers attending it: One danger vraced abheared to me of such a nature, as to require perpetual caution, as I advanced: I mean the danger of being led, in writing as the Biographer of my Friend, to speak infinitely too much of myself. To avoid the offensive failing of egotism, I had resolved at first to make no inconsiderable sacrifice; and to suppress in his Letters every particle of praise bestowed upon myself. I soon found it impossible to do so without injuring the tender and generous spirit of my Friend. I have therefore suffered many expressions of his |