splendour more forcible and extensive. Great poets, my Lord, and that I may speak of them as they deserve, let me say, in the words of Horace, Primum me illorum, dederim quibus esse poetas, Excerpam numero, Great poets have generally united in their destiny those extremes of good and evil, which Homer, their immortal president, assigns to the bard he describes, and which he exemplified himself in his own person. Their lives have been frequently chequered by the darkest shades of calamity; but their personal infelicities are nobly compensated by the prevalence of their renown. To set this in the most striking point of view, allow me to compare poetical celebrity with the fame acquired by the exertion of different mental powers in the highest department of civil life. The lord Chancellors of England may be justly regarded among the personages of the modern world, peculiarly exalted by intellectual endowments: with two of these illustrious characters, the poet, whose life I have endeavoured to delineate, was in some measure connected; being related to one, the immediate ancestor of your Lordship, and being intimate in early life with a Chancellor of the present reign, whose elevation to that dignity he has recorded in rhyme. Much respect is due to the legal names of Cowper and of Thurlow. Knowledge, eloquence, and political importance, conspired to aggrandize the men who added those names to the list of English nobility: yet after the lapse of a few centuries, they will shine only like very distant constellations, merely visible in the vast expanse of history. But at that time, the poet of whom I speak will continue to sparkle in the eyes of all men like the radiant star of the evening, perpetually hailed by the voice of gratitude, affection, and delight. There is a principle of unperishable vitality (if I may use such an expression) in the compositions of Cowper, which must ensure to them in future ages, what we have seen them so happily acquire and maintain in the present, universal admiration and love. His poetry is to the heart, and the fancy, what the moral essays of Bacon are to the understanding, a never cloying feast; "As if increase of appetite had grown Like them, "it comes home to the business and bosom of every man." By possessing the rare and double talent to familiarize and endear the most awful subjects, and to dignify the most familiar, the poet naturally becomes a favourite with readers of every description; his works must interest every nation under Heaven, where his sentiments are understood, and where the feelings of humanity prevail. Yet their author is eminently an Englishman, in the noblest sense of that honourable appellation: he loved the constitution: he revered the religion of his country: he was tenderly and generously alive to her real interest and honour; and perhaps of her many admirable poets, not one has touched her foibles, and celebrated her perfections with a spirit so truly filial. But I perceive that I am in danger of going far beyond my design in this Introductory Letter, for it was my intention not to enter into the merits of his character here, but to inform you in what manner I wish to make that character display itself to my readers, as far as possible, in his own most impressive language. Perhaps no man ever possessed the powers of description in a higher degree, both in verse and prose. By weaving into the texture of these memoirs an extensive selection of his private letters, and several of his posthumous poems, I trust that a faithful representation of him has been formed, where the most striking features will appear the work of his own inimitable hand. The result of the whole production will, I am confident, establish one most satisfactory truth, interesting to society in general, and to your Lordship in particular. The truth I mean, is expressed in the final verse of an epitaph, which the hand of friendship inscribed to your excellent relation : "His virtues form'd the magic of his song." May the affectionate zeal with which I have endeavoured to render all the justice in my power to his variety of merit atone for whatever deficiencies shall be found in this imperfect attempt, and lead both your Lordship, and our country, to honour with some degree of approbation, Your very faithful servant, WILLIAM HAYLEY. THE popular favour shown to the Life of Cowper since its first appearance, may be justly ascribed to that irresistible attraction which readers of every class have felt and acknowledged, in perusing the letters of the departed poet. They breathe, like his verse, such a pure spirit of morality and religion; they are so enlivened by a simple and graceful display of the benevolent affections, that our country seems to have received them as a meritorious mother receives a legacy of honour from a dear distinguished son, when it appears to confirm and to justify all the tenderness and all the energy of her parental feelings. The excellence of Cowper's letters has a visible proportion to the warmth and purity of his affection toward his correspondents; and as his heart was truly attached both to his young friend Mr. Unwin, and to his more venerable associate Mr. Newton, his letters to these gentlemen are interesting in a very high degree. In writing to Mr. Newton on a subject of great nicety, the solicited communication of his new and then unpublished poem, the 'Task,' the letter gives everything that is due to the delicacy of friendship, and maintains at the same time the dignity and independence of his own powerful and upright mind. The following remarks were first printed as an introduction to a supplementary volume of his letters, most of which were addressed to these two confidential friends of the poet. Several were written at the time when he was employed on his greatest performance; and such letters were the more welcome, as the former correspondence afforded very few that relate to that interesting period. In reprinting the life, I have endeavoured to place the whole series of letters in their proper chronological order, except in a few instances, where some occasional motives seemed to require a different arrangement. Regarding the heart of Cowper as one of the most pure and friendly that Heaven ever bestowed upon a mortal; and knowing that it was at all times his custom to display his own heart to his confidential correspondents, not only with the utmost frankness and fidelity, but with an enchanting talent peculiar to himself; it has been my constant endeavour to illustrate the different periods of his life, by such documents as I was able to discover in the custody of his surviving friends. I had often heard him mention his early and renewed intimacy with an accomplished and amiable scholar, once numbered among his favourite school-fellows at Westminster, the late Rev. Walter Bagot of Blithfield, in Staffordshire. The kindness of a young and zealous coadjutor afforded me a safe and easy communication with that gentleman. I had soon the gratification of perceiving that he retained, in advanced life, all the cheerful, active good-nature, and the classical erudition which had endeared him to Cowper in his juvenile days. He expressed a most obliging readiness to assist me in promoting the renown of that excellent writer, whose memory, both as a poet and a friend, we equally revered; and he most kindly submitted to my inspection and use the collected manuscripts of Cowper, that he had preserved from their earliest intercourse. After a pleasant juvenile letter, dated November, 1749, their correspondence was suspended for many years; but it was renewed in 1785, and continued with reciprocal kindness till the depression of Cowper's health precluded him from that affectionate intercourse with distant friends, in which he delighted and excelled. I made such a selection from the whole correspondence as my sentiments of regard, both to the living and the dead, suggested. Those who feel the charm of Cowper's epistolary language had the gratification of finding several new letters, both serious and sportive. There is a passage in one of these, in which the author displays his moralizing disposition with peculiar felicity. Perhaps that rich and ample field of morality-his whole collected works, affords not any remark more truly original and sublime. The public will make all due allowance for my partiality to the letters of my friend, which I am ever ready to allow, and in which (I am inclined to believe) the majority of readers will sympathize with me, in proportion as they compare him with the most eminent letter-writers of the ancient and modern world; a comparison which these desultory remarks were designed to promote. I have been fortunately enabled to select and preserve such an extensive collection of Cowper's letters, as may give my reader a great degree of intimacy with this excellent personage; yet many (I am persuaded) have perished that were perfectly worthy of the press. A correspondence once existed between Cowper and his early friend Mr. Rowley, a gentleman who died not long ago in Ireland. His letters to Cowper were in French. The poet replied in Latin, a language of which he was particularly fond, and which he wrote with great |