not be frightened. I have lately had a violent fit of the pip, which festered my rump to a prodigious degree. I have shed almost every feather in my tail, and must not hope for a new pair of breeches till next spring; so shall think myself happy if I escape the chincough, which is generally very rife in moulting season. I am, dear Sir, &c. &c. MADGE. P.S.-I hear my character as first minister is a good deal censured; but, "Let them censure- what care I?" The other prose compositions of Cowper which have been preserved, are his papers in the Connoisseur, then conducted by Colman and Lloyd. To that publication very considerable assistance, there is reason to believe, was lent by our author; three only of his contributions, however, have been ascertained, and these upon his own authority. When on a visit to Mr Hayley, happening to take up the book, nearly forty years afterwards, he pointed out to his host Nos. 119, 134, and 138, as having been composed by himself. The first of these is dated May 6; the second August 19; and the third September 16, 1756. The first, an admirable dissertation upon secrecy, for elegance of language, and insight into human character in some of its besetting weaknesses and foibles, is not unworthy of being placed in companionship with the graceful common sense of Addison. The second is in the epistolary form, where Mr Village describes to Mr Town "what occurred to him in observing several country churches, and the behaviour of the congregations." It contains severe but just animadversions on the state of the country churches in England, on the want of decorum often shewn in the celebration of public worship, and on the more general topic of absurd rivalry in dress among rural congregations. The third paper is an Essay on Conversation, in which the different nuisances which one meets in society, are delineated in an admirable vein. The posture makers, who "converse chiefly with their arms and legs;" the emphatic speakers, "who squeeze and press down every syllable with excessive vehemence and energy; "the whisperers, "who seem to fancy all their acquaintances deaf, and measure noses with you;" the "tatlers, the half-swearers, the nick-namers of God's creatures, the dealers in fashionable slang," are all touched off with a truth and point which often remind us of his own inimitable poem on the same subject. Such are the chief productions, both in prose and verse, of Cowper's youth. They are few, but of an excellence which evinces careful preparation. The verdict therefore is hardly correct, pronounced by those critics who have condemned him as an indolent student from the age of twenty-one to thirty-two; neither, after the view now taken of his early labours, can we coincide in the misplaced admiration of those who represent him, at the age of fifty, bursting upon the world, as if in the exercise of a new talent or latent faculty. The perfection of these first essays, viewed in connection with the natural diffidence aud modesty of their author, independently of the evidence already adduced to that effect, prove them to have been the fruits of no desultory or careless practice. Again, slight as these remains are, and speedily as they would in themselves have been forgotten, if not tending to something greater, they yet discover the germs of those excellencies of playful wit, and nice discrimination of ordinary character, with more than indications of the pure and facile expression which mark in a peculiar manner the works of Cowper's matured genius. On this account chiefly, and to present the reader for the first time with their connected history, we have been thus minute-but, from the interest of the topic, we trust not tedious-on these youthful essays. Regarded in this light, Cowper's genius is but another instance in the history of literature, all but universal, that men of rich, natural, and vigorous imagination have produced their best works in advanced life. Dante, Milton, and their equal, at least in a true and fertile fancy, Sir Walter Scott, are splendid illustrations of this principle. Those, again, of transcendent talent, but of brief existence, as Byron, who at first might be deemed so, are not truly exceptions to the general fact. If they were early called from this scene of their triumphs, the splendour of these was progressivetheir first being infinitely excelled by their later works. Mediocrity alone has produced its highest in its first efforts, Its precocity is like the early rush, which blooms, and then lives on in verdant sterility: Genius is a tree which attains fruitage slowly, while years serve only to mellow its perennial gifts. At all events, even with these slight remains of youthful studies, Cowper cannot with propriety be said to have been idle. As has been observed on this subject, "The art of composing well an art which certainly does not come by instinct requires of itself a very long apprenticeship; and it is probable that, in forming his taste, like every man of talent, he destroyed much of what he wrote." During his residence in the Temple, also, he appears to have perused the more important of the ancient classics-rendered himself master of the French and Italian languages - and to have read the principal authors in each. The latter he particularly admired, and poetical versions from both constituted one of his favourite exercises for improvement. His attempts in this way must have been an habitual employment, if, as Hayley states, "it was his practice, during the last years of his stay in London, to present translations from the modern poets to any friend who asked or had occasion for them." With a mind naturally gifted, and enriched by various study, a fancy stored with imagery, and a judgment not ill informed of life and manners, Cowper, at the age of thirtyone, might have turned to literature as a profession with good assurance of success. Twenty years afterwards, therefore, he could not be said to exercise a “new talent," on commencing his later and more perfect writings. When be laid his hand upon the strings, the lyre was to its touch no strange instrument; but the tones now breathed the tenderness of sanctified affliction, and the strains were elevated by discoursing of the comforts and sublimities of religion. The grandeur and the holiness which this inspiration imparted to what had formerly been trivial, or merely elegant, formed the only new talent displayed by the poet of the Cross. G We now approach a melancholy crisis in Cowper's life,the first confirmed attack of his deplorable malady. So uncertain and so blind are we as to earthly good, that the very circumstances which, to him and his friends, held forth the consummation of his desire, terminated in the overthrow of reason, and the blasting of all worldly prospects. The preceding details render it obvious, that he could entertain no hopes from his profession. He had never, in fact, seriously bent his inclinations to legal pursuits. His situation had therefore become sufficiently alarming: his patrimony exhausted, youth passed without improvement, and want approaching, a manhood thus lay before him without confidence, and it might be, without resource. "It was, I imagine,” as he states himself, "under some apprehensions of this kind, that I one day said to a friend of mine, If the clerk of the journals of the House of Lords should die, I had some hopes that my kinsman, who had the place in his disposal, would appoint me to succeed him.' We both agreed, that the business of that place, being transacted in private, would exactly suit me. It pleased the Lord to give me my heart's desire, and in it, and with it, an immediate punishment for my crime of covetousness. The poor man died; and, by his death, not only the clerkship of the journals became vacant, but it became necessary to appoint new officers to other places, these were, the office of the reading clerk, and the clerkship of the committees —of much greater value than that of the journals."*, Cowper's interest through his uncle was sufficient to procure his nomination to the more lucrative of the offices, which had thus unexpectedly fallen through the death of one functionary and the resignation of another. General Cowper, the patentee of the clerkship of committees, having called upon our author in his chambers, the two walked together into the Temple gardens, and there the appointment was offered and accepted. Cowper's prospects were now as bright and cheering as they had recently seemed disheartening. This success, as before hinted, is the best proof of the prudence with which his Narrative. father had selected his profession, - -a choice to which much blame has sometimes been attached. In his thirty-first year he thus found himself on the eve of permanent affluence derived from a situation of trust and dignity, and yet left in the enjoyment of that retirement from public display which he loved, and at leisure to follow his favourite pursuits of elegant literature. The heart, too, had its full share in what would otherwise have merely gratified ambition. He could now have fulfilled his own long cherished hopes of happiness, and rewarded her of whom he speaks, Through tedious years of doubt and pain, All things, in short, conspired to render his lot more than usually fortunate. Yet neither Cowper himself, nor his biographers, have hesitated to ascribe the total failure of these prospects to the decree of Heaven. But God cannot be the author of evil; and our misfortunes, upon proper examination, will always be found to have originated in our own misconduct or folly. Had not Cowper trifled with a profession for fifteen years, passing in idleness, or misdirected application, the hours not devoted to worse engagements, he would have been qualified for enjoying with honour the ample blessings which, through Providence, were now offered for his acceptance. It is vain to tell us, as he has done, and as his admirers and biographers repeat, that his exquisitely sensitive feelings recoiled from a public exhibition "as from mortal poison." The clerkship was that of private committees, before whom he would necessarily have to read papers, and occasionally a report in the House. Yet what was there in reading from a paper, in a quiet business like manner, before a few members, or even the whole House, in the unpretending way these things are done, to deter any man from the office, who felt what was due to integrity, or who respected the dignity of his own character? But the fact is, Cowper had for so many years been acccustomed to dally with the purposes of life, that his resolves had ceased to have value or power in his own estimation, and melted away |