new question of the future destiny of the race, as a whole, are introduced by Cowper into English poetry. And though splendor and passion were added, by the poets who succeeded him, to the new poetry, yet they worked on the thoughts he had laid down, and he is their leader."

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Cowper is one of the first symptoms, if not the originator, of a revolution in style which is soon to become a revolution in ideas. The 'clear, crisp English' of his verse is not the work of a man who belongs to a school, or follows some conventional pattern. It is for his amusement, he repeats again and again in his letters, that he is a poet; just as it has been for his amusement that he has worked in the garden and made rabbit-hutches. He writes because it pleases him, without a thought of his fame or of contriving what the world will admire.

The Task, his most characteristic poem, is indeed a work of great labor; but the labor is not directed, as Pope's labor was directed, towards methodizing or arranging the material, towards working up the argument, towards forcing the ideas into the most striking situations. The labor is in the cadences and the language; as for the thoughts, they are allowed to show themselves just as they come, in their natural order, so that the poem reads like the speech of a man talking to himself. To turn from a poem of Cowper's to a poem of Pope's, or even of Goldsmith's, is to turn from one sphere of art to quite another, from unconscious to conscious art. Formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery,' as Southey said. And how much that means! It means that the day of critical, and so-called classical, poetry is over; that the day of spontaneous, natural, romantic poetry has begun. Burns and Wordsworth are not yet, but they are close at hand. We read Cowper not for his passion or for his ideas, but for his love of nature and his faithful rendering of her beauty, for his truth of portraiture, for his humor, for his pathos; for the refined honesty of his style, for the melancholy interest of his life, and for the simplicity and the loveliness of his character."-Thomas H. Ward.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. COWPER.-Cowper's Letters; Southey's Life of; Bagehot's Estimates of some Eng. and Scotchmen; F. Jeffrey's Essays; Thomson's Celebrated Friendships; Eng. Men of Let. Series; Ward's Anthology; Black. Mag., v. 109, 1871; Fort. Rev., v. 3, 1865; Fraser's Mag., v. 64, 1861; Nat. Quar. Rev., v. 7, 1863; N. Br. Rev., v. 22, 1854; Quar. Rev., v. 107, 1860.

LESSON 47.

Cowper's On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smiles I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me;

Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,

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Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!" The meek intelligence of those dear eyes—

Blest be the art that can immortalize,

The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
To quench it-here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,

O welcome guest, though unexpected here,
Who bidst me honor with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long,
I will obey, not willingly alone

But gladly, as the precept were her own.
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

A momentary dream that thou art she.

My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers-Yes. I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu. But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone, Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting sound shall pass my lips no more. Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of thy quick return.

What ardently I wished I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived;
By disappointment every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.

Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot,
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin day by day
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capped,
'Tis now become a history little known,

That once we called the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there
Still outlives many a storm that has effaced

A thousand other themes less deeply traced.

Thy nightly visits to my chamber made

That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,

The biscuit or confectionery plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed

By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed;

All this, and more endearing still than all,

Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks
That humor interposed too often makes;-
All this, still legible in memory's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honors to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,

Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here.
Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours,
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,
The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I pricked them into paper with a pin

And thou wast happier than myself the while,
Wouldst softly speak and stroke my head and smile-
Could those few pleasant hours again appear,

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart—the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.
But no-what here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.

Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed)
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,
Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,
There sits quiescent on the floods that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs, impregnated with incense, play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore
"Where tempests never beat nor billows roar."
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distressed,-
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tost,
Sails ripped, seams opening wide, and compass lost,
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet, oh, the thought that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise-
The son of parents passed into the skies!
And now, farewell-Time, unrevoked, has run
His wonted course, yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again;
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine.

And, while the wings of Fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft-
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.

From The Task-The Winter Evening.

Hark! 'tis the twanging horn! O'er yonder bridge, That with its wearisome but needful length Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright,

He comes, the herald of a noisy world,

With spattered boots, strapped waist, and frozen locks,
News from all nations lumbering at his back.
True to his charge, the close-packed load behind,
Yet careless what he brings, his one concern

Is to conduct it to the destined inn,

And, having dropped the expected bag, pass on.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful: messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some,
To him indifferent whether grief or joy.
Houses in ashes, and the fall of stocks,
Births, deaths, and marriages, epistles wet
With tears that trickled down the writer's cheeks
Fast as the periods from his fluent quill,

Or charged with amorous sighs of absent swains,
Or nymphs responsive, equally affect

His horse and him, unconscious of them all.
But oh the important budget! ushered in
With such heart-shaking music-who can say
What are its tidings? Have our troops awaked?
Or do they still, as if with opium drugged,
Snore to the murmurs of the Atlantic wave?
Is India free? and does she wear her plumed
And jewelled turban with a smile of peace,
Or do we grind her still? The grand debate,
The popular harangue, the tart reply,
The logic, and the wisdom, and the wit,
And the loud laugh-I long to know them all;
I burn to set the imprisoned wranglers free,
And give them voice and utterance once again.