If in Thomson you are sometimes offended with the slovenliness of the author by profession, determined to get through his task at all events; in Cowper you are no less dissatisfied with the finicalness of the private gentleman, who does not care whether he completes his work or not; and in whatever he does, is evidently more solicitous to please himself than the public. He shakes hands with nature with a pair of fashionable gloves on. He had neither Thomson's love of the unadorned beauties of nature, nor Pope's exquisite sense of the elegances of art. Still he is a genuine poet, and deserves all his reputation. His worst faults are amiable weaknesses, elegant trifling. He has left a number of pictures of domestic comfort and social refinement, as well as of natural imagery and feeling, which can hardly be forgotten but with the language itself. His satire is also excellent. It is pointed and forcible, with the polished manners of the gentleman, and the honest indignation of the virtuous man. His religious poetry wants elevation and fire. His story of John Gilpin has, perhaps, given as much pleasure to as many people as any thing of the same length that ever was written." SECTION X. He is one of the most instructive and pleasing of English poets, and is decidedly one of the best specimens of an easy and graceful epistolary style. His most admired poem is the Task, some parts of which are inimitably good, but there are others rather trifling. "His language," says Campbell, "has such a mascu line, idiomatic strength, and his manner, whether he rises into grace or falls into negligence, has so much plain and familiar freedom, that we read no poetry with a deeper conviction of its sentiments having come from the author's heart." He is distinguished for a rich and chastened humor in most of his writings, though at times he was the victim of most lamentable melancholy. In the description of the quiet pleasures of domestic life, he much excels, as may be seen in the fourth book of the Task. He is the author of many other poems, and of some admirable hymns in constant use at the present day. specimen of his poetry, read the following: THE INFIDEL AND THE CHRISTIAN. "The path to bliss abounds with many a snare ; (Mention him, if you please. Voltaire? The same), Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died. And fumed with frankincense on every side, "O happy peasant! O unhappy bard! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward; As a The charm of Cowper's poetry is a pure, innocent, lovely mind, delighting itself in pure, innocent, and lovely nature the freshness of the fields, the fragrance of the flowers, breathes in his verse. THOMSON AND COWPER COMPARED. Thomson's genius, says Professor Wilson, does not very, very often-though often-delight us by exquisite minute touches in the description of nature-like that of Cow. per. It loves to paint on a great scale, and to dash objects off sweepingly by bold strokes such, indeed, as have almost always marked the genius of the mighty masters of the lyre and the rainbow. Cowper sets nature before your eyes -Thomson before your imagination. Which do you prefer? Both. In one mood of mind, we love Cowper best; in another, Thomson. Sometimes the Seasons are almost a Task, and sometimes the Task is out of Season. There is a delightful distinctness in all the pictures of the Bard of Olney-glorious gloom or glimmer in most of those of the Bard of Ednam. Cowper paints trees-Thomson, woods. Thomson paints, in a few wondrous lines, rivers from source to sea, like the mighty Barampooter-Cowper, in many no very wondrous lines, brightens up one bend of a stream, or awakens our fancy to the murmur of some single waterfall. But a truce to antithesis- a deceptive style of criticism and see how Thomson sings of snow. Why, in the following lines, almost-though not quite as well as Christopher North (Professor Wilson), in his Winter Rhapsody "The cherish'd fields Put on their tender robe of purest white, 'Tis brightness all; save where the new snow melts Nothing can be more vivid. There are passages, nowever, in which Thomson, striving to be pathetic, has overshot the mark, and ceased to be natural. Thus : "The bleating kine Eye the bleak heaven, and next the glittering earth The second line is perfect, but the third is not quite right. Sheep do not deliver themselves up to despair under any circumstances; and here Thomson transferred what would have been his own feelings in a corresponding condition, to animals who dreadlessly follow their instincts. Thomson redeems himself in what succeeds: "Then sad dispersed, Dig for the wither'd herb through heaps of snow." For, as they disperse, they do look very sad—and, no doubt, are so- —but had they been in despair, they would not so readily, and constantly, and uniformly, and successfully have taken to digging-but whole flocks had perished. But here is a passage which will live forever in which not one word could be altered for the better-not one omitted but for the worse-not one added that would not be superfluous-a passage that proves that fiction is not the soul of poetry, but truth-but, then, such truth as was never spoken before on the same subject-such truth, as shows that, while Thomson was a person of the strictest veracity, yet was he very far indeed from being a matter-of-fact man: A MAN PERISHING IN THE SNOW. "As thus the snows arise, and foul and fierce How sinks his soul! What black despair, what horror fills his heart! A dire descent, beyond the pow'r of frost! Smooth'd up with snow; and what is land unknown, What water, of the still unfrozen spring, In the loose marsh or solitary lake, Where the fresh fountain from the bottom boils. Into the mingled storm, demand their sire, SECTION XI. OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774). "The Traveler" and "The Deserted Village" are beautiful descriptive poems. The latter is said to contain some of the happiest pictures of rural life and character in the English language. His "Vicar of Wakefield," a prose tale, is also much admired. یا The following extracts are from the "Deserted Village :" "Sweet was the sound, when oft, at evening's close, There, as I pass'd with careless steps and slow, * * * * THE COUNTRY SCHOOLMASTER. * * The village all declared how much he knew; |