Can ne'er be deem'd worth half so much First, for a thought-since all agree- Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son, O'er hedge and ditch, thro' gaps and mews; And Pitch-kettled, a favorite phrafe at the time when this Fpistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what, in the Spectators' time, would have been called bamboozled. And after many a vain essay Flits out of sight, and mocks his pains. But as too much obscures the sight, We have our similies cut short, For matters of more grave import. That Matthew's numbers run with ease, Each man of common-sense agrees; All men of common-sense allow, Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains That, while the language lives, shall last. For 'tis my business to reply; VOL. I. D Sure Sure so much labour, so much toil, Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed, Who both write well, and write full-speed! Who throw their Helicon about As freely, as a conduit spout! Friend Robert, thus like chien scavant, Lets fall a poem on passant, Nor needs his genuine ore refine ; 'Tis ready polish'd from the mine. It may be proper to observe, that this lively praise on the playful talent of Lloyd was written six years before that amiable, but unfortunate, Author published the best of his serious poems, "The Actor," a composition of considerable merit, which proved a prelude to the more powerful, and popular, Rosciad of Churchill; who, after surpassing Lloyd as a rival, assisted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper resided in the Temple, he seems_to have been personally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the time; and the interest which he probably took in their recent works, tended to increase his powerful, though diffident, passion for poetry, and to train him imperceptibly to that masterly command of language, which time and chance led him to display, almost as a new talent, at the age of fifty. One of his first associates has informed that before he quitted London, he frequently amused himself in translation from antient and modern poets, and devoted his me, composition In a composition to the service of any friend who requested it. copy of Duncombe's Horace, printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires translated by Cowper. The Duncombes, father and son, were amiable scholars, of a Hertfordshire family; and the elder Duncombe, in his printed letters, mentions Dr. Cowper (the father of the Poet) as one of his friends, who posessed a talent for poetry, exhibiting at the same time a respectable specimen of his verse. The Duncombes, in the preface to their Horace, impute the size of their work to the poetical contributions of their friends. At what time the two Satires, I have mentioned, were translated by William Cowper, I have not been able to ascertain; but they are worthy his pen, and will therefore appear in the Appendix to these volumes. 66 Speaking of his own early life, in a letter to Mr. Park, (dated March 1792) Cowper says, with that extreme modesty, which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, "From the age of twenty to thirty-three, I was occupied, or ought to have been, " in the study of the law; from thirty-three to sixty, I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a Magazine, or a Review, I was sometimes a Carpenter, at others, a "Bird-cage maker, or a Gardener, or a Drawer of Landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an Author:-It is a whim, that "has served me longest, and best, and will probably be my last." 66 66 Lightly as this most modest of Poets has spoken of his own exertions, and late as he appeared to himself in producing his chief poetical works, he had received from nature a contemplative spirit, perpetually acquiring a store of mental treasure, which he at last unveiled, to delight and astonish the world with its unexpected magnificence. Even his juvenile verses discover a mind deeply impressed with sentiments of piety; and in proof of this assertion, I select a few Stanzas from an Ode, written, when he was very young, on reading Sir Charles Grandison. To rescue from the tyrant's sword From lawless insult to defend An orphan's right—a fallen friend, These, these, distinguish, from the croud, Then ask ye from what cause on earth Derived from Heaven alone; Full on that favour'd breast they shine, To call the blessing down. Suc i |