distinctness of Theophrastus, and of the nervous and concise spirit of La Bruyere, in his piece entitled "Conversation," with a cast of humour superadded, which is peculiarly English, and not to be found out of England. Nowhere have the sophistthe dubious man, whose evidence,

"For want of prominence and just relief,

"Would hang an honest man, and save a thief,”the solemn fop, an oracle behind an empty cask— the sedentary weaver of long tales-the emphatic speaker,

66

who dearly loves t'oppose, "In contact inconvenient, nose to nose'

nowhere have these characters, and all the most prominent nuisances of colloquial intercourse, together with the bashful man, who is a nuisance to himself, been more happily delineated. One species of purity his satires possess, which is, that they are never personal'. To his high-minded views,

"An individual was a sacred mark,

"Not to be struck in sport, or in the dark."

1 A single exception may be made to this remark, in the instance of Occiduus, whose musical Sunday parties he reprehended, and who was known to mean the Rev. G. Wesley. I know not to whom he alludes in these lines,

"Nor he who, for the bane of thousands born,

"Built God a church, and laugh'd his word to scorn."

Every one knows from how accidental a circumstance his greatest original work, "The Task," took its rise, namely, from his having one day complained to Lady Austen that he knew not what subject of poetry to choose, and her having told him to take her sofa for his theme. The mock-heroic commencement of the Task has been censured as a blemish'. The general taste, I believe, does not find it so. Mr. Hayley's commendation of his art of transition may, in this instance, be fairly admitted, for he quits his ludicrous history of the sofa, and glides into a description of other objects, by an easy and natural association of thoughts. His whimsical outset in a work, where he promises so little and performs so much, may even be advantageously contrasted with those magnificent commencements of poems, which pledge both the reader and the writer, in good earnest, to a task. Cowper's poem, on the contrary, is like a river, which rises from a playful little fountain, and which gathers beauty and magnitude as it proceeds.

"velut tenui nascens de fomite rivus "Per tacitas, primum nullo cum murmure, valles "Serpit; et ut patrii se sensim e margine fontis "Largius effudit; pluvios modo colligit imbres, "Et postquam spatio vires accepit et undas," &c.

BUCHANAN.

1 In the Edinburgh Review.

He leads us abroad into his daily walks; he exhibits the landscapes which he was accustomed to contemplate, and the trains of thought in which he habitually indulged. No attempt is made to interest us in legendary fictions, or historical recollections connected with the ground over which he expatiates, all is plainness and reality; but we instantly recognize the true poet, in the clearness, sweetness, and fidelity of his scenic draughts; in his power of giving novelty to what is common; and in the high relish, the exquisite enjoyment of rural sights and sounds which he communicates to the spirit. "His eyes "drink the rivers with delight." He excites an idea, that almost amounts to sensation, of the freshness and delight of a rural walk, even when he leads us to the wasteful common, which

"6 overgrown with fern, and rough

"With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform'd, "And dang'rous to the touch, has yet its bloom, "And decks itself with ornaments of gold, "Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf "Smells fresh, and, rich in odorif'rous herbs "And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense "With luxuries of unexpected sweets."

His rural prospects have far less variety and compass than those of Thomson; but his graphic touches

An expression in one of his letters.

are more close and minute: not that Thomson was either deficient or undelightful in circumstantial traits of the beauty of nature, but he looked to her as a whole more than Cowper. His genius was more excursive and philosophical. The poet of Olney, on the contrary, regarded human philosophy with something of theological contempt. To his eye, the great and little things of this world were levelled into an equality, by his recollection of the power and purposes of Him who made them. They are, in his view, only as toys spread on the lap and carpet of nature, for the childhood of our immortal being. This religious indifference to the world, is far, indeed, from blunting his sensibility to the genuine and simple beauties of creation; but it gives his taste a contentment and fellowship with humble things. It makes him careless of selecting and refining his views of nature, beyond their casual appearance. He contemplated the face of plain rural English life, in moments of leisure and sensibility, till its minutest features were impressed upon his fancy; and he sought not to embellish what he loved. Hence his landscapes have less of the ideally beautiful than Thomson's; but they have an unrivalled charm of truth and reality.

The flat country where he resided certainly exhibited none of those wilder graces of nature, which he had sufficient genius to have delineated; and yet there are perhaps few romantic descriptions of rocks, precipices, and torrents, which we should prefer to

the calm English character and familiar repose of the following landscape. It is in the finest manner of Cowper, and unites all his accustomed fidelity and distinctness with a softness and delicacy, which are not always to be found in his specimens of the picturesque.

"How oft upon yon eminence our pace

"Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have borne "The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, "While Admiration, feeding at the eye,

"And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.

"Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd "The distant plough slow moving, and beside "His lab'ring team, that swerv'd not from the track, "The sturdy swain diminish'd to a boy! "Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain "Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er, "Conducts the eye along his sinuous course "Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, "Stand, never overlook'd, our fav'rite elms, "That screen the herdsman's solitary hut; "While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, "That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, "The sloping land recedes into the clouds; "Displaying on its varied side the grace

"Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tow'r, "Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells “Just undulates upon the list'ning ear,

"Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote."