YOUNG.

Alike throughout is his consistent peace,
All of one colour, and an even thread;
While party-colour'd shreds of happiness,
With hideous gaps between, patch up for them
A madman's robe; each puff of fortune blows
The tatters by, and shews their nakedness.

He sees with other eyes than theirs: where they
Behold a sun, he spies a Deity;

What makes them only smile, makes him adore;
Where they see mountains, he but atoms sees;
An empire, in his balance, weighs a grain.
They things terrestrial worship, as divine;
His hopes immortal blow them by, as dust
That dims his sight, and shortens his survey,
Which longs in infinite to lose all bound.
Titles and honours (if they prove his fate)
He lays aside to find his dignity;
No dignity they find in aught besides.
They triumph in externals (which conceal
Man's real glory), proud of an eclipse.
Himself too much he prizes to be proud,
And nothing thinks so great in man as man.
Too dear he holds his interest to neglect
Another's welfare, or his right invade;
Their interest, like a lion, lives on prey.
They kindle at the shadow of a wrong:
Wrong he sustains with temper, looks on heaven,
Nor stoops to think his injurer his foe;

Nought but what wounds his virtue wounds his peace.
A cover'd heart their character defends;

A cover'd heart denies him half his praise.
With nakedness his innocence agrees;
While their broad foliage testifies their fall.
Their no-joys end, where his full feast begins:
His joys create, theirs murder, future bliss.
To triumph in existence, his alone;

And his alone triumphantly to think

His true existence is not yet begun.

His glorious course was, yesterday, complete;
Death, then, was welcome; yet life still is sweet.

373

JOHN GAMBOLD.

Born near Haverfordwest in South Wales, April 10, 1711, after passing through Christ Church, Oxford, JOHN GAMBOLD became vicar of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, where he remained till 1748, when he joined the United Brethren. Thereafter he officiated as minister of the Moravian Chapel, Fetter Lane, London, and eventually as a bishop of the United Brethren, until the close of his pious and useful life, which ended where it began, at Haverfordwest, September 13, 1771.

The Mystery of Life.

So many years I've seen the sun,

And call'd these eyes and hands my own,

A thousand little acts I've done,

And childhood have, and manhood known:

O what is life! and this dull round
To tread, why was a spirit bound?

So many airy draughts and lines,

And warm excursions of the mind,
Have fill'd my soul with great designs,
While practice grovell'd far behind:
O what is thought! and where withdraw
The glories which my fancy saw?

So many tender joys and woes

Have on my quivering soul had power;
Plain life with heightening passions rose,
The boast or burden of their hour:
O what is all we feel! why fled
Those pains and pleasures o'er my head?

So many human souls divine,

So at one interview display'd,

Some oft and freely mix'd with mine,
In lasting bonds my heart have laid:
O what is friendship! why impress'd
On my weak, wretched, dying breast?

GAMBOLD.

So many wondrous gleams of light,
And gentle ardours from above,
Have made me sit, like seraph bright,
Some moments on a throne of love:
O what is virtue! why had I,
Who am so low, a taste so high?

Ere long, when Sovereign Wisdom wills,
My soul an unknown path shall tread,
And strangely leave, who strangely fills

This frame, and waft me to the dead:
O what is death! 'tis life's last shore,
Where vanities are vain no more;
Where all pursuits their goal obtain,
And life is all retouch'd again;

Where in their bright results shall rise

Thoughts, virtues, friendships, griefs, and joys.

375

WILLIAM COWPER.

Of this most Christian of our poets-in his theology the most evangelical, in his standard of right and wrong the most scriptural, and in his tone and spirit, constitutional melancholy notwithstanding, the most benevolent and cheerfulthere is no need that we should say anything. No literary career has so often tempted the biographical pen, and, selfportrayed in his charming lays and no less charming letters, no figure is more familiar to the English mind than the bard of Olney. Evenings too dull for a severer task, or too exhausted for a brisker excitement, have often been beguiled by his inimitable epistles. Our classical exercitations are associated with his effort, so hard but so hearty, to transfer into curt but sturdy English the thoughts which wander at their will along the sunny tide of Homer's song; and our knowledge of human nature has been enlarged by his clear intuitions, and his clever but not ill-natured descriptions. Many a merry schoolboy has been made still merrier by "The

Diverting History of John Gilpin," and many a mourner in Zion has been consoled whilst seeking with him "the calm retreat, the silent shade," and praying for "a closer walk with God." And if art can desire no better picture of a homely modern Eden, than the Alcove at Olney, and its gentle occupant feeding his hares, the calamities of genius record few sadder tales than the dark eclipse of that fine mind, and its long and dreary setting.

COWPER was born at Berkhampstead, November 26, 1731, and died at East Dereham, April 25, 1800.

It was about 1772 that Cowper wrote most of the hymns which, to the number of sixty-eight, afterwards appeared in the Olney Collection. The first volume of his poems was published in 1782, and its much more successful companion followed in 1785, silencing at once the captiousness of criticism, and securing for ever the fame of the author of "The Task."

Southey has well described the period at which Cowper's star surmounted the horizon:-"The Task' appeared in the interval when young minds were prepared to receive it, and at a juncture when there was no poet of any great ability or distinguished name in the field. Gray and Akenside were dead. Mason was silent. Glover, brooding over his 'Atheniad,' was regarded as belonging to an age that was past. Churchill was forgotten. Emily and Bampfylde had been cut off in the blossom of their youth. Crabbe having, by the publication of his 'Library,' his 'Village,' and his 'Newspaper,' accomplished his heart's immediate desire, sought at that time for no further publicity; and Hayley ambled over the course without a competitor. 'The Task

was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems,

when compared with The Task,' are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery. Its satire is alto

gether free from personality; it is the satire, not of a sour and discontented spirit, but of a benevolent though melancholy mind; and the melancholy was not of a kind to affect artificial gloom and midnight musings, but rather to seek and find relief in sunshine, in the beauties of nature, in books and leisure, in solitary or social walks, and in the comforts of a quiet fireside."*

The Author Himself.

I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since; with many an arrow deep infix'd
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by One who had Himself
Been hurt by th' archers. In His side He bore,
And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars.
With gentle force soliciting the darts,

He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.
Since then, with few associates, in remote
And silent woods I wander, far from those
My former partners of the peopled scene;
With few associates, and not wishing more.
Here much I ruminate, as much I may,
With other views of men and manners now
Than once, and others of a life to come.
I see that all are wanderers, gone astray
Each in his own delusions; they are lost
In chase of fancied happiness, still woo'd
And never won. Dream after dream ensues;
And still they dream that they shall still succeed,
And still are disappointed.

The Pardoned Sinner.

As when a felon, whom his country's laws
Have justly doom'd for some atrocious cause,

Southey's "Life of Cowper," vol. ii. pp. 181-194.