its orderly arrangement, we have the most striking evidences in all his writings. Nothing is unfinished, imperfect, or slovenly. Every representation is made with entire precision, both as to the sentiment and language. The most practiced eye or ear perceives nothing distorted, incongruous, or discordant. The correctness of his delineations is equaled only by the clearness of his views. This faultlessness of performance has been noticed by that judge and master of composition, Robert Hall, who, speaking of Cowper's letters, and the same applies eminently to his poetry, remarks: "They unite a high degree of correctness, such as could result only from the clearest intellect, combined with the most finished taste. I have scarcely found a single word which could be exchanged for a better. Literary errors I can discover none. The selection of the words and the structure of the periods is inimitable." Hence Cowper was fitted, with the other high attributes which he possessed, to furnish, for the entertainment and instruction of mankind, those concise and finished passages which so much abound in his poetry, having the air of apothegms, and containing the highest wisdom. They are generally less striking than those of Young, for instance, because not exaggerated and paradoxical like his, but at the same time more valuable on that account. Cowper's exact conceptions of truth and nature, would never have suffered him to write such a line as the following :"Man is the maker of almighty fates,"

too frequently a specimen of the moral painting of the Night Thoughts. More to the purpose are lines like these:

"Happy the man, who sees a God employed

In all the good and ill that chequer life."

"Philosophy, baptized

In the pure fountain of eternal love,

Has eyes indeed."

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free,

And all are slaves beside.'

Who repeats not these and hundreds of similar lines in the Task? Such as the following, if not so often noticed as those above, are yet perfect specimens of that apothegmatic manner here intended:

"Unless a love of virtue light the flame,

Satire is more than those he brands, to blame."

"If self employ us, whatsoe'er is wrought,
We glorify that self, not him we ought."
"A moral, sensible, and well-bred man
Will not affront me, and no other can."
"True modesty is a discerning grace,
And only blushes in the proper place."

"Truth is not local, God alike pervades
And fills the world of traffic and the shades."

"Give even a dunce the employment he desires,
And he soon finds the talents it requires."

"An idler is a watch that wants both hands,
As useless as it goes, as when it stands."

Such lines are too full of just thought, to admit the insertion of a single useless epithet. All his works have this kind of finish, the result of accurate knowledge, without which, every other merit is more or less obscured.

Cowper's fine taste and exquisite sense, both of natural and moral beauty, must be taken into account, in their influence on his writings, particularly his poetry. His constitutional sensibility, as lying at the foundation of such a taste and feeling, and increasing their capacity of culture, was one of his most remarkable qualities. This was heightened by the manner in which he was educated, and the course of life which he pursued. The latter was, for the most part, very much connected with seclusion and literary leisure, and we may add, also, with a certain class of domestic attachments. His naturally keen feelings, nursed as they were by the circumstances in which he was placed, became at times the source of intense delight, but they were oftener the occasion of unspeakable suffering. This tendency of his system was early discovered, and its developments constitute the great thread of interest that runs through his life. A passage in his Task shows the delicacy and strength of his feelings, resulting from such an organization :

"I would not enter on my list of friends,

Though graced with polished manners and fine sense,
Yet wanting sensibility, the man

Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."

And he observes in a letter to a friend, "I am not naturally insensible; and the sensibilities I had by nature, have been wonderfully enhanced by a long series of shocks given to a frame of nerves that was never very athletic. I feel, accordingly, whether painful or pleasant, in the extreme; am easily elevated, and easily cast down." He remarks again, "My feelings are all of the intense kind; I never received a little pleasure from any thing in my life. That nerve of my imagination that feels the touch of any particular amusement, twangs under the energy of the pressure with so much vehemence, that it soon becomes sensible of weariness and fatigue." Having a constitutional texture so delicately wrought, he was prepared, with the high culture which he had received, to participate in the most refined feelings and sentiments, and to enjoy in the highest degree every form of beauty, natural and moral. So far as he was exempted from disease, no one's pleasures, in view of objects that excite innocent enjoyment, could be more exquisite.

The pressure of disease, indeed, often interrupted the flow of joyful emotion, and at times filled his soul with the bitter waters of despair. Yet we are not certain that his fancy, under these circumstances, did not impart to his descriptions a softer, more beautiful tint, than would otherwise have appeared in them; just as Milton, shut out from the external world by the want of sight, seems to have discovered, with the enlightened mental eye, in the scenery of nature, in

"Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,"

more charms than others perceive, at least more than others have been able to paint. The pages of Cowper give abundant proof that he possessed the taste and the relish of which we are speaking, and that no man ever possessed more. He could say of himself, in the Task,—

“Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere,

And that my raptures are not conjured up

To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine."

And the passage which describes the christian's delight in the works of God,

"He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature,"-

is a striking exemplification of the refined taste and sensibility which gave birth to such an effusion. Indeed, these qualities have materially contributed to the perfection of his poetry throughout. In several of its characteristics before described, it bears the impress of a pervading spirit of peculiar refinement and delicacy.

The piety of the subject of our present notice, is a circumstance which must not be omitted, in accounting for his superiority as a poet. It was inspiration more than that of the muse, the inspiration of a good heart,-it was the hallowed influence of religion, that in him produced beauties of so high an order, and imparted a general excellence to all his intellectual efforts. That he was pious in the true sense, and eminently so, none who understand the nature, or can judge of the evidences of experimental religion, will be disposed to doubt. The moral purity, already remarked upon, by which his poems are characterized, could have been infused into them only by the feelings of the most genuine and lively devotion. Yet the true character of Cowper in this particular has not always,—at least has not been fully known. The piety that dictated the serious and devout passages of his great poems, appeared sufficiently evident; but his admirers did not find it so amply confirmed as they could wish, in the early biographical notices of the poet. The more recent publications concerning

him, particularly the one under review, have placed the subject in a clear light. This circumstance has been already alluded to, and needs no additional illustration. Some have, indeed, supposed, that there exists a just cause of complaint against the cast of his piety-the particular system of doctrines he was led to embrace, as if it involved all that was enthusiastic, or fanatical. They have pretended to discover in it, the source of his inveterate and most distressing melancholy. But no imputation was ever more unfounded or unjust. We need not enter into any particular defenseof Cowper, in relation to the system of doctrines which he embraced. Such a defense is not called for in the present times, after all the light that has been shed upon this subject, by biographical statements and moral criticism. It is sufficient to say, that the amplest testimony confirms the fact, that his melancholy was wholly constitutional, and the effect of disease; and that, for all the intervals of peace and comfort enjoyed by him, he was indebted to the hopes of religion, and divine manifestations to his soul. No man of ingenuous feeling, in reading the account of his religious experience, and learning the protracted period of spiritual consolation which he enjoyed after his conversion,-

"the blessedness he knew

When first he saw the Lord,-"

but must perceive what religion did, to cheer and sustain his tender and easily depressed spirit. That he sunk at last under the power of his malady, notwithstanding the palliatives which religion afforded, and they were not inconsiderable palliatives, only shows that God did not see fit to suspend the operation of natural causes, in that case, as he does not in any case, except where he designs to effect a greater good by their suspension, than by their continuance. And of such an emergency he must be left to be the sole judge. It is our duty to acquiesce in this mystery of his providence, as in every other, and to wait the developments of another world. It is grateful here to state, that Cowper's mental inquietude and derangement, and the idea that he was, by the particular act of God, in opposition to His general plan of grace, to be forever excluded from happiness, had no tendency to lead him from the path of rectitude, or to relax in the least his efforts to maintain the life of religion in his soul. "On the contrary," as his biographer says, they seem rather to have operated as a continual check upon those corrupt inclinations which are common to our fallen nature, and to which even Cowper was not a stranger. It would be ridiculous to say he had no imperfections; he felt them; he often mourned over them; and the vivid perception he had of them, associated as it invariably was with a powerful constitutional propensity to melancholy, often filled him with the greatest anxiety VOL. V.

74

and dread. His conceptions of the purity of that sublime religion taught us in the gospel, and of the paramount importance of a holy life in its professors, were such as led him to regard the least deviation from the strict line of christian duty, in his own case at least, as an entire disqualification for the reception of spiritual comfort."

But, without remarking further on the reality or the character of his piety, it behoves us only to mention, in brief, its influence on his poetry. That freedom from every unholy taint, that deep infusion of an evangelical spirit, and those affecting representations of the truth, by all of which it is distinguished, were, of course, the result of a living principle of grace. But his love of virtue, and his intimate experimental acquaintance with the bible, led beyond these direct effects to the happiest general results. Piety, elevating the tone of his mind, refining his taste, and producing well regulated affections, contributed, in no small degree, to the excellence of his poetry as such. It spread over it the choicest beauties of thought and representation. It gave it a sober, serene, and unearthly aspect. The influence of his devout feelings is acknowledged, in that sweetness and kindness of spirit which breathe through his poetry, and which conciliate the affections of the reader,—that justness and moderation of statement which recommend it to every person's good sense,-those graceful proprieties by means of which it charms the tasteful, the well-bred, and the cultivated,-and that subdued and chastened tone through which it speaks to the congenial feelings of the devout and holy. And yet with all this, there is an indescribable vein of corrective humor, of manly rebuke, of independent feeling, of self-respect, and of a consciousness of superiority as a moral censor, proceeding from principles which he did not hesitate to avow, of seeking the salvation of his fellow men, with but a very subordinate reference to their disapprobation, or applause. He was willing to please by every art in his power, if by this means he could do them good; but in the event of sailure, he knew he should be satisfied with the rectitude of his intentions. In the example of Cowper there is much to affect and instruct us. We see that a christian, and a distinguished christian, may be deranged in mind, and suffer all the evils of despair in this world. Disease of body may interfere with the operations of intellect, and throw a cloud over the prospects of the future. It may even repress or misdirect, for a time, the tendencies of grace; yet it cannot destroy the living principle. The christian, in this condition, is an object of the divine care, and "the very hairs of his head are all numbered." If ultimate reasons be sought for his being in so unhappy a state, when by his spiritual renovation he is prepared to enjoy life, they will be sought in vain. When, therefore, it is inquired, why Cowper should have been an exception to the happi