or }

Lent in Fleet Street at Mr. Adams's to pay for

the instrument

Lent him at the Society of Arts, and to pay arrears
Get the Copy of Essays for which paid

as half, and Mr. Griffin to have the other.”

While these pages are passing through the press, the second volume of Mr. Southey's Life of Cowper has appeared. Should any coincidence of thought in passages relating to the past or present opinion of Churchill, or on the state of poetry at that period appear to exist, it may be necessary to say that it is accidental, the MS. of this work having been in the hands of the publisher more than a year.

In enumerating the poets who immediately preceded or were contemporary with Cowper, it seems remarkable that this eminent writer never once mentions the name of Goldsmith; an omission on which misconstructions may arise.

"Another proof," he says, "that the school of Pope was gradually losing its influence is, that almost every poem of any considerable length which obtained any celebrity during the half century between Pope and Cowper, was written in blank verse. With the single exception of Falconer's Shipwreck, it would be in vain to look for any rhymed poem of that age and of equal extent, which is held in equal estimation with the works of Young, Thomson, Glover, Somerville, Dyer, Akenside, and Armstrong."-Vol. ii. p. 176.

And again

66

Cowper's 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 Athenaid, 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 farther publicity; and Hayley ambled over the course without a competitor."-P. 181, 182.

The omission of the name of the author of the Hermit, the Traveller, and the Deserted Village in both these passages may be accidental; for it is difficult to conceive that so distinguished a professor of the art as he himself is, should intentionally seem to undervalue, by not noticing, such an author, even should his poems fall short of the "equal length" to which allusion is made. Certain theories of poetry have however almost produced a schism among the lovers, as well as among the professors of song, and the merits of a writer seem in danger of being forgotten in considering to what school he is supposed to belong. Yet after all, of what moment or of what use, is contention on this subject? Good poetry is of no sect or school. And provided it be good, the public care nothing

whence it comes; whether Spenser, Milton, Dryden, or a more modern master, be the object of worship of the writer; whether it be couched in the stanza of the former; in the blank verse of Milton, of Young, or of Thomson; in the vigorous rhymes of Dryden; or in the terseness and music of Pope. All have their merits, and it would be strange if all had not, when the world has so long agreed in rendering them its tribute of admiration. It is however not the public but poets themselves who are chiefly guilty of injustice to each other. Thus Pope is said by Cowper in one of his letters, to be an indifferent poet; Lord Byron in turn calls Cowper no poet; and a great living master of the lyre is said to designate his lordship just in the same terms, as no poet. These opinions, or perversities of opinion, can mislead no one; they may be supposed to spring rather from temper than from judgment, for every reader of taste or discrimination will rise in opposition to the decision and direct his resentment against the

accusers.

With great deference to the opinion of Mr. Southey, whose decisions cannot be often safely controverted, it may be doubted whether the influence of the school of Pope can be considered to have declined, simply because as he seems to imply, blank verse had been employed by several writers of eminence. We may with equal reason infer that it was not their blank verse but their merits otherwise, that caused them to be esteemed; and

had their poems been as well written in rhyme, whether of the school of Pope or of any other

school, they would have haps greater popularity.

acquired as great, perNeither can the poets who are enumerated be considered so much the successors as the contemporaries of Pope. Young was born before him; Somerville two or three years after; Thomson and Dyer twelve years younger; Armstrong, Glover, and Akenside something later; and although several survived him, almost every one of the number had published their great works during his life. He can scarcely therefore be said to have established a school. There are strong reasons for believing that the poets in question afraid to follow in a track in which equal excellence was hopeless, struck out blank verse as being likely to lose less by the comparison.

Yet how few even of these, excepting the Night Thoughts, the Seasons, and (though less generally) the Pleasures of Imagination, are extensively read! Glover, Somerville, Dyer, and Armstrong are comparatively neglected. Without popularity what is a poet? He writes to be read, or to what purpose does he write? It is in vain to contend as some resolutely attempt, against this criterion; the vanity of a neglected author may be soothed by sneering at or condemning what he cannot attain, but general approval must have its weight in literature as in every other pursuit in life; and when tested by the lapse of the whole or greater part of a century, we

can rarely dispute the justice of the decree which awards poetical fame.

Let us contrast these poets and many others with Goldsmith, who wrote neither long poems, nor blank verse, and who moreover may be susspected of being in some measure influenced by the "school of Pope." He is read universally; by the old and the young, by the learned and the unlearned, and to all, as his themes are from nature and therefore not likely to tire or become antiquated, gives pleasure on repeated perusals. You meet with his productions in every variety of form and in almost every place, from the best furnished repository of books to the humblest bookstall, adapted to the wants or the means of every description of readers, nor can even Gray or any other modern writer with whom he has been compared, dispute pre-eminence with him here. We cannot therefore fairly doubt his taste in the selection of his topics, or his genius in the execution of all that he attempted; but we may be permitted to doubt whether if he had written in blank verse, his poems would have pleased so generally as they have done.