fection afcribed to it by its young and modest author. To have loft a parent of a character fo virtuous and endearing, at an early period of his childhood, was the prime misfortune of Cowper, and what contributed perhaps in the highest degree to the dark colouring of his fubfequent life. The influence of a good mother on the first years of her children, whether nature has given them peculiar ftrength, or peculiar delicacy of frame, is equally ineftimable: It is the prerogative and the felicity of fuch a mother to temper the arrogance of the ftrong, and to diffipate the timidity of the tender. The infancy of Cowper was delicate in no common degrée, and his conftitution difcovered at a very early feafon that morbid tendency to diffidence, to melancholy, and defpair, which darkened as he advanced in years into periodical fits of the most deplorable depreffion. It may afford an ample field for useful reflection to obferve, in fpeaking of a child, that he was deftined to excite in his progress through life the highest degrees of admiration and of pity-of admiration for mental excellence, and of pity for mental diforder. We understand human nature too imperfectly to af certain in what measure the original ftructure of his frame, and the cafual incidents of his life, contributed to the happy perfection of his genius, or to the calamitous eclipfes of his effulgent mind. Yet fuch were the talents, the virtues, and the misfortunes of this wonderful person, that it is hardly poffible for Biography, extensive as her province is, to speak of a more interesting individual, or to felect a fubject on which it may be more difficult to fatisfy a variety of readers. In feeling all the weight of this difficulty, I may ftill be confident that 1 fhall not utterly disappoint his fincereft admirers, if the fuccefs of my endeavours to make him more known, and more beloved, is proportioned, in any degree, to the zeal, with which I cultivated his friendship, and to the gratification that I feel in recalling to my own recollection the delightful extent and diverfity of his literary » powers, with the equally delightful sweetness of his focial character. But the powerful influence of fuch recollection has drawn me imperceptibly from the proper courfe of my narrative.—I return to the childhood of Cowper. In first quitting the house of his parents, he was fent to a reputable fchool at Market-Street, in Hertfordshire, under the care of Dr. Pitman; and it is probable that he was removed from it in confequence of an ocular complaint. From a circumftance which he relates of himfelf at that period, in a letter written to me in 1792, he seems to have been in danger of resembling Milton, in the misfortune of blindness, as he resembled him, more happily, in the fervency of a devout and poetical fpirit. "I have been all my life," fays Cowper, "fubject to in"flammations of the eye, and in my boyish days had "specks on both that threatened to cover them. My "father, alarmed for the confequences, fent me to a fe"male Oculift of great renown at that time, in whose "houfe I abode two years, but to no good purpose. "From her I went to Westminster school, where at the "age of fourteen the small-pox feized me, and proved "the better oculift of the two, for it delivered me from "them all.-Not however from great liableness to in"flammation, to which I am in a degree ftill fubject, "though much less than formerly, fince I have been con"stant in the use of a hot foot-bath every night, the last thing before going to rest." It appears a strange procefs in education, to fend a tender child from a long refidence in the house of a female oculift, immediately into all the hardships that a little delicate boy must have to encounter at a public fchool. But the mother of Cowper was dead, and fathers, though good men, are in general utterly unfit to manage their young and tender orphans. The little Cowper was sent to his first school in the year of his mother's death, and how ill-fuited the fcene was to his peculiar character, must be evident to all, who have heard him defcribe his fenfations in that feafon of life, which is often, very erroneoufly, extolled as the happiest period of human existence. He has been frequently heard to lament the perfecution, that he sustained in his childish years, from the cruelty of his fchool-fellows, in the two fcenes of his education. His own forcible expreffion represented him at Westminster as not daring to raise his eye above the fhoe-buckle of the elder boys, who were too apt to tyrannife over his gentle fpirit. The acuteness of his feelings in his childhood rendered thofe important years (which might have produced, under tender cultivation, a feries of lively enjoyments) miferable years of increafing timidity and depreffion, which, in the most cheerful hours of his advanced life, he could hardly defcribe to an intimate friend, without fhuddering at the recollection of his early wretchednefs. Yet to this perhaps the world is indebted for the pathetic and moral eloquence of thofe forcible admonitions to parents, which give interest and beauty to his admirable Poem on public fchools. Poets may be faid to realize, in fome measure, the poetical idea of the nightingale's finging with a thorn at her breast, as their most exquifite fongs have often originated in the acuteness of their perfonal fufferings. Of this obvious truth, the Poem, I have just mentioned, is a very memorable example; and if any readers have thought the Poet too fevere in his ftrictures on that system of education, to which we owe some of the most accomplished characters, that ever gave celebrity to a civilized nation, fuch readers will be candidly reconciled to that moral feverity of reproof, in recollecting, that it flowed from fevere perfonal experience, united to the pureft fpirit of philanthropy and patriotism. Cowper's exhortation to fathers, to educate their own fons, is a model of perfuafive eloquence, and not inferior to fimilar exhortations in the eloquent Rouffeau, or in the accomplished tranflator of Tanfillo's poem, the Nurse, by which these enchanting writers have induced, and will continue to induce, fo many mothers in polifhed life to fuckle their own children. Yet fimilar as thefe exhortations may be esteemed, in their benevolent defign, and in their graceful expreffion, there are two powerful reafons, which muft, in all probability, prevent their being attended with fimilar fuccefs. In the first place, woman has, in general, much stronger propensity than man to the perfect discharge of parental duties; and fecondly, the avocations of men are so imperious, in their different lines of life, that few fathers could command fufficient leifure (if nature furnished them with talents and inclination) to fulfil the arduous office of preceptor to their own children; yet arduous and irksome as the office is generally thought, there is perhaps no fpecies of mental labour fo perfectly fweet in its fuccefs; and the Poet juftly exclaims, O'tis a fight to be with joy perus'd, A fight furpafs'd by none that we can fhew; A father bleft with an ingenuous fon; Had the constitutional fhynefs and timidity of Cowper been gradually difpelled by the rare advantage, that he defcribes in these verfes, his early years would certainly have been happier; but men, who are partial to public fchools, will probably doubt, if any fyftem of private tui tion could have proved more favourable to the future difplay of his genius, than fuch an education, as he received at Westminster, where, however the peculiar delicacy of his nature might expofe him to an extraordinary portion of juvenile difcomfort, he undoubtedly acquired the accomplishment, and the reputation of scholarship; with the advantage of being known and efteemed by fome afpiring youths, of his own age, who were destined to become confpicuous and powerful, in the fplendid fcenes of the world. With thefe acquifitions, he left Westminster, at the age of eighteen, in 1749; and as if deftiny had determined, that all his early fituations in life fhould be peculiarly irkfome to his delicate feelings, and tend rather to promote, than to counteract a constitutional tendency to a morbid fenfibility in his frame, he was removed from a public school to the office of an attorney. He refided three years in the house of a Mr. Chapman, to whom he was engaged by articles for that time. Here he was placed for the ftudy of a profeffion, which nature seemed refolved that he never fhould practice. The law is a kind of foldierfhip, and like the profeffion of arms, it may be faid to require for the conftitution of its heroes "A frame of adamant, a foul of fire." The foul of Cowper had indeed its fire, but fire fo refined and ætherial, that it could not be expected to fhine in the grofs atmosphere of worldly contention. Perhaps there never exifted a mortal, who, poffeffing, with a good perfon, intellectual powers naturally ftrong, and highly cultivated, was fo utterly unfit to encounter the buftle and perplexities of public life. But the extreme modesty |