Who throw their Helicon about
As freely, as a conduit fpout!
Friend Robert, thus like chien feavant
Lets fall a poem en passant,

Nor needs his genuine ore refine

'Tis ready polifh'd from the mine..

It may be proper to obferve, that this lively praise on the playful talent of Lloyd was written fix years before that amiable, but unfortunate, author publifhed the best of his ferious poems, "The Actor," a compofition of confiderable merit, which proved a prelude to the more powerful and popular Rofciad of Churchill; who, after furpaffing Lloyd as a rival, affifted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper refided in the Temple, he seems to have been perfonally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the time; and the intereft, which he probably took in their recent works, tended to increase his powerful, though diffident, paffion for, poetry, and to train him imperceptibly to that masterly command of language, which time and chance led him to display, almost as a new talent at the age of fifty. One of his first associates has informed me, that before he quitted London, he frequently amufed himself in tranflation from ancient and modern poets, and devoted his compofition to the fervice of any friend, who requested it. In a copy of Duncombe's Horace, printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires, tranflated by Cowper. The Duncombes, father and son, were amiable scholars, of a Hertfordshire family; and the elder Duncombe, in his printed letters, mentions Dr. Cowper (the father of the Poet) as one of his friends, who poffeffed a talent for poetry, exhibiting at the fame time a refpectable fpecimen of his verfe. The Duncombes, in the preface to their Horace, impute the size of their work to the poetical contributions of their friends. At what time the

two Satires, I have mentioned, were tranflated by William Cowper, I have not been able to afcertain; but they are worthy his pen, and will therefore appear in the Appendix to these volumes.

Speaking of his own early life, in a letter to Mr. Park, (dated March, 1792) Cowper fays, with that extreme modefty, which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, "From the age of twenty to thirty-three, I was "occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the "law; from thirty-three to fixty, I have spent my time "in the country, where my reading has been only an "apology for idlenefs, and where, when I had not either a Magazine, or a Review, I was fometimes a carpenter, at others, a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a "drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I com""menced an author :- -It is a whim, that has ferved "me longest and beft, and will probably be my laft."

66

Lightly as this moft modeft of Poets has spoken of his own exertions, and late as he appeared to himself in producing his chief poetical works, he had received from nature a contemplative fpirit, perpetually acquiring a ftore of mental treasure, which he at last unveiled, to delight and aftonifh the world with its unexpected magnificence. Even his juvenile verfes difcover a mind deeply impreffed with fentiments of piety; and in proof of this affertion, I felect a few ftanzas from an Ode, written when he was very young, on reading Sir Charles Grandifon.

To rescue from the tyrant's fword

The opprefs'd;---unfeen, and unimplor'd,

To cheer the face of wo;

From lawless infult to defend

An orphan's right--a fallen friend,

And a forgiven foe;

These, these diftinguifh from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind;

Whose bofoms with these virtues heave,
O, with what matchlefs fpeed, they leave
The multitude behind!

Then ask ye from what caufe on earth
Virtues like thefe derive their birth?
Deriv'd from Heaven alone;
Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where faith and refignation join
To call the bleffing down.

Such is that heart :-But while the Mufe
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,
Her feebler fpirits faint:

She cannot reach, and would not wrong
That fubject for an angel's fong,

The hero, and the faint.

33

His early turn to moralize, on the flightest occafion, will appear from the following verses, which he wrote at the age of eighteen and in which those, who love to trace the rife and progress of genius, will, I think, be pleased to remark the very promifing feeds of those peculiar powers, which unfolded themfelves in the richest maturity, at a diftant period, and rendered that beautiful and fublime poem, The Task, the most instructive and interesting of modern compositions.

VERSES WRITTEN AT BATH, IN 1748, ON FINDING

THE HEEL OF A SHOE.

Fortune! I thank thee: gentle Goddess! thanks!
Not that my Mufe, though bashful, fhall deny,
She would have thank'd thee rather, hadft thou caft

A treasure in her way; for neither meed
Of early breakfaft to difpel the fumes,
And bowel-racking pains of emptiness,
Nor noon-tide feast, nor evening's cool repast
Hopes fhe from this, presumptuous, though perhaps
The cobler, leather-carving artist! might.
Nathlefs fhe thanks thee, and accepts thy boon
Whatever, not as erft the fabled cock,

Vain glorious fool! unknowing what he found,
Spurn'd the rich gem, thou gav'ft him. Wherefore ah !
Why not on me that favour, (worthier fure!)
Conferr'dft thou, Goddefs! Thou art blind, thou say'st :
Enough!-Thy blindness fhall excuse the deed.

Nor does my Muse no benefit exhale
From this thy fcant indulgence !—even here
Hints, worthy fage philosophy, are found;
Illuftrious hints to moralize my fong!
This pond'rous heel of perforated hide
Compact, with pegs indented many a row,
Haply (for fuch its maffy form bespeaks)
The weighty tread of fome rude peafant clown
Upbore on this fupported oft, he stretch'd,
With uncouth ftrides, along the furrow'd glebe,
Flatt'ning the ftubborn clod, till cruel time,
(What will not cruel time?) on a wry step
Sever'd the ftrict cohefion: when, alas!
He, who could erft, with even equal pace,
Purfue his deftin'd way, with symetry,
And fome proportion form'd, now, on one fide,
Curtail'd and maim'd, the fport of vagrant boys,
Curfing his frail fupporter, treacherous prop!
With toilfome steps, and difficult, moves on.
Thus fares it oft with other, than the feet
Of humble villager-the ftatesman thus,
Up the steep road, where proud ambition leads,

Afpiring firft, uninterrupted winds

His profp'rous way; nor fears miscarriage foul,
While policy prevails, and friends prove true:
But that fupport foon failing, by him left,
On whom he most depended, bafely left,
Betray'd, deferted, from his airy height
Head-long he falls; and through the reft of life,
Drags the dull load of disappointment on.

Of a youth, who, in a fcene like Bath, could produce fuch a meditation, it might fairly be expected, that he would

"In riper life, exempt from public haunt,

"Find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, "Sermons in ftones, and good in every thing."

Thefe few words of Shakespear have often appeared to me as an abfolute portrait of Cowper, at that happiest period of his days, when he exercised, and enjoyed, his' rare poetical powers in privacy, at the pleasant village of Weston. But before we contemplate the poetical Reclufe in that scene, it is the duty of his biographer to relate fome painful incidents, that led him, by extraordinary fteps, to his favourite retreat.

Though extreme diffidence, and a tendency to defpond, feemed early to preclude Cowper from the expectation of climbing to the fplendid fummit of the profeffion, he had chofen; yet, by the intereft of his family, he had profpects of emolument, in a line of public life, that appeared better fuited to the modefty of his nature, and to his moderate ambition.

In his thirty-first year, he was nominated to the offi ces of reading Clerk, and Clerk of the private Committees in the Houfe of Lords. A fituation the more defirable, as fuch an establishment might enable him to mar.