In soul of all the British lands came among us in the shape of a hard-handed Scotch peasant. The hoar visage ' of winter delights him; he dwells with a sad and often-returning fondness on these scenes of solemn desolation; but the voice of the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears; he loves to walk in the sounding woods, for it raises his thoughts to him that walketh on the wings of the wind.' . his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of poetry and manhood. But some beams from it [Burns's genius] did, by fits, pierce through; and it tinted those clouds with rainbow and orient colors into a glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gaze on with wonder and tears."—Carlyle. "It ['The Cotter's Saturday Night '] is a noble and pathetic picture of human manners mingled with a fine religious awe. It comes over the mind like a slow and solemn strain of music. Repeatedly, in Burns's poems, we find touches of what the poet himself so finely calls the pathos and sublime of human life.'"-William Hazlitt. "He rises occasionally into a strain of beautiful description or lofty sentiment, far above the pitch of his original conception."-Francis Jeffrey. ILLUSTRATIONS. "The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast, The joyless winter day, Let others fear, to me more dear Than all the pride of May: The tempest's howl it soothes my soul, My griefs it seems to join: The leafless trees my fancy please, Their fate resembles mine."—Winter. "O Thou, great Governor of all below! With that controlling power assist even me To rule their torrent in the allowed line: Oh, aid me with Thy help, omnipotence Divine." -Stanzas on the Prospect of Death. "Ye holy walls that, still sublime, As through your ruins, hoar and gray- -Verses on the Ruins of Lincluden Abbey. COWPER, 1731-1800 at Biographical Outline. William Cowper, born Great Berkhampstead, November 26, 1731; father a clergyman and at one time chaplain to George II.; mother related to the poet Donne and descended indirectly from Henry II.; loses his mother at the age of six, a loss from which he never recovered; he is exceedingly timid and sensitive even as a child; soon after his mother's death Cowper is placed in the school of one Dr. Pitman, in Market Street, Hertfordshire, where he is abused and bullied by the older and stronger boys; he is removed from Dr. Pitman's school on account of inflammation of the eyes, caused, it is said, by excessive weeping, and is placed for two years in the home of an oculist; in 1741 he is placed in Westminster School, where he takes part in athletic sports and is less miserable than at Market Street; he studies Latin at Westminster under Vincent Bourne, to whom Cowper becomes attached; he becomes a good Latin scholar, and reads the "Iliad" and the 66 Odyssey outside of school hours with a friend; he has Warren Hastings as a school-mate at Westminster; he writes his first poem, an imitation of Phillips's "Splendid Shilling," and helps his brother John, at Cambridge, to translate the "Henriade" in 1748, while still at Westminster; he leaves Westminster in 1748, spends nine months at his home in Great Berkhampstead, and is articled, in 1749, to one Chapman, a London attorney, with whom he remains three years, completing his articles; while in London Cowper frequently visits the home of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, with whose daughter Theodora he falls in love, and addresses to her many of his early poems under the name of "Delia ;" he takes chambers in the Middle Temple in 1752, and is called to the bar in 1754, but never practices, having studied law merely to please his father; he gives his time to literature, and becomes a member of the "Nonsense Club," a group of seven Westminster men interested in literature and journalism, among whom were Bonnell Thornton, Coleman, and Lloyd; he associates also with Churchill, Wilkes, and Hogarth; he is refused the hand of his cousin by her father, though she remains single and faithful to Cowper till her death; he loses his father in 1752, but is not much affected by the loss; he receives a small patrimony from his father; he secures a position as Commissioner of Bankrupts, which brings him. £60 per annum, and, in 1759, removes to the Inner Temple; through the influence of his cousin, Major Cowper, Cowper is offered first the office of Reading Clerk and Clerk of Committees in the House of Lords and then that of Clerk of the Journals; Cowper accepts both, successively, and fails to appear in each case because of diffidence as to reading in public and fear of inability to pass the examination required for the second position; he becomes exceedingly nervous and a victim to hypochondria; he convinces himself that suicide is lawful, and makes preparations to take his life several times, but shrinks at the last moment; he finally tries to hang himself, and is apparently prevented only by the breaking of the garter that he has used for a noose; he is seized with religious horrors, and becomes so completely insane that he is placed, in 1763, in the private asylum of one Dr. Cotton, at St. Albans; after remaining eighteen months in the asylum, Cowper is discharged, having been restored, as he believed, through divine faith; he celebrates his deliverance. in the poem "The Happy Change;" he is assisted financially by friends, and goes, in 1765, to reside in Huntingdon, where he meets Mrs. Unwin, the "Mary" of his poems; he maintains a servant and an outcast boy, both brought with him from St. Albans; he takes up his residence with the Unwins, who care for him tenderly; after Mr. Unwin's death, in 1767, he goes with Mrs. Unwin to reside at Olney, where Cowper comes under the influence of the Rev. John Newton; the religious life of Cowper and Unwins is so strict and regular that they are called "Meth lists; Cowper and Mrs. Unwin become near neighbors to N、 "ton, and enter on "a decided course of religious happiness;" at Newton's suggestion Cowper begins the "Olney Hymns; under the ascetic life recommended by Newton, aggravated by the death of his brother, Cowper becomes again insane in 1773, fancies himself rejected of Heaven, etc., and is slowly nursed back to reason by Mrs. Unwin; he begins to domesticate hares, and, at Mrs. Unwin's suggestion, in 1780, begins to write poetry, as furnishing congenial occupation for his mind; Mrs. Unwin suggests the theme "The Progress of Error," and within the year Cowper writes the poem of that title together with "Truth," "Table-Talk," and "Expostulation;" in 1781 he meets Lady Austen, who suggests to him the composition of "The Task," which Cowper begins in 1783 and publishes in 1785; "The Task " is successful and wins public recognition; after completing "The Task" he writes "The Loss of the Royal George,' "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk," "The Poplar Field," "The Shrubbery," "The Needless Alarm," etc.; in 1784, at Lady Austen's suggestion, Cowper begins his translation of Homer, which he publishes in 1791; he hears the story of " John Gilpin" from Lady Austen while winding her thread, and writes the ballad at a single sitting; he becomes estranged from Lady Austen in 1785 through her dislike of a certain "lecture" in one of Cowper's letters; he becomes again insane in 1791 and again attempts suicide; Lady Austen's place is supplied by Cowper's cousin, Lady Hesketh; Cowper's health becomes shattered by recourse to medical empiricism; he removes, in 1786, with Mrs. Unwin, to Wes |