appears to have loved with a very cordial affection. I find that affection agreeably displayed in a sportive poetical epistle, which may claim a place in this volume, not only as an early specimen of Cowper's poetry, but as exhibiting a sketch of his own mind at the age of twenty-three. AN EPISTLE to ROBERT LLOYD, Esqr. 1754. "Tis not that I design to rob Thee of thy birth-right, gentle Bob, For thou art born sole heir, and single, Of dear Mat Prior's easy jingle; Nor that I mean, while thus I knit My thread-bare sentiments together, To shew my genius, or my wit, When God and you know, I have neither; By letting poetry alone. "Tis not with either of these views, That I presume to address the Muse; But to divert a fierce banditti, (Sworn foes to every thing, that's witty!) That, with a black, infernal train, And daily threaten to drive thence My little garrison of sense : The fierce banditti, which I mean, Are gloomy thoughts, led on by spleen. Then there's another reason yet, The debt, which justly became due Since twenty sheets of lead, God knows, Thus, the preliminaries settled, I fairly find myself PITCH-KETTLED First, for a thought-since all agree A thought-I have it-let me see— 'Tis gone again-plague on't! I thought I had it but I have it not. * Pitch-kettled, a favorite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what, in the Spectators' time, would have been called bamboozled. Dame Gurton thus, and Hodge her son, Rake well the cinders ;-sweep the floor, And sift the dust behind the door; While eager Hodge beholds the prize The virtuoso thus, at noon, Broiling beneath a July sun, O'er hedge and ditch, thro' gaps and mews; That Matthew's numbers run with ease, Each man of common sense agrees; All men of common sense allow, That Robert's lines are easy too: Where then the preference shall we place, Matthew (says Fame) with endless pains, T'escape him, at the idlest time; That, while the language lives, shall last. For 'tis my business to reply; Sure so much labour, so much toil, Theirs be the laurel-wreath decreed, Who both write well, and write full speed! Who throw their Helicon about As freely, as a conduit spout! Friend Robert, thus like CHIEN SCAVANT, Lets fall a poem EN PASSANT, Nor needs his genuine ore refine ; 'Tis ready polish'd from the mine. It may be proper to observe, that this lively praise on the playful talents of Lloyd, was written six years before that amiable, but unfortunate, author published the best of his serious poems, "The Actor," a composition of considerable merit, which proved a prelude to the more powerful, and popular, Rosciad of Churchill; who, after surpassing Lloyd as a rival, assisted him very liberally as a friend. While Cowper resided in the Temple, he seems to have been personally acquainted with the most eminent writers of the. time; and the interest, which he probably took in their recent works, tended to increase his powerful, though diffident, passion 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 amused himself in translation from antient and modern poets, and devoted his composition to the service of any friend who requested it. In a copy of Duncombe's Horace, printed in 1759, I find two of the Satires translated 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 possessed a talent for poetry, exhibiting at the same time a respectable specimen of his verse. The Dun |