A LOGICAL DISQUISITION ON EXALTED GENIUS. 125 



to you, but that its self-sufficiency calls for the explanation. When 

 Coleridge was in great distress, I borrowed 100 to give him." 



These are interesting facts, which should be so placed before the 

 " public eye" as to insure immediate attention. It is this same 

 Bristol radical this same author of Wat Tyler this same little 

 king of Keswick this same LL.D., the very identical Tory poet- 

 laureat, who pompously ushers his radical name to the (as the LL.D. 

 imagines) listening world as the only worthy biographer of the 

 amiable, RELIGIOUS, and inspired poet, Cowper! Sure I am the 

 " public" will see through this 1000 piece of business : and, more- 

 over, we think the life of Cowper, from the pen of the sensible and 

 talented editor of the Dumfries' Courier, Mr. M'Diarmid [which, 

 together with the works of Cowper, may be obtained for the small 

 cost of 5s. or 7s.] infinitely preferable as a matter of fact and of 

 economy to the edition which is on the eve of being, as the radical 

 author of Wat Tyler would say, " cast upon the waters," to be cast 

 away, no doubt. 



We do hope our brother Garretteers, as well as the " gentlemen" 

 of the PRESS, will look at the matter in this light, and, from their 

 several " lofty abodes," scout the prodigal insult about to be offered 

 to the reading, and, perhaps too, unsuspecting public. 



But to return. There is one poet, albeit, for whom as I have a 

 great esteem, I regret I cannot add to the number I have enumerated 

 elsewhere : for it is not quite clear that he was either very poor, very 

 lean, or lived in a garret 'tis Horace. I once indeed conjectured that 

 the many passages in his works in praise of poverty proved that he, 

 too, must have experienced it ; but Warburton (whom I conceive 

 to be pretty safe authority, and a sound critic into the bargain) 

 thinks it quite clear, from his having praised it, that he knew nothing 

 of the matter. In cases of this " amount" we ought never to deter- 

 mine rashly; much less should we take things, at best doubtful, for 

 granted, only because agreeable to our system : for the detection 

 of false reasoning on one point will render us suspected in all the 

 rest. And that "fame" promises to be of no good duration which 

 is to last no longer than till we meet an intelligent reader. To 

 make then this concernment as easy as possible, it may not be im- 

 proper to consider Horace's life in two distinct periods. The former 

 before he had gained the favour of Augustus ; and then, as I loftily 

 (for I am writing in my garret) opine, he endured the illuminating 

 influence of the midnight oil in his peculiar eminence : for many 

 parts of his works favour that lucid conjecture. Moreover, after 

 Horace had been introduced to Augustus, at which period, I freely 

 admit, he held lower apartments; but then he was so sensible of the 

 indecorum of his conduct, that he never afterwards considered him- 

 self as a poet. 



" Primum me illorum dederim quibus esse Poetas 

 Excerpam numero. 

 Nos turba sumus (numero)," and so on. 



Nay, if I do not greatly err, he went so far as to call himself a 



