1803.] > 
and connected his couplets with links of 
filver: the lanouage of the latter is al- 
ways fimple, often inharmontous, and not 
unfrequently profaic. Darwin arranged 
his fpondees and iambics in meatfure the 
moft melodious and mofical: Cowper’s 
ear was not fo refined, but the {cintilla- 
tions of his fancy, like lightning from a 
cloud, burft with contrafted fplendor. He 
is conftantly appealing to our moral feel- 
ings, he awakens and keeps awake all the 
beft and fineft affetions of the heart. 
Kindnefs, compafiion, gratitude, de- 
votion, humanity, all are excited by the 
magic of his lyre; and he makes ample 
atonement by the felicity of his thoughts 
for the occafional harfhnefs of his expref- 
fion. 
Cowper certainly regarded fmoothnefs 
as a very fubordinate quality of verfe: 
Give me the line that ploughs its fiately 
courfe 
Like a proud fwan, conquering the fiream by 
force. TABLE-TALK. 
He could endure it in Pope and Dar- 
win, becaufe in them he confidered it as a 
fuperaddition to other excellencies, and not 
as a (uccedaneum for the want of them. 
Then Pope, as harmony itfelf exact, 
In verfe well-difciplined, complete, compact, 
Gave Virtue and Morality a grace, 
That quite eclipfing Pleafure’s painted face, 
Levied a tax of wonder and applaufe 
E’en on the fools that trampled on their 
laws. 
But he, (his mufical finefle was fuch, 
So nice his ear, fo delicate his touch) \ 
Made poetry a mere mechanic art, 
And every warbler has his tune by heart, 
TASLE-TALK. 
Altho’ this paflage fhews that Cowper 
could endure the {moothne(s and high polifh 
of Pope, the laft four lines unequivocally 
teftify that they had no very attractive 
charms to his more fimple taite. 
Mr. Hayley has prefented us with an- 
other paflage in which Cowper gives his 
ideas of Englifh verfification. The paf- 
fage is extracted froma letter to Mr. John- 
fon the bookfeller, on occafion of the li- 
berty which fome imcautious reviler of 
the poet’s manuicript had taken to alter - 
one of the lines. ** I did not write the 
line, (fays he) that has been tampered 
with, hattily, or without due attention 
to the conftruétion of it, and what ap- 
peared tome its only merit is,in its prefent 
ftate, intirely annihilated. 
Poetry of Darwin. 
101 
‘*T know that the ears of modern verfe- 
writers are delicate to an excefs, and 
their readers are troubled with the fame 
{queamithnefs as themlelves; fo that if . 
a line do not run as fmooth as quickfilver, 
they are offended. A critic of the prefent 
day ferves a poem as a cook ferves a dead 
turkey, when fhe faftens the legs“of it to 
a poft, and draws out all the finews. 
For this we may thank Pope* ; but unlefs 
we could imitate him in the clofenefs 
and compactnefs of his expreflion as well 
as in the {moothnefs of his numbers, © 
we had better drop the imitation, which 
ferves no other purpofe than to emafculate 
and weaken all we write.-—-Give me a 
manly rough line, with a deal of mean- 
ing in it, sather than a whole poem full 
of muiical periods, that have nothing but 
their oily fmoothnefs to recommend 
~fhem.7* | 
Now, if Darwin’s lines are neither manly 
nor rough, they have ftill a deal of mean- 
ing in them; and though his poems are 
full of mufical periods, they certainly have 
* The coincidence of opinion on this fub-~ 
ject between Cowper and the unfortunate 
Headley, is very remarkable. In the Intro- 
duction to his Beauties of Ancient Englith 
Poetry, (a work which is almoft out of 
print and which every man of tafte would 
be glad to fee republithed,) Mr, Headley 
fays, fpeaking of Pope, that **his Tranfla- 
tion of Homer, timed as it was, operated 
like an inundation to the Englith Republic 
of letters, and has lest to this day, indeli- 
ble marks on more than the furface of our 
poetry. Co-operating with the popular 
ftream of his other works, it has formed a 
fort of modern Helicon, on whofe banks 
infant poets are allured to wander and te 
dream; from whofe ftreams they are content 
to drink infpiration without fearching for 
remoter fources. Whether its waters are 
equally pure, falutary, and deep with the 
more ancient wells of Englifh undefiled, admits 
of a doubt: fo forcibly affected by them, 
however, have been the minds of the public 
fince his day, and fo ftrangely enchanted 
with the ftudied and uniform flow of his har- 
mony, that they have not only growa indif- 
ferent, but in a great meafure infenfible, to 
the mellifluous yet artlefs numbers of Spen- 
fer, Shakefpeare, and Fletcher, where the 
pavfes are not from their clock-work con- 
firuction, anticipated by the ear,where there 
isan union of eafe and energy, of dignity, 
and of grace; and to ufe the words of Dry- . 
den, ‘* the rude fweetnefs. of a Scotch tune 
“which is natural and ‘pleafing, though not 
perfect.” 
fomething 
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