the endearments of domestic retirement, are pourtrayed. It is in vain to search in any poet of antient or modern times for more pathetic touches of representation. The Task abounds with incidents, introduced as episodes, and interposing an agreeable relief to the grave and serious parts of the poetry. Who has not admired his crazy Kate? A description in which the calamity of a disordered reason is painted with admirable exactness and simplicity.

"She begs an idle pin of all she meets."

I know of no poet who would have introduced so minute a circumstance into his representation; yet who is there that does not perceive that it derives its effect altogether from the minuteness with which it is drawn?

It were an endless task to point out the beauties of the poem. It is now established in its reputation, and, by universal consent, it has given Cowper a very high place amongst our national poets. Let those who cannot perceive its beautics, dwell with rapture on its defects. The taste or the sensibility of that man is little to be envied who, in the pride of a fastidious criticism, would be reluctant in attributing to Mr. Cowper, the praise and charac ter of a poet, because in the tide and rapidity of his fancy he has not been scrupulous in the arrangement of a word or the adjustment of a cadence.

The next work, which Mr. Cowper published, was a translation of the Iliad, and the Odyssey. The design was worthy of his talents. His object was to present the father of poesy to the English reader, not in English habiliments, and modern attire, but

in the graceful and antique habit of his own times He therefore adopted blank verse. Rhyme, by the uniformity of its cadence, and the restrictions which it imposed, rendered the task of translation evidently a paraphrase, because the poet, who could not express the meaning of his author in phrase, and diction, that would accord with his own numbers, must be, of nccessity, compelled to mix his own meaning with his Author's, to soften, and dilute it, as it were, to his own versification. This is the disadvantage of Mr. Pope's Homer; a work, which it were blasphemy to despise, and folly to undervalue, while variety and harmony of numbers retain their dominion over the mind of man. Yet no one will deny, that Mr. Pope has frequently forgotten Homer; and that in some passages he has impaired the strength, and debased The majesty of his original. Let it be remembered, however, that it is no mean honour to any poet to have followed the bold and lofty steps of the divine bard; and that he is not to be censured, though he should lag behind him in his course through that sublime region, which Homer only could tread with safety, and with confidence.

Quid enim contendat hirundo

Cycnis aut quidnam tremulis facere artubus hoedi
Consimile in cursû possint ac fortis equi vis.

LUCRET.

It is a wanton and foolish criticism to compare the translation of Mr. Pope with that of Mr. Cowper. The merits of each are distinct and appropriate. Mr. Pope has exhibited Homer as he would have sung, had he been born in England. Mr. Cowper has attempted to pourtray him, as he wrote in Greece,

adhering

adhering frequently to the peculiarities of his own idiom, and endeavouring to preserve his strength and energy, as well as his harmony and smoothness.

There are several fugitive pieces by Mr. Cowper which have not yet been published. I shall close this article by presenting two of them to the reader.

The poplars are fell'd, and adieu to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonade;
The winds play no longer, and sing in their leaves,
Nor the Ouse, on its surface, their image receives.
Twelve
years had elaps'd since I last took a view
favourite field, and the place where they grew;

Of my

When, behold, on their sides, in the grass they were laid,
And I sate on the trees under which I had stray'd.

The blackbird has sought out another retreat,

Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat;
And the scene where his notes have oft charmed me before,
Shall resound with his smooth-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,

And I must myself lie as lowly as they,

With a turf at my breast, and a stone at my head,
E're another such grove rises up in its stead.

The change both my heart and my fancy employs;
I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;
Short liv'd as we are, yet our pleafures we see,
Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.

MISS LINWOOD.

WERE any sculptor of the present day to give to his figures the correctness and character, energy and ease, which we see displayed in those unrivalled models of ancient art which were wrought in Greece, we should class him as the Shakespeare of his profession, conceive that he had discovered the scale by which some writers have supposed the ancient sculp tors performed these prodigies of art, and venerate his name for having restored an art the world had long lost, and despaired of retrieving.

A portion of the praise which would be bestowed on such a man, is certainly due to the Lady whose name is at the head of this article, for she has awakened from its long sleep, an art which gave birth to painting, and the needle is, in her hands, become a formidable rival to the pencil. She has realised, in the most glowing colours, those splendid wonders that were recorded by Homer, and other ancient poets; for that the labours of the loom, so often alluded to by bards of other days,

"When purple hangings cloth'd the palace walls,"

were the art of making pictures in tapestry, there can be no doubt.

The progress of this branch of the arts in Great Britain is curious. In the firft samples, or rather samplers, when it was in its infancy, we see the Lord's prayer, or the ten commandments, surmounted by Adam and