are enraptured with the images which they present to the mind.

Nothing of its kind can be more finished than the picture of the villageclergyman: but the simile employed to illustrate the poet's account of his strict performance of the pastoral office, the affection he feels for his people, and the persevering piety by which he wins them to paths of holiness and peace, if not matchless, has never been excelled:

"And as a bird each fond endearment tries

To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies,
He try'd each art, reprov'd each dull delay,
Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way."

If this idea can be equalled by an

other, in any language, ancient or mo

dern, it is by that with which the portrait concludes:

"To them his heart, his love, his griefs were giv❜n; But all his serious thoughts had rest in heav'n. As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form,

Swells from the vale, and mid-way leaves the storm, Tho' round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head."

His heart and his taste must be alike

vitiated, who unmoved could contemplate the subject of the following lines, or be insensible to the melody with which they flow:

"Ah! turn thine eyes,

Where the poor, houseless, shiv'ring female lies:

She once, perhaps, in village-plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest;
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn.
Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head;
And, pinch'd with cold, and shrinking from the show'r,
With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour,
When idly, first, ambitious of the town,

She left her wheel, and robes of country-brown."

The Deserted Village ends with an address to Poetry, not only affecting for the solemnity of its personal allusion, and pleasing to the reader for the smooth current of its versification, but remarkable as displaying the virtuous enthusiasm of Goldsmith, and a gene

rous declaration of what was his notion

concerning a poet's duty, and the influence of his art on mankind:

"And thou, sweet Poetry, thou loveliest maid, Still first to fly where sensual joys invade; Unfit, in these degen'rate times of shame,

To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame:
Dear, charming nymph! neglected and decry'd,
My shame in crowds, my solitary pride;
Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe,`
That found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so;
Thou guide, by which the nobler arts excel,
Thou nurse of every virtue, fare thee well!

Cowper has pursued a different course from that of Goldsmith, but has successfully attained the same great and

desirable end; that of persuading men to a love of virtue, and delighting those whom he professes to instruct,

The excellencies of his Task, which is written in blank verse, are so various, as to leave the reader in doubt whether most to admire it as an evidence of the author's poetical talents, his goodness of heart, his sublimity of conception and expression, the integrity of his judgment, or the felicity of his wit.

The morality and good sense of Cowper are, throughout all his writings, but particularly in the serious parts of

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