seclusion; there, like a river in the wilderness, unseen of man, but reflecting the bright blue sky of Heaven from its bosom, his days passed tranquilly away. But his solitude was not the cold and selfish seclusion of the anchorite; it did not chill the current of his generous affections; and his sorrows, which were many, melted without hardening his heart. No man had ever a stronger hold on the hearts of those around him; his unobtrusive charities, his tenderness for others, made his whole life an emblem of the influences of the faith, on which his soul was anchored. Nothing can be more touching than the love with which he clung to the remembrance of the mother, whom he lost in infancy; his allusions to her in his writings remind us of those addressed by Pope to the venerable parent, who was spared to witness the noontide glories of his fame. And the memory of Mrs. Unwin, the excellent friend who watched him through that painful suffering, when the burden of affection ceases to be light and easy, and the love of many waxes cold, — is indissolubly bound with his. Under every aspect, and in all its relations, the character of Cowper may be studied with profit and delight.

His genius was as bold and original, as his character was pure and humble. There is not one of the poets of his country, who owed less to those who went before him; the path in which he adventured was his own, and he trod it with a just and manly confidence in his own powers. His poetry is a faithful transcript of his own thoughts and feelings, as his descriptions are living copies of the scenery and objects around him. Sometimes he ventures into the domain of satire; perhaps too frequently; though his ridicule is never personal, it is not always in perfect harmony with the prevailing gravity of his theme. He makes no effort to produce effect; the effect which he does produce arises not from highly wrought passages, but from the general strain and tenor of his writings; indeed, he is so natural and unpretending, that the very absence of apparent effort sometimes causes the reader to lose sight of the extent and versatility of his genius. Yet his powers were vast and varied. Now he utters the grand and melancholy warnings of the Hebrew prophets; now his inimitable humor flashes out with singular attraction; presently, familiar scenes are brought most vividly before us in his graphic descriptions. Under all circumstances, he awakens a deep interest in the welfare of his race, and the loftiest aspirations for their intellectual and social freedom. Other poets had looked upon re

ligion as the rock of the desert; Cowper struck that rock as with the prophet's rod, and made it flow with healing waters. He transplanted new subjects into the domain of poe ry, and made them flourish with unwonted beauty. Who, before him, ever called up with such effect the images of domestic life and the recollections of the happy fireside? Who, before him, ever spread over outward nature the chastened light of religious feeling, which makes it lovely as our own autumnal landscape, under the sweet influences of the Indian summer?

We are aware, that we have given but a faint and imperfect sketch of the poetry of the latter part of the last century; one, which will perhaps only remind the reader of the remark of Johnson on the work of an English traveller; that it contained "unimportant details of his passage from one place where he saw little, to another, where he saw no more." There are several names, of some distinction too, to which we have not even alluded. Our purpose was rather to dwell upon those individuals, who exercised considerable influence, for good or evil, over writers who came after them. We can enumerate but three, who had ability enough to leave the beaten track, and to present themselves in the attitude, and with the true spirit of reformers; and these three were Crabbe, Burns and Cowper. Each of these poets, with different degrees of power and success, labored to turn back the current of false sentiment, and to set his seal, visibly and deeply, upon his age. The influence of Crabbe, for reasons already intimated, was very limited; the cloud did not attract the eye, because it rarely turned out its silver lining on the night. With the single exception of the Corn-law rhymer, we know of no succeeding poet, who can be said to have been inspired by his example. That of Burns and Cowper was more direct and obvious. As the shades were closing around the eighteenth century, several stars, of more than ordinary brilliancy, were successively appearing above the horizon. Campbell had already published his Pleasures of Hope, the very best of all his poems; suggested perhaps by the Pleasures of Memory of Rogers, which appeared not long before; and Coleridge, Southey, Wordsworth, and Scott had already exhibited their rich and various powers. It was upon this brilliant circle, that the influence of Burns and Cowper was chiefly manifested. Burns laid open the new world of Scottish scenery, manners, language, and character, to other and more fortunate adventurers, and thus enabled Scott

to gather an unfading laurel harvest from the heaths and mountains of his country. It is a circumstance worth remembering, that Burns himself appears to have foreseen the future glory of the mighty minstrel. When Scott was quite a lad, he caught the notice of the poet, by naming the author of some verses, describing a soldier lying dead on the snow. Burns regarded the future minstrel with sparkling eyes, and said, 'Young man, you have begun to consider these things early.' He paused on seeing Scott's flushing face, and shook him by the hand, saying, in a deep tone, This boy will be heard of yet.' Nor was the effect of his lyrical success less striking; there can be little doubt that the melodies of Moore, which are worth all his other writings put together, were suggested by those, by which Burns did so much for the fame of Scottish minstrelsy. Still less can it be questioned, that the diversified and brilliant character of all the later poets we have mentioned, may in great part be traced to the force and originality of Cowper's example. Of all the poets of his time, he is certainly to be regarded with the greatest veneration; his memory will be the very last to fail. It is well that it should be so; for his aim was to raise poetry to its proper elevation, by making it the handmaid of high and holy purposes, the nurse of lofty aspirations for virtue and religious purity and of ardent sympathy with what is free and noble, the enlarger of the intellect, and the purifier of the heart. We do not deem it a vain and idle persuasion, that the day will come, when her celestial vestments and starry diadem will no more adorn the painted forms of vice and sensuality; when mankind will no longer do homage to the idols of perverted genius. Perhaps all the living generation shall not taste of death, before the eastern sky kindle with the day-spring, that shall herald the coming of an age, when poetry, instead of turning the waters into blood, like the burning mountain of the apocalypse, shall bear some faint resemblance to the descending city of the same mysterious vision, over the light of whose towers and palaces darkness shall have no dominion, and into whose gates shall enter nothing but the pure and blameless.

Mr. Allan Cunningham, the author of the biography before us, is not unknown to the lovers of our contemporary literature. His father, a respectable Scottish farmer, was steward of the proprietor of the farm of Ellisland in Nithsdale, on which Burns dwelt for a few years prior to his removal to

Dumfries, where he resided in the capacity of an exciseman, until his death; and appears to have been a man of sense and capacity. He endeavored to dissuade the poet from selecting this farm, on which his fortune was wrecked, in preference to another, less romantic in its situation, but far more fertile, which he offered him; but finding his remonstrances unavailing, remarked to him, "Mr. Burns, you have made a poet's, not a farmer's choice." The life of Burns had been previously written by men abundantly inclined to do the subject justice, but who had all, with the exception of Mr. Lockhart, done his memory much wrong. The narrative of Mr. Heron was written at the time when a subscription was raising for the benefit of the poet's family, and is mentioned by Cunningham in terms of much severity, as equally unfeeling and unjust. Currie and Walker, men of talent and liberal feeling, both of whom were warm in their admiration of Burns, appear to have been misled by the accounts of others in their view of some portions of his history; Jeffrey did perhaps still more to strengthen these erroneous impressions, by a harsh and unfeeling notice in the Edinburgh Review; and the honorable task of vindicating the memory of his countryman from the aspersions of foes and mistaken friends, was reserved for Mr. Lockhart, who accomplished it in a manner alike creditable to his feelings and his ability. He has shewn, by testimony not open to exception, that Burns, however he may have yielded to temptation, when allured by the attractions of society, never did so without self-reproach; that he was not habitually degraded; and that the light of manly feeling and principle within him, though it often wavered, was never extinguished. The example of Lockhart in this particular has been followed by Mr. Cunningham. His narrative derives much interest from the fact, that he writes with the feeling of one, whose early circumstances naturally bound him by strong sympathy with Burns. The other biographers had contemplated the poet from a high point of social elevation Mr. Cunningham observes him from a different level, and writes with deeper interest and feeling. Without finding it in his power to collect many new facts, he has yet been able to prepare a very interesting narrative, and one which will be very acceptable to the many, who love to learn all that is remembered of the history of a man of extraordinary genius. The following extract will be read with deep interest. It describes Burns's death and funeral.

"Sea-bathing relieved for a while the pains in the poet's limbs; but his appetite failed; he was oppressed with melancholy; he looked ruefully forward, and saw misery and ruin ready to swallow his helpless household up. Burns grew feverish on the 14th of July, (1796;) felt himself sinking, and longed to be at home. He returned on the 18th, in a small spring cart; the ascent to his own house was steep, and the cart stopped at the foot of the Mill-hole-brae; when he alighted, he shook much and stood with difficulty; he seemed unable to stand upright. He stooped, as if in pain, and walked tottering towards his own door; his looks were hollow and ghastly, and those who saw him then never expected to see him in life again.

"It was soon spread through Dumfries that Burns had returned from the Brow much worse than when he went away; and it was added that he was dying. The anxiety of the people, high and low, was very great. I was present and saw it. Whenever two or three were together, their talk was of Burns, and of him alone. They spoke of his history, of his person, and of his works, of his witty sayings and his sarcastic replies, and of his too early fate, with much enthusiasm, and sometimes with deep feeling. All that he had done, and all that they had hoped he would accomplish, were talked of; half a dozen of them stopped Dr. Maxwell in the street, and said,' How is Burns, Sir?' He shook his head, saying, 'he cannot be worse,' and passed on to be subjected to similar inquiries farther up the way. I heard one of a group inquire with much simplicity, Who do you think will be our poet now?'

"Though Burns now knew he was dying, his good humor was unruffled, and his wit never forsook him. When he looked up and saw Dr. Maxwell at his bed-side,-'Alas,' he said, What has brought you here? I am but a poor crow, and not worth plucking.' He pointed to his pistols, took them in his hand, and gave them to Maxwell, saying they could not be in worthier keeping, and he should never more have need of them. This relieved his proud heart from a sense of obligation. Soon afterwards he saw Gibson, one of his brother volunteers, by the bed-side, with tears in his eyes. He smiled and said, 'John, don't let the awkward

squad fire over me.'

"His little household presented a melancholy spectacle; the poet dying; his wife in hourly expectation of being confined; four helpless children wandering from room to room, gazing on their miserable parents, and little of food or cordial kind to pacify the whole or soothe the sick. To Jessie Lewars, all who are charmed with the poet's works are much indebted; she acted with the prudence of a sister and the tenderness of a daughter,