She once, perhaps, in village-plenty blest, 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, To catch the heart, or strike for honest fame: 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 N the Task, as conspicuous as those of Young, without being overshadowed by the gloom of sadness which generally characterises the author of the Night Thoughts: while Cowper's more lively and familiar passages are illuminated by rays of cheerfulness and flashes of pleasantry that would elicit a smile from Melancholy herself. To the admirers of the Task, some short extracts from it will not prove unacceptable; and still less so to such as are ignorant of a poem which is justly esteemed one of the boasts of British literature, and with which it is indeed difficult to suppose any English reader not acquainted. Cowper's love of a country-life, and all its enchantments, is constantly discernible; nor is he ever happier than in the introduction of the most ordinary objects of a rural nature; which, on every suitable occasion, he applies to his purpose with great dexterity. Thus, early in the Task, when decrying the pursuit of frivolous and vicious pleasures, he brings forward an image employed by almost every other poet, which yet comes from his pen embellished with new graces: |