animated by the spirit of the creature he describes. And with all his drollery there is a mixture of rational and even religious reflection at times, and always an air of pleasantry, good-nature, and humanity, that makes him, in my mind, one of the most amiable writers in the world."

So much for Cowper's first volume, and there were already, as we have seen, visions in his mind of a second. "A French author I was reading last night," he told Unwin,

says, 'He that has written will write again.' If the critics do not set their foot upon this first egg that I have laid, and crush it, I shall probably verify this observation."

CHAPTER XIII.

THE RECONCILIATION; OR, FROM THE PUBLICATION OF HIS FIRST VOLUME

TO THE

“TASK.”

W

COMMENCEMENT OF THE

(February, 1782-July, 1783.)

86. What the Critics Said.

HEN Cowper first began to think of publishing he thought that if he pleased his friends he would care for the opinion of nobody else. "I sometimes feel such a perfect indifference," he told Newton, "with respect to the public opinion of my book, that I am ready to flatter myself no censure of reviewers, or other critical readers, would occasion me the smallest disturbance." But though this "desirable apathy" was not always present with him, he was still persuaded that it was not in the power of the critics to mortify him much, and he endorsed the assertion of Horace, who said "that he should neither be the plumper for the praise, nor the leaner for the condemnation of his reader."

Cowper had certainly pleased his friends. John

Newton, Mr. Bull, Mrs. Unwin, William Unwin, were delighted, and the last said that the book had moved his wife to both smiles and tears. One of Cowper's intimate friends, says Hayley, wrote in his copy the following passage from the younger Pliny, as descriptive of the book: "Multa tenuiter, multa sublimiter, multa venuste, multa tenere, multa dulciter, multa cum bile." ("Many passages are delicate, many sublime, many beautiful, many tender, many sweet, many acrimonious.") Cowper, who was pleased with the application, said candidly, "The latter part is very true indeed! Yes, yes, there are multa cum bile." When the book was out, however, Cowper found that he was by no means indifferent to what the great world might say. "It is well, said I, that my friends are pleased; but friends are sometimes partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a stranger or two speak well of

me."

One by one the reviews came out. The London Magazine and the Gentleman's Magazine were both favourable, but the Critical Review attacked the book with much hostility. The author, it said, was “not possessed of any superior abilities, or power of genius, requisite to so arduous an undertaking; his verses are in general weak and languid, and have neither novelty, spirit, nor animation to recommend them." Again, "He never rises to anything that we can commend or admire," and further on the poet is spoken of as "travelling on a plain, level, flat road, with great composure, almost through the whole long and tedious. volume, which is little better than a dull sermon in

very indifferent verse." There is no need for the admirers of Cowper to wax indignant over this criticism, it is the sort of thing every author has at one time or another to put up with. It is impossible to please everybody. At the same time, a criticism like this was not calculated to raise the spirits of a man so sensitive as Cowper. But whatever mortification Cowper may have felt on this occasion was more than compensated by the pleasure he received subsequently from the very handsome letter which the eminent Benjamin Franklin sent to Mr. Thornton, by whom he had been presented with a copy.

poetry

Dr. Franklin said: "I received the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, and am much obliged by your kind present of a book. of a book. The relish for reading of has long since left me; but there is something so new in the manner, so easy and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression, yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgments, and to present my respects to the author."

Franklin's letter was of course despatched to Cowper, who observed, "We may now treat the critics as the Archbishop of Toledo treated Gil Blas when he found fault with one of his sermons. His grace gave him a kick, and said, 'Begone for a jackanapes, and furnish yourself with a better taste, if you know where to find it.""

As yet, however, the great magazine, the most formidable of all the tribunals, had not pronounced judgment. The Monthly Review still kept him in hot