The Poems of William Cowper

P. 559. On the Death of the Bishop of Winchester :-The Bishop, on whose death this was written, was Lancelot Andrewes.

P. 564, 11. 7, 8. "Seems" and "themes" in the common text, but the "seem" and "theme" of the MS. is certainly right.

P. 564, 1. 20.

in the MS.

P. 564, 1. 35.

"Tartarean gulfs" in the printed text, but "depths"

"This" is the common text, but "his" is that both of the MS., and of the original edition 1808. This is the only case I have noticed of the common text differing from that of 1808.

P. 565, 1. 80. "plunging" MS. P. 566, l. 136.

P. 568, 1. 40.

P. 568, 1. 74.

P. 570, 1. 44.

P. 575, 1. 26.

P. 577, 1. 36.

"Playing in the western deep" printed text;

"Thunder" printed text.
"Dancers" printed text.
"Train" printed text.
"Reach" printed text.

"Where thou canst not appear" printed text.

"Himself" in the printed text, but here the capital seems important, as the reference is to Dis.

letter of the original

P. 578, 11. 74, 75.

and Adonis.

That is, as Cowper explains in a note, Hyacinthus

P. 582, 11. 121-123. This is one of the cases where Cowper made a final correction of Hayley, and he has written opposite it in the MS. "Sure this is a happy alteration.”

text.

P. 582, l. 144. "Your master's funeral, not soon absorbed" printed

P. 583, 1. 11. Here Cowper originally wrote:

"Where Eurus, fellest wind, no pause allows
To his rude lungs but unremitting blows."

Hayley then corrected to :

"Where Eurus, harbinger of plagues and death, Scatters perdition with his baleful breath," which Cowper again erased and wrote the present text.

P. 584, Manso. 17. "Nor this contented thee" etc. :-Here, again, the version ultimately printed is a correction in Cowper's hand of that by Hayley. It is indeed the last correction of many, some of which are in Hayley's hand, and some in Cowper's. The fair copy gives yet another which does not appear to agree with any exactly, but follows in the last lines Hayley's version erased by Cowper.

P. 587. On the Death of Damon :-Of this beautiful piece in which Milton poured forth his sorrow for the death of his greatest friend, a far deeper and more personal sorrow than that which was the occasion of Lycidas, Cowper was a great admirer, boldly calling it "a pastoral in my judgment equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics." (Letter of December 10, 1791.)

P. 589, 1. 127. "Chloris too came" printed text.

P. 596. These two translations, The Philosopher and the King, and On the Engraver of his Portrait, are printed here for the first time. After Milton's lines to his father, there are-printed among his Latin poemsthree pieces in Greek verse, a rendering of Psalm cxiv., and these two pieces. In the corresponding MS. of Cowper at the British Museum (Add. MSS., 30,801, fol. 61, 62), I find that he did not translate the Psalm, saying it needed no translation, but that he made these renderings of the other two Greek pieces. Why Hayley did not include them, when he published all the others except two rather objectionable epigrams, it is now impossible to say. In the case of the Epigram on the Engraver of his Portrait, I have ventured to prefer the translation as Cowper originally wrote it to Hayley's free correction, which is as follows:

"Survey my features: you will own it clear

That little skill has been exerted here;

My friends who know me not here smile to see
How ill the model and the work agree."

The fact that Hayley printed no translation of the epigram in the 1808 edition would have tempted me to think that his correction in this case was made later than in others, and that, as it had not received Cowper's approval, he did not think it right to print it. But the fair copy bound up with the original at the Museum, part of which is in John Johnson's hand, here gives Hayley's rendering though in many other cases it does not give the latest corrections, even Cowper's own. Hayley's version, therefore, was probably made when the others were made, and may have been approved by Cowper. Or Cowper may have decided to omit the translation altogether, and therefore took no trouble to revise it.

P. 600. Translations from Vincent Bourne :-For Vincent Bourne see note to p. 231.

P. 600. On the Picture of a Sleeping Child :-This piece was first pub- 1 lished in Croft's Early Poems, 1825, and has generally been placed with the other poems coming from that volume. But it seems more convenient to print it with the other translations from Bourne.

P. 612. The Cantab :-A MS. of this in the poet's hand is in the British Museum (Add. MSS., 24,154, ii. 150). In the third line it omits the word "for"; in the fourth it gives "Part paid into hand"; in the tenth, "is barked at and laughed at"; and in the fifteenth, "gentleman" instead of "gentlemen."

Here, as elsewhere, the explanation no doubt is that Cowper made several versions with small variations.

P. 614, 1. 22. Verses to the Memory of Dr. Lloyd :-" Etsi superbum nec vivo tibi." The line is a foot too long, and there does not appear to be any way of putting the metre right, such as I have suggested in the case of the unmetrical line in the Montes Glaciales. The lines are said by

Southey to have been written by Dr. Vincent, afterwards Headmaster of Westminster, so that the mistake, whatever it is, must probably have come not from the author of the Latin lines, but from Cowper, or Hayley, or the printer.

Dr. Lloyd was, for fifty years, undermaster at Westminster School.

There is a different version of Cowper's translation among the MSS. at the British Museum (Add. MSS., 24, 155, fol. 132). It is as follows:

"Th' old man, our amiable old man is gone,
Second in harmless pleasantry to none.
Ye, once his pupils, who with reverence just
Viewed him, as all that were his pupils must,
Whether, his health yet firm, he gently strove
To rear and form you with a parent's love,
Or worn with age, and pleased to be at large,
He came still mindful of his former charge,
To smile on this glad circle every year,
And charm you with his humour, drop a tear.
Simplicity graced all his blameless life,
And he was kind, and gentle, hating strife.
Content was the best wealth he ever shared,
Though all men paid him love and One reward.
Ye titles! we have here no need of you
Go, give the great ones their Eulogiums due,
If Fortune more on others chose to shine,
'Twas not in him to murmur or repine.
Placid old man! the turf upon thy breast,

May it lie lightly, sacred be thy rest,

Though living, thou hadst none thy fame to spread,

Nor even a stone to chronicle thee, dead."

P. 617. These two translations, of the fifth and ninth satires of Horace's first book, were originally published in the second volume of John Duncombe's Works of Horace in English Verse. By Several Hands, 1759. The first is headed "By William Cowper, Esq." and the second (Satire ix.) 66 By W. C. Esq."

P. 625. Virgil's Aeneid, Book VIII. :-This was first printed by John Johnson in his edition of 1815. Among the papers at Welborne there is a letter from one of the poet's Cowper cousins to Johnson urging him to print it and also the translation from Ovid.

P. 630, 1. 203. "In this old solemn feasting" has crept into several editions, as the Aldine and the Globe, but "our," the reading of Johnson's 1815 edition where the translation was first printed, is certainly right. There is nothing in the Latin to demand "old"; "our" is the rendering of "nobis."

"Non haec sollemnia nobis

Has ex more dapes, hanc tanti numinis aram,

Vana superstitio, veterumque ignara deorum,

Imposuit."

P. 630, 1. 221. The 1815 edition reads "triple form'd Geryon" which makes a false quantity in the name.

P. 634, 1. 382. "Placed where thou seest me. Phoebus, and;" the line is two syllables short but so, apparently, Cowper left it.

P. 634, 1. 399. "Where once" the 1815 edition, followed without comment by Bruce and Benham, but obviously a misprint.

P. 635. The Salad :-"This poem," says Hayley, who first printed it in his Life of Cowper, "was translated into English by Cowper during his oppressive malady, June, 1799; and to those who are used to philosophise on the powers of the human mind under affliction, it will appear a highly interesting curiosity." It will be remembered that Cowper died in April, 1800.

P. 656. Translation of an Epigram of Homer :-This translation was first printed by Johnson, in his 1815 edition (p. 103 of the 12mo edition). He gives the following prose heading, which is presumably Cowper's: "Certain potters, while they were busied in baking their ware, seeing Homer at a small distance, and having heard much said of his wisdom, called to him and promised him a present of their commodity, and of such other things as they could afford, if he would sing to them, when he sang as follows."

Johnson also gives this note :

"No title is prefixed to this piece, but it appears to be a translation of one of the Επιγράμματα of Homer called ‘Ο Κάμινος'or the Furnace, The prefatory lines are from the Greek of Herodotus, or whoever was the author of the Life of Homer ascribed to him." The epigram will be found among those ascribed to Homer, with the title Κάμινος ἢ Κεραμις. Ιt begins:

εἴ μοι δώσετε μισθὸν, ἀείσω, ὦ κεραμῆες.

P. 660. Translations of Dryden :-In the MS. copy of these lines sent to Unwin and now in the British Museum, the last words of the fourth line are written "utrisque parem," a mere slip of the pen probably.

P. 660. Motto for a Clock :- "This first appeared in Hayley's Life of Cowper, ii. 415 (1803). See the letter of August 9, 1788, where Cowper says: "I have been employed this morning in composing a Latin motto for the King's clock; the embellishments of which are by Mr. Bacon." Canon Benham says the clock is now at Windsor.

The English rendering is by Hayley.