and in 1674 died. The only descendant that could be found last century was a great-granddaughter, and in such poor circumstances as to be keeping a small chandler's shop in one of the obscurest parts of London.

His poetry is the sublimest of any in the English

language. The extract we now give is taken from his matchless Paradise Lost, and describes an evening in Paradise :

Now came still evening on, and twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale ;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled in peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
When Adam thus to Eve:

hour

Fair consort, the

Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose; since God hath set
Labour and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight, inclines
Our eye-lids: other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
While other animals inactive range,

And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labour, to reform.
Yon flowery arbours; yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as Nature wills, night bids us rest.'

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty 'dorned: 'My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st Unargued I obey: so God ordains;

God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing, I forget all time;

All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light; without thee is sweet.'

LESSON 34.

POETS AND THEIR POETRY.

II. WILLIAM COWPER.

august, grand
barrister, one who pleads
at the bar of an English
law-court

confederate, leagued to-
gether

filial, childlike

Ind, India

Kedar,
Nebaioth,

sons of Ishmael,

and founders of the Arab race

Saba, a place in Arabia, noted for its perfumes and spices

uncontaminate, not polluted

unimpeachable, cannot be

William Cowper was the son of a clergyman, and was born at his father's parsonage, Great Berkhamstead, in November 1731. He was a delicate child from his birth; and the death of his mother, before he was six years old, cast a shadow over his whole after-life. He was educated for the law, and in obedience to his father's wish practised for some time as a barrister; but having no relish for legal pursuits, he abandoned them, and gave himself up to translating and writing. When about thirty years of age, his mind became so affected by a variety of causes that he thrice attempted suicide: once by poison, when he was interrupted; once by drowning, which the state of the river prevented; and again by hanging, which was overruled by the providence of God. In his declining years he received a pension from the

Crown of £300 a year. He died in 1800, at the

age

of sixty-eight.

His

from which the two

longest work is The Task, extracts here given have

been taken.

The first is from 'The Winter Morning Walk,' and is a description of true liberty:

powers

But there is yet a liberty, unsung
By poets, and by senators unpraised,
Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the
Of earth and hell confederate take away;
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
Oppressions, prisons have no power to bind ;