University of Virginia Library

This poem was written August 1788, on a journey through Derbyshire, to a music-meeting at Sheffield. The author's father was then Rector of Eyam, an extensive village, that runs along a mountainous terrace, in one of the highest parts of the Peak. She was born there, and there past the first seven years of her life, and often, in future periods of her youth and riper years, visited the place with her father, on several weeks residence. The middle part of the village is built on the edge of a deep dell, which has very picturesque and beautiful features.

From the peculiar nature of the clay on the mountains from which it descends, the river Derwent has a yellow tint, that well becomes the dark foliage on its banks, and the foam produced by a rocky channel.

The ancient custom of hanging a garland of white roses, made of writing paper, and a pair of white gloves, over the pew of the unmarried villagers, who die in the flower of their age, is observed to this day in the village of Eyam, and in most other villages and little towns in the Peak,

These verses were not sent to Mr Cowper, on account of the reported depression on his spirits, and were during his lifetime, for the same reason, with-held from the press.

The line and half, with which this poem opens, are taken from the Task. So says its author of those who feel no pang of conscience for having set their foot upon a noisome reptile.

See the invidious ridicule of the Stratford jubilee in the 6th Book of the Task, a poem whose descriptive powers are always admirable, and whose morality and piety are often sublime.

The use of that word here has been objected to, as too low an expression and unmusical; but surely it had been unwise to have expunged it, because it may be familiar in the dialect of our peasantry, since the English vocabulary has no word which would exactly give its meaning in the two passages where it occurs in the Remonstrance. Learned men have asserted, that grudge has no precise synonime in any language. Its harsh sound, where an harsh feeling is to be expressed, cannot be a just objection. Neither the words envious, or malignant, nor yet unwilling, or reluctant, convey its perfect meaning. The two first are too strong, the second not strong enough. Grudge is a word so peculiar in its signification, that it should not be banished from serious poetry. It stands between unwillingness that our neighbour should possess a certain good, and hating, or envying him its possession. Grudge denotes a feeling stronger than reluctance, yet less bitter than hatred, less vile than envy; and finally, it has been used by our best writers in their serious strains, as the authorities in Johnson's Dictionary prove. If false refinement has rejected any word, the loss of which cannot with precision be supplied, and which has no indecent meaning, those who wish rather to write nervously than nicely, should endeavour, by using it themselves, to recall the exile. Cowper, in the Task, has the word grudge twice, see book iii, page 119, first edition.

Gastril, who having bought the premises on which it stood, cut down Shakespear's mulberry tree, inhospitably to preclude the request of travellers to pay visits of poetic veneration to the tree planted by the great poet of England.

Vide 6th Book of the Task.

He certainly composed his Oratorios for a band whose complete number the comparative fewness of musical performers rendered then unattainable.

The appropriation of those sums to charitable purposes which were collected at the Handelian commemorations, places the injustice of Cowper's sarcasm upon a level with its absurdity, accusing them, as it does, of a profane and idolatrous tendency.

See latter part of the first book of the Task. The episode begins,

When this Remonstrance to Cowper was written, its author only knew him in his publications. Mr Hayley's Biography of that unfortunate man softens, by excited pity, the indignation which had arisen from the ungenerous passages reprobated here;—but the delineation of Cowper's character, and the records of his life, compared with the illiberal censures which disgrace the interesting and beautiful pages of the Task, teach us, more than ever, to deplore the dire Calvinistic principles, which ruined his peace, and which could so freeze and narrow a heart, which Nature had made warm and expansive. They taught him to anathematize for departed genius, sublimer and more extensive than his own, Shakespear and Handel, that praise for the magnificent talents they had cultivated, which his published letters prove him to have been desirous to obtain for his own poetry. March 1806.

This, and the ensuing version, are not calculated for the admirers of Ossian. Those who have a true taste for him, in the simple grandeur of the translation in solemn prose, will think, with the author of this Miscellany, that the most sonorous rhyme and best constructed measure cannot improve his poetic charms. But there are people of genius, who have fervent taste for lyric excellence, that consider poetry, divested of measure, as bombastic prose. Influenced by that prejudice, they perceive neither grandeur nor beauty in the awful and striking imagery of the old Bard. The author of the above paraphrase, convinced that the songs of Ossian contain poetic matter, potent to elevatc and render beautiful, any mode of composition, here tries the effect of that, in which Pope has given us a still more ancient Bard than Ossian. The passages very well bear being detached, and form in themselves a perfect whole. She thinks the ghosts of Cruoal, and Cuchullin, vie in sublime and mournful grace with those of Patroclus and of Hector—with that of Margaret in the exquisite ballad, and almost with the Spirit, in the Book of Job, which passed before the eyes of Eliphaz, amid the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men.

Since Dr Salt, of Birmingham.

He died September the 3d, 1790, the week after he had conducted the Musical Festival, at Birmingham. He sung in the New Church in that town, “Thy rebuke hath broken his heart,” from the Messiah, with great feeling, after he had been treated with cruel disrespect by a part of his audience the preceding evening, who hissed, on a mistaken supposition that he was intoxicated, when they saw him so much oppressed by a song of parental woe, in Jeptha, that he was unable to finish it.

It is gratifying to see this tribute of generous eulogy paid to the memory of a gallant, unfortunate English officer, by a Frenchman, whose nation was at war with ours, at the period of Major Andre's death.

The author put this Ode into verse, December 1790, from the prose inserted below. In 1797, it appeared, translated by Mr Mason, in his third volume of poems, then given to the world. His translation, inverting the order of Harold's triumphs, produces anti-climax, a defect from which the original is free. After the boast of defeating a mighty army, and of having slain their leader, it is bathos to exult in the feats of riding, rowing, swimming, skating, &c.

“The Scandinavian women were chaste, proud, and tenacious of their lover's glory, despising such as spent their life in obscurity. We, therefore, often find an hero minutely detailing his accomplishments, and pursuits, to the object of his passion, as in the following Ode of Harold the Valiant.”—

“One day we were but sixteen in a vessel. “A storm arose, and swelled the sea. It filled the “loaded ship, but we diligently cleared it away. Thence I “formed hopes of the happiest success in love—but a Russian “maiden scorns me.

“I know how to perform eight exercises. I dart the lance. “I sit firmly on horseback—I tune the pipe—I lead the “dances—I am inured to swimming—I am skilful at the oar— “I know how to run along the ice with skates—I fight vali. “antly;—and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

“I was born in the high country of Norway, where the inhabitants “handle their bows so well, but I preferred guiding “my ships amidst the rocks of the ocean, far from the habitations “of men. I have run through all the seas with my vessels “—and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

“My ships have made the tour of Sicily—we were all magnificent “and splendid. My brown vessel, full of mariners, “rapidly rowed to the utmost extent of my wishes. Wholly “taken up with war, I thought my course would never slacken, “and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

“Can she deny that on the great day when, posted near “the city, I joined the battle, and fought against the people “of Drontheim? Their troops trebled ours; it was a dreadful “conflict. I valiantly handled my arms, and left behind me “lasting monuments of my exploits. I left the renowned “king of Drontheim breathless on the field, and yet a Russian “maiden scorns me.”

Mrs H. More established Sunday schools in her neighbourhood.

See Mason's quarto edition of Gray's Poems and Letters, published 1775, page 168.

This attempt is boldly paraphrastic. It appeared to the translator that Gray must mean more than he has, at least, perspicuously expressed, when he says, in this latin ode, that “the sublime scenery round the Chartreuse inspires him with more religious reverence than the statues of Phitias, adorned with gold.” Strange indeed, if it did not; since, though such objects may excite admiration of human skill, they have no obvious tendency to inspire devotion. Surely that was saying too little for those awful monuments of their Creator's power, which inevitably lift the serious and feeling heart to its God. The above English version ventures to make the poet say what he must have meant;—that he there more powerfully feels the presence of the Deity, than amid the pomp of the Romish altars, adorned with pictures, and statues, steaming with incense, and blazing with gold. The translator also takes the liberty to add another, and more pious idea to that, with which Gray's latin ode some what abruptly concludes.

In his edition of his friend's works Mason observes, that this latin poem is “marked with some of the finest touches of Gray's melancholy muse. The extreme gloom and disgust to the world, breathed through its stanzas, probably resulted from his disagreement with Mr Walpole, which occasioned his premature return to England.” Gray's letters thus describe the situation of the grand Chartreuse:—“We “proceeded on horses which are used to the way, up the “mountain of the Chartreuse. It is six miles to the top; the “road winds up it, generally not six feet broad. On one “hand, rocks, with woods of pine-trees hanging over their “heads; on the other, a monstrous precipice, almost perpendicular, “at the bottom of which rolls a torrent, that sometimes “tumbling amongst the fragments of stone, which have “fallen from above, and somet mes precipitating itself down “vast descents, with noise like thunder, which is still increased “by the echoes from the mountains on each side, concurs “to form one of the most awful, the most romantic, the most “astonishing scenes I ever beheld. Add to this, the strange “views made by the cliffs and craggs on the other hand, “which in many places throw themselves from the summit “down to the vale, and the river below, and you will conclude “we had no occasion to repent our pains.”

Miss Gresley, then fourteen, Sir Nigel's eldest daughter.

Miss Louisa Gresley, Sir Nigel's sister, since Mrs William Gresley.

That ingenious and learned gentleman had seen his charming Poem absurdly and arrogantly criticised by one of the periodical Censors. Amidst other utterly groundless objections, he accused the poet of unlicensed and affected verbalism, instancing particularly the words slumberous, and memorize. For both, Johnson shews the high authority of Shakespear, Milton, and Pope; and for the latter, a prose sentence of eminent beauty by Wotton, thus:—“Let their lives, which were bravely lost, be memorized on the full tablets of time.” After accusing Mr Polwhele of affectation in using them, the critic proceeds to assert that such expressions have the effect of a November fog, in completely annihilating every thing like sense and beauty in a composition. Now, it is evident, that were they as unhappily, as, in fact, they are happily used, their mal-influence could extend only to the sentence in which they are found; and since he cannot deny that they are clearly intelligible, at least, it is impossible they can have the obscuring effect of a fog, even upon that single sentence. The critic who could use such an inapplicable metaphor in prose, is miserably incompetent to sit in judgment upon poetry, and under the proud name too of the British Critic. By the same decider was the author of these poems accused of rendering several of her passages nonsense by the use of the word thrill: The following were some of the lines instanced. Speaking of Roubilliac's glorious monument in Wrexham Church, she says,

And also,

Also,

This critic must be poorly read in Milton, Pope, and Gray, and indeed, in all our best poets, since in them he might repeatedly find the word thrill used in the same sense. Johnson thus defines it as a verb active, “to thrill, to pass with a shuddering sensation.” Our hearts, or our memory may certainly be thrilled either by pleasure, pain, surprise, or terror, and so, in the language of poetry, may the tomb, the air, and other things, which are literally inanimate.—Milton says, in his hymn on the nativity,

And Addison,

And Prior,

But of similar use of the word thrill, the instances are endless.

Mr T. Warton has shewed how largely Milton drew from the English poets who preceded him.

Lives of the Poets.

It is well known that, with the exception of Chaucer, Johnson knew little of our early obsolete poetry. Mr T. Warton, in this his ingenious and learned work, shews us the prima stamina of an infinite number of those poctic flowers which adorn the juvenilia of Milton's muse. The style of Mr T. Warton's notes is eloquent in the first degree. We often find passages whose oratoric force and beauty equal the finest sentences of Dr Johnson.

A Tour through England and Wales was published in 1793, by Edward Clark, Esq. brother to the gentleman whom the above Impromptu addresses. Mr E. Clarh's volume is adorned with aquatinta drawings. Lichfield is described there, and very flattering mention made of the Author of this Miscellany.

Mr Repton took the view from the drawing-room window, in the Bishop's Palace at Lichfield, the home of the author from her earliest youth.

The Penates, or Lares, are the household gods. There is a beautiful hymn to them in Mr Southey's Miscellany.

It is mentioned by the historians, that in the field of Agincourt, the white plumes of the king's helmet were always seen waving in the front of the battle.

Cannon were first used by the English at the battle of Cressy.

Cooler reflection, and a long experience of the mischiefs resulting from the sanguinary system which this government has unwarned pursued through the last 14 years, have justified this Poet's representation of Henry the Fisth's conduct in invading France, and convinced me that the deprecation in Joan of Arc of monarchical ambition and rapacity, under that proud and specious term Military Glory, proceeded from benevolence to the Human race, and from a spirit of justice too firm to be warped by the vanity of national enthusiasm.— Anna Seward, Sept, 1807.

According to the records of Lewis Owen, the year 1349 was distinguished by the first appearance of the pestilence in Wales, and by the birth of Owen Glendour. Hollingshed relates the marvellous tale of his father's horses, being found that night in their stables, standing up to the middle in blo d. The Bard, Iolo Goch, mentions a comet, which marked the great deeds of Glendour, when he was in the meridian of his glory.—See Mr Pennant's Tour.

Isaiah.

Richard the Second.

Henry the Fourth.

Vaucluse, the celebrated valley near Avignon, in which Petrarch composed his beautiful sonnets to Laura.

In 1390, Castel Dinas-Brân, now a bare ruin, was inhabited by the lovely Lady Mifanwy Vechan, of the house of Tudor Trevor. She was beloved by the Bard Hoel. See Mr Pennant's Tour, adorned by a pleasing translation in English verse, of one of Hoel's poems in her praise, and complaining of her coldness. The ruins of Castel Dinas-Brân, are on a conoid mountain of laborious access. It rises in the midst of Llangollen Valley.

Rocks of the Eagles. They are opposite Castel Dinas-Brân. The Rev. Mr Roberts of Dinbren asserts, that the word Eglwyseg, has that interpretation. Mr Pennant derives it from the name of a gentleman, to whose memory the neighbouring column was erected; though, in another part of his Tour, he mentions Leland's testimony, that a pair of eagles built annually in the Eglwyseg rocks, and that a person was let down in a basket to take the young, with another basket over his head, to protect him from the fury of the parent-birds. This tradition favours Mr Roberts' etymology. That Gentleman has lately added largely to his paternal house, situated on a noble mountain in Llangollen Valley. The house stands near its craggy summit, and looks as if it had been scooped out of the rocks. A very narrow valley, containing two sloping copses, and a few bright little fields, with a woody lane winding between them, divides Mr Roberts' mountain from the opposite elevation of Castel Dinas-Brân. The south-east front of the house looks immediately into this narrow valley; the barren, and very singular Eglwyseg rocks on the left, and Castel Dinas-Brân in front. Between the base of the latter, and the sloping foot of his own mountain, Mr R. has the bird's-eye prospect of Llangollen Town, and a part of the Vale.—The author of this Poem, is indebted to the friendly hospitality of Mr and Mrs Roberts, for an opportunity of contemplating the beauties of their own scene, and of the celebrated Valley of Llangollen.

Right Honourable Lady Eleanor Butler, and Miss Ponsonby, now seventeen years resident in Llangollen Vale, and whose guest the author had the honour to be during several delightful days of Summer.

The Library, fitted up in the Gothic taste, the painted windows of that form. In the elliptic arch of the door, there is a prismatic lantern of variously tinted glass, containing two large lamps with their reflectors. The light they shed resembles that of a volcano, gloomily glaring. Opposite, on the chimney-piece, a couple of small lamps, in marble reservoirs, assist the prismatic lantern to supply the place of candles, by a light more consonant to the style of the apartment, the pictures it contains of absent friends, and to its aërial music.

Evening star.

These lines with inverted commas, are from Thomson's Castle of Indolence.

The picturesque ruins of Valle Crucis Abbey, one of the most striking objects in this Valley. They are particularly described by Mr Pennant, and there are engravings of them in his Tour.

Superstition.

Mrs Fletcher of Gwernheyled—Gwernheyled, means Sunny Alders.

The two Miss Apperlys.

Mrs Parry Price, late of that neighbourhood.

The Lady of Sir Foster Cunliffe, Baronet.

Watkin Hayman, Esq.

Westminster.

Mrs Mary Middleton's monument by Roubilliac, in the Chancel at Wrexham.

Mr Randal, organist of Wrexham; an exquisite performer on the pedal harp. He has been blind from his infancy.

Hoyle Lake, the real name, better suited to verse than its recently assumed appellation, High Lake.

The large and handsome Hotel, built in the year 1792, by Sir John Stanley, and which converts these pleasant Downs into a commodious sea-bathing place.

Deva, the classical name of the Dee.

Also Prior, in Henry and Emma.

Milton probably uses the epithet wizard, in allusion to the rites and mysteries performed on the banks of the Deva, or Dee. In Spencer, the river is made the haunt of magicians. That fine poetic scholar and critic, the late Mr T. Warton, observes, in his Edition of Milton's lesser Poems, that Merlin used to visit old Timon in a green valley, at the foot of the mountain, Rauran-Vaur, in Merionethshire, from which mountain the river Deva springs. See Fairy Queen, B.1.C.ix.V.4. In Drayton, an old poet, with whose works Milton was familiar, it is styled “the hallowed, the holy, the ominous flood.”

The first word spoken as one syllable, as if spelt Mole. The name signifies in Welch, Mother of Mountains. It is seen in the Hoyle-Lake prospect, behind the Flintshire Hills, and considerably higher than any of them.

The Sand Island, six miles long, and four broad, which lying in the sea, a mile from shore, forms the Lake; and breaking the force of the tides, constitutes the safety of that Lake as an harbour and bathing-place.

King William encamped his army on the Hoyle Lake Downs, before he took shipping from thence, on his victorious expedition to Ireland.