nd piously prefer the tail.
Thus conscience freed from every clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog."

The moral follows, pointing out that each one makes an exception in
favour of his own besetting sin.

These touches of humour which had hitherto appeared timidly in his
writings were encouraged by Lady Austen. "A new scene is opening," he
writes, "which will add fresh plumes to the wings of time." She was his
bright and better genius. Trying in every way to cheer his spirits, she
told him one day an old nursery story she had heard in her
childhood--the "History of John Gilpin." Cowper was much taken with it,
and next morning he came down to breakfast with a ballad composed upon
it, which made them laugh till they cried. He sent it to Mr. Unwin, who
had it inserted in a newspaper. But little was thought of it, until
Henderson, a well-known actor introduced it into his readings.[13] From
that moment Cowper's fame was secured, and his next work "The Task,"
also suggested by Lady Austen, had a wide circulation.

After this success, Lady Austen set Cowper a "Task," which he performed
excellently and secured his fame. He was at first at a loss how to begin
it--"Write on anything," she said, "on this sofa." He took her at her
word, and proceeded--

"The nurse sleeps sweetly, hired to watch the sick,
Whom snoring she disturbs. As sweetly he
Who quits the coachbox at the midnight hour
To sleep within the carriage more secure,
His legs depending at the open door.
Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk,
The tedious rector drawling o'er his head,
And sweet the clerk below: but neither sleep
Of lazy nurse, who snores the sick man dead,
Nor his, who quits the box at midnight hour
To slumber in the carriage more secure,
Nor sleep enjoyed by curate in his desk,
Nor yet the dozings of the clerk are sweet
Compared with the repose the sofa yields."

Cowper lived in the country, and wrote many poems on birds and flowers.
In his first volume there are "The Doves," "The Raven's Nest," "The
Lily and the Rose," "The Nightingale and the Glowworm," "The Pine-Apple
and the Bee," "The Goldfinch starved to death in a Cage," and some
others. They are pretty conceits, but at the present day remind us a
little of the nursery.

Goldsmith's humour deserves equal praise for affording amusement without
animosity or indelicacy. With regard to the former, his satire is so
general that it cannot inflict any wound; and