presented in so naked a form, Cowper's influence ran in a more confined
channel. He felt the incapacity of the old order to satisfy the
emotional wants of mankind, but was content to revive the old forms of
belief instead of seeking a more radical remedy in some subversive or
reconstructive system of thought. But the depth and sincerity of feeling
which explains his marvellous intensity of pathos is sometimes a
pleasant relief to the sentimentalism of his greater predecessor. Nor is
it hard to understand why his passages of sweet and melancholy musing by
the quiet Ouse should have come like a breath of fresh air to the jaded
generation waiting for the fall of the Bastille--and of other things.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Rousseau himself seems to refer to Clarke, the leader of the
English rationalising school, as the best expounder of his theory, and
defended Pope's Essay against the criticisms of Voltaire.

[19] A phrase by the way, which Cowper, though little given to
borrowing, took straight from Berkeley's 'Siris.'

[20] Lord Tennyson suggests the same consolation in the lines ending--

Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild winds, I seek a warmer sky;
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.

_THE FIRST EDINBURGH REVIEWERS_

When browsing at random in a respectable library, one is pretty sure to
hit upon the early numbers of the 'Edinburgh Review,' and prompted in
consequence to ask oneself the question, What are the intrinsic merits
of writing which produced so great an effect upon our grandfathers? The
'Review,' we may say, has lived into a third generation. The last
survivor of the original set has passed away; and there are but few
relics even of that second galaxy of authors amongst whom Macaulay was
the most brilliant star. One may speak, therefore, without shocking
existing susceptibilities, of the 'Review' in its first period, when
Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, and Brougham were the most prominent names. A man
may still call himself middle-aged and yet have a distinct memory of
Brougham courting, rather too eagerly, the applause of the Social
Science Association; or Jeffrey, as he appeared in his kindly old age,
when he could hardly have spoken sharply of a Lake poet; and even of the
last outpourings of the irrepressible gaiety of Sydney Smith. But the
period of their literary activity is already so distant as to have
passed into the domain of history. It is the