" SOBS COWPERIANA.. "

[To TR. Emma or sae "BrierrArim...] SIB.,—It seems a long way from the literature of the war to the minor poems of William Cowper. His "Heroism" con- tains a passage that might have been written yesterday about Germany and Belgium:— "Fast by the stream that bounds your just domain,

And tells you where ye have a right to reign, A nation dwells, not envious of your throne, Studious of peace, their neighbours' and their own.

Ill-fated race! how deeply must they rue Their only crime, vicinity to you!

The trumpet sounds, your legions swarm abroad, Through the ripe harvest lies their destined road, At every step beneath their feet they tread The life of multitudes, a nation's bread!

Earth seems a garden in its loveliest dress

Before them, and behind a wilderness ; Famine, and Pestilence her first-born son, Attend to finish what the sword begun; And echoing praises such as fiends might earn, And folly pays, resound at your return.

A calm succeeds ;—but Plenty, with her train Of heartfelt joys, succeeds not soon again,

And years of pining indigence must show

What scourges are the gods that rule below."

Let us trust that the closing verses of the poem are equally applicable

Oh place me in some heaven-protected isle, Where peace and equity and freedom smile,

Where no volcano pours his fiery flood, No created warrior dips his plume in blood,

Where power SOMME what industry has won,

Wherein caromed is not to be undone,

A. land that distant tyrants hate in vain,

In Britain's isle, beneath a George's reign."

It is curious to note that in" The Winter Evening" the contents of the poet's newspaper, the "folio of four pages," include "Aethereal journeys, submarine exploits."—I am,