Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/27

Rh to prepare a rival edition to Southey's. Both works therefore came out almost together. Grimshawe's contained the copyright correspondence, but beyond this had no merit. Southey, debarred from printing the correspondence, wove the gist of it into his biographical narrative. There was some disadvantage in this, for it sometimes makes his narrative long and tedious. As soon as the copyright in the Private Correspondence ceased it was placed at the end of Southey's edition as a supplement.

Since Southey's there have been many lives written, the only ones calling for special remark being those of Robert Bell and of Mr. John Bruce. The latter is prefixed to the Aldine Edition. Though it proves that he had taken great pains with his subject, and is written in a vigorous, tasteful style, it does not contain much that is new. But he had collected much fresh matter in the way of letters, which he was preparing to publish when his lamented death took place suddenly, in the autumn of 1869.

Great light has been thrown upon some of the most difficult passages in Cowper's life by a series of papers in the Sunday at Home (1866) by the Rev. William Bull, of Newport-Pagnell. The same gentleman has also published the life of his grandfather, Josiah Bull, one of Cowper's intimate friends, and "Memorials of John Newton" (Religious Tract Society, 1869). I have largely availed myself of the facts which he has brought to light; they will be noticed in their proper place.

The present edition contains some new and interesting matter.

[1] Some lines written on the margin of the Monthly Review. My authority for them is an anonymous correspondent of the Record newspaper of Feb. 20, 1867. Minute examination leaves no doubt of their genuineness. P. 356, and note.

[2] "To a Young Lady, with a Present of two Cockscombs." P. 347.

[3] "To a Lady who wore a Lock of his Hair." P. 355.

For the two last we are indebted to Mr. Charles Stuart. The MSS. are pasted inside the lid of an edition of 1793, which was given to him by Mrs. Lyon. She vouched for their genuineness, having received them from the Rev. J. A. Knight, to whom they had been given by Lady Austen. The former of them had already reached Mr. Bruce from another source, which is of course an additional proof of genuineness. Of the deep interest attaching to the last piece I have spoken in the Memoir, p. liv.

The arrangement of the Poems in the present edition is as follows:—

I. Those written in youth, comprising No. II, as above named, along with a few others (indicated in the Notes), taken from other sources, but placed here as belonging to the same period. This division occupies pp. 1-23 of the present volume.