Perhaps he may have been partly entrapped by a chivalrous
desire to rescue his idol from the disparagement cast on it by the
tasteless and illiberal Johnson. The project after weighing on his
mind and spirits for some time was abandoned, leaving as its traces
only translations of Milton's Latin poems, and a few notes on _Paradise
Lost,_ in which there is too much of religion, too little of art.
Lady Hesketh had her eye on the Laureateship, and probably with that
view persuaded her cousin to write loyal verses on the recovery of
George III. He wrote the verses, but to the hint of the Laureateship
he said, "Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever
wreaths beside may hereafter adorn them. It would be a leaden
extinguisher clapt on my genius, and I should never more produce a line
worth reading." Besides, was he not already the mortuary poet of All
Saints, Northampton?
CHAPTER VII.
THE LETTERS.
Southey, no mean judge in such a matter, calls Cowper the best of
English, letter-writers.
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