These lines--breathing forth such grateful recollections of maternal tenderness, watching, weeping, praying, over a most beloved and affectionate child, from whom she was parting for ever, and who was destined to be far greater than even she, in her fondest entrancement, could have hoped--remind us of our own Cowper's filial reminiscences, in "words that weep," translating "tears that speak," on receiving, at a more distant period of a suffering life, his mother's picture: at sight of which, for a while, he lived over again, with a thousand times more intense delight, the scenes of infancy, renewed, like a vision of pre-existence in some happier state than that which had intervened since he had borne the burthen and heat of a long day of life consumed in anguish of spirit, for which, on this side of the grave, he found no solace, and beyond it, no hope for his bewildered mind; dark as Egypt under the ninth plague in that quarter, though, in every other, light as the land of Goshen. Between Tasso and Cowper there were many traits of sad as well as noble resemblance--kindred genius, a kindred malady, and kindred misfortunes; but not kindred alleviations: the advantage here was on our countryman's side; but his disease lay deeper than that of the former, and the symptoms, if not so violent after the first terrible attack, were more inveterate; so that, contemplating the fate of the glorious Italian under eclipse, and pitying him with a sympathy which no man living but himself could feel, Cowper might have drawn the same comparison between Tasso's case and his own, as he has done in those heart-wringing verses (the last which he is recorded to have composed) under the title of "The Castaway." These were founded upon a circumstance mentioned in Anson's Voyage, of a sailor who fell overboard in a storm, when the ship could not be stayed to rescue him, but who followed in its wake, crying after it, and being heard by his companions, while he ----"lived an hour In ocean, self-upheld; And ever, as the minutes flew, Entreated help, or cried 'adieu.'" * * * * "At length he drank The stifling wave, and then he sank." The melancholy poet adds, in reference to himself, that "Misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case. * * * * No voice divine the storm allay'd, No light propitious shone, When snatch'd from all effectual aid, _We_ perish'd, _each alone_; _But I beneath a rougher sea_, _And 'whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he._"