charms more, by the simplicity and playfulness of his ideas, than by the neatness and purity of his verse." To turn to the poems in detail, almost the first thing that strikes one is the originality of his subjects. Nothing was common or unclean to our poet, at a time when poetry, except in Cowper's hands, was grandiose and affected to an uncommon degree. Vincent Bourne may be held to have been in a remote connection the parent of the poetry of common life, for he undoubtedly exerted a strong influence on Cowper. I do not think it is too much to say that Cowper's best contributions to literature, his exquisite lyrics on birds and hares and dogs, which will live when "The Task" and "Tirocinium" have gone down to the dust, would never have been written had it not been for Vincent Bourne. In the year 1750, the future of English poetry was dark; there were only two considerable writers at work, Gray and Collins. There was, it is true, a certain respectful attitude to nature prevalent, but it was a conventional attitude. Cowper, as I believe inspired by Bourne, was the first to make it unconventional. Then came the sweet notes of Burns across the border, and the victory was won. Let me now give a few instances of Bourne. First must come "The Jackdaw," and I have given Cowper's rendering; but I have also ventured to subjoin a version of my own, not because I challenge even the most distant comparison with Cowper's sparkling and graceful lyric, but because Cowper's is in no sense a translation. It is a poem of which the line of thought is suggested by Bourne, and at a few points touches the Latin poem; but the turn, the colouring is Cowper's own. In my own translation, though I have several times sacrificed verbal accuracy, I have endeavoured to keep as closely to the Latin as is consistent with writing English at all. CORNICULA. Nigras inter aves avis est, quæ plurima turres, Antiquas ædes, celsaque fana colit. Nil tam sublime est, quod non audace volatu, Aeriis spernens inferiors, petit. Quo nemo ascendat, cui non vertigo cerebrum Corripiat, certe hunc seligit illa locum. Quo vix a terra tu suspicis absque tremore, Illa metus expers incolumisque sedet. Lamina delubri supra fastigia, ventus Qua cœli spiret de regione, docet; Hanc ea præ reliquis mavult, secura pericli, Nec curat, nedum cogitat, unde cadat. Res inde humanas, sed summa per otia, spectat, Et nihil ad sese, quas videt, esse videt. Concursus spectat, plateaque negotia in omni, Omnia pro nugis at sapienter habet. Clamores, quos infra audit, si forsitan audit, Pro rebus nihili negligit, et crocitat. Ille tibi invideat, felix cornicula, pennas, Qui sic humanis rebus abesse velit. THE JACKDAW. (BY WILLIAM COWPER.)