"He is very nice reading in summer, but _inter_ _Nos_, we don't want _extra_ freezing in winter; Take him up in the depth of July, my advice is, When you feel an Egyptian devotion to ices. But, deduct all you can, there's enough that's right good in him, He has a true soul for field, river, and wood in him; And his heart, in the midst of brick walls, or where'er it is, Glows, softens, and thrills with the tenderest charities,-- To you mortals that delve in this trade-ridden planet? No, to old Berkshire's hills, with their limestone and granite. If you're one who _in loco_ (add _foco_ here) _desipis_, You will get of his outermost heart (as I guess) a piece; But you'd get deeper down if you came as a precipice, And would break the last seal of its inwardest fountain, If you only could palm yourself off for a mountain. Mr. Quivis, or somebody quite as discerning, Some scholar who's hourly expecting his learning, Calls B. the American Wordsworth; but Wordsworth Is worth near as much as your whole tuneful herd's worth. No, don't be absurd, he's an excellent Bryant; But, my friends, you'll endanger the life of your client, By attempting to stretch him up into a giant: If you choose to compare him, I think there are two per- sons fit for a parallel--Thomson and Cowper;[C] I don't mean exactly,--there's something of each, There's T.'s love of nature, C.'s penchant to preach; Just mix up their minds so that C.'s spice of craziness Shall balance and neutralize T.'s turn for laziness, And it gives you a brain cool, quite frictionless, quiet, Whose internal police nips the buds of all riot,-- A brain like a permanent strait-jacket put on The heart which strives vainly to burst off a button,-- A brain which, without being slow or mechanic, Does more than a larger less drilled, more volcanic; He's a Cowper condensed, with no craziness bitten, And the advantage that Wordsworth before him has written. [Footnote C: To demonstrate quickly and easily how per- -versely absurd 'tis to sound this name _Cowper_, As people in general call him named _super_, I just add that he rhymes it himself with horse-trooper.] "But, my dear little bardlings, don't prick up your ears, Nor suppose I would rank you and Bryant as peers; If I call him an iceberg, I don't mean to say There is nothing in that which is grand, in its way; He is almost the one of your poets that knows How much grace, strength, and dignity lie in Repose; If he sometimes fall short, he is too wise to mar His thought's modest fulness by going too far; 'Twould be well if your authors should all make a trial Of what virtue there is in severe self-denial, And measure their writings by Hesiod's staff, Which teaches that all have less value than half.