-_The Mediterranean_, _The Four Ages
of Man_, _Yardley Oak_. _The Mediterranean_ would not have suited him
well if it was to be treated historically, for of history he was even
more ignorant than most of those who have had the benefit of a
classical education, being capable of believing that the Latin element
of our language had come in with the Roman conquest. Of the _Four
Ages_ he wrote a fragment. Of _Yardley Oak_ he wrote the opening; it
was apparently to have been a survey of the countries in connexion with
an immemorial oak which stood in a neighbouring chace. But he was
forced to say that the mind of man was not a fountain but a cistern,
and his was a broken one. He had expended his stock of materials for a
long poem in _The Task_.

These, the sunniest days of Cowper's life, however, gave birth to many
of those short poems which are perhaps his best, certainly his most
popular works, and which will probably keep his name alive when _The
Task_ is read only in extracts. _The Loss of the Royal George_, _The
Solitude of Alexander Selkirk_, _The Poplar Field_, _The Shrubbery_,
the _Lines on a Young Lady_, and those _To Mary, will hold their places
for ever in the treasury of English Lyrics. In its humble way _The
Needless Alarm_ is one of the most perfect of human compositions.
Cowper had reason to complain of Aesop for having written his fables
before him. One great charm of these little pieces is their perfect
spontaneity. Many of them were never published, and generally they
have the air of being the simple effusions of the moment, gay or sad.
When Cowper was in good spirits his joy, intensified by sensibility and
past suffering, played like a fountain of light on all the little
incidents of his quiet life. An ink-glass, a flatting mill, a halibut
served up for dinner, the killing of a snake in the garden, the arrival
of a friend wet after a Journey, a cat shut up in a drawer, sufficed to
elicit a little jet of poetical delight, the highest and brightest jet
of all being _John Gilpin_. Lady Austen's voice and touch still
faintly live in two or three pieces which were written for her
harpsichord. Some of the short poems on the other hand are poured from
the darker urn, and the finest of them all is the saddest. There is no
need of illustrations unless it be to call attention to a secondary
quality less noticed, than those of more importance. That which used
to be specially called "wit," the faculty of