Nor this the worst. As social bonds decay,
As duty, love, and honour fail to sway,
Fictitious bonds, the bonds of wealth and law,
Still gather strength, and force unwilling awe.
Hence all obedience bows to these alone,
And talent sinks, and merit weeps unknown;
Till time may come, when, stript of all her charms,
That land of scholars, and that nurse of arms;
Where noble stems transmit the patriot flame,
And monarchs toil, and poets pant for fame;
One sink of level avarice shall lie,
And scholars, soldiers, kings unhonor'd die.'
Such is the poem, on which we now congratulate the public, as on a
production to which, since the death of Pope, it will not be easy to
find any thing equal.--_The Critical Review_.
WILLIAM COWPER
_Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq._ _8vo. 5s._ Johnson.
These Poems are written, as we learn from the title-page, by Mr. Cowper
of the Inner Temple, who seems to be a man of a sober and religious turn
of mind, with a benevolent heart, and a serious wish to inculcate the
precepts of morality; he is not, however, possessed of any superior
abilities, or powers of genius, requisite to so arduous an undertaking;
his verses are, in general, weak and languid, and have neither novelty,
spirit, or animation, to recommend them; that mediocrity so severely
condemned by Horace,
Non Dii non homines, &c.
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