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the new-created fifteen bonbons of punishment and purification, according to the power of the spirit which will inspire you. And you, O Vistnou! shall watch over them; you shall love and preserve them and you O Seeb! shall change and destroy every created thing, according to the powers I will give you." Bhirmah, Vistnou, and Seeb, having heard the words of the Eternal, promised to obey him. The Eternal addressed himself to Bhirmah, and said, 66 Begin to create the eight bonbons of punishment and purgation, and that of Meerto, according to the power of the spirit which I have given you; and do you, in like manner, Vistnou, acquit yourself of your task." And when Bram had heard the orders of the Eternal, he immediately formed a leaf of betel, and laying himself upon it, floated on the surface of the waters; and the children of Modou and Kytoo fled and disappeared. After the agitation of the waters had ceased, through the power of the spirit of Bram, Vistnou transformed himself into a prodigious wild boar, and having descended into the abyss of the waters, he tore up Meerto with his fangs, and it immediately produced a large tortoise, and a monstrous serpent. Vistnou placed the serpent on the back of the tortoise, and Meerto on the head of the serpent, and every thing was created by Bhirmah in the eight bonbons of punishment and probation, and also in the eighth, that is, Meerto; agreeable to the power of the spirit, with which the Eternal had endowed him and Vistnou undertook to watch over every thing Bhirmah had created in the eighth bonbon, Meerto; and to take care of their preservation, in the manner the Eternal had ordained him to do.

Bhirmah measures the space or duration of time since the creation of the Dounea Houda, or Universe, by the revolution of four Iogues.

The first age is called the Souttie Iogue, and contains

thirty-two lacks of common years,

.......... 32,00,000

The second age, or Tertiu Iogue, contains sixteen lacks, 16,00,000
The third age, or Dowapur Iogue, contains eight lacks,
The fourth age, or Kalli Iogue, contains four lacks,

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8,00,000 4,00,000

Total, sixty lacks, 60,00,000

And seventy-one revolutions of the four Iogues, make a munnuntor of common time, or 426,000,000 years.

[To be continued.]

ORIGINAL LETTER

FROM

THE LATE WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.

TO MR. PARK.

I

DEAR SIR,

Weston-Underwood, July 20, 1792.

AVE been long silent, and must now be short. My time since I wrote last has been almost wholly occupied in suffering. Either indisposion of my own, or of the dearest friend* I have, has so entirely engaged my attention, that, except the revision of the two elegies you sent me long since, I have done nothing; nor do I at present foresee the day when I shall be able to do any thing. Should Mrs. Unwin recover sufficiently to undertake a journey, I have promised Mr. Hayley to close the summer with a visit to him at Eartham. At the best, therefore, I cannot expect to proceed in my main business till the approach of winter. I am thus thrown so much into arrear respecting Milton, that I already despair of being ready at the time appointed, and so I have told my employer.†

I need not say that the drift of this melancholy preface is to apprize you that you must not expect dispatch from me. Such expedition as I can use I will, but I believe you must be very patient.

It was only one year that I gave to drawing, for I found it an employment hurtful to my eyes, which have always been weak and subject to inflammation. I finished my attempt in this way with three small landschapes which I presented to a lady. These may

* This friend was the Mary of Cowper, to whom he addressed the exquisite sonnet and verses inserted in Hayley's life of the Poet of Christianity,' vol. ii. The second visitation of a paralytic attack in May 1792, had affected the speech of Mrs. Unwin, had taken away the use of her right hand and arm, and rendered her for some time incapable of self-motion. Its effects were little less severe on the sensitive and sympathising frame of Cowper. But ere the beginning of August, these affectionate and interesting invalids had so far recovered as to venture on a journey to Eartham in Sussex, where they sojourned during six weeks, at the paradisaical vil'a of Mr. Hayley.

+ July 15, 1792: Cowper to Hayley. "As to the affair of Milton, I know not what will become of it. I wrote to Johnson a week since to tell him that the interruption of Mrs. Unwin's illness still continuing, and being likely to continue, I knew not when I should be able to proceed." See Hayley's life, vol. ii. P. 63.

Perhaps Lady Austen.

perhaps exist, but I have now no correspondence with the fair proprietor. Except these, there is nothing remaining to show that I ever aspired to such an accomplishment.

The hymns in the Olney collection marked (C) are all of my composition except one, which bears that initial by a mistake of the printer. Not having the book at hand, I cannot now say which it is.*

Wishing you a pleasant time at Margate, and assuring you that I shall receive, with great pleasure, any drawing of yours with which you may favour me, and give it a distinguished place in my very small collection

I remain, dear Sir,

Much and sincerely yours,
WM. COWPER.

SELECT SENTENCES.

TREES afford us the advantage of shade in summer, as well as fuel in winter. So virtue allays the fervour of our passions in our youth, and serves to comfort and keep us warm amid the rigours of old age.

Ir is the greatest consolation to the poor, whose ignorance often inclines them to an ill-grounded envy, that the rich must die, as well as themselves.

I am afraid humility to genius is as an extinguisher to a candle. WHAT Some people term freedom is nothing else than a liberty of saying and doing disagreeable things.

THE first part of a newspaper which an ill-natured man examines is the list of bankrupts and the bills of mortality.

* The number of hymns contributed by Mr. Cowper appear to have been sixtysix. Mr. Greatheed, relying on the denotation of the printer, has made them sixtyseven, and Mr. Hayley sixty-eight. The Rev. Mr. Newton, in his preface to the Olney collection, declares that "a desire of promoting the faith and comfort of sincere christians, though the principal was not the only motive to this undertaking. It was likewise intended as a monument to perpetuate the remembrance of an intimate and endeared friendship." These associated efforts of piety and amity have undergone repeated impressions. "Such fellowship in literary labour, for the noblest of purposes, must be delightful indeed," says Mr. Hayley, "if attended with success, and at all events is entitled to respect; yet it may be doubted if the intense zeal with which Cowper embarked in this fascinating pursuit, had not a dangerous tendency to undermine his very delicate health. So fearfully and wonderfully are we made,' that man, in all conditions, ought perhaps to pray, that he never may be led to think of his Creator and of his Redeemer, either too little or too much." Life of Cowper, vol. i. p. 88.

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ORIGINAL LETTERS

FROM

THE LATE EARL OF ORFORD,

RESPECTING CHATTERTON.

From the Manuscripts of the Rev. Mr. Cole.

[Mr. Cole received his education at Cambridge, where he formed an early intimacy with Horace Walpole, Gray, and Mason. In 1750 he was collated to the rectory of Hornsey in the neighbourhood of London, which he held but a year: residing the chief part of his life at his parsonage of Milton, in Cambridgeshire. At his death, in 1782, he bequeathed his large collection of manuscripts, consisting of parochial surveys, historical anecdotes, &c. to the British Museum, with an injunction that they should not be opened till twenty years after his decease. The time of their concealment expired at the beginning of the present year; and they are now open for the inspection of the curious.]

MS. COLE, VOL XXIII. F. 103, B.

To the Rev. Mr. Cole, at Milton, near Cambridge.

Strawberry Hill, June 19. 1777. I THANK you for your notices, dear Sir, and shall remember that on Prince William. I did not see the Monthly Review, but hope one is not guilty of the death of every man who does not make one the dupe of a forgery. I believe Macpherson's success with Ossian was more the ruin of Chatterton than I. Two years passed between my doubting the authenticity of Rowley's poems and his death. I never knew he had been in London, till some time after he had undone and poisoned himself there. The poems he sent me were transcripts in his own hand; and even in that circumstance he told a lie; he said he had them from the very person at Bristol to whom he had given them. If any man were to tell you that monkish rhymes had been dug up at Herculaneum, which was destroyed several centuries before there was any such poetry, should you believe it? Just the reverse is the case of Rowley's pretended poems. They have all the elegance of Waller and Prior, and more than Lord Surry; but I have no objection to any body believing what he pleases. I think poor Chatterton was an astonishing genius-but I cannot think that Rowley foresaw metres that were invented long after he was dead, or that our language 'was more refined at Bristol in the reign of Henry V. than it was at court under Henry VIII. One of the chaplains of the bishop of Exeter has found a line of Rowley in Hudibras. The monk might foresee that too! The prematurity of Chatterton's genius is, however, full as wonderful as that such a prodigy as Rowley should never have been heard of till the eighteenth century. The youth and industry of the former are miracles too; yet still more credible. There is not a symptom in

N VOL. XVI.

the poems, but the old words, that savours of Rowley's age. Change the old words for modern, and the whole construction is of yesterday.

The other story you tell me is very credible, and perfectly in character. Yours ever,

MS. COLE, VOL. XXV. FOL. 50. B.

H. W.

In one of Mr. Michael Tyson's letters to Mr. Cole, February 4, 1779, he writes, "I find from Mason, that Mr. Walpole is about to print an account of his transactions with Chatterton. Gray and Mason both saw the poems at Mr. Walpole's house, and both pronounced them to be moderu forgeries, and recommended the returning them without any further notice."

MS. COLE, VOL. XXV. F. 61. B.

66

Berkely Square, Dec. 30, 1781. "You will be surprised, when I tell you, that I have only dipped into Mr. Bryant's book, and lent the Dean's, before I had cut the leaves, though I had peeped into it enough to see, that I shall not read it. Both he and Bryant are so diffuse on our antiquated literature, that I had rather believe in Rowley, than go through their proofs. Mr. Warton and Mr. Tyrwhyt have more patience, and intend to answer them; and so the controversy will be two hundred years out of my reach. Mr. Bryant, I did find, begged a vast many questions, which proved to me his own doubts. Dr. Glynn's foolish, evidence made me laugh, and so did Mr. Bryant's sensibility for me. He says Chatterton treated me very cruelly in one of his writings; I am sure I did not feel it so. I suppose Bryant means under the title of Baron of Otranto, which is written with humour. I must have been the sensitive plant, if any thing in that character had hurt me! Mr. Bryant too, and the Dean, as I see by extracts in the papers, have decorated Chatterton with sanctimonious honour. Think of that young rascal's note, by summing up his gains and losses, by writing for and against Beckford, he says, "Am glad he is dead by 3. 13s. 6d." There was a lad of too nice honour, to be guilty of a forgery! and a lad, who they do not deny, forged the poems in the style of Ossian, and fifty other things. In the parts I did read, Mr. Bryant, as I expected, reasons admirably, and staggered me; but when I took up the poems called Rowley's, again, I protest I cannot see the smallest air of any antiquity but the old words: the whole texture is conceived on ideas of the present century. The liberal manner of thinking of a monk, so long before the reformation, is as stupendous-and where he met with Ovid's Metamorphosis, Eclogues, and plans of Greek tragedies,

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