'The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear,
Falls soporific on the listless ear.'

In his learned dissertation on _Hope_, we meet with the following lines

[Quotes some fifty lines from _Hope_ beginning,
Build by whatever plan caprice decrees,
With what materials, on what ground you please, etc.]

All this is very true; but there needs no ghost, nor author, nor poet,
to tell us what we knew before, unless he could tell it to us in a new
and better manner. Add to this, that many of our author's expressions
are coarse, vulgar, and unpoetical; such as _parrying_, _pushing by_,
_spitting abhorrence_, &c. The greatest part of Mr. Cowper's didactics
is in the same strain. He attempts indeed sometimes to be lively,
facetious, and satirical; but is seldom more successful in this, than in
the serious and pathetic. In his poem on Conversation there are two or
three faint attempts at humour; in one of them he tells us that

'A story in which native humour reigns
Is often useful, always entertains,
A graver fact enlisted on your side,
May furnish illustration, well applied;
But sedentary weavers of long tales,
Give me the fidgets and my patience fails.
'Tis the most asinine employ on earth,
To hear them tell of parentage and birth,
And echo conversations dull and dry,
Embellished with, _he said_, and _so said I_.