POEMS OLD AND NEW
In poems on his various pets, " Epitaph on a Hare "
" The Retired Cat," and in his chief poem, " The
Task." In order to divert his mind from melancholy
he undertook a blank verse translation of Homer.
His " Letters " are notable.
In a letter dated August 3, 1782, Cowper gives the
following prose account of this incident :—
" Passing from the greenhouse to the barn, I saw
three kittens . . . looking with fixed attention at some-
thing, which lay on the threshold of a door, coiled up.
I took but little notice of them at first ; but a loud
hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when behold
—a viper ! the largest I remember to have seen,
rearing itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating
the aforementioned hiss at the nose of a kitten almost
in contact with his lips. I ran into the hall for a
hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to
assail him, and returning in a few seconds missed
him : he was gone, and I feared had escaped me.
Still, however, the kitten sat watching immoveably
upon the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that,
sliding between the door and the threshold, he had
found his way out of the garden into the yard. I
went round immediately, and there found him in
close conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity
being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined her
to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot; with her
claws, however, sheathed, and not in anger ; but in the
way of philosophical inquiry and examination. To
prevent her falling a victim to so laudable an exercise
of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe,
and performed upon him an act of decapitation,
which though not immediately mortal, proved so in
the end."
Golubriad : a poetical narrative about a viper, as the
" Iliad " is the poetical narrative of Ilion, or Troy.
P. 165, 1. 5. Count de Grasse : A French admiral who
defeated Howe in the West Indies during the War of
American Independence.
Queue : pigtail.
1. 29. Phenomenon : wonder.
The Jackdaw of Rheims.
Richard Harris Barham (1788-1845), born at Canterbury
and educated at St. Paul's School and Brasenose College,
Oxford, was ordained in 1813. His series of humor-
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