CHAPTER VII.
THE LETTERS.
Southey, no mean judge in such a matter, calls Cowper the best of English, letter-writers.

If the first place is shared with him by any one it is by Byron, rather than by Gray, whose letters are pieces of fine writing, addressed to literary men, or Horace Walpole, whose letters are memoirs, the English counterpart of St.Simon.

The letters both of Gray and Walpole are manifestly written for publication.

Those of Cowper have the true epistolary charm.

They are conversation, perfectly artless, and at the same time autobiography, perfectly genuine, whereas all formal autobiography is cooked.