They are the vehicles of the writer's thoughts and feelings, and the mirror of his life.

We have the strongest proofs that they were not written for publication.

In many of them there are outpourings of wretchedness which could not possibly have been intended for any heart but that to which they were addressed, while others contain medical details which no one would have thought of presenting to the public eye.

Some, we know, were answers to letters received but a moment before; and Southey says that the manuscripts are very free from erasures.

Though Cowper kept a note-book for subjects, which no doubt were scarce with him, it is manifest that he did not premeditate.