Poem 155.
airts: quarters; row: roll; shaw: small wood in a hollow, spinney; knowes: knolls.
Poem 156.
jo: sweetheart; brent: smooth; pow: head.
Poem 157.
leal: faithful; fain: happy.
Poem 158.
Henry VI. founded Eton.
Poem 161.
The Editor knows no Sonnet more remarkable than this, which, with 162, records Cowper's gratitude to the Lady whose affectionate care for many years gave what sweetness he could enjoy to a life radically wretched. Petrarch's sonnets have a more ethereal grace and a more perfect finish; Shakespeare's more passion; Milton's stand supreme in stateliness, Wordsworth's in depth and delicacy. But Cowper's unites with an exquisiteness in the turn of thought which the ancients would have called Irony, an intensity of pathetic tenderness peculiar to his loving and ingenuous nature. There is much mannerism, much that is unimportant or of now exhausted interest in his poems: but where he is great, it is with that elementary greatness which rests on the most universal human feelings. Cowper is our highest master in simple pathos.