Mr. Buchanan added to this letter a brief sketch of contents for the projected composition. This hasty sketch he enlarged, at the request of Cowper. How the poet appreciated the suggestion will appear from the following billet.
TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN.
Weston, May 11, 1793.
My dear Sir,—You have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting nothing but metre. I would to heaven that you would give it that requisite yourself; for he who could make the sketch, cannot but be well qualified to finish. But if you will not, I will; provided always nevertheless, that God gives me ability, for it will require no common share to do justice to your conceptions.
I am much yours,
W. C.
Your little messenger vanished before I could catch him.
This work, in his first conception of it, was greatly endeared to him, but he soon entertained an apprehension that he should never accomplish it. Writing to his friend of St. Paul's in 1793, the poet said—"The Four Ages is a subject that delights me when I think of it; but I am ready to fear, that all my ages will be exhausted before I shall be at leisure to write upon it."
A fragment is all that he has left, for which we refer the reader to the Poems. In his happier days, it would have been expanded in a manner more commensurate with the copiousness of the subject, and the poetical powers of the author.
It may be interesting to add, that a modern poem on the Four Ages of Man was written by M. Werthmuller, a citizen of Zurich, and translated into Latin verse, by Dr. Olstrochi, librarian to the Ambrosian library at Milan. This performance gave rise to another German poem on the Four Ages of Woman, by M. Zacharie, professor of poetry at Brunswick.