But Methodism, or at least Calvinism, can claim as its convert a more famous poet than Smart. Except in respect of their birth, their classical education, and the intensity of their inward spiritual convictions, there could be no greater contrast than between the characters of the Wesleys, on the one hand, and that of the unfortunate Cowper, on the other. Methodism impelled the Wesleys To fly, like Oglethorpe, from pole to pole. They travelled over many thousands of miles in their missionary efforts: they were for ever addressing multitudes they became great rulers and organisers of society. Calvinism turned Cowper from a comparatively cheerful scholar into a shrinking and sensitive recluse, and aggravated his propensity to introspection into religious mania. He was by family allied to the governing classes of the country: by temperament (as his Translations from the French of Madame Guyon show) he was inclined to the school of religious Quietism, represented by William Law by taste and education his mind was keenly alive to all the soothing charms of art and literature. But all the forces of birth, art, and refinement, were insufficient to preserve a mind morbid in its tendencies from the horrors haunting it through a belief in the revolting Calvinist doctrine of Reprobation. It is of course foreign to the scope of this History to dwell upon the more purely personal side of the Lives of the English Poets. I shall therefore deal rapidly with the details of Cowper's biography-which indeed are well known to all lovers of English literature-and shall devote myself mainly to considering the effect produced by his peculiar religious opinions on his art, and the influence which this exercised on the general course of our poetry. William Cowper was the second of the three sons of the Rev. John Cowper, Rector of Great Berkhampstead, and of Ann Donne his wife, who was of the same family as John Donne the poet. He was born on 26th November 1731, and, when only six years old had the misfortune to lose his mother, whose memory he has immortalised in the pathetic elegy On the Receipt of my Mother's Picture. About a year afterwards he was sent to school with a Dr. Pitman at Markgate Street, where he spent two unhappy years, being removed at the end of them to the care of an oculist in consequence of inflammation of the eyes. At ten years of age he went to Westminister, at which school, it would appear, from his Tirocinium, time passed with him pleasantly enough. Among his schoolfellows were Warren Hastings, George Colman, George Cumberland, Robert Lloyd, and Charles Churchill. He left school in 1748, and after spending three years at home was articled to a solicitor, with whom he studied law for three years, having for a companion the future Lord Thurlow. During this time he visited often at the house of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, Clerk of the Parliments, and fell deeply in love with his cousin Theodora; but her father, observing in him the symptoms of melancholia, refused to allow their engagement. Having entered the Middle Temple, he lost his father in 1756, and, being somewhat hard pressed for money, was made through family influence Commissioner of Bankrupts, a place worth £60 a year. For some time he seems to have added to his resources by contributing to The Connoisseur, a magazine which had been started by two old Westminister boys, Thornton and Colman. In 1763 his cousin, Major Cowper, appointed him to two almost sinecure places in the House of Lords; but his morbid conscience reproached him with having desired the death of the previous holder of one of them, and he begged that it might be given to a friend. With regard to the other, he was told that he must show evidence of his qualifications; and the apprehension of this so preyed upon his mind that he attempted to commit suicide. On awaking to consciousness of the nature of his action, he imagined that he was condemned to eternal perdition. His cousin, Martin Madan, chaplain of the Lock Hospital, attempted to give him consolation, by pointing out to him the means of Justification through the Blood of Christ, but as Madan, according to the Calvinist creed, insisted on the necessity of an inward assurance of Salvation, Cowper's agony increased, and it became necessary to place him in a lunatic asylum at St. Albans, under the care of Dr. Nathaniel Cotton. Here, after he had been gradually restored to sanity, he stayed for more than a year; and then, having resigned his Commissionership, took up his abode, aided by an allowance from his friends, at Huntingdon. In this town he made the acquaintance of the Unwins, and lived in their house till the death of Mr. Unwin in 1767. Thereupon he removed with Mrs. Unwin to Olney, by an arrangement with John Newton, who had for three years been curate of that parish. With him Cowper formed a strong friendship, and took a prominent part in the movement of religious revival which Newton had originated in the town. At the suggestion of his friend he also consented in 1771 to aid in the production of a volume of Hymns. But the atmosphere of spiritual excitement which he now breathed soon produced its natural effects in 1773 his old malady returned, and he again vainly attempted suicide. Recovering his senses slowly, he occupied himself with gardening; but Newton, who took care of him in his own house during his illness, says that it was sixteen months before he began to smile. For more than three years he entirely dropped the letter writing in which he delighted; in 1776, however, he began to resume his literary composition, and when Newton left Olney in 1779, their joint work, the Olney Hymns, was ready for publication. After this Cowper employed himself more regularly in writing. The years 1780-84 were probably the happiest in his life since the first attack of his malady. At the suggestion of Mrs. Unwin, he composed rapidly the poems contained in the volume published in 1782 viz. Table Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expostulation, Hope, Charity, Conversation, Retirement, and a few lyrics. In 1781 he made the acquaintance of Lady Austen, who suggested to him the idea of The Task. She also told him the story which he put into verse as The Diverting History of John Gilpin. The Task, together with Tirocinium (composed in 1784) and John Gilpin, was published in 1785, and the poet was gratified by the rapid success of the volume. But his happiness was of short duration. Consideration for the feelings of Mrs. Unwin obliged him in 1784 to break off the connection with Lady Austen, and he says that, when writing The Task, he "was often supremely unhappy." In another letter he writes, "You will think me mad, but I am not mad, most noble Festus, I am only in despair." employed himself on his translation of Homer, and the void caused in his life by the loss of Lady Austen was partially filled by the renewal of intimacy with his cousin Lady Hesketh and by the companionship of some fresh friends, the Throckmortons. He now In 1787, however, his fit returned, and he once more attempted to destroy himself. After a short interval he became himself again. His translation of Homer was published in 1791; and he afterwards undertook to edit the works of Milton. But an attack of paralysis with which Mrs. Unwin was seized in that year aggravated his mental malady, and her death in 1795 completed his sense of despair. The only thing that afforded him even temporary relief was the revision of his translation of Homer. In this state he lingered on till his release by death on the Ist of February 1800; the last of his original compositions was his very fine poem The Castaway, written on the 20th of March 1799. Cowper began to write at a period marked by the absence in society of all active motives of inspiration, and at the same time by a widespread taste for literature. His literary gift was early developed, and, like that of Cowley and other poets, showed itself in a remarkable facility of imitation. His earliest verses are an imitation of John Philips' Splendid Shilling; in his Epistle to Robert Lloyd he shows himself an admirer of "dear Mat Prior's easy jingle"; and though his love poems have the ring of sincerity, they are chiefly noticeable for the conventional He wrote now and then smoothness of their versification. in the monthly magazines in a manner adapted to the formal taste of "the town," but in his early work his literary feeling is still without character; the man himself does not appear in his poetry till after he had taken up his abode at Olney. From that date onwards his Calvinism expresses itself in one of two forms, either lyrical or didactic and satiric. He was nearly fifty years old when the Olney Hymns appeared, and in these it is at once seen that the artistic power manifested in his earliest work has at last obtained substantial materials with which to deal, and has found out the way to mould them into the right form. The hymns composed by Cowper express various moods of religious emotion; and it is high proof of manliness and self-control, that in none of them does he seek to give utterance to the feelings of despair of which he was the unhappy victim. The extreme Calvinistic doctrine of the Atonement is of course everywhere prominent, and imparts to almost all the hymns an intensely personal character, so that perhaps the number of those which-like "Oh for a closer walk with God!" "God moves in a mysterious way"; and, "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord"-are fitted for congregational singing, is small. But few of them are disfigured by the cant phrases of the sect;1 while, as in Charles Wesley's hymns, the prevailing characteristic is, that sure sign of genuine poetry, the power of expressing a forcible feeling with intense simplicity. In the following verses the lyrical emotion gives to the words all the sincerity of autobiography : 1 In the following we find something like the pharisaical self-consciousness of the Elect: and The Lord receives His highest praise From humble minds and hearts sincere ; While all the loud professor says Offends the righteous Judge's ear. Too many, Lord, abuse Thy grace In this licentious day. And while they boast they see Thy face, |