is undoubted; but the predisposing causes were probably aggravated by his strict and secluded habits. His life was strangely isolated, and his position in the history of English literature is in many ways unique. He was in the eighteenth century, but not of it. He manifestly stands at the parting of the ways, and did not fully embody, though he heralded, the new spirit. He was neither Burns nor Byron nor Wordsworth, but had something of all of them. He was too much of a recluse, too little audacious or profound, to head a revolution or found a school of thought in poetry. Not very deeply impressed with the importance of his art or the value of his poetic message, he looked on poetry mainly as a means of enforcing morals and rendering religion attractive; his specific puritanism limited for him the world of life and joy and legitimate enterprise ; with the eighteenth century he is accordingly eminently didactic in purpose, though the sweet spontaneity and simplicity of much of his work are his most conspicuous characteristics. The naturalness and transparent sincerity of his letters are hardly more remarkable than their easy grace and brightness of expression. Cowper was fifty years of age ere he became a poet: he found little pleasure then in reading poetry, English or other, though his mind was stored with fresh memories of youthful studies; he depended greatly on casual suggestions from others, which he accepted as his themes mainly in the hope of relieving his own melancholy; and when he sought to entertain others by his verse, it was with the hope of elevating and instructing, not in order to produce an artistic creation, secure fame, or establish an æsthetic renaissance. Yet everywhere in his poetry we see a spirit at work wonderfully different from that of his predecessors from Pope or Johnson, from Goldsmith or Thomson: a true and genial joy in nature and natural objects (for no two poets seem to love nature and its aspects quite in the same way); a tender and kindly interest in the simple domestic affections; a sense of the brotherhood of man; a horror of cruelty or vice; a devout and warm religious heart. He does not expressly proclaim a revolt against the conventions of the artificial, critical, classical school, but goodnaturedly takes his own independent way. Even when he is didactic he is not logically argumentative so much as friendly and communicative; the ideas come, as it were, of their own accord; and the clear simple English, the natural words and phrases, are manifestly his own and inevitable, as little designed to overthrow one school of poetic diction as to found another. He is not one of the greatest but one of the truest poets; his influence was deep and effective; and for those who can taste it there is a perennial charm in his poetry.
It is scarcely to be wondered at that Cowper's first volume was somewhat coldly received. The subjects (Table Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expostulation, Hope, Charity, and the
like) did not promise much, and his manner of handling them was not calculated to conciliate the man about town. He was both too plain and too spiritual for general readers. Johnson had written moral poems in the same form of verse, but they possessed a rhetorical grandeur and wealth of illustration which Cowper did not attempt, and probably would on principle have rejected. Yet there are in these simple, subdued, unobtrusive works passages of masterly execution and lively fancy. Selkirk's 'I am monarch of all I survey' and Boadicea are among the most frequently quoted. The character of Chatham in Table Talk -where the interlocutors are the impersonal 'individuals' A and B-is somewhat on the lines of Pope or Dryden :
A. Patriots, alas! the few that have been found,
Where most they flourish, upon English ground,
The country's need have scantily supplied;
And the last left the scene when Chatham died.
B. Not so; the virtue still adorns our age,
Though the chief actor died upon the stage.
In him Demosthenes was heard again;
Liberty taught him her Athenian strain ;
She clothed him with authority and awe,
Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law.
His speech, his form, his action full of grace,
And all his country beaming in his face,
He stood as some inimitable hand
Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand.
No sycophant or slave that dared oppose
Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose ;
And every venal stickler for the yoke,
Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke.
This is from the same poem :
Ages elapsed ere Homer's lamp appeared, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard; To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth asked ages more. Thus genius rose and set at ordered times, And shot a dayspring into distant climes, Ennobling every region that he chose. He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose ; And, tedious years of Gothic darkness past, Emerged all splendour in our isle at last. Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, Then shew far off their shining plumes again. Conversation, in this volume, is rich in Addisonian humour and quiet satire, and formed no unworthy prelude to the Task. In Hope and Retirement we see traces of the descriptive powers and kindly pleasantry afterwards more fully developed. A very characteristic passage is the sketch of the Greenland missionaries, from Hope:
That sound bespeaks salvation on her way,
The trumpet of a life-restoring day;
'Tis heard where England's eastern glory shines,
And in the gulfs of her Cornubian mines.
And still it spreads. See Germany send forth
Her sons to pour it on the furthest north;
Fired with a zeal peculiar, they defy
The rage and rigour of a polar sky,
And plant successfully sweet Sharon's rose
On icy plains and in eternal snows.
O blest within the inclosure of your rocks,
Nor herds have ye to boast, nor bleating flocks;
No fertilising streams your fields divide,
That shew reversed the villas on their side;
No groves have ye; nor cheerful sound of bird
Or voice of turtle in your land is heard ;
Nor grateful eglantine regales the smell
Of those that walk at evening where ye dwell;
But Winter, armed with terrors here unknown,
Sits absolute on his unshaken throne,
Piles up his stores amidst the frozen waste,
And bids the mountains he has built stand fast;
Beckons the legions of his storms away
From happier scenes to make your land a prey;
Proclaims the soil a conquest he has won,
And scorns to share it with the distant sun.
Yet Truth is yours, remote unenvied isle !
And Peace, the genuine offspring of her smile;
The pride of lettered ignorance, that binds
In chains of error our accomplished minds,
That decks with all the splendour of the true,
A false religion, is unknown to you.
Nature indeed vouchsafes for our delight
The sweet vicissitudes of day and night;
Soft airs and genial moisture feed and cheer
Field, fruit, and flower, and every creature here;
But brighter beams than his who fires the skies
Have risen at length on your admiring eyes,
That shoot into your darkest caves the day
From which our nicer optics turn away.
In this pleasing (rather than powerful) blending in plain-sailing verse of argument and piety, poetry and sound sense, we have distinctive traits of Cowper's genius. Practice in composition and Lady Austen's influence were obvious gains to him; and when he entered upon the Task, he was far more disposed to look at the sunny side of things, and to attempt more detailed and picturesque description. His versification underwent a like improvement. His former poems were often rugged in style and expression, and were made so on purpose to avoid the polished uniformity of Pope and his imitators. He was now sensible that he had erred on the opposite side, and accordingly the Task was made to unite strength and freedom with elegance and harmony. Few poets have introduced so much idiomatic expression into a grave poem of blank verse; but the higher passages are all carefully finished, and rise or fall, according to the nature of the subject, with grace and melody of their own, in contrast to Thomson, whose pompous march is never relaxed, however trivial be the theme. The variety of the Task in style and manner, no less than in subject, is one of its greatest charms. The mock-heroic opening illustrates his humour, and from this he glides naturally into description and reflection. The scenery of the Ouse, described with the detail of painting, leads up to higher themes:
Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds,
Exhilarate the spirit, and restore
The tone of languid nature. Mighty winds
That sweep the skirt of some far-spreading wood
Of ancient growth, make music not unlike
The dash of ocean on his winding shore,
And lull the spirit while they fill the mind,
Unnumbered branches waving in the blast,
And all their leaves fast fluttering all at once.
Nor less composure waits upon the roar
Of distant floods, or on the softer voice
Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip
Through the cleft rock, and chiming as they fall
Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length
In matted grass, that with a livelier green
Betrays the secret of their silent course.
Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,
But animated nature sweeter still,
To soothe and satisfy the human ear.
Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one
The livelong night; nor these alone whose notes
Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain,
But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime
In still-repeated circles, screaming loud,
The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl
That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.
Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,
Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,
And only there, please highly for their sake. . .
The earth was made so various, that the mind
Of desultory man, studious of change
And pleased with novelty, might be indulged.
Prospects, however lovely, may be seen
Till half their beauties fade; the weary sight,
Too well acquainted with their smiles, slides off
Fastidious, seeking less familiar scenes.
Then snug enclosures in the sheltered vale,
Where frequent hedges intercept the eye,
Delight us, happy to renounce a while,
Not senseless of its charms, what still we love,
That such short absence may endear it more.
Then forests, or the savage rock may please
That hides the sea-mew in his hollow clefts
Above the reach of man; his hoary head
Conspicuous many a league, the mariner
Bound homeward, and in hope already there,
Greets with three cheers exulting. At his waist
A girdle of half-withered shrubs he shews,
And at his feet the baffled billows die.
The common overgrown with fern, and rough
With prickly gorse, that, shapeless and deform,
And dangerous to the touch, has yet its bloom,
And decks itself with ornaments of gold,
Yields no unpleasing ramble; there the turf
Smells fresh, and rich in odoriferous herbs
And fungous fruits of earth, regales the sense
With luxury of unexpected sweets.
From the beginning to the end of the Task we never lose sight of the author. His old boyish love of country rambles; his walks with Mrs Unwin, when he had exchanged the Thames for the Ouse, and had 'grown sober in the vale of years;' his playful satire and tender admonition, his denunciation of slavery, his noble patriotism, his devotional earnestness and sublimity, his tenderness to animals, his affection for his pets, his warm sympathy with his fellow-men, and his exquisite paintings of domestic peace and happiness are
all so much self-portraiture, drawn with the ripe skill of a master and the modesty and good taste of the man. The very rapidity of his transitions, where things light and sportive are ranged alongside the most solemn truths, is characteristic of his mind and temperament in ordinary life. The inimitable ease and colloquial freedom which lend such a charm to his letters are never long absent from his poetry. He never concealed his strongly Calvinistic tenets, yet they are not much obtruded in his great work; his piety is of the kind which wins sympathy; and if his temperament (he was 'a stricken deer that left the herd') tinged the prospect of life with too deep a shade, it also imparted a more impressive weight to his solemn appeals. Of his lighter things, John Gilpin is universally recognised as a masterpiece; and The Dog and the Water Lily is in another manner exquisite. Most of his hymns are introspective, plaintive rather than joyous or confident; 'There is a fountain filled with blood,' 'Jesus, where'er Thy people meet,' 'The Spirit breathes upon the word,' and 'The Lord will happiness divine On contrite hearts bestow' are all in various ways representative; even 'Sometimes a light surprises,' 'Hark, my soul, it is the Lord,' and 'God moves in a mysterious way' are not without a touch of sadness; and 'O for a closer walk with God' is largely humiliation and prayer.
The emphatic speaker dearly loves to oppose,
In contact inconvenient, nose to nose,
As if the gnomon on his neighbour's phiz,
Touched with a magnet, had attracted his.
His whispered theme, dilated and at large,
Proves after all a wind-gun's airy charge-
An extract of his diary—no more—-
A tasteless journal of the day before.
He walked abroad, o'ertaken in the rain,
Called on a friend, drank tea, stept home again;
Resumed his purpose, had a world of talk
With one he stumbled on, and lost his walk;
I interrupt him with a sudden bow,
Adieu, dear sir, lest you should lose it now.'. ..
A graver coxcomb we may sometimes see,
Quite as absurd, though not so light as he
A shallow brain behind a serious mask,
An oracle within an empty cask,
The solemn fop, significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge;
He
says but little, and that little said,
Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock, it never is at home:
'Tis like a parcel sent you by the stage,
Some handsome present, as your hopes presage;
'Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove
An absent friend's fidelity and love;
But when unpacked, your disappointment groans
To find it stuffed with brickbats, earth, and stones.
Some men employ their health—an ugly trick-
In making known how oft they have been sick,
And give us in recitals of disease
A doctor's trouble, but without the fees;
Relate how many weeks they kept their bed,
How an emetic or cathartic sped;
Nothing is slightly touched, much less forgot;
Nose, ears, and eyes seem present on the spot.
Now the distemper, spite of draught or pill,
Victorious seemed, and now the doctor's skill;
And now-alas for unforeseen mishaps!
They put on a damp night-cap, and relapse;
They thought they must have died, they were so bad;
Their peevish hearers almost wish they had.
Some fretful tempers wince at every touch,
You always do too little or too much :
You speak with life, in hopes to entertain-
Your elevated voice goes through the brain;
You fall at once into a lower key-
That's worse-the drone-pipe of an humble-bee.
The southern sash admits too strong a light;
You rise and drop the curtain-now 'tis night.
He shakes with cold-you stir the fire, and strive
To make a blaze-that's roasting him alive.
Serve him with venison, and he chooses fish ;
With sole-that's just the sort he would not wish.
He takes what he at first professed to loathe,
And in due time feeds heartily on both;
Yet still o'erclouded with a constant frown,
He does not swallow, but he gulps it down.
Your hope to please him vain on every plan,
Himself should work that wonder, if he can.
Alas! his efforts double his distress.
He likes yours little, and his own still less :
Thus always teasing others, always teased,
His only pleasure is to be displeased.
I pity bashful men, who feel the pain
Of fancied scorn and undeserved disdain,
And bear the marks upon a blushing face
Of needless shame and self-imposed disgrace.
Our sensibilities are so acute,
The fear of being silent makes us mute.
We sometimes think we could a speech produce
Much to the purpose, if our tongues were loose;
But being tied, it dies upon the lip,
Faint as a chicken's note that has the pip;
Our wasted oil unprofitably burns,
Like hidden lamps in old sepulchral urns.
On receiving his Mother's Picture.
Oh that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine-thy own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else, how distinct they say:
'Grieve not, my child; chase all thy fears away!`
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes-
Blest be the art that can immortalise,
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
To quench it here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
O welcome guest, though unexpected here!
Who bidd'st me honour, with an artless song
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.
I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
And while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief;
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,
A momentary dream, that thou art she.
My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun?
Perhaps thou gavest me, though unselt, a kiss;
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss-
Ah, that maternal smile! it answers-yes.
I heard the bell tolled on thy burial-day,
I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away,
And turning from my nursery window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu !
But was it such? It was. Where thou art gone,
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown.
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting word shall pass my lips no more!
Thy maidens grieved themselves at my concern,
Oft gave me promise of thy quick return:
What ardently I wished, I long believed,
And, disappointed still, was still deceived;
By expectation every day beguiled,
Dupe of to-morrow even from a child.
Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went,
Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent,
I learned at last submission to my lot,
But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.
Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gardener Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capt,
'Tis now become a history little known,
That once we called the pastoral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair,
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced
A thousand other themes less deeply traced.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,
That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid;
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,
The biscuit or confectionary plum;
The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed
By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glowed:
All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and breaks,
That humour interposed too often makes:
All this, still legible in memory's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may;
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,
Not scorned in heaven, though little noticed here.
Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours,
When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,
The violet, the pink, and jessamine,
I pricked them into paper with a pin-
And thou wast happier than myself the while,
Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head and smile-
Could those few pleasant days again appear,
Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart--the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might.
But no-what here we call our life is such, So little to be loved, and thou so much, That I should ill requite thee to constrain Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.
Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast-
The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed-
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,
Where spices breathe and brighter seasons smile
There sits quiescent on the floods, that shew
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay;
So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore
'Where tempests never beat nor billows roar ;'
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life, long since has anchored by thy side.
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distressed-
Me howling blasts drive devious, tempest-tossed,
Sails ript, seams opening wide, and compass lost:
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.
Yet oh the thought, that thou art safe, and he!
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth;
But higher far my proud pretensions rise—
The son of parents passed into the skies.
And now, farewell-Time unrevoked has run
His wonted course, yet what I wished is done.
By contemplation's help, not sought in vain,
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again:
To have renewed the joys that once were mine,
Without the sin of violating thine;
And, while the wings of fancy still are free,
And I can view this mimic show of thee,
Time has but half succeeded in his theft-
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left.
Voltaire and the Lace-worker.
Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door,
Pillow and bobbins all her little store;
Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay,
Shuffling her threads about the livelong day,
Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night
Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light;
She, for her humble sphere by nature fit,
Has little understanding, and no wit;
Receives no praise; but though her lot be such-
Toilsome and indigent-she renders much;
Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true-
A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew;
And in that charter reads, with sparkling eyes,
Her title to a treasure in the skies.
O happy peasant! O unhappy bard!
His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward;
He praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come,
She never heard of half a mile from home;
He lost in errors his vain heart prefers,
She safe in the simplicity of hers.
To Mary. Addressed to Mrs Unwin in Autumn 1793. The twentieth year is well-nigh past Since first our sky was overcast ; Ah, would that this might be the last! My Mary!
For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still, Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
England, with all thy faults, I love thee still, My country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. Though thy clime Be fickle, and thy year, most part, deformed With dripping rains, or withered by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies And fields without a flower for warmer France With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers. To shake thy senate, and from heights sublime Of patriot eloquence to flash down fire Upon thy foes, was never meant my task;
With odours, and as profligate as sweet,
Who sell their laurel for a myrtle wreath,
And love when they should fight,-when such as these
Presume to lay their hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause?
Time was when it was praise and boast enough
In every clime, and travel where we might,
That we were born her children; praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue,
And Wolfe's great name compatriot with his own.
Farewell those honours, and farewell with them
The hope of such hereafter! They have fallen
Each in his field of glory: one in arms,
And one in council-Wolfe upon the lap
Of smiling Victory that moment won,
And Chatham, heart-sick of his country's shame!
They made us many soldiers. Chatham still
Consulting England's happiness at home,
Secured it by an unforgiving frown
If any wronged her. Wolfe, where'er he fought,
Put so much of his heart into his act,
That his example had a magnet's force,
And all were swift to follow whom all loved.
Those suns are set. Oh, rise some other such!
Or all that we have left is empty talk
Of old achievements, and despair of new.
(From The Task, Book ii.) The first two lines in the above extract are altered from Churchill's Farewell (see page 497).
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews bought and sold have ever earned.
No dear as freedom is, and in my heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,
I had much rather be myself the slave
And wear the bonds than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home.-Then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free,
They touch our country, and their shackles fall.
That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud
And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then,
And let it circulate through every vein
Of all your empire; that where Britain's power
Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too.
(From The Task, Book ii.)
The Fireside in Winter.
Hark! 'tis the twanging horn o'er yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
Bestrides the wintry flood, in which the moon
Sees her unwrinkled face reflected bright;
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