The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
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half-spent life, so insipid and unaffecting, that I have no heart to think or write much about them. Whether the nation is worshipping Mr. Wilkes, or any other idol, is of little moment to one who hopes and believes that he shall shortly stand in the presence of the great and blessed God. I thank him, that he has given me such a deep, impressed, persuasion of this awful truth as a thousand worlds would not purchase from me. It gives me a relish to every blessing, and makes every trouble light.
Affectionately yours,
W. C.
In entering on the correspondence of the ensuing year, we find the following impressive letter addressed to Mr. Hill.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[21]
Olney, Jan. 21, 1769.
Dear Joe—I rejoice with you in your recovery, and that you have escaped from the hands of one from whose hands you will not always escape. Death is either the most formidable, or the most comfortable thing we have in prospect, on this side of eternity. To be brought near to him, and to discern neither of these features in his face, would argue a degree of insensibility, of which I will not suspect my friend, whom I know to be a thinking man. You have been brought down to the side of the grave, and you have been raised again by Him who has the keys of the invisible world; who opens and none can shut, who shuts and none can open. I do not forget to return thanks to Him on your behalf, and to pray that your life, which he has spared, may be devoted to his service. "Behold! I stand at the door and knock," is the word of Him, on whom both our mortal and immortal life depend, and, blessed be his name, it is the word of one who wounds only that he may heal, and who waits to be gracious. The language of every such dispensation is, "Prepare to meet thy God." It speaks with the voice of mercy and goodness, for, without such notices, whatever preparation we might make for other events, we should make none for this. My dear friend, I desire and pray that, when this last enemy shall come to execute an unlimited commission upon us, we may be found ready, being established and rooted in a well-grounded faith in His name, who conquered and triumphed over him upon his cross.
Yours ever,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[22]
Olney, Jan. 29, 1769.
My dear Joe—I have a moment to spare, to tell you that your letter is just come to hand, and to thank you for it. I do assure you, the gentleness and candour of your manner engages my affection to you very much. You answer with mildness to an admonition, which would have provoked many to anger. I have not time to add more, except just to hint that, if I am ever enabled to look forward to death with comfort, which, I thank God, is sometimes the case with me, I do not take my view of it from the top of my own works and deservings, though God is witness that the labour of my life is to keep a conscience void of offence towards Him. He is always formidable to me, but when I see him disarmed of his sting, by having sheathed it in the body of Christ Jesus.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.
Olney, July 31, 1769.
Dear Joe—Sir Thomas crosses the Alps, and Sir Cowper, for that is his title at Olney, prefers his home to any other spot of earth in the world. Horace, observing this difference of temper in different persons, cried out a good many years ago, in the true spirit of poetry, "How much one man differs from another!" This does not seem a very sublime exclamation in English, but I remember we were taught to admire it in the original.
My dear friend, I am obliged to you for your invitation: but, being long accustomed to retirement, which I was always fond of, I am now more than ever unwilling to revisit those noisy and crowded scenes, which I never loved, and which I now abhor. I remember you with all the friendship I ever professed, which is as much as ever I entertained for any man. But the strange and uncommon incidents of my life have given an entire new turn to my whole character and conduct, and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure from the same employments and amusements of which I could readily partake in former days.
I love you and yours, I thank you for your continued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to be their and your
Affectionate friend and servant,
W. C.
Cowper's present retirement was distinguished by many private acts of beneficence, and his exemplary virtue was such that the opulent sometimes delighted to make him their almoner. In his sequestered life at Olney, he ministered abundantly to the wants of the poor, from a fund with which he was supplied by that model of extensive and unostentatious philanthropy, the late John Thornton, Esq., whose name he has immortalized in his Poem on Charity, still honouring his memory by an additional tribute to his virtues in the following descriptive eulogy, written immediately on his decease, in the year 1790.
Poets attempt the noblest task they can,
Praising the Author of all good in man;
And next commemorating worthies lost,
The dead, in whom that good abounded most.
Thee therefore of commercial fame, but more
Fam'd for thy probity, from shore to shore—
Thee, Thornton, worthy in some page to shine
As honest, and more eloquent than mine,
I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be,
The world, no longer thy abode, not thee;
Thee to deplore were grief misspent indeed;
It were to weep that goodness has its meed,
That there is bliss prepared in yonder sky,
And glory, for the virtuous when they die.
What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess afford,
Sweet as the privilege of healing woe
Suffer'd by virtue combating below!
That privilege was thine; Heaven gave thee means
To illumine with delight the saddest scenes,
Till thy appearance chased the gloom, forlorn
As midnight, and despairing of a morn.
Thou hadst an industry in doing good,
Restless as his who toils and sweats for food.
Av'rice in thee was the desire of wealth
By rust unperishable, or by stealth.
And, if the genuine worth of gold depend
On application to its noblest end,
Thine had a value in the scales of heaven,
Surpassing all that mine or mint have given:
And though God made thee of a nature prone
To distribution, boundless, of thy own;
And still, by motives of religious force,
Impell'd thee more to that heroic course;
Yet was thy liberality discreet,
Nice in its choice, and of a temp'rate heat;
And, though in act unwearied, secret still,
As, in some solitude, the summer rill
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,