The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
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newspaper; or who, that has a spark of patriotism, does not point all his attention to the present crisis.
W. C.
I am so disgusted with——, for allowing himself to be silent, when so loudly called upon to write to you, that I do not choose to express my feelings. Woe to the man whom kindness cannot soften!
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.
Olney, March 8, 1784.
My dear Friend—I thank you for the two first numbers of the Theological Miscellany. I have not read them regularly through, but sufficiently to observe that they are much indebted to Omicron.[230] An essay, signed Parvulus, pleased me likewise; and I shall be glad if a neighbour of ours, to whom I have lent them, should be able to apply to his own use the lesson it inculcates. On farther consideration, I have seen reason to forego my purpose of translating Caraccioli. Though I think no book more calculated to teach the art of pious meditation, or to enforce a conviction of the vanity of all pursuits that have not the soul's interests for their object, I can yet see a flaw in his manner of instructing, that in a country so enlightened as ours would escape nobody's notice. Not enjoying the advantages of evangelical ordinances and Christian communion, he falls into a mistake, natural in his situation, ascribing always the pleasures he found in a holy life, to his own industrious perseverance in a contemplative course, and not to the immediate agency of the great Comforter of his people, and directing the eye of his readers to a spiritual principle within, which he supposes to subsist in the soul of every man, as the source of all divine enjoyment, and not to Christ, as he would gladly have done, had he fallen under Christian teachers. Allowing for these defects, he is a charming writer, and by those who know how to make such allowances may be read with great delight and improvement. But, with these defects in his manner, though, I believe, no man ever had a heart more devoted to God, he does not seem dressed with sufficient exactness to be fit for the public eye, where man is known to be nothing, and Jesus all in all. He must therefore be dismissed, as an unsuccessful candidate for a place in this Miscellany, and will be less mortified at being rejected in the first instance than if he had met with a refusal from the publisher. I can only therefore repeat what I said before, that, when I find a proper subject, and myself at liberty to pursue it, I will endeavour to contribute my quota.
W. C.
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.
Olney, March 11, 1784.
I return you many thanks for your Apology, which I have read with great pleasure. You know of old that your style always pleases me; and having, in a former letter, given you the reasons for which I like it, I spare you now the pain of a repetition. The spirit too in which you write pleases me as much. But I perceive that in some cases it is possible to be severe, and at the same time perfectly good-tempered; in all cases, I suppose, where we suffer by an injurious and unreasonable attack, and can justify our conduct by a plain and simple narrative. On such occasions truth itself seems a satire, because by implication at least it convicts our adversaries of the want of charity and candour. For this reason perhaps you will find that you have made many angry, though you are not so; and it is possible they may be the more angry upon that very account. To assert and to prove that an enlightened minister of the gospel may, without any violation of his conscience, and even upon the ground of prudence and propriety, continue in the Establishment, and to do this with the most absolute composure, must be very provoking to the dignity of some dissenting doctors; and, to nettle them still more, you in a manner impose upon them the necessity of being silent, by declaring that you will be so yourself. Upon the whole, however, I have no doubt that your Apology will do good. If it should irritate some who have more zeal than knowledge, and more of bigotry than of either, it may serve to enlarge the views of others, and to convince them that there may be grace, truth, and efficacy in the ministry of a church of which they are not members. I wish it success, and all that attention to which, both from the nature of the subject and the manner in which you have treated it, it is so well entitled.
The patronage of the East Indies will be a dangerous weapon, in whatever hands. I have no prospect of deliverance for this country, but the same that I have of a possibility that we may one day be disencumbered of our ruinous possessions in the East.
Our good neighbours,[231] who have so successfully knocked away our western crutch from under us, seem to design us the same favour on the opposite side, in which case we shall be poor, but I think we shall stand a better chance to be free; and I had rather drink water-gruel for breakfast, and be no man's slave; than wear a chain, and drink tea.
I have just room to add that we love you as usual, and are your very affectionate William and Mary.
W. C.
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[232]
Olney, March 15, 1784.
My dear Friend—I converse, you say, upon other subjects than that of despair, and may therefore write upon others. Indeed, my friend, I am a man of very little conversation upon any subject. From that of despair I abstain as much as possible, for the sake of my company; but I will venture to say that it is never out of my mind one minute in the whole day. I do not mean to say that I am never cheerful. I am often so: always indeed when my nights have been undisturbed for a season. But the effect of such continual listening to the language of a heart hopeless and deserted is that I can never give much more than half my attention to what is started by others, and very rarely start any thing myself. My silence, however, and my absence of mind, make me sometimes as entertaining as if I had wit. They furnish an occasion for friendly and good-natured raillery; they raise a laugh, and I partake of it. But you will easily perceive that a mind thus occupied is but indifferently qualified for the consideration of theological matters. The most useful and the most delightful topics of that kind are to me forbidden fruit;—I tremble if I approach them. It has happened to me sometimes that I have found myself imperceptibly drawn in, and made a party in such discourse. The consequence has been, dissatisfaction and self-reproach. You will tell me, perhaps, that I have written upon these subjects in verse, and may therefore, if I please, in prose. But there is a difference. The search after poetical expression, the rhyme, and the numbers, are all affairs of some difficulty; they amuse, indeed, but are not to be attained without study, and engross, perhaps, a larger share of the attention than the subject itself. Persons fond of music will sometimes find pleasure in the tune, when the words afford them none. There are, however, subjects that do not always terrify me by their importance; such I mean as relate to Christian life and manners; and when such a one presents itself, and finds me in a frame of mind that does not absolutely forbid the employment, I shall most readily gave it my attention, for the sake, however, of your request merely. Verse is my favourite occupation, and what I compose in that way I reserve for my own use hereafter.
I have lately finished eight volumes of Johnson's Prefaces, or Lives of the Poets. In all that number I observe but one man—a poet of no great fame—of whom I did not know that he existed till I found him there, whose mind seems to have had the slightest tincture of religion; and he was hardly in his senses. His name was Collins. He sank into a state of melancholy, and died young. Not long before his death he was found at his lodgings in Islington, by his biographer, with the New Testament in his hand. He said to Johnson, "I have but one book, but it is the best." Of him, therefore, there are some hopes. But from the lives of all the rest there is but one inference to be drawn—that poets are a very worthless, wicked set of people.
Yours, my dear friend, truly,