The Works of William Cowper. William Cowper
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in stanzas, with which I mean to supply their places. Henceforth I have done with politics. The stage of national affairs is such a fluctuating scene that an event which appears probable to-day becomes impossible to-morrow; and unless a man were indeed a prophet, he cannot, but with the greatest hazard of losing his labour, bestow his rhymes upon future contingencies, which perhaps are never to take place but in his own wishes and in the reveries of his own fancy. I learned when I was a boy, being the son of a staunch Whig, and a man that loved his country, to glow with that patriotic enthusiasm which is apt to break forth into poetry, or at least to prompt a person, if he has any inclination that way, to poetical endeavours. Prior's pieces of that sort were recommended to my particular notice; and, as that part of the present century was a season when clubs of a political character, and consequently political songs, were much in fashion, the best in that style, some written by Rowe, and I think some by Congreve, and many by other wits of the day, were proposed to my admiration. Being grown up, I became desirous of imitating such bright examples, and while I lived in the Temple produced several halfpenny ballads, two or three of which had the honour to be popular. What we learn in childhood we retain long; and the successes we met with about three years ago, when D'Estaing was twice repulsed, once in America and once in the West Indies, having set fire to my patriotic zeal once more, it discovered itself by the same symptoms, and produced effects much like those it had produced before. But, unhappily, the ardour I felt upon the occasion, disdaining to be confined within the bounds of fact, pushed me upon uniting the prophetical with the poetical character, and defeated its own purpose.—I am glad it did. The less there is of that sort in my book the better; it will be more consonant to your character, who patronize the volume, and, indeed, to the constant tenor of my own thoughts upon public matters, that I should exhort my countrymen to repentance, than that I should flatter their pride—that vice for which, perhaps, they are even now so severely punished.
We are glad, for Mr. Barham's sake, that he has been happily disappointed. How little does the world suspect what passes in it every day!—that true religion is working the same wonders now as in the first ages of the church—that parents surrender up their children into the hands of God, to die at his own appointed moment, and by what death he pleases, without a murmur, and receive them again as if by a resurrection from the dead! The world, however, would be more justly chargeable with wilful blindness than it is, if all professors of the truth exemplified its power in their conduct as conspicuously as Mr. Barham.
Easterly winds and a state of confinement within our own walls suit neither me nor Mrs. Unwin; though we are both, to use the Irish term, rather unwell than ill.
Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.
Mrs. Madan is happy.—She will be found ripe, fall when she may.
We are sorry you speak doubtfully about a spring visit to Olney. Those doubts must not outlive the winter.
W. C.
We now conclude this portion of our work. The incidents recorded in it cannot fail to excite interest, and to awaken a variety of reflections. Remarks of this kind will, however, appear more suitable, when all the details of the poet's singular history are brought to a close, and presented in a connected series. In the meantime we cannot but admire that divine wisdom and mercy, which often so remarkably overrules the darkest dispensations—
From seeming evil still educing good.
It might have been anticipated that the morbid temperament of Cowper would either have unfitted him for intellectual exertion, or that his productions would have been tinged with all the colours of distempered mind: but such was not the case. Whether he composed in poetry or prose, the effect upon his mind seems to have been similar to the influence of the harp of David over the spirit of Saul. The inward struggles of the soul yielded to the magic power of song; and the inimitable letter-writer forgot his sorrows in the sallies of his own sportive imagination. The peculiarity of his temperament, so far from restraining his powers, seems from his own account to have quickened them into action. "I write," he says, in one of his letters, "to amuse and forget myself; and yet always with the desire of benefiting others." His object in writing was twofold, and so was his success; for he wrote and forgot himself; and yet wrote in such a manner, as never to be forgotten by others.
We have now conducted Cowper to the threshold of fame, with all its attendant hopes, fears, and anxieties; a fame resting on the noblest foundation, the application of the powers of genius to improvement of the age in which he lived. The circumstances under which he commenced his career as an Author are singular. They form a profitable subject of inquiry to those who analyze the operations of the human mind; for he wrote in the moments of depression and sorrow, under the influence of a morbid temperament, and with an imagination assailed by the most afflicting images. In the midst of these discouragements his mind burst forth from its prison-house, arrayed in all the charms of wit and humour, sportive without levity, and never provoking a smile at the expense of virtue.
A mind so constituted furnishes a remarkable proof of the wisdom and goodness of God; for it shows that the greatest trials are not without their alleviations, and that in the bitterest cup are to be found the ingredients of mercy. Who can tell how often the mind might lose its equilibrium, or sink under the pressure of its woes, were it not for the interposition of that Almighty Power which guides the planets in their orbits, and says to the great water, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." Job xxxviii. 11.
We now resume the correspondence of Cowper, which contains some incidental notices of his admired Poems of Friendship and Retirement.
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[119]
Olney, Dec. 17, 1781.
My dear Friend—The poem I had in hand when I wrote last is on the subject of Friendship. By the following post I received a packet from Johnson. The proof-sheet it contained brought our business down to the latter part of "Retirement;" the next will consequently introduce the first of the smaller pieces. The volume consisting, at least four-fifths of it, of heroic verse as it is called, and graver matter, I was desirous to displace the "Burning Mountain"[120] from the post it held in the van of the light infantry, and throw it into the rear. Having finished "Friendship," and fearing that, if I delayed to send it, the press would get the start of my intention, and knowing perfectly that, with respect to the subject and the subject matter of it, it contained nothing that you would think exceptionable, I took the liberty to transmit it to Johnson, and hope that the next post will return it to me printed. It consists of between thirty and forty stanzas; a length that qualifies it to supply the place of the two cancelled pieces, without the aid of the epistle I mentioned. According to the present arrangement, therefore, "Friendship," which is rather of a lively cast, though quite sober, will follow next after "Retirement," and "Ætna" will close the volume. Modern naturalists, I think, tell us that the volcano forms the mountain. I shall be charged therefore, perhaps, with an unphilosophical error in supposing that Ætna was once unconscious of intestines fires, and as lofty as at present before the commencement of the eruptions. It is possible, however, that the rule, though just in some instances, may not be of universal application; and, if it be, I do not know that a poet is obliged to write with a philosopher at his elbow, prepared always to bend down his imagination to mere matters of fact. You will oblige me by your opinion; and tell me, if you please, whether you think an apologetical note may be necessary; for I would not appear a dunce in matters that every Review reader must needs be apprized of. I say a note, because an alteration of the piece is impracticable; at least without cutting off its head, and setting on a new one; a task I should not readily undertake, because the lines which must, in that case, be thrown out, are some of the most poetical in the performance.
Possessing greater advantages, and being equally dissolute with the most abandoned of the neighbouring nations, we are certainly more criminal than they. They cannot see, and we will not. It is to be expected, therefore, that when judgment is walking