The Collected Works. William Cowper
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classical taste perceptible in his translation of Horace's Art of Poetry, and of the works of Terence, he relinquished the bar, to which he had been called, and became principally known for his devotedness to theatrical pursuits. His private life was not consistent with the rules of morality; and he closed his days, after a protracted malady, by dying in a Lunatic Asylum in Paddington, in the year 1794.
To Bonnell Thornton, jointly with Colman, we owe the Connoisseur, to which Cowper contributed a few numbers. Thornton also united with Colman and Warner in a translation of Plautus. But his talents, instead of being profitably employed, were chiefly marked by a predilection for humour, in the exercise of which he was not very discreet; for the venerated muse of Gray did not escape his ridicule, and the celebrated Ode to St. Cecilia was made the occasion of a public burlesque performance, the relation of which would not accord with the design of this undertaking. He who aims at nothing better than to amuse and divert, and to excite a laugh at the expense of both taste and judgment, proposes to himself no very exalted object. Thornton died in the year 1770, aged forty-seven.
Lloyd was formerly usher at Westminster School, but feeling the irksomeness of the situation, resigned it, and commenced author. His Poems have been repeatedly re-published. His life presented a scene of thoughtless extravagance and dissipation. Overwhelmed with debt, and pursued by his creditors, he was at length confined in the Fleet Prison, where he expired, the victim of his excesses, at the early age of thirty-one years.
We record these facts—1st. That we may adore that mercy which, by a timely interposition, rescued the future author of the Task from such impending ruin:—2ndly, To show that scenes of gaiety and dissipation, however enlivened by flashes of wit, and distinguished by literary superiority, are perilous to character, health, and fortune; and that the talents, which, if beneficially employed, might have led to happiness and honour, when perverted to unworthy ends, often lead prematurely to the grave, or render the past painful in the retrospect, and the future the subject of fearful anticipation and alarm.
Happily, Cowper escaped from this vortex of misery and ruin. His juvenile poems discover a contemplative spirit, and a mind early impressed with sentiments of piety. In proof of this assertion, we select a few stanzas from an ode written, when he was very young, on reading Sir Charles Grandison.
To rescue from the tyrant's sword
The oppress'd;—unseen, and unimplor'd,
To cheer the face of woe;
From lawless insult to defend
An orphan's right—a fallen friend,
And a forgiven foe:
These, these, distinguish from the crowd,
And these alone, the great and good,
The guardians of mankind.
Whose bosoms with these virtues heave,
Oh! with what matchless speed, they leave
The multitude behind!
Then ask ye from what cause on earth
Virtues like these derive their birth?
Derived from Heaven alone,
Full on that favour'd breast they shine,
Where faith and resignation join
To call the blessing down.
Such is that heart:—but while the Muse
Thy theme, O Richardson, pursues,
Her feebler spirits faint:
She cannot reach, and would not wrong,
That subject for an angel's song,
The hero, and the saint.
His early turn to moralize on the slightest occasion will appear from the following verses, which he wrote at the age of eighteen; and in which those who love to trace the rise and progress of genius will, I think, be pleased to remark the very promising seeds of those peculiar powers, which unfolded themselves in the richest maturity at a remoter period, and rendered that beautiful and sublime poem, The Task, the most instructive and interesting of modern compositions. Young as the poet was when he produced the following lines, we may observe that he had probably been four years in the habit of writing English verse, as he has said in one of his letters, that he began his poetical career at the age of fourteen, by translating an elegy of Tibullus. I have reason to believe that he wrote many poems in his early life; and the singular merit of this juvenile composition is sufficient to make the friends of genius regret that an excess of diffidence prevented him from preserving the poetry of his youth.
VERSES,
WRITTEN AT BATH, ON FINDING THE HEEL OF A SHOE, 1748.
Fortune! I thank thee: gentle goddess! thanks!
Not that my Muse, though bashful, shall deny
She would have thank'd thee rather hadst thou cast
A treasure in her way; for neither meed
Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes
And bowel-racking pains of emptiness,
Nor noon-tide feast, nor evening's cool repast,
Hopes she from this—presumptuous, tho', perhaps,
The cobbler, leather-carving artist, might.
Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon
Whatever, not as erst the fabled cock,
Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,
Spurn'd the rich gem thou gav'st him. Wherefore ah!
Why not on me that favour (worthier sure)
Conferr'dst thou, goddess? Thou art blind, thou say'st;
Enough—thy blindness shall excuse the deed.
Nor does my Muse no benefit exhale
From this thy scant indulgence!—even here,
Hints, worthy sage philosophy, are found;
Illustrious hints, to moralize my song!
This pond'rous heel of perforated hide
Compact, with pegs indented, many a row,
Haply—for such its massy form bespeaks—
The weighty tread of some rude peasant clown
Upbore: on this supported, oft he stretch'd,
With uncouth strides along the furrow'd glebe,
Flatt'ning the stubborn clod, 'till cruel time,
(What will not cruel time?) on a wry step,
Sever'd the strict cohesion; when, alas!
He who could erst with even, equal pace,
Pursue his destin'd way with symmetry
And some proportion form'd, now, on one side,
Curtail'd and maim'd, the sport of vagrant boys,
Cursing his frail supporter, treacherous prop!
With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on.
Thus fares it oft with other than the feet
Of humble villager. The statesman thus,
Up the steep road where proud ambition leads,
Aspiring, first uninterrupted winds
His prosp'rous way; nor fears miscarriage foul,
While policy prevails, and friends prove true:
But that support soon failing, by him left
On whom he most depended, basely left,
Betray'd, deserted: from his airy height
Headlong he falls, and, through the rest of life,