Religion should extinguish strife, But even those who differ Only on topics left at large, Then judge, before you choose your man, And having made election, See that no disrespect of yours, Such as a friend but ill endures, Enfeeble his affection As similarity of mind, Or something not to be defined, The man who hails you Tom, or Jack, To pardon, or to bear it. Some friends make this their prudent planSay little, and hear all you can; Safe policy, but hateful! So barren sands imbibe the shower, They whisper trivial things, and small; Things serious, deem improper. Just like a simmering copper. A principal ingredient. True friendship has, in short, a grace, That proves it heaven-descended: To last till life is ended." Cowper was, through life, the warm, though not the blind admirer of the British constitution; and though he made no pretensions to the character of a politician, yet he took the liveliest interest in all that related to the honor and prosperity of his country, In one of his letters to Mr. Newton he thus writes:-"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 endeavors. After I was grown up, and while I lived in the Temple, I produced several halfpenny ballads, two or three of which had the honor of being popular. But unhappily, the ardor 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 a glad it did. The less there is of this sort in my productions the better. The stage of national affairs is such a fluctuating scene, that an event which seems 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 labor, 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." The time which Cowper bestowed upon his translation of Homer, and the indefatigable diligence with which he labored in this great work, notwithstanding his melancholy depression, until he had completed it, prove that he was not easily to be diverted from what he had once undertaken; and that few men were equal and perhaps none superior, to him, in those essential qualities of a truly great mind-industry and perseve ence of mind, which is a prime constituent in the character of every great man. Several incidents, however, are related of him, which go to prove that such was very far from being the case. His conduct to Mr. Unwin and Mr. Newton, who both in their turns, at different times, thought themselves entitled to complain of some neglect, proves that he allowed not the affection of friendship to intrench upon his right to judge at all times for himself. Alluding to Mr. Newton's displeasure, he remarks to another friend :-"If he says more on the subject I shall speak freely, and perhaps please him less than I have already done." Almost in the same breath, however, evincing his deep knowledge of human nature, he adds:-" But we shall jumble together again, as people, who have an affection for each other at the bottom, never fail to do." On one occasion, some friend having remarked to Cowper, that he knew a person who wished to see a sample of his verse, before subscribing for his edition of Homer, he replied-" that when he dealt in wine, or cloth, or cheese, he would give samples, but of verse never." The same independence he evinced on another occasion, writing to the friend whom he had employed to negotiate for the publication of his second volume of poetry, he remarks "If Johnson should stroke his chin, look up to the ceiling, and cry nymph! anticipate him, I beseech you, at once, by saying, that you know I should be very sorry he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any degree pressed upon him." The depressive malady under which Cowper labored through the greatest part of his life, might naturally be supposed to have disqualified him entirely for the kind office of comforting those who were in distress: in truth, however, no one had better learned the divine skill of strengthening the weak mind, of encouraging the timid and trembling believer, of lifting up the weak hands that were hanging down, wiping the tear of sorrow from the mournful eye, and directing the Christian to look alone to heaven for support in all his difficulties. His poems abound with passages the most tender and consolatory; enforcing with an eloquence, persuasive and almost irresistible, humble submission to the Divine will, in circumstances the most discouraging. The following lines, forming part of a poetic epistle to a lady in France, show how admirably he could pour the healing oil of comfort into the wounded Ispirits of others, though he was unable to assuage the grief of his own: "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. * But He, who knew what human hearts would prove, To escape the common ruin of their kind, Ah! be not sad! although thy lot be cast Far from the flock, and in a boundless waste; No shepherd's tents within thy view appear, But the Chief Shepherd even there is near. Thy tender sorrows and thy plaintive strain Flow in a foreign land, but not in vain; Thy tears all issue from a source divine, And every drop bespeaks a Saviour thine. Notwithstanding the almost unmitigated severity of It might be imagined that Cowper's very retired man- Cowper's sufferings, there were seasons in which he ner of life, had deprived him of that manly independ-enjoyed some internal tranquillity, and was enabled to rance. exercise a trembling, if not an unshaken confidence in the Almighty. It was undoubtedly on one of these occasions that he penned the following lines- "I see, or think I see, A glimmering from afar A beam of day that shines for me It marks the pilgrim's way: Had it not been for Cowper's depressive malady, he would certainly have been, on all occasions, the most lively and agreeable companion. Even as it was, it must not be imagined that in his conversation he was never sprightly and cheerful. Frequently, when his own heart was suffused with grief, arising from the severity and peculiarity of his malady, such an air of innocent pleasantry and humor, delicate and perfectly natural, ran through his conversation and correspondence, as could not fail to delight all who happened to be in his company, or who were occasionally favored with the productions of his pen. It would be easy to produce proofs of this, both from his poetic and prose productions. His rhyming letter, to Mr. Newton, in which there is such a happy mixture of the grave and the gay, as no other writer could produce, evinces the occasional sprightliness of his mind. "My very dear friend, I am going to send, what, when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say, I suppose there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not; by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme, but if it be, did ever you see, of late or yore, such a ditty before? "If I have writ charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the reviewer, should say, to be sure, the gentleman's muse, wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard, have little regard for taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoydening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production on a new construction; she has baited her trap, in hopes to snap, all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end, and if I succeed, and folks should read till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid, for all I have said, and all I have done, though I have run, many a time, after a rhyme, as far from hence, to the end of my sense, and by hook or by crook, write another book, if I live and am here another year. "I have heard before, of a room with a floor, laid upon springs, and such like things, with so much art, in every part, that when you went in, you were forced to begin a minute pace, with an air and a grace, swimming about, now in and now out, with a deal of state, in a figure of eight, without pipe or string, or any such thing; and now I have writ, in a rhyming fit, what will make you dance, and as you advance, will keep you still, though against your will, dancing away, alert and gay, till you come to the end, of what I have penned, which that you may do, ere madam and you, are quite worn out, with jigling about, I take my leave, and here receive, a bow profound, down to the ground, from your humble ine, W. C." you The following jeu d' esprit, written by the poet, as descriptive of one of his rural excursions, through the whole of which runs a strain of pleasantry, innocent, and perfectly natural, shows that his life was not one unbroken series of despair, but that he enjoyed, occasionally, at least, some lucid intervals, when, to gratify his friends, he would trifle in rhyme with an affectionate and endearing gaiety. As it has never been published in any of his works, the reader will not regret its having a place here. I sing of a journey to Clifton,* We would have performed if we could; Stuck in the mud, * A village near Olney. Oh, this lane! Now it is plain, That struggling and striving is labor in vain.” And what you have here is a sample of all: The dirt we have found, Now sister Ann, the guitar you must take, I have varied the verse for variety's sake, And cut it off short because it was long. 'Tis hobbling and lame, Which critics won't blame, For the sense and the sound they say should be the same. As a writer, Cowper's powers of description, both in poetry and prose, were of the highest order; equalled by few, and excelled by none. His richly cultivated mind, enabled him to paint the visible beauties of the material, united to an imagination as brilliant as it was chaste, as well as the ideal charms of the moral world, with an ease and felicity equally delightful. No one could describe the feelings of the heart with more vivid force, or knew better how to levy contributions on the rich and varied scenes of nature. He possessed all the requisite qualifications for a poet of the highest class;-a familiar acquaintance with the ancient classics; a comprehensive mind, well stored with accurate information on almost every subject; a fertile genius; a rich fancy; an excursive but chaste imagination; to all which were added an extensive knowledge of the varied feelings of the human heart, and a most devout regard to the solemn claims of religion. *Lady Austin. astonishment at the mighty powers of its author, but what is of equal, and perhaps of greater importance, with feelings of the most unfeigned esteem for the poet, and with sentiments of benevolence towards all mankind. To take a comprehensive review of the poet's origi- | The reader rises from its perusal, not only filled with nal productions, in the order in which they appeared, would require a much greater space than it would be prudent to devote to it here. TABLE TALK is a dialogue, carried on with uncommon spirit and vivacity, in which a variety of most interesting topics are happily introduced and descanted on with great force and beauty. The letters of Cowper are unquestionably among the The PROGRESS OF ERROR is much more serious than its best productions of this interesting class of writings predecessor; and though it contains passages of unri- that are to be found in the English language. Easy and valled excellence, it exhibits occasional marks of weak-natural, and every where simple and elegant, without ness, and is less beautiful than any other in the volume. the slightest affectation of formality, or the most disTRUTH exhibits a wonderful combination of different tau approach to that studied and artificial style, which powers; in which passages, humorous and affecting, in bly destroys the beauty of such productions, they are scattered with delightful profusion. ne fail to interest and delight the reader; and will ever be regarded as perfect models of epistolary correspondence. Their peculiar charm is, perhaps, to be attributed chiefly, if not entirely, to that affectionate glow of pure friendship, by which they are so pre-eminently distinguished. Fascinating as they are to every reader of taste, for the chaste, yet unornamented style in which they are composed; for their easy and natural transitions; and for their concise, yet sufficiently copions descriptions, it is to that sprightly and genuine affection which runs through the whole of them, causing the reader to peruse them with almost as much interest as if they were addressed to him personally, that they are principally indebted for their claim to superiority. EXPOSTULATION, founded on a sermon by Mr. Newton, is an impassioned appeal to men, in almost all conditions, on behalf of religion; it abounds with imagery, grand, impressive, and awful, exhibiting proofs of the poet's deep acquaintance with the inspired prophetic records. HOPE is less impassioned than its predecessor, but not leas beautiful. It is written throughout with great elegance, beauty, and force, and the sentiments it breathes are purely evangelical. CHARITY is a poem of Jess vigor, but equally instructive, admonitory, and delightful. In CONVERSATION, the poet appears in the character of a teacher of manners, as well as of morals, and delineates with exquisite and unerring skill, many of the follies and frailties of life. The loquacious-the incommunicative the noisy and tumultuous-the disputatious -the scrupulous and irresolute-the furious and intracable the ludicrous-the censorious-the peevish-the bashful-with others of similar kind, may here find their character drawn by the pen of a master, in the liveliest colors, and with striking accuracy. Many excellent and judicious remarks are to be found in this admirable poem, on the manner in which conversation, to make it really edifying, must be carried on; and the certain benefits resulting from it, where it is so conducted, are forcibly and clearly pointed out. RETIREMENT, will be read with delight by all, but pecially by those who are looking forward to that season when "Hackney'd in business, wearied at that oar, To the above remarks on Cowper's letters, we have great pleasure in adding the following testimony of the late distinguished scholar and writer, the Rev. Robert Hall, of Bristol, whose eloquence was unrivalled, and whose powers being all consecrated to the cause of religion, rendered him an ornament to the age in which he lived. In a letter to Rev. J. Johnson, Cowper's justly esteemed relative, he thus writes:-"It is quite unnecessary to say that I perused the letters with great admiration and delight. I have always considered the letters of Mr. Cowper as the finest specimens of the epistolary style in our language. To an air of inimitable ease and carelessness, they unite a high degree of cores-rectness, such as could result only from the clearest intellect, combined with the most finished taste. I have scarcely found a single word which is capable of being exchanged for a better. Literary errors I can discern none. The selection of the words, and the structure of the periods, are inimitable; they present as striking a contrast as can well be conceived, to the turgid verbosity which passes at present for fine writing, and which bears a great resemblance to the degeneracy compared to that of Cicero or Livy. A perpetual effort which marks the style of Ammianus Marcellinus, as and struggle is made to supply the place of vigor; garish and dazzling colors are substituted for chaste ornament; and the hideous distortions of weakness, for native strength. In my humble opinion, the study of Cowper's prose may, on this account, be as useful in Which thousands, once fast chain'd to, quit no more, of life "Truth is not local, God alike pervades And fills the world of traffic and the shades, In the same happy strain he exposes the absurdity of forming the taste of young people as his poetry." seeking retirement as an excuse for indolence. "An idler is a watch that wants both hands, As useless if it goes as when it stands. * Absence of occupation is not rest; A mind quite vacant is a mind distrest." Poets have almost invariably been charged with adulation, whenever they have ventured to eulogize an individual, however much he may have been distinguished by his virtues and his talents. In many cases, they have undoubtedly richly merited this censure; but there are some honorable exceptions, and amongst this class Cowper is pre-eminently distinguished. Of this wicked and foolish practice he had the utmost abhorrence; and carry his aversion to flattery, almost to an opposite extreme; withholding praise where he knew it was due. The following lines occur almost at the commencement of his Table Talk. After painting the portrait of that most virtuous monarch, George the Third, in language as just as it is beautiful, he abruptly exclaims"Guard what you say; the patriotic tribe The TASK, however, is by far the poet's greatest pro-in some instances it may be doubted whether he did not duction, and had he written nothing else, would have immortalized his name, and given him a place among the nighest class of poets. Here his muse kindled into its happiest inspirations, and, burst forth into its sublimest strains. Commencing with objects the most familiar, and in a manner inimitably playful, the poet touches on a vast variety of subjects, many of them unsung, and unattempted before, scattering, wherever he goes, "From grave to gay, from lively to severe." Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe-a bribe! an exuberance of beauty and elegance, that enchains the reader, carrying him through the muse's adventurous track, without the least restraint, and without feel- In the character of Cowper there was not the slighting a moment's uneasiness. The transitions are the est particle of ostentation; on no occasion did he ashappiest imaginable; after delineating one object with sume any airs of consequence; he never aimed, or matchless felicity and force, presenting it in shapes al-wished to be what he was not. Every thing in the most endlessly diversified, ere he is aware of it, another shape of affectation was the object of his disgust. He and another starts up before the reader, with magical loved simplicity without rudeness, and detested that effect, but without the slightest confusion, or the least squeamish mimicry of fine feeling which not unfrequently, violation of perspicuity. This admirable poem may be either under the assumed garb of superior sanctity, or repeatedly read with increasing delight. It yields an of ardent friendship, conceals the most pitiable imbeci almost inexhaustible source of pleasure and instruction. lity and ignorance. It must be acknowledged that Cowper sometimes dipped his pen in gall. Some expressions the most bitterly sarcastic are to be found in his poems. Of his first volume it was said, by one of his friends, "There are many passages delicate, many sublime, many beautiful, many tender, many sweet, and many acrimonious. Cowper's satire, however, though keen and powerful as a whip of scorpions, was employed only to expose and punish the openly profligate, and the hypocritical professors of religion. Every thing in the shape of deception he ever held in perfect detestation. The castigation of vice, of ignorance, or of dissimulation, was his object, when he became a satirist. If he held up philosophy to ridicule, it was that glare of false philosophy, which, instead of being beneficial to men, only led them from the plain and beaten track of truth, into paths of error and misery. He never wantonly, for the sake only of his own gratification, inflicted his satiric lash on a single individual. He became a satirist, not to give vent to a waspish, revengeful, and malicious disposition, (to feelings of this kind he was an entire stranger,) but for the same purpose as the holy prophets of old were satirists, to expose, in mercy to mankind, the hideous deformity of those vices, which have ever been the fruitful parents of misery to mankind. The exquisite sensibility of Cowper, and the real goodness of his disposition, with his entire abhorrence of cruelty, whether practised by man towards his own species, or towards any part of the Creator's works, are evinced by the following striking lines "I would not enter on my list of friends, Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons To check them. But, alas! none sooner shoots, By which Heaven moves in pardoning guilty man; From creatures that exist but for our sake, Liberty has always been the soul-inspiring theme of poets. On no subject has the muse sung in sweeter strains, or towered to more sublime heights. Cowper has given ample proofs that his muse felt all the fire of this ennobling theme. In his Table Talk, some beautifui lines will be found on this interesting subject, so dear to the heart of every Englishman; but in his most masterly production, the Task, he thus sings "Tis liberty alone that gives the flower To be the tenant of man's noble form. All hearts to sadness, and none more than mine; But once enslaved, farewell. I could endure Chains nowhere patiently; and chains at home, Where I am free by birthright, not at all!" The liberty of Cowper was not, however, that lawless restraint which, under the sacred name of liberty, would burst asunder all those bands that hold society together, and introduce confusion infinitely more to be dreaded than the most absolute despotism. It was not the wild and unrestrained liberty of the ferocious mob; it was the liberty that is compatible with wholesome restraint, and with the due administration of law. It was the liberty not of disorder but of discipline, as will be seen by the following beautiful lines "Let discipline employ her wholesome arts; 'Destroy !' Powerful as were the charms of subjects like these to Cowper, there were others of a different character which he held as more dear, and ever regarded as more important. Like his great predecessor, Milton, he had made the sacred Scriptures his constant study; not so much because he admired the sublime imagery of the holy penman (alive as he was to their beauties in this respect,) as because he felt the full force of divine truth upon his heart; which, notwithstanding the severe pressure of his malady, would sometimes yield him an interval of pleasure. It was undoubtedly on one of these happy occasions that he penned the following lines, so strikingly descriptive of the refined pleasure with which the Christian can view the works of Na ture "He looks abroad into the varied field Of Nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared His are the mountains, and the valleys his, Although Cowper, towards the close of his life, before he received his Majesty's pension, owing to the heavy expenses occasioned by his own and Mrs. Unwin's illness, was scarcely able to keep his expenditure within the limits of his income, yet he was never once heard to complain, nor even to indulge the slightest disposition to be otherwise than contented in the station where Providence had placed him. Writing to his intimate friend, Mr. Hill, on one occasion, whom he appears to have made his treasurer, he remarks:-" Your tidings respecting the slender pittance yet to come, are, as you observe, of a melancholy cast. Not being gifted. however, by nature with the means of acquiring much, it is well that she has given me a disposition to be con- I did certainly not lead him to emulate the songs of the tented with little. I have now been so many years ha- Seraphim. But though he pursues a lower walk ot bituated to small matters, that I should probably find poetry than his great master, he appears no less the enmyself incommoded by greater, and, may I but be en-raptured votary of pure unmixed goodness. Nay, perabled to shift, as I have been hitherto, unsatisfied wishes haps he may in this one respect possess some peculiar will not trouble me much." excellences which may make him seem more the bard of Christianity. That divine religion infinitely exalts but it also deeply humbles the mind it inspires. It gives majesty to the thoughts, but it impresses meekness on the manners, and diffuses tenderness through the feelings. It combines sensibility and fortitude, the lowli ness of the child, and the magnanimity of the hero." "The grandest features of the Christian character were never more gloriously exemplified than in that spirit which animates the whole of Milton's poetry, His own Michael does not impress us with the idea of a purer, or more awful virtue than that which we feel in every portion of his majestic verse; and he no less happily indicates the source from which his excellence was derived, by the bright beams which he ever and anon reflects upon us from the sacred Scriptures. But the milder graces of the gospel are certainly less apparent. What we behold is so awful, it might also have inspired a wish, that a spirit, equally pure and heavenly, might be raised to illustate, with like felicity, the more attractive and gentler influences of our divine religion. In Cowper, above any poet that ever lived, would such a wish seem to be fulfilled. In his charming effusions we have the same spotless purity, the same elevated devotion, the same vital exercise of every noble and ex alted quality of the mind, the same devotedness to the sacred Scriptures, and to the peculiar doctrines of the gospel. The difference is, that instead of an almost reprehensive dignity, we have the sweetest familiarity; instead of the majestic grandeur of the Old Testament, we have the winning graces of the New; instead of those thunders by which angels were discomfited. we have, as it were, the still small voice of Him who was meek and lowly of heart. May we not then venture to assert, that from that spirit of devoted piety, which has rendered both these great men liable to the charge of religious enthusiasm, but which, in truth, raised the minds of both to a kind of happy residence On another occasion, to the same individual he writes: -"I suppose you are sometimes troubled on my account, but you need not. I have no doubt that it will be seen, when my days are closed, that I served a Master who would not suffer me to want any thing that was good for me. He said of Jacob, I will surely do thee good; and this he said not for his sake only, but for ours also, if we trust in him. This thought relieves me from the greatest part of the distress I should else suffer in my present circumstances, and enables me to sit down peacefully upon the wreck of my fortune." The same sentiment is still more forcibly expressed in the following lines: "Fair is the lot that's cast for me: pro 'In regions mild, of calm and serene air, Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot, For whom the Lord vouchsafes to plead." Perhaps no individual ever felt more fully the power of religion in his heart, or embodied it more completely in his life, than Cowper. The apprehensions, for his ultimate safety, by which he was so continually harassed, depressive as was their influence on his mind, never relaxed, in any degree, that severe watchfulness which religion had taught him to exercise over his thoughts and conduct. On the contrary, they seemed rather to have operated as a continual check upon those corrupt inclinations which are common to our fallen nature; and to which, even Cowper, was not a stranger. It would be ridiculous to say he had no imperfections; he felt them; he often mourned over them, and the vivia perception he had of them, associated, as it invariably was, with a powerful constitutional tendency to melancholy, often filled him with the greatest anxiety and dread. His conceptions of the purity of that sublime religion taught us in the gospel, and of the paramount importance of a holy life in its professors, were such as led him to regard the least deviation from the strict line of Christian duty, in his own case at least, as an entire a peculiar character has been derived to the poetry of disqualification for the reception of spiritual comfort. them both, which distinguishes their compositions from No individual's conscience was ever more tremblingly those of almost all the world besides. I have already alive to the importance of habitual watchfulness and enumerated some of the superior advantages of a truly uniform consistency of conduct. He could make amvirtuous poet, and presumed to state, that these are ple allowances for the imperfections of others, but no- realized, in an unexampled degree, in Milton and Cow. thing could prevail upon him to make any for his own. per. That they both owed this eminence to their ritid The notice we have already taken of Cowper's sense of religion, will, I conceive, need no demonstra ductions, renders it unnecessary that we should view tion, except what will arise to every reader of taste and them any further in detail. We cannot, however, sup-be seen at once, that that sublimity of conception, that feeling on examining their works. It will here. I think, press the following admirable observations of an anony- delicacy of virtuous feeling, that majestic independence mous critic, subjoined to Mr. Hayley's Life of Cowper: "The noblest benefits and delights of poetry can be of mind, that quick relish for all the beauties of nature, put rarely produced, because all the requisites for pro-occurring in them both, could not have existed in the at once so pure and so exquisite, which we find ever ducing them so seldom meet. A vivid mind and happy imitative power, may enable a poet to form glowing pictures of virtue, and almost produce in himself a short-lived enthusiasm of goodness. But although even these transient and factitious movements of mind may serve to produce grand and delightful effusions of poetry, yet when the best of these are compared with the poetic productions of a genuine lover of virtue, a discerning judgment will scarcely fail to mark the difference. A simplicity of conception and expression; a conscious and therefore unaffected dignity; an instinctive adherence to sober reason, even amid the highest flights; an uniform justness and consistency of thought; a glowing, yet temperate ardor of feeling; a peculiar felicity, both in the choice and combination of terms, by which even the plainest words acquire the truest character of eloquence, and which is rarely to be found except where a subject is not only intimately known, but cordially loved; these, I conceive, are the features peculiar to a real votary of virtue, and which must of course give to his strains a perfection of effect never to be attained by the poet of inferior moral endowments. I believe it will be granted that all these qualities were never more perfectly combined than in the poetry of Muton. And I think, too, there will be little doubt that the next to him, in every one of these instances, beyond all comparison, is Cowper. The genius of the latter same unrivalled degree, if their devotion had been less intense, and of course their minds more dissipated amongst low and distracting objects." To the above remarks on the poet's character, we cannot forbear subjoining the following exquisite pic ture of him, drawn by the Rev. Dr. Randolph, of Bath, on seeing his portrait by Lawrence: "Sweet Bard, whose mind, thus pictured in thy face THE END. |