SHORT POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.
The task was not quite finished when the influence which had inspired
it was withdrawn. Among the little mysteries and scandals of literary
history is the rupture between Cowper and Lady Austen. Soon after the
commencement of their friendship there had been a "fracas," of which
Cowper gives an account in a letter to William Unwin. "My letters have
already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion, that took
place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne Street and us.
Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement.
She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we
had been born in the same house and educated together. At her
departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and, because writing
does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me.
This sort of intercourse had not been long maintained before I
discovered, by some slight intimations of it, that she had conceived
displeasure at somewhat I had written, though I cannot now recollect
it; conscious of none but the most upright, inoffensive intentions, I
yet apologized for the passage in question, and the flaw was healed
again. Our correspondence after this proceeded smoothly for a
considerable time, but at length, having had repeated occasion to
observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and
built such expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were
sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her
that we were mortal, to recommend her not to think more highly of us
than the subject would warrant, and intimating that when we embellish a
creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and so adorned, admire
and praise it beyond its real merits, we make it an idol, and have
nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes, and
that we shall derive nothing from it but a painful conviction of our
error. Your mother heard me read the letter, she read it herself, and
honoured it with her warm approbation. But it gave mortal offence; it
received, indeed, an answer, but such an one as I could by no means
reply to; and there ended (for it was impossible it should ever be
renewed) a friendship that bid fair to be lasting; being formed with a
woman whose seeming stability of temper, whose knowledge of the world
and great experience of its folly, but, above all, whose sense of
religion and seriousness of mind (for with all that gaiety she is a
great thinker) induced us both, in spite of that cautious reserve that
marked our characters, to trust her, to love and value her, and to open
our hearts for her reception. It may be necessary to add that by her
own desire, I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and
she to me as my sister. _Ceu fumus in auras_." It is impossible to
read this without suspecting that there was more of "romance" on one
side, than there was either of romance or of consciousness of the
situation on the other. On that occasion the reconciliation, though
"impossible," took place, the lady sending, by way of olive branch, a
pair of ruffles, which it was known she had begun to work before the
quarrel. The second rupture was final. Hayley, who treats the matter
with sad solemnity, tells us that Cowper's letter of farewell to Lady
Austen, as she assured him herself, was admirable, though unluckily,
not being gratified by it at the time, she had thrown it into the fire.
Cowper has himself given us, in a letter to Lady Hesketh, with
reference to the final rupture, a version of the whole affair:--"There
came a lady into this country, by name and title Lady Austen, the widow
of the late Sir Robert Austen. At first she lived with her sister
about a mile from Olney; but in a few weeks took lodgings at the
vicarage here. Between the vicarage and the back of our house are
interposed our garden, an orchard, and the garden belonging to the
vicarage. She had lived much in France, was very sensible, and had
infinite vivacity. She took a great liking to us, and we to her. She
had been used to a great deal of company, and we, fearing that she
would feel such a transition into silent retirement irksome, contrived
to give her our agreeable company often. Becoming continually more and
more intimate, a practice at length obtained of our dining with each
other alternately every day, Sundays excepted. In order to facilitate
our communication, we made doors in the two garden-walls aforesaid, by
which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the
other, and could meet when we pleased without entering the town at all;
a measure the rather expedient, because the town is abominably dirty,
and she kept no carriage. On her first settlement in our
neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that time I
was not employed in writing, having published my first volume and not
begun my second) to pay my _devoirs_ to her ladyship every morning at
eleven. Customs very soon became laws. I began _The Task_, for she
was the lady who gave me the _Sofa_ for a subject. Being once engaged
in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my morning
attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till ten; and the
intervening hour was all the time I could find in the whole day for
writing, and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour
was all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was no remedy.
Long usage had made that which was at first optional a point of good
manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect
_The Task_ to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But
she had ill-health, and before I had quite finished the work was
obliged to repair to Bristol." Evidently this was not the whole
account of the matter, or there would have been no need for a formal
letter of farewell. We are very sorry to find the revered Mr.
Alexander Knox saying, in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb, that he
had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into
writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very
artful woman. On the other hand, the unsentimental Mr. Scott is
reported to have said, "Who can be surprised that two women should be
continually in the society of one man and quarrel, sooner or later,
with each other?" Considering what Mrs. Unwin had been to Cowper, and
what he had been to her, a little jealousy on her part would not have
been highly criminal. But, as Southey observes, we shall soon see two
women continually in the society of this very man without quarrelling
with each other. That Lady Austen's behaviour to Mrs. Unwin was in the
highest degree affectionate, Cowper has himself assured us. Whatever
the cause may have been, this bird of paradise, having alighted for a
moment in Olney, took wing and was seen no more.
Her place, as a companion, was supplied, and more than supplied, by
Lady Hesketh, like her a woman of the world, and almost as bright and
vivacious, but with more sense and stability of character, and who,
moreover, could be treated as a sister without any danger of,
misunderstanding. The renewal of the intercourse between Cowper and
the merry and affectionate play-fellow of his early days, had been one
of the best fruits borne to him by _The Task_, or perhaps we should
rather say by _John Gilpin_, for on reading that ballad she first
became aware that her cousin had emerged from the dark seclusion of his
truly Christian happiness, and might again be capable of intercourse
with her sunny nature. Full of real happiness for Cowper were her
visits to Olney; the announcement of her coming threw him into a
trepidation of delight. And how was this new rival received by Mrs.
Unwin. "There is something," says Lady Hesketh in a letter which has
been already quoted, "truly affectionate and sincere in Mrs. Unwin's
manner. No one can express more heartily than she does her joy to have
me at Olney; and as this must be for his sake it is an additional proof
of her regard and esteem for him." She could even cheerfully yield
precedence in trifles, which is the greatest trial of all. "Our
friend," says Lady Hesketh, "delights in a large table and a large
chair. There are two of the latter comforts in my parlour. I am sorry
to say that he and I always spread ourselves out in them, leaving poor
Mrs. Unwin to find all the comfort she can in a small one, half as high
again as ours, and considerably harder than marble. However, she
protests it is what she likes, that she prefers a high chair to a low
one, and a hard to a soft one; and I hope she is sincere; indeed, I am
persuaded she is." She never gave the slightest reason for doubting
her sincerity; so Mr. Scott's coarse theory of the "two women" falls to
the ground, though, as Lady Hesketh was not Lady Austen, room is still
left for the more delicate and interesting hypothesis.
By Lady Hesketh's care Cowper was at last taken out of the "well" at
Olney and transferred with his partner to a house at Weston, a place in
the neighbourhood, but on higher ground, more cheerful, and in better
air. The house at Weston belonged to Mr. Throckmorton of Weston Hall,
with whom and Mrs. Throckmorton, Cowper had become so intimate that
they were already his Mr. and Mrs. Frog. It is a proof of his freedom
from fanatical bitterness that he was rather drawn to them by their
being Roman Catholics, and having suffered rude treatment from the
Protestant boors of the neighbourhood. Weston Hall had its grounds,
with the colonnade of chestnuts, the "sportive light" of which still
"dances" on the pages of _The Task_; with the Wilderness,--
Whose well-rolled walks,
With curvature of slow and easy sweep,
Deception innocent, give ample space
To narrow bounds--
with the Grove,--
Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms
We may discern the thresher at his task,
Thump after thump resounds the constant flail
That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls
Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff,
The rustling straw sends up a fragrant mist
Of atoms, sparkling in the noonday beam.
A pretty little vignette, which the threshing-machine has now made
antique. There were ramblings, picnics, and little dinner-parties.
Lady Hesketh kept a carriage. Gayhurst, the seat of Mr. Wright, was
visited as well as Weston Hall; the life of the lonely pair was fast
becoming social. The Rev. John Newton was absent in the flesh, but he
was present in the spirit, thanks to the tattle of Olney. To show that
he was, he addressed to Mrs. Unwin a letter of remonstrance on the
serious change which had taken place in the habits of his spiritual
children. It was answered by her companion, who in repelling the
censure mingles the dignity of self-respect with a just appreciation of
the censor's motives, in a style which showed that although he was
sometimes mad, he was not a fool.
Having succeeded in one great poem, Cowper thought of writing another,
and several subjects were started--_The Mediterranean_, _The Four Ages
of Man_, _Yardley Oak_. _The Mediterranean_ would not have suited him
well if it was to be treated historically, for of history he was even
more ignorant than most of those who have had the benefit of a
classical education, being capable of believing that the Latin element
of our language had come in with the Roman conquest. Of the _Four
Ages_ he wrote a fragment. Of _Yardley Oak_ he wrote the opening; it
was apparently to have been a survey of the countries in connexion with
an immemorial oak which stood in a neighbouring chace. But he was
forced to say that the mind of man was not a fountain but a cistern,
and his was a broken one. He had expended his stock of materials for a
long poem in _The Task_.
These, the sunniest days of Cowper's life, however, gave birth to many
of those short poems which are perhaps his best, certainly his most
popular works, and which will probably keep his name alive when _The
Task_ is read only in extracts. _The Loss of the Royal George_, _The
Solitude of Alexander Selkirk_, _The Poplar Field_, _The Shrubbery_,
the _Lines on a Young Lady_, and those _To Mary, will hold their places
for ever in the treasury of English Lyrics. In its humble way _The
Needless Alarm_ is one of the most perfect of human compositions.
Cowper had reason to complain of Aesop for having written his fables
before him. One great charm of these little pieces is their perfect
spontaneity. Many of them were never published, and generally they
have the air of being the simple effusions of the moment, gay or sad.
When Cowper was in good spirits his joy, intensified by sensibility and
past suffering, played like a fountain of light on all the little
incidents of his quiet life. An ink-glass, a flatting mill, a halibut
served up for dinner, the killing of a snake in the garden, the arrival
of a friend wet after a Journey, a cat shut up in a drawer, sufficed to
elicit a little jet of poetical delight, the highest and brightest jet
of all being _John Gilpin_. Lady Austen's voice and touch still
faintly live in two or three pieces which were written for her
harpsichord. Some of the short poems on the other hand are poured from
the darker urn, and the finest of them all is the saddest. There is no
need of illustrations unless it be to call attention to a secondary
quality less noticed, than those of more importance. That which used
to be specially called "wit," the faculty of ingenious and unexpected
combination, such as is shown in the similes of _Hudibras_, was
possessed by Cowper in large measure.
A friendship that in frequent fits
Of controversial rage emits
The sparks of disputation,
Like hand-in-hand insurance plates,
Most unavoidably creates
The thought of conflagration.
Some fickle creatures boast a soul
True as a needle to the pole,
Their humour yet so various--
They manifest their whole life through
The needle's deviations too,
Their love is so precarious.
The great and small but rarely meet
On terms of amity complete;
Plebeians must surrender,
And yield so much to noble folk,
It is combining fire with smoke,
Obscurity with splendour.
Some are so placid and serene
(As Irish bogs are always green)
They sleep secure from waking;
And are indeed a bog, that bears
Your unparticipated cares
Unmoved and without quaking.
Courtier and patriot cannot mix
Their heterogeneous politics
Without an effervescence,
Like that of salts with lemon juice,
Which does not yet like that produce
A friendly coalescence.
Faint presages of Byron are heard in such a poem as _The Shrubbery_,
and of Wordsworth in such a poem as that _To a Young Lady_. But of the
lyrical depth and passion of the great Revolution poets Cowper is
wholly devoid. His soul was stirred by no movement so mighty, if it
were even capable of the impulse. Tenderness he has, and pathos as
well as playfulness; he has unfailing grace and ease; he has clearness
like that of a trout-stream. Fashions, even our fashions, change. The
more metaphysical poetry of our time has indeed too much in it, besides
the metaphysics, to be in any danger of being ever laid on the shelf
with the once admired conceits of Cowley; yet it may one day in part
lose, while the easier and more limpid kind of poetry may in part
regain, its charm.
The opponents of the Slave Trade tried to enlist this winning voice in
the service of their cause. Cowper disliked the task, but he wrote two
or three anti-Slave-Trade ballads. _The Slave Trader in the Dumps_,
with its ghastly array of horrors dancing a jig to a ballad metre,
justifies the shrinking of an artist from a subject hardly fit for art.
If the cistern which had supplied _The Task_ was exhausted, the rill of
occasional poems still ran freely, fed by a spring which, so long as
life presented the most trivial object or incident could not fail. Why
did not Cowper go on writing these charming pieces which he evidently
produced with the greatest facility? Instead of this, he took, under
an evil star, to translating Homer. The translation of Homer into
verse is the Polar Expedition of literature, always failing, yet still
desperately renewed. Homer defies modern reproduction. His primeval
simplicity is a dew of the dawn which can never be re-distilled. His
primeval savagery is almost equally unpresentable. What civilized poet
can don the barbarian sufficiently to revel, or seem to revel, in the
ghastly details of carnage, in hideous wounds described with surgical
gusto, in the butchery of captives in cold blood, or even in those
particulars of the shambles and the spit which to the troubadour of
barbarism seem as delightful as the images of the harvest and the
vintage? Poetry can be translated into poetry only by taking up the
ideas of the original into the mind of the translator, which is very
difficult when the translator and the original are separated by a gulf
of thought and feeling, and when the gulf is very wide, becomes
impossible. There is nothing for it in the case of Homer but a prose
translation. Even in prose to find perfect equivalents for some of the
Homeric phrases is not easy. Whatever the chronological date of the
Homeric poems may be, their political and psychological date may be
pretty well fixed. Politically they belong, as the episode of
Thersites shows, to the rise of democracy and to its first collision
with aristocracy, which Homer regards with the feelings of a bard who
sang in aristocratic halls. Psychologically they belong to the time
when in ideas and language, the moral was just disengaging itself from
the physical. In the wail of Andromache for instance, _adinon epos_,
which Pope improves into "sadly dear," and Cowper, with better taste at
all events, renders "precious," is really semi-physical, and scarcely
capable of exact translation. It belongs to an unreproducible past,
like the fierce joy which, in the same wail, bursts from the savage
woman in the midst of her desolation at the thought of the numbers whom
her husband's hands had slain. Cowper had studied the Homeric poems
thoroughly in his youth, he knew them so well that he was able to
translate them, not very incorrectly with only the help of a Clavis; he
understood their peculiar qualities as well as it was possible for a
reader without the historic sense to do; he had compared Pope's
translation carefully with the original, and had decisively noted the
defects which make it not a version of Homer, but a periwigged epic of
the Augustan age. In his own translation he avoids Pope's faults, and
he preserves at least the dignity of the original, while his command of
language could never fail him, nor could he ever lack the guidance of
good taste. But we well know where he will be at his best. We turn at
once to such passages as the description of Calypso's Isle,
Alighting on Pieria, down he (Hermes) stooped.
To Ocean, and the billows lightly skimmed
In form a sea-mew, such as in the bays
Tremendous of the barren deep her food
Seeking, dips oft in brine her ample wing.
In such disguise o'er many a wave he rode,
But reaching, now, that isle remote, forsook
The azure deep, and at the spacious grove
Where dwelt the amber-tressed nymph arrived
Found her within. A fire on all the hearth
Blazed sprightly, and, afar diffused, the scent
Of smooth-split cedar and of cypress-wood
Odorous, burning cheered the happy isle.
She, busied at the loom and plying fast
Her golden shuttle, with melodious voice
Sat chanting there; a grove on either side,
Alder and poplar, and the redolent branch
Wide-spread of cypress, skirted dark the cave
Where many a bird of broadest pinion built
Secure her nest, the owl, the kite, and daw,
Long-tongued frequenters of the sandy shores.
A garden vine luxuriant on all sides
Mantled the spacious cavern, cluster-hung
Profuse; four fountains of serenest lymph,
Their sinuous course pursuing side by side,
Strayed, all around, and everywhere appeared
Meadows of softest verdure purpled o'er
With violets; it was a scene to fill
A God from heaven with wonder and delight.
There are faults in this and even blunders, notably in the natural
history; and "serenest lymph" is a sad departure from Homeric
simplicity. Still on the whole the passage in the translation charms,
and its charm is tolerably identical with that of the original. In
more martial and stirring passages the failure is more signal, and here
especially we feel that if Pope's rhyming couplets are sorry
equivalents for the Homeric hexameter, blank verse is superior to them
only in a negative way. The real equivalent, if any, is the romance
metre of Scott, parts of whose poems, notably the last canto of
_Marmion_ and some passages in the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, are
about the most Homeric things in our language. Cowper brought such
poetic gifts to his work that his failure might have deterred others
from making the same hopeless attempt. But a failure his work is; the
translation is no more a counterpart of the original, than the Ouse
creeping through its meadows is the counterpart of the Aegean rolling
before a fresh wind and under a bright sun. Pope delights school-boys;
Cowper delights nobody, though on the rare occasions when he is taken
from the shelf, he commends himself, in a certain measure, to the taste
and judgment of cultivated men.
In his translations of Horace, both those from the Satires and those
from the Odes, Cowper succeeds far better. Horace requires in his
translator little of the fire which Cowper lacked. In the Odes he
requires grace, in the Satires urbanity and playfulness, all of which
Cowper had in abundance. Moreover, Horace is separated from us by no
intellectual gulf. He belongs to what Dr. Arnold called the modern
period of ancient history. Nor is Cowper's translation of part of the
eighth book of Virgil's Aeneid bad, in spite of the heaviness of the
blank verse. Virgil, like Horace, is within his intellectual range.
As though a translation of the whole of the Homeric poems had not been
enough to bury his finer faculty, and prevent him from giving us any
more of the minor poems, the publishers seduced him into undertaking an
edition of Milton, which was to eclipse all its predecessors in
splendour. Perhaps he may have been partly entrapped by a chivalrous
desire to rescue his idol from the disparagement cast on it by the
tasteless and illiberal Johnson. The project after weighing on his
mind and spirits for some time was abandoned, leaving as its traces
only translations of Milton's Latin poems, and a few notes on _Paradise
Lost,_ in which there is too much of religion, too little of art.
Lady Hesketh had her eye on the Laureateship, and probably with that
view persuaded her cousin to write loyal verses on the recovery of
George III. He wrote the verses, but to the hint of the Laureateship
he said, "Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever
wreaths beside may hereafter adorn them. It would be a leaden
extinguisher clapt on my genius, and I should never more produce a line
worth reading." Besides, was he not already the mortuary poet of All
Saints, Northampton?