William Cowper, son of a chaplain to George II., was born at
Berkhampstead Parsonage on November 15, 1731. After being
educated at Westminster School, he studied law for three
years, and in 1752 took up his residence, for a further
course, in the Middle Temple. Though called to the Bar in
1754, he never practised, for he profoundly hated law, while
he passionately loved literary pursuits. His friends having
provided him with sufficient funds for subsistence, in
addition to a small patrimony left by his father, Cowper went
to live at Huntingdon, where he formed a deep attachment with
the Unwin family, which proved to be a lifelong friendship.
The latter years of his life were spent at Olney. He achieved
wide fame by the publication of "The Task," which was
pronounced by many critics the greatest poem of the period.
The main characteristics of his style are its simplicity, its
sympathy with nature and with ordinary life, and its
unaffected devotional accent. But Cowper is now appreciated
more for his incomparably delightful epistles to his friends
than for his poetry. Few letters in our language can compare
with these for incisive but kindly and gentle irony; innocent
but genuine fun; keen and striking acumen, and tender
melancholy. Cowper died on April 25, 1800.
_To the Rev. John Newton_
Olney, _January_ 13, 1782. I am rather pleased that you have adopted
other sentiments respecting our intended present to Dr. Johnson. I allow
him to be a man of gigantic talents and most profound learning, nor have
I any doubts about the universality of his knowledge; but, by what I
have seen of his animadversions on the poets, I feel myself much
disposed to question, in many instances, either his candour or his
taste.
He finds fault too often, like a man that, having sought it very
industriously, is at last obliged to stick it on a pin's point, and look
at it through a microscope; and I could easily convict him of having
denied many beauties, and overlooked more. Whether his judgement be in
itself defective, or whether it be warped by collateral considerations,
a writer upon such subjects as I have chosen would probably find but
little mercy at his hands.
_To the Rev. William Unwin_
I say amen, with all my heart, to your observations on religious
characters. Men who profess themselves adepts in mathematical knowledge,
in astronomy, or jurisprudence, are generally as well qualified as they
would appear. The reason may be that they are always liable to detection
should they attempt to impose upon mankind, and therefore take care to
be what they pretend. In religion alone a profession is often taken up
and slovenly carried on, because, forsooth, candour and charity require
us to hope the best, and to judge favourably of our neighbour, and
because it is easy to deceive the ignorant, who are a great majority,
upon this subject.
Let a man attach himself to a particular party, contend furiously for
what are properly called evangelical doctrines, and enlist himself under
the banner of some popular preacher, and the business is done. Behold a
Christian! a saint! a phoenix! In the meantime, perhaps, his heart and
his temper, and even his conduct, are unsanctified; possibly less
exemplary than those of some avowed infidels. No matter--he can talk--he
has the shibboleth of the true Church--the Bible in his pocket, and a
head well stored with notions.
But the quiet, humble, modest, and peaceable person, who is in his
practice what the other is only in his profession, who hates a noise,
and therefore makes none; who, knowing the snares that are in the world,
keeps himself as much out of it as he can, is the Christian that will
always stand highest in the estimation of those who bring all characters
to the test of true wisdom, and judge of the tree by its fruit.
_To the Same_
Olney, _August_ 3, 1782. It is a sort of paradox, but it is true; we are
never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in
reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger. Both sides
of this apparent contradiction were lately verified in my experience.
Passing from the greenhouse to the barn, I saw three kittens--for we
have so many in our retinue--looking with fixed attention on something
which lay on the threshold of a door nailed up. I took but little notice
of them at first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely,
when behold--a viper! the largest that I remember to have seen, rearing
itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss at
the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the
hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him,
and, returning in a few minutes, missed him; he was gone, and I feared
had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat, watching immovably, on
the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that, sliding between the door
and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the yard.
I went round, and there found him in close conversation with the old
cat, whose curiosity, being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined
her to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot, with her claws,
however, sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophic
inquiry and examination. To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable
an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and
performed on him an act of decapitation which, though not immediately
mortal, proved so in the end.
Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he indeed, when
in the yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself
in any of the out-houses, it is hardly possible but that some member of
the family must have been bitten.
_To the Same_
Olney, _November_ 4, 1782. You tell me that John Gilpin made you laugh
to tears, and that the ladies at court are delighted with my poems. Much
good may they do them! May they become as wise as the writer wished
them, and they will be much happier than he. I know there is in the book
that wisdom that cometh from above, because it was from above that I
received it. May they receive it too! For whether they drink it out of
the cistern, or whether it falls upon them immediately from the
clouds--as it did on me--is all one. It is the water of life, which
whosoever shall drink it shall thirst no more. As to the famous horseman
above mentioned, he and his feats are an inexhaustible source of
merriment. At least we find him so, and seldom meet without refreshing
ourselves with the recollection of them. You are at liberty to deal with
them as you please.
_To Mrs. Newton_
Olney, _November_ 23, 1782. Accept my thanks for the trouble you take in
vending my poems, and still more for the interest you take in their
success. To be approved by the great, as Horace observed many years ago,
is fame indeed.
The winter sets in with great severity. The rigour of the season, and
the advanced price of grain, are very threatening to the poor. It is
well with those that can feed upon a promise, and wrap themselves up
warm in the robe of salvation. A good fireside and a well-spread table
are but very indifferent substitutes for those better accommodations; so
very indifferent, that I would gladly exchange them both for the rags
and the unsatisfied hunger of the poorest creature that looks forward
with hope to a better world, and weeps tears of joy in the midst of
penury and distress.
What a world is this! How mysteriously governed, and in appearance left
to itself! One man, having squandered thousands at a gaming-table, finds
it convenient to travel; gives his estate to somebody to manage for him;
amuses himself a few years in France and Italy; returns, perhaps, wiser
than he went, having acquired knowledge which, but for his follies, he
would never have acquired; again makes a splendid figure at home, shines
in the senate, governs his country as its minister, is admired for his
abilities, and, if successful, adored at least by a party. When he dies,
he is praised as a demi-god, and his monument records everything but his
vices.
The exact contrary of such a picture is to be found in many cottages at
Olney. I have no need to describe them; you know the characters I mean.
They love God, they trust Him, they pray to Him in secret, and, though
He means to reward them openly, the day of recompense is delayed. In the
meantime, they suffer everything that infirmity and poverty can inflict
upon them. Who would suspect, that has not a spiritual eye to discern
it, that the fine gentleman was one whom his Maker had in abhorrence,
and the wretch last mentioned dear to Him as the apple of His eye?
It is no wonder that the world, who are not in the secret, find
themselves obliged, some of them, to doubt a Providence, and others
absolutely to deny it, when almost all the real virtue there is in it is
to be found living and dying in a state of neglected obscurity, and all
the vices of others cannot exclude them from worship and honour. But
behind the curtain the matter is explained, very little, however, to the
satisfaction of the great.
_To the Rev. John Newton_
Olney, _January_ 26, 1783. It is reported among persons of the best
intelligence at Olney--the barber, the schoolmaster, and the drummer of
a corps quartered at this place--that the belligerent powers are at last
reconciled, the articles of the treaty adjusted, and that peace is at
the door.
The powers of Europe have clashed with each other to a fine purpose.
Your opinions and mine, I mean our political ones, are not exactly of a
piece, yet I cannot think otherwise on this subject than I have always
done. England, more perhaps through the fault of her generals than her
councils, has in some instances acted with a spirit of cruel animosity
she was never chargeable with till now. But this is the worst that can
be said.
On the other hand, the Americans, who, if they had contented themselves
with a struggle for lawful liberty, would have deserved applause, seem
to me to have incurred the guilt of parricide, by renouncing their
parent, by making her ruin their favourite object, and by associating
themselves with her worst enemy for the accomplishment of their purpose.
France, and, of course, Spain, have acted a treacherous, a thievish
part. They have stolen America from England, and, whether they are able
to possess themselves of that jewel or not hereafter, it was doubtless
what they intended. Holland appears to me in a meaner light than any of
them. They quarrelled with a friend for an enemy's sake. The French led
them by the nose, and the English have thrashed them for suffering it.
My views of the contest being as they have always been, I have
consequently brighter hopes for England than her situation some time
since seemed to justify. She is the only injured party.
America may perhaps call her the aggressor; but, if she were so, America
has not only repelled the injury, but done a greater. As to the rest, if
perfidy, treachery, avarice, and ambition can prove their cause to have
been a rotten one, those proofs are found on them. I think, therefore,
that, whatever scourge may be prepared for England on some future day,
her ruin is not yet to be expected.
_To the Same_
Olney, _November_ 17, 1783. Swift observes, when he is giving his
reasons why the preacher is elevated always above his hearers, that, let
the crowd be as great as it will below, there is always room enough
overhead.
If the French philosophers can carry their art of flying to the
perfection they desire, the observation may be reversed, the crowd will
be overhead, and they will have most room who stay below. I can assure
you, however, upon my own experience, that this way of travelling is
very delightful.
I dreamt a night or two since that I drove myself through the upper
regions in a balloon and pair, with the greatest ease and security.
Having finished the tour I intended, I made a short turn, and with one
flourish of my whip, descended; my horses prancing and curvetting with
an infinite share of spirit, but without the least danger either to me
or my vehicle. The time, we may suppose, is at hand, and seems to be
prognosticated by my dream, when these airy excursions will be
universal, when judges will fly the circuit and bishops their
visitations, and when the tour of Europe will be performed with much
greater speed and with equal advantage by all who travel merely for the
sake of saying that they have made it.
_To His Cousin, Lady Hesketh_
Olney, _November_ 9, 1785. I am happy that my poems have pleased you. My
volume has afforded me no such pleasure at any time, either while I was
writing it or since its publication, as I have derived from yours and my
uncle's opinion of it. But, above all, I honour John Gilpin, since it
was he who first encouraged you to write. I made him on purpose to laugh
at, and he served his purpose well.
_To the Same_
Olney, _February_ 9, 1786. Let me tell you that your kindness in
promising to visit us has charmed us both. I shall see you again. I
shall hear your voice. We shall take walks together. I will show you my
prospects, the hovel, the alcove, the banks of the Ouse, everything I
have described. My dear, I will not let you come till the end of May, or
the beginning of June, because, before that time my greenhouse will not
be ready to receive us, and it is the only pleasant room belonging to
us. When the plants go out, we go in.
I will tell you what you shall find at your first entrance. _Imprimis_,
as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on either
side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box of my making. It is
the box in which have been lodged all my hares, and in which lodges Puss
at present. But he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to
die before you can see him.
My dear, I have told Homer what you say about casks and urns, and have
asked him whether he is sure that it is a cask in which Jupiter keeps
his wine. He swears that it is a cask, and that it will never be
anything better than a cask to all eternity. So if the god is content
with it, we must even wonder at his taste and be so too.
_To the Same_
Olney, _March_ 6, 1786. Your opinion has more weight with me than that
of all the critics in the world. To give you a proof of it, I make you a
concession that I would hardly have made to them all united. I do not
indeed absolutely covenant that I will discard all my elisions, but I
hereby bind myself to discard as many of them as, without sacrificing
energy to sound, I can. It is incumbent on me, in the meantime, to say
something in justification of the few I shall retain, that I may not
seem a poet mounted on a mule rather than on Parnassus. In the first
place, "the" is a barbarism. We are indebted for it to the Celts, or the
Goths, or the Saxons, or perhaps to them all. In the two best languages
that ever were spoken, the Greek and the Latin, there is no similar
encumbrance of expression to be found. Secondly, the perpetual use of it
in our language is, to us miserable poets, attended with two great
inconveniences.
Our verse consisting of only ten syllables, it not infrequently happens
that the fifth part of a line is to be engrossed, and necessarily too,
unless elision prevents it, by this abominable intruder; and, which is
worse in my account, open vowels are continually the consequence--_the_
element--_the_ air, etc. Thirdly, the French, who are equally chargeable
with the English with barbarism in this particular, dispose of their
_le_ and their _la_ without ceremony, and always take care that they
shall be absorbed, both in verse and in prose, in the vowel that
immediately follows them. Fourthly, and I believe lastly, the practice
of cutting short "the" is warranted by Milton, who of all English poets
that ever lived, had certainly the finest ear.
Thou only critic of my verse that is to be found in all the earth, whom
I love, what shall I say in answer to your own objection to that
passage--
Softly he placed his hand
On th' old man's hand, and pushed it gently away.
I can say neither more nor less than this, that when our dear friend the
general sent me his opinion on the specimen, quoting those very words
from it, he added, "With this part I was particularly pleased; there is
nothing in poetry more descriptive."
Taste, my dear, is various; there is nothing so various, and even
between persons of the best taste there are diversities of opinion on
the same subject, for which it is by no means possible to account.
_To John Johnson, Esq._
Weston, _June_ 7, 1790. You never pleased me more than when you told me
you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think
that you were wasting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame,
not worth having. I cannot be contented that your renown should thrive
nowhere but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and
never let your honour be circumscribed by the paltry dimensions of a
university! It is well that you have already, as you observe, acquired
sufficient information in that science to enable you to pass creditably
such examinations as, I suppose, you must hereafter undergo. Keep what
you have gotten, and be content.
You could not apply to a worse than I am to advise you concerning your
studies. I was never a regular student myself, but lost the most
valuable years of my life in an attorney's office and in the Temple. It
seems to me that your chief concern is with history, natural philosophy,
logic, and divinity. As to metaphysics, I know little about them. Life
is too short to afford time even for serious trifles. Pursue what you
know to be attainable, make truth your object, and your studies will
make you a wise man. Let your divinity, if I may advise, be the divinity
of the glorious Reformation. I mean in contradiction to Arminianism, and
all the _isms_ that were ever broached in this world of ignorance and
error.
_Obiter Dicta_
Men of lively imaginations are not often remarkable for solidity of
judgement. They have strong passions to bias it, and are led far away
from their proper road, in pursuit of petty phantoms of their own
creating.
Excellence is providentially placed beyond the reach of indolence, that
success may be the reward of industry, and that idleness may be punished
with obscurity and disgrace.
I do not think that in these costermonger days, as I have a notion
Falstaff calls them, an antediluvian age is at all a desirable thing,
but to live comfortably while we do live is a great matter, and
comprehends in it everything that can be wished for on this side the
curtain that hangs between time and eternity.
Wherever there is war, there is misery and outrage; notwithstanding
which, it is not only lawful to wish, but even a duty to pray for the
success of one's country. And as to the neutralities, I really think the
Russian virago an impertinent puss for meddling with us, and engaging
half a score kittens of her acquaintance to scratch the poor old lion,
who, if he has been insolent in his day, has probably acted no otherwise
than they themselves would have acted in his circumstances and with his
power to embolden them.
Though a Christian is not to be quarrelsome, he is not to be crushed.
Though he is but a worm before God, he is not such a worm as every
selfish and unprincipled wretch may tread on at his pleasure.
St. Paul seems to condemn the practice of going to law. "Why do ye not
suffer wrong, etc." But if we look again we shall find that a litigious
temper prevailed among the professors of that day. Surely he did not
mean, any more than his Master, that the most harmless members of
society should receive no advantage of its laws, or should be the only
persons in the world who should derive no benefit from those
institutions without which society cannot subsist.
Tobacco was not known in the Golden Age. So much the worse for the
Golden Age. This age of iron and lead would be insupportable without it;
and therefore we may reasonably suppose that the happiness of those
better days would have been much improved by the use of it.
No man was ever scolded out of his sins. The heart, corrupt as it is,
and because it is so, grows angry if it be not treated with some
management and good manners, and scolds again. A surly mastiff will bear
perhaps to be stroked, though he will growl even under that operation,
but, if you touch him roughly, he will bite.
Simplicity is become a very rare quality in a writer. In the decline of
great kingdoms, and where refinement in all the arts is carried to an
excess, I suppose it is always so. The later Roman writers are
remarkable for false ornament; they were without doubt greatly admired
by the readers of their own day; and with respect to authors of the
present era, the popular among them appear to me to be equally
censurable on the same account. Swift and Addison were simple.
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