PR 
 
 3380 
 
 A5G7 
 
 1835 
 
 V.2 
 
 C.2
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 JOSEPH FOLADARE
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 WILLIAM COWPEE.
 
 
 ^X
 
 L 
 
 WILLIAM cow: 
 
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 Tall sf'ir,', from n'hir/i r7ie .'oimd of r/iecrlitl f>fU.i 
 .Tii.:t 7/-iiJii7.it--s iipi'H till- lisrnirii' ,i)r ■■ 
 
 aiUKES :S;v HDTJLEX, COH©«JIT STJKEET.
 
 THE 
 
 LIFE AND WORKS 
 
 OF 
 
 WILLIAM COWPER 
 
 NOW FIttST COMPLEIED BY THE INTRODUCIIOV OF HIS 
 
 " PRIVATE CORRESPONDENCE." 
 
 REVISED, ARRANGED, AND EDllED BY 
 
 THE REV. T. S. GRIMSHAWE, A.M. 
 
 RECTOR OF BURTON, NORTHAMPTONSHIRE, AND VICAR OP 
 BIDDENHAM, BEDFORDSHIRE, ADfHOR OF THE LIFE OF THE REV. LEGH ItlCHMONU, 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS AND POETRY OP COWPER. 
 
 BY -1111; 
 
 REV. J. W, CUNNINGHAi^I, A.M. 
 
 VICAR OP HARROW. 
 
 ^ccontr IStrttton. 
 VOL. 11. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXXVI.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 1ROT30N AND PALMER, PRINTERS, SAVOY STREET, STRAND.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 IPart tfie jFtrst— rontinucti. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Circumstances under which Cowper commenced his career 
 as an author . . . . . i 
 
 Letter to the Rev. John Newton, Dec. 17, 1781. Re- 
 marks on his poems on Friendship, Retirement, Heroism 
 and vEtna ; Nineveh and Britain . . . 2 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Dec. 19, 1781. Idea of a 
 theocracy; the American war . . .5 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton ; shortest day, 1781. On a 
 national miscarriage ; with lines on a flatting-mill . 7 
 
 To the same, last day of 1781. Concerning the printing 
 of his Poems ; the American contest . . . 8 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Jan. 5, 1782. Dr. Johnson's 
 critique on Prior and Pope . . .10 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Jan. 13, 1782. Tlie American 
 contest . . . . . . 14 
 
 To the Rev, William Unwin, Jan. 17, 1782. Conduct of 
 critics ; Dr. Johnson's remarks on Prior's Poems ; re- 
 marks on Dr. Johnson's Lives of the Poets ; poetry 
 suitable for the reading of a boy . . . i..5 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Jan. 31, 1782. Political reflections 22 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 2, 1782. On his Poems 
 then printing ; Dr. Johnson's character as a critic ; 
 severity of the winter . . . . . 24 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Feb. 9, 1782. Bishop Lowth's 
 juvenile verses ; acquaintance with Lady Austen . 27 
 
 Attentions of Lady Austen to Cowjjer . . 29
 
 VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Letter from bim to Lady Austen . . .30 
 
 She becomes bis next door neighbour . . .31 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin. On Lady Austen's opinion 
 of him ; attempts at robbery ; observations on religious 
 characters; genuine benevolence . < . ib. 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 16, 1782. Charms of 
 authorship . . . . .35 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Feb. 24, 1/82. On the pub- 
 lication of his poems; his letter to the Lord Chancellor 36 
 
 To Lord Thurlow, Feb. 25, 1782, enclosed to Mr. Unwin 37 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 1782. On Mr.N.'s Pre- 
 face to his Poems. Remarks on a Fast Sermon . 38 
 
 To the same, March 6, 1782. Political remarks ; cha- 
 racter of Oliver Cromwell . . .41 
 
 Decision and boldness of Cromwell . . .43 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, March 7, 1782. Remon- 
 strance against Sunday routs . . . . 44 
 
 Remarks on the reasons for rejecting the Rev. Mr. New- 
 ton's Preface to Cowper's Poems . . .46 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, March 14, 1782. On the in- 
 tended Preface to his Poems ; critical tact of Johnson, 
 the bookseller . . . . .47 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., March 14, 1782. On the publica- 
 tion of his Poems . . . .49 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, March 18, 1782. On his 
 
 and IMrs. Unwin's opinion of his Poems . . 50 
 
 mprovements in prison discipline . . . . 53 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, March 24, 1782. Case of 
 Mr. B. compared with Cowper's . . .54 
 
 To the Rev William Unwin, April 1, 1782. On his 
 commendations of his Poems . . . .55 
 
 To the same, April 27, 1782. IMilitary music ; Mr. Un- 
 win's expected visit ; dignity of the Latin language ; 
 use of parentheses . . . .56 
 
 To uhe same, ]May 27, 1782. Dr. Franklin's opinion of 
 his poems; remarkable instance of providential deli- 
 verance from dangers ; effectsof the weather ; Rodney's 
 victory in the West Indies . . . .59
 
 CONTENTS. VIZ 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the same, June 12, 1782. Anxiety of authors respect- 
 ing the opinion of others on their works . 63 
 Reception of the first volume of Cowper's Poems . 65 
 Portrait of the true poet . . . . ib. 
 Picture of a person of fretful temper . . .67 
 
 ?3art tlfte Scconlr. 
 
 To the Rev. William Bull, June 22, 1782. Poetical 
 
 epistle on Tobacco . . . .68 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, July 16, 1782. Remarks 
 
 on political affairs ; Lady Austen and her project . 70 
 To the same, August 3, 1782. On Dr. Johnson's ex- 
 pected opinion of his Poems; encounter with a viper; 
 Lady Austen; Mr. Bull ; Madame Guion's Poems . 74 
 The Colubriad, a poem ... 78 
 
 Lady Austen comes to reside at the parsonage at OIney 79 
 Songs written for her by Cowper . . . ili. 
 
 His song on the loss of the Royal George . .81 
 
 The same in Latin . . . .82 
 
 Origin of his ballad of John Gilpin . . .84 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Sept. 6, 1782. Visit of Mr. Small 85 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 4, 1782. On the ballad 
 of John Gilpin ; on Mr. Unwin's exertions in behalf of 
 the prisoners at Chelmsford ; subscription for the widows 
 of seamen lost in the Royal George . . .87 
 
 To the Rev. William Bull, Nov. 5, 1782, On his ex- 
 pected visit . . . . .89 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Nov. 11, 1782. On the state of 
 
 his health ; encouragement of planting ; Mr. P , 
 
 of Hastings .... . .90 
 
 'J'o Joseph Hill, Esq., Nov. 1782. Thanks for a present 
 of fish ; on Mr. Small's report of jMr. Hill and his im- 
 provements . . . .92 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 18, 1782. Acknow- 
 ledgments to a beneficent friend to the poor of Olney ; 
 on the appearance of John Gilpin in print . . 93
 
 VUl CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin. No date. Character of Dr. 
 Beattie and his poems ; Cowper's translation of 
 Madame Guion's poems . . .96 
 
 To Mrs. Newton, Nov. 23, 1782. On his Poems ; severity 
 of the winter ; contrast between a spendthrift and an 
 Olney cottager; method recommended for settling 
 disputes . . . . .98 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Dec. 7, 1782. Recollections of the 
 coffee-house ; Cowper's mode of spending his evenings ; 
 political contradictions .... 101 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, .Tan. 19, 1783. His occupa- 
 tions ; beneficence of Mr. Thornton to the poor of Olney 102 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Jan. 26, 1783. On the antici- 
 pations of peace ; conduct of tlie belligerent powers . 105 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Feb. 2, 1783. Ironical con- 
 gratulations on the peace ; generosity of England to 
 France . . ... 107 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 8, 1783. Remarks on 
 the peace .... 109 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Feb. 13 1783. Remarks on his 
 poems . . ... 112 
 
 To the same. Feb. 20, 1783. With Dr. Franklin's letter 
 on his Poems .... ih. 
 
 To the same. No date. On the coalition ministry ; Lord 
 Chancellor Thui low . . . .114 
 
 Neglect of Cowper by Lord Thurlow . . 116 
 
 Lord Thurlow's generosity in the case of Dr. Johnson, 
 and Crabbe, the poet . . . ih. 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 24, 1783. On the peace 116 
 
 To the Rev. William Bull, March 7, 1783. On the peace ; 
 Scotch Highlanders at Newport Pagnel . .118 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, ]March 7, 1783. Comparison 
 of his and Mr. Newton's letters ; march of Highlanders 
 belonging to a mutinous regiment . . 120 
 
 To the same. April 5, 1788. Illness of Mrs. C. ; new 
 method of treating consumptive cases , . 122 
 
 To the same. April 20, 1783. His occupations and 
 
 studies ; writings of Mr. ; probabilitv of his 
 
 conversion in his last moments . . 123
 
 CONTENTS. IX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton. May 5, 1783. Vulgarity in a 
 minister particularly offensive .... 126 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, May 12, 1783. Remarks 
 . on a sermon preached by Paley at the consecration of 
 Bishop L. . . . . .127 
 
 Severity of Cowper's strictures on Paley . . 129 
 
 Important question of a church establishment . . ib. 
 
 Increase of true piety in the Church of England . 130 
 
 LanguageofBeza respecting the established church . 131 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., May 26, 1783. On the death of his 
 uncle's wife . . . . . ib. 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, May 31, 1783. On Mrs.C.'s 
 death . . . . . 132 
 
 To the Rev. William Bull, June 3, 1783. With stanzas 
 on peace . ..... 133 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, June 8, 1783. Beauties of 
 
 the green-house; character of the Rev. Mr. Bull . 134 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, June 13,1783. On his Re- 
 view of Ecclesiastical History; the day of judgment; 
 observation of natural phenomena . . . 136 
 
 Extraordinary natural phenomena in the summer of 1783 139 
 De la Lande's explanation of them . . . 140 
 
 Earthquakes in Calabria and Sicily . . . 141 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, June 17, 1783. Ministers 
 
 must not expect to scold men out of their sins . . 142 
 
 Tenderness an important qualification in a minister . 143 
 To the Rev. John Newton, June 19, 1783. On the 
 
 Dutch translation of his " Cardiphonia" . . 144 
 
 To the same. July 27, 1783. A country life barren of 
 incident; Cowper's attachment to his solitude; praise 
 of Mr. Newton's style as an historian . . 145 
 
 E-emarks on the influence of local associations . 148 
 
 Dr. Johnson's allusion to that subject . . 149 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, August 4, 1783. Proposed 
 inquiry concerning the sale of his Poems ; remarks on 
 English ballads ; anecdote of Cowper's goldfinches ib. 
 To the same. Sept. 7, 1783. Fault of Madame Guion's 
 writings, too great familiarity in addressing the Deity l.')3
 
 X CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Sept. 8, 1783. On Mr. New- 
 ton's and his own recovery from illness ; anecdote of a 
 clerk in a public office ; ill health of Mr. Scott ; mes- 
 sage to Mr. Bacon .... 155 
 
 To the same, Sept. 15, 1783. Cowper's mental suffer- 
 ings ..... 157" 
 
 lo the same, Sept. 23, 1783. On Mr. Newton's reco- 
 very from a fever ; dining with an absent man ; his 
 niche for meditation .... 158 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Sept. 29, 1783. Effect of 
 the weather on health; comparative happiness of the 
 natural philosopher; reflections on air-balloons . 160 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Oct. 6, 1783. Religious ani- 
 mosities deplored ; more dangerous to the interests 
 of religion than the attacks of its adversaries ; Cowper's 
 fondness for narratives of voyages . . 164 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Oct. 10, 1783. Cowper declines 
 the discussion of political subjects ; epitaph on sailors 
 of the Royal George ..... 167 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton. Oct. 13, 1783. Neglect of 
 American loyalists; extraordinary donation sent to Lis- 
 bon at the time of the great earthquake ; prospects 
 of the Americans .... 169 
 
 To the same. Oct. 20, 1783. Remarks on Bacon's monu- 
 ment of Lord Chatham .... 172 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Oct. 20, 1783. Anticipations of 
 winter ..... 174 
 
 Cowper's winter-evenings . . . 175 
 
 The subject of his poem, " The Sofa," suggested . ib. 
 
 Circumstances illustrative of the origin and progress of 
 " The Task" . . . .176 
 
 Extracts from letters to Mr. Bull on that subject . ib. 
 
 Particulars of the time in which " The Task" was composed 178 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton. Nov. 3, 1783. Fire at Olney 
 described .... . . 179 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 10, 1783. On the 
 neglect of old acquaintance; invitation to Olney; ex- 
 ercise recommended ; fire at Olnev . . . 181
 
 CONTENTS. XI 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To the "Rev. John Newton, Nov. 17, 1783. Humorous 
 description of the punishment of a thief at Olney ; 
 dream of an air-balloon . . .184 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Nov, 23, 1783. On his opinion 
 of voyages and travels ; Cowper's reading . . 188 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 24, 1783. Complaint 
 of the neglect of Lord Thurlovc ; character of Jose- 
 pbus's History .... 190 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Nov. 30, 1783. Speculations 
 on the employment of the antediluvians ; the Theolo- 
 gical Review . . . .192 
 
 To the same, Dec. lr>, 1783. Speculations on the in- 
 vention of balloons ; the East India Bill . . 195 
 
 To the same, Dec. 27, 1783. Ambition of public men; 
 dismissal of ministers ; Cowper's sentiments concern- 
 ing Mr. Bacon ; anecdote of Mr. Scott . . 200 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, (no date.) Account of Mr. 
 Throckmorton's invitation to see a balloon filled ; at- 
 tentions of the Throckmorton family to Cowper and 
 Mrs. Unwin .... 203 
 
 Circumstances which obliged Cowper to relinquish his 
 friendship with Lady Austen . . , 207 
 
 Hayley's account of this event ..... 208 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Jan. 3, 1784. Dearth of 
 subjects for writing upon at Olney ; reflections on the 
 monopoly of the East India Company . .211 
 
 To Mrs. Hill, Jan. 5, 1784. Requesting her to send 
 some books .... 214 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Jan. 18, 1784. On his political 
 letters; low state of the public funds . . 216 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Jan. 18, 1784. Cowper's 
 religious despondency; remark on Mr. Newton's pre- 
 decessor . . . . , 217 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Jan 1784. Proposed al- 
 teration in a Latin poem of Mr. Unwin's ; remarks on 
 tlie bequest of a cousin ; commendations on Mr. Un- 
 win's conduct ; on newspaper praise . . .218 
 
 Jo the Rev. John Newton, Jan. 25, 1784. Cowper's
 
 Xll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 sentiments on East India patronage and East India 
 dominion ...... 222 
 
 State of our Indian possessions at that time . , 22 
 
 Moral revolution effected there . • . ib. 
 
 Latin lines by Dr. Jortin, on the shortness of human life 225 
 
 Co^vper's translation of them .... ib. 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Feb. 1784. On Mr. New- 
 ion' s " Review of Ecclesiastical History ;" proposed 
 title and motto ; Cowper declines contributing to a 
 Review .... 226 
 
 To the same, Feb. 10, 1784. Cowper's nervous state ; 
 comparison of himself with the ancient poets ; his hypo- 
 thesis of a gradual declension in vigour from Adam 
 downwards ..... 228 
 
 To the same, Feb. 1784. The thaw; kindness of a 
 benefactor to the poor of Olney; Cowper's politics, 
 and those of a reverend neighbour; projected trans- 
 lation of Caraccioli on self-acquaintance . . 231 
 
 To the Rev. William Bull, Feb. 22, 1784. Unknown 
 benefactor to the poor of Olney ; political profession . 231 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Feb. 29, 1784. On Mr. 
 Unwin's acquaintance with Lord Petre ; unknown 
 benefactor to the poor of Olney ; diffidence of a modest 
 man on extraordinary occasions . . . 23.T 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, March 8, 1784. The Theo- 
 logical jMiscellany ; abandonment of the intended 
 translation of Caraccioli . . . 237 
 
 To the same, March 11, 1784. Remarks on IMr New- 
 ton's " J^ pology ;" East India patronage and dominion 239 
 
 To the same, March 15, 1784, Cowper's habitual de- 
 spondence ; verse his favourite occupation, and why ; 
 Johnson's " Lives of the Poets" . . . 241 
 
 To the same, JNIarch 19, 1784. Works of the IMarquis 
 Caraccioli ; evening occupations . . . 243 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, March 21, 1784. Cow- 
 per's sentiments on Johnson's " Lives of the Poets ;" 
 characters of the poets . . . 244 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, March 29, 1784. \isit of a
 
 CONTENTS. Xlll 
 
 PAGE 
 
 candidate and his train to Cowper ; angry preaching of 
 JVlr. S. . . . . . 247 
 
 To the same, April 14, 1784. Remarks on divine wrath ; 
 destruction in Calabria .... 250 
 
 Effects of the earthquakes, and total loss of human lives 252 
 
 'i'o the Rev. William Unwin, April 5, 1784. Character 
 of Beattie and Blair; speculations on the origin of 
 speech ..... 255 
 
 To the same, April 15, 1784. Further remarks on Blair's 
 " Lectures ;" censure of a particular observation in 
 that book ...... 256 
 
 To the same, April 25, 1784. Lines to the memory of a 
 halybutt . . . . .258 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, April 26, 1784. Remarks 
 on Beattie and on Blair's " Lectures ;" economy of the 
 county candidates, and its consequences . . 259 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, May 3, 1784. Reflections 
 on face-painting ; innocent in Frenchwomen, but im- 
 moral in English ..... 262 
 
 To the same. May 8, 1784. Cowper's reasons for not 
 writing a sequel to John Gilpin, and not wishing that 
 ballad to appear with his Poems; progress made in 
 printing them .... 266 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, May 10, 1784. Conversion 
 of Dr. Johnson; unsuccessful attempt with a balloon 
 at Throckmorton's ..... 269 
 
 Circumstances attending Dr. Johnson's conversion . . 270 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, May 22, 1784. On Dr. 
 Johnson's opinion of Cowper's " Poems ;" Mr. Bull 
 and his refractory pupils . . . .271 
 
 To the same, June 5, 1784. On the opinion of Cowper's 
 'Poems" attributed to Dr. Johnson . . 273 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, June 21, 1784. Commemo- 
 ration of Handel ; unpleasant summer ; character of 
 Mr. and Mrs. Unwin .... 274 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, July 3, 1784. Severity 
 of the weather ; its effects on vegetation . . 275 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, July 5, 1784. Reference to
 
 XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGH 
 
 a passage in Homer ; could the wise men of antiquity 
 Lave believed in the fables of the heathen mythology 1 
 Cowper's neglect of politics ; his hostility to the tax 
 on candles . . . . . . 278 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, July 12, 1784. Remarks 
 on a line in Vincent Bourne's Latin poems ; drawing of 
 Mr. Unwin's house ; Hume's "Essay on Suicide" . 282 
 
 To the same, July 13, 1784. Latin Dictionary; animad- 
 versions on the tax on candles ; musical ass . . 283 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, July 14, 1784. Commemo- 
 ration of Handel ..... 286 
 
 Mr. Newton's Sermon on that subject . . . 287 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, July 19, 1784. The world 
 compared with Bedlam .... 289 
 
 To the same, July 28, 1784. On ]Mr. Newton's intended 
 visit to the Rev. Mr. Uilpin atLymington ; his literary 
 adversaries ..... 290 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Aug. 14, 1784. Reflections 
 on travelling; Cowper's visits to Weston ; difference 
 of character in the inhabitants of the South Sea islands ; 
 cork supplements ; franks . . . 292 
 
 Original mode of franking, and reason for the adoption 
 of the present method .... 294 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, August 16, 1784. Pleasures 
 of Olney ; ascent of a balloon ; excellence of the 
 Friendly Islanders in dancing . . . 295 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Sept. 11, 1784. Cowper's 
 progress in his new volume of poems ; opinions of a 
 visitor on his first volume . . . . 297 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Sept. 11, 1784. Character of 
 Dr. Cotton ..... 300 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Sept. 18, 1784. Alteration 
 of franks ; Cowper's green-house ; his enjoyment of 
 natural sounds . . . . , ib. 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Oct. 2, 1784. Punctuation 
 of poetry; visit to Mr. Throckmorton . . . 303 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Oct. 9, 1784. Cowper main- 
 tains not onlv that his thoughts are unconnected, but
 
 CONTENTS. XV 
 
 PAGE 
 
 that frequently he does not think at all ; remarks on the 
 character and death of Captain Cook . . 305 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784. With the 
 manuscript of the new volume of his Poems, and re- 
 marks on them ..... 309 
 
 To the same, Oct. 20, 1734. Instructions respecting 
 a publisher, and corrections in his Poems . 311 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Oct. 22, 1784. Remarks on 
 Knox's Essays .... 316 
 
 To the same. Oct. 30, 1784. Heroism of the Sandwich 
 islanders; Cowper informs Mr. Newton of his inten- 
 tion to publish a new volume . . . 317 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 1, 1784. Cowper's 
 reasons for not earlier acquainting Mr. Newton with 
 his intention of publishing again ; he resolves to in- 
 clude "John Gilpin" . . . 319 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Nov. 1784. On the death of Mr. 
 Hill's mother ; Cowper's recollections of his own 
 mother ; departure of Lady Austen ; his new volume of 
 Poems . . . . . .321 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Nov. 27, 1784. Sketch of the 
 contents and purpose of his new volume . . 323 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Olney, 1784. On the trans- 
 mission of his Poems ; effect of medicines on the com- 
 position of poetry ...... 326 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Nov. 29, 1784. Substance 
 of his last letter to Mr. Newton . . .328 
 
 To Joseph Hill, Esq., Dec. 4j 1784. Aerial voyages . 330 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Dec. 13, 1784. On the versi- 
 fication and titles of his new Poems ; propriety of using 
 the word worm for serpent . . . 331 
 
 Passages in Milton and Shakspeare in which worm is so 
 used ..... 334 
 
 To the Rev. William Unwin, Dec. 18, 1784. Balloon ; 
 travellers ; inscription to his new poem ; reasons for 
 complimenting Bishop Bagot . . 335 
 
 To the Rev. John Newton, Christmas-eve, 1784. Cowper
 
 XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 declines giving a new title to bis new volume of Poems ; 
 remarks on a person lately deceased . . 337 
 
 General remarks on the particulars of Cowper's personal 
 history contained in this volume . . 338
 
 EIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 ^art tjbe JFirst— ©ontinucD. 
 
 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 the im- 
 provement of the age in which he lived. The cir- 
 cumstances under which he commenced his career 
 as an Author are singular. They form a profitable 
 subject of inquiry to those who analyze the opera- 
 tions of the human mind ; for he wrote in the mo- 
 ments 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'
 
 2 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 proof of the wisdom and goodness of God ; for it 
 shews 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 fur- 
 ther ; 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 ad- 
 mired Poems of Friendship and Retirement. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 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" f from the post it held in the van of the 
 light infantry, and throw it into the rear. Having 
 
 * Private Correspondence. 
 
 t The poem afterwards entitled " Heroism." — Vide Poems.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 3 
 
 finished "Friendship," and fearing that, if I delayed to 
 send it, the press would get the start of my inten- 
 tion, 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 con- 
 sists of between thirty and forty stanzas ; a length 
 that qualifies it to supply the place of the two can- 
 celled pieces, without the aid of the epistle I men- 
 tioned. According to the present arrangement, 
 therefore, " Friendship," which is rather of a lively 
 cast, though quite sober, will follow next after 
 " Retirement," and " JEtna' will close the vo- 
 lume. 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 iEtna was once unconscious of intes- 
 tine fires, and as lofty as at present before the 
 commencement of the eruptions. It is possible, 
 however, that the rule, though just in some in- 
 stances, 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 
 oft" its head, and setting on a new one ; a task I 
 
 B 2
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 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 neigh- 
 bouring 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 through the earth, it will come com- 
 missioned with the heaviest tidings to the people 
 chargeable with the most perverseness. In the 
 latter part of the Duke of Newcastle's administration, 
 all faces gathered blackness. The people, as they 
 walked the streets, had, every one of them, a coun- 
 tenance like what we may suppose to have been the 
 prophet Jonah's, when he cried, " Yet forty days, 
 and Nineveh shall be destroyed." But our Nineveh 
 too repented, that is to say, she was affected in a 
 manner somewhat suitable to her condition. She 
 was dejected ; she learned an humbler language, 
 and seemed, if she did not trust in God, at least to 
 have renounced her confidence in herself. A respite 
 ensued ; the expected ruin was averted ; and her 
 prosperity became greater than ever. Again she 
 became self-conceited and proud, as at the first ; 
 and how stands it with our Nineveh now ? Even 
 as you say ; her distress is infinite, her destruction 
 appears inevitable, and her heart as hard as the 
 nether millstone. Thus, I suppose, it was when an- 
 cient Nineveh found herself agreeably disappointed; 
 she turned the grace of God into lasciviousness, and 
 that flagrant abuse of mercy exposed her, at the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. O 
 
 expiration of forty years, to the complete execution 
 of a sentence she had only been threatened with 
 before. A similarity of events, accompanied by a 
 strong similarity of conduct, seems to justify our 
 expectations that the catastrophe will not be very 
 different. But, after all, the designs of Providence 
 are inscrutable, and, as in the case of individuals, 
 so in that of nations, the same causes do not always 
 produce the same effects. The country indeed 
 cannot be saved in its present state of profligacy 
 and profaneness, but may, nevertheless, be led to 
 repentance by means we are little aware of, and at 
 a time when we least expect it. 
 
 Our best love attends yourself and Mrs. Newton, 
 and we rejoice that you feel no burthens but those 
 you bear in common with the liveliest and most 
 favoured Christians. It is a happiness in poor 
 Peggy's case that she can swallow five shillings' 
 worth of physic in a day, but a person must be in 
 her case to be duly sensible of it. 
 
 Yours, my dear Sir, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Dec. 19, 1781. 
 
 My dear William — I dare say I do not enter 
 
 exactly into your idea of a present theocracy, 
 
 because mine amounts to no more than the common 
 
 one, that all mankind, though few are really aware 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 6 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of it, act under a providential direction, and that a 
 gracious superintendence in particular is the lot of 
 those who trust in God. Thus I think respecting 
 individuals, and with respect to the kingdoms of 
 the earth, that, perhaps, by his own immediate 
 operation, though more probably by the intervention 
 of angels, (vide Daniel,) the great Governor manages 
 and rules them, assigns them their origin, duration, 
 and end, appoints them prosperity or adversity, 
 glory or disgrace, as their virtues or their vices, 
 their regard to the dictates of conscience and his 
 word, or their prevailing neglect of both, may 
 indicate and require. But in this persuasion, as I 
 said, I do not at all deviate from the general opinion 
 of those who believe a Providence, at least who have 
 a scriptural belief of it. I suppose, therefore, you 
 mean something more, and shall be glad to be more 
 particularly informed. 
 
 I see but one feature in the face of our national 
 concerns that pleases me ; — the war with America, 
 it seems, is to be conducted on a different plan. 
 This is something ; when a long series of measures, 
 of a certain description, has proved unsuccessful, 
 the adoption of others is at least pleasing, as it en- 
 courages a hope that they may possibly prove 
 wiser and more effectual : but, indeed, without 
 discipline, all is lost. Pitt himself could have done 
 nothing with such tools ; but he would not have 
 been so betrayed ; he would have made the traitors 
 answer with their heads for their cowardice or 
 supineness, and their punishment would have made 
 survivors active. W. C.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 7 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney. The shortest day, 1781. 
 
 My dear Friend — I might easily make this letter 
 a continuation of my last, another national miscar- 
 riage having furnished me with a fresh illustration 
 of the remarks we have both been making. Mr. 
 
 S- jfwho has most obligingly supplied me with 
 
 franks throughout my whole concern with Johnson, 
 accompanied the last parcel he sent me with a note 
 dated from the House of Commons, in which he 
 seemed happy to give me the earliest intelligence 
 of the capture of the French transports by Admiral 
 Kempenfelt, and of a close engagement between 
 the two fleets, so much to be expected. This note 
 was written on Monday, and reached me by Wed- 
 nesday's post ; but, alas ! the same post brought us 
 the newspaper that informed us of his being forced 
 to fly before a much superior enemy, and glad to 
 take shelter in the port he had left so lately. This 
 event, I suppose, will have worse consequences than 
 the mere disappointment ; will furnish Opposition, 
 as all our ill success has done, with the fuel of dis- 
 sension, and with the means of thwarting and per- 
 plexing administration. Thus, all we purchase with 
 the many millions expended yearly is distress to 
 ourselves, instead of our enemies, and domestic 
 quarrels instead of victories abroad. It takes a 
 great many blows to knock down a great nation ; 
 and, in the case of poor England, a great many 
 heavy ones have not been wanting. They make us 
 
 * Private Correspondence, 
 t Mr. Smith, afterwards Lord Carringtoa.
 
 8 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 reel and stagger indeed, but the blow is not yet 
 struck that is to make us fall upon our knees. That 
 fall would save us ; but, if we fall upon our side at 
 last, we are undone. So much for politics. 
 
 I enclose a few lines on a thought which struck 
 me yesterday.* If you approve of them, you know 
 what to do with them. I should think they might 
 occupy the place of an introduction, and should call 
 them by that name, if I did not judge the name I 
 have given them necessary for the information of 
 the reader. A flatting-mill is not met with in every 
 street, and my book will, perhaps, fall into the hands 
 of many who do not know that such a mill was ever 
 invented. It happened to me however to spend 
 much of my time in one, when I was a boy, when I 
 frequently amused myself with watching the opera- 
 tion I describe. 
 
 Yours, my dear Sir, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 The reader will admire the sublimity of the fol- 
 lowing letter in allusion to England and America* 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.f 
 
 Olney. The last day of 1781. 
 My dear Friend^ — Yesterday's post, which brought 
 me yours, brought me a packet from Johnson. We 
 have reached the middle of the Mahometan Hog. 
 
 * The lines nlluded to are entitled, " The Flatting Mill, an 
 Illustration.'' 
 
 t Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. M 
 
 By the way, your lines, which, when we had the 
 pleasure of seeing you here, you said you would 
 furnish him with, are not inserted in it. I did not 
 recollect, till after I had finished the "Flatting Mill," 
 that it bore any affinity to the motto taken from 
 Caraccioli. The resemblance, however, did not 
 appear to me to give any impropriety to the verses, 
 as the thought is much enlarged upon, and en- 
 livened by the addition of a new comparison. But 
 if it is not wanted, it is superfluous, and if super- 
 fluous better omitted. I shall not bumble Johnson 
 for finding fault with " Friendship," though I have a 
 better opinion of it myself; but a poet is of all 
 men the most unfit to be judge in his own cause. 
 Partial to all his productions, he is always most par- 
 tial to the youngest. But, as there is a sufficient 
 quantity without it, let that sleep too. If I should 
 live to write again, I may possibly take up that sub- 
 ject a second time, and clothe it in a different dress. 
 It abounds with excellent matter, and much more 
 than I could find room for in two or three pages. 
 
 I consider England and America as once one 
 country. They were so, in respect of interest, in- 
 tercourse, and affinity. A great earthquake has 
 made a partition, and now the Atlantic Ocean flows 
 between them. He that can drain that ocean, and 
 shove the two shores together, so as to make them 
 aptly coincide, and meet each other in every part, 
 can unite them again. But this is a work for Om- 
 nipotence, and nothing less than Omnipotence can 
 heal the breach between us. This dispensation is 
 evidently a scourge to England ; but is it a blessing
 
 10 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 to America ? Time may prove it one, but at pre- 
 sent it does not seem to wear an aspect favourable 
 to their privileges, either civil or religious. I can- 
 not doubt the truth of Dr. W.'s assertion ; but the 
 French, who pay but little regard to treaties that 
 clash with their convenience, without a treaty, and 
 even in direct contradiction to verbal engagements, 
 can easily pretend a claim to a country which they 
 have both bled and paid for ; and, if the validity of 
 that claim be disputed, behold an army ready landed, 
 and well-appointed, and in possession of some of the 
 most fruitful provinces, prepared to prove it. A 
 scourge is a scourge at one end only. A bundle of 
 thunderbolts, such as you have seen in the talons of 
 Jupiter's eagle, is at both ends equally tremendous, 
 and can inflict a judgment upon the West, at tJie 
 same moment that it seems to intend only the chas- 
 tisement of the East. 
 
 Yours, my dear Sir, 
 
 W. C 
 
 Dr. Johnson's celebrated work, " The Lives of 
 the Poets," had at this time made its appearance, 
 and some of the following letters refer to that sub- 
 ject. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Jan. 5 1782. 
 My dear Friend — Did I allow myself to plead the 
 common excuse of idle correspondents, and esteem 
 it a sufficient reason for not writing that I have
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 11 
 
 nothing to write about, I certainly should not write 
 now. But I have so often found, on similar occa- 
 sions, when a great penury of matter has seemed to 
 threaten me with an utter impossibility of hatching 
 a letter, that nothing is necessary but to put pen to 
 paper, and go on, in order to conquer all difficulties ; 
 that, availing myself of past experience, I now begin 
 with a most assured persuasion that, sooner or later, 
 one idea naturally suggesting another, I shall come 
 to a most prosperous conclusion. 
 
 In the last " Review," I mean in the last but one, 
 I saw Johnson's critique upon Prior and Pope. I 
 am bound to acquiesce in his opinion of the latter, 
 because it has always been my own. I could never 
 agree with those who preferred him to Dryden, nor 
 with others (I have known such, and persons of 
 taste and discernment too) who could not allow him 
 to be a poet at all. He was certainly a mechanical 
 maker of verses, and, in every line he ever wrote, we 
 see indubitable marks of most indefatigable industry 
 and labour. Writers, who find it necessary to make 
 such strenuous and painful exertions, are generally 
 as phlegmatic as they are correct ; but Pope was, 
 in this respect, exempted from the common lot of 
 authors of that class. With the unwearied applica- 
 tion of a plodding Flemish painter, who draws a 
 shrimp with the most minute exactness, he had all 
 the genius of one of the first masters. Never, I 
 believe, were such talents and such drudgery united. 
 But I admire Dryden most, who has succeeded by 
 mere dint of genius, and in spite of a laziness and 
 carelessness almost peculiar to himself. His faults
 
 12 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 are numberless, and so are his beauties. His faults 
 are those of a great man, and his beauties are such 
 (at least sometimes) as Pope, with all his touching 
 and re-touching, could never equal. So far, there- 
 fore, I have no quarrel with Johnson. But I cannot 
 subscribe to what he says of Prior. In the first 
 place, though my memory may fail me, I do not 
 recollect that he takes any notice of his Solomon, in 
 my mind the best poem, whether we consider the 
 subject of it or the execution, that he ever wrote.^' 
 In the next place, he condemns him for introducing 
 Venus and Cupid into his love verses, and concludes 
 it impossible his passion could be sincere, because, 
 when he would express it, he has recourse to fables. 
 But, when Prior wrote, those deities were not so ob- 
 solete as they are at present. His cotemporary 
 writers, and some that succeeded him, did not think 
 them beneath their notice. Tibullus, in reality, dis- 
 believed their existence, as much as we do ; yet Ti- 
 bullus is allowed to be the prince of all poetical 
 inamoratos, though he mentions them in almost 
 every page. There is a fashion in these things 
 which the Doctor seems to have forgotten. But 
 what shall we say of his rusty-fusty remarks upon 
 Henry and Emma? I agree with him, that, mo- 
 
 * This remark is inaccurate. Prior's Solomon is distinctly 
 mentioned, though Johnson observes that it fails in exciting 
 interest. His concluding remarks are, however, highly ho- 
 nourable to the merit of that work. " He that shall jieruse it 
 will be able to mark many passages, to which he may recur for 
 instruction or delight ; many from which the poet may learn 
 to write, and the ;)hilosopher to reason.'' — LiJ'e of Prior. — 
 Editor.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 13 
 
 rally considered, both the knight and his lady are 
 bad characters, and that each exhibits an example 
 which ought not to be followed. The man dissembles 
 in a way that would have justified the woman had 
 she renounced him, and the woman resolves to fol- 
 low him at the expense of delicacy, propriety, and 
 even modesty itself. But when the critic calls it a 
 dull dialogue, who but a critic will believe him ? 
 There are few readers of poetry of either sex in 
 this country who cannot remember how that en- 
 chanting piece has bewitched them, who do not 
 know that, instead of finding it tedious, they have 
 been so delighted with the romantic turn of it as 
 to have overlooked all its defects, and to have given 
 it a consecrated place in their memories with- 
 out ever feeling it a burthen. I wonder almost, 
 that as the bacchanals served Orpheus, the boys 
 and girls do not tear this husky, dry commentator, 
 limb from limb, in resentment of such an injury 
 done to their darling poet. I admire Johnson as a 
 man of great erudition and sense, but, when he sets 
 himself up for a judge of writers upon the subject 
 of love, a passion which I suppose he never felt in 
 his life, he might as well think himself qualified to 
 pronounce upon a treatise on horsemanship, or the 
 art of fortification. 
 
 The next packet I receive will bring me, I ima- 
 gine, the last proof sheet of my volume, which will 
 consist of about three hundred and fifty pages, ho- 
 nestly printed. My public entree therefore is not far 
 distant- Yours, 
 
 W. C.
 
 14 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olnej, Jan. 13, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — I believe I did not thank you 
 for your anecdotes, either foreign or domestic, in 
 my last, therefore I do it now ; and still feel myself, 
 as I did at the time, truly obliged to you for them. 
 More is to be learned from one matter of fact than 
 from a thousand speculations. But, alas ! what 
 course can Government take ! I have heard (for I 
 never made the experiment) that if a man grasp a 
 red-hot iron with his naked hand, it will stick to 
 him, so that he cannot presently disengage himself 
 from it. Such are the colonies in the hands of ad- 
 ministration. While they hold them they burn 
 their fingers, and yet they must not quit them. I 
 know not whether your sentiments and mine upon 
 this part of the subject exactly coincide, but you 
 will know when you understand what mine are. It 
 appears to me that the King is bound, both by the 
 duty he owes to himself and to his people, to con- 
 sider himself, with respect to every inch of his 
 territories, as a trustee deriving his interest in them 
 from God, and invested with them by divine au- 
 thority for the benefit of his subjects. As he may 
 not sell them or waste them, so he may not resign 
 them to an enemy, or transfer his right to govern 
 them to any, not even to themselves, so long as it 
 is possible for him to keep it. If he does, he 
 
 • Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 15 
 
 betrays at once his own interest and that of his 
 other dominions. It may be said, suppose Provi- 
 dence has ordained that they shall be wrested from 
 him, how then ? I answer, that cannot appear to 
 be the case, till God's purpose is actually accom- 
 plished ; and in the mean time the most probable 
 prospect of such an event does not release him 
 from his obligation to hold them to the last moment, 
 forasmuch as adverse appearances are no infallible 
 indication of God's designs, but may give place to 
 more comfortable symptoms, when we least expect 
 it. Viewing the thing in this light, if I sat on his 
 Majesty's throne, I should be as obstinate as he,* 
 because, if I quitted the contest while I had any 
 means left of carrying it on, I should never know 
 that I had not relinquished what I might have re- 
 tained, or be able to render a satisfactory answer to 
 the doubts and inquiries of my own conscience. 
 Yours, my dear Sir, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 OIney, Jan; 17, 1782. 
 
 My dear William — I am glad we agree in our 
 opinion of king criticjf and the writers on whom he 
 
 * Tlie retention of the American colonies was known to be 
 a favourite project with George III ; but the sense of the 
 nation was opposed to the war, and the expense and reverseis 
 attending- its prosecution increased the public discontent. 
 
 t Dr. Johnson.
 
 16 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 lias bestowed his animadversions. It is a matter of 
 indifference to me whether I think with the world 
 at large or not, but I wish my friends to be of my 
 mind. The same work will wear a different appear- 
 ance in the eyes of the same man, according to 
 the different views with which he reads it ; if merely 
 for his amusement, his candour being in less danger 
 of a twist from interest or prejudice, he is pleased 
 with what is really pleasing, and is not over-curious 
 to discover a blemish, because the exercise of a 
 minute exactness is not consistent with his purpose. 
 But if he once becomes a critic by trade, the case 
 is altered. He must then, at any rate, establish, 
 if he can, an opinion in every mind of his un- 
 common discernment, and his exquisite taste. This 
 great end he can never accomplish by thinking 
 in the track that has been beaten under the hoof of 
 public judgment. He must endeavour to convince 
 the world that their favourite authors have more 
 faults than they are aware of, and such as they 
 have never suspected. Having marked out a 
 writer universally esteemed, whom he finds it for 
 that very reason convenient to depreciate and 
 traduce, he will overlook some of his beauties, he 
 will faintly praise others, and in such a manner as 
 to make thousands, more modest though quite as 
 judicious as himself, question whetlier they are 
 beauties at all. Can there be a stronger illustration 
 of all that I have said than the severity of John- 
 son's remarks upon Prior — I might have said the 
 injustice ? His reputation as an author, who, with 
 much labour indeed, but with admirable success,
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 17 
 
 has embellished all his poems with the most charm- 
 ing ease, stood unshaken till Johnson thrust his 
 head against it. And how does he attack him in 
 this his principal fort? I cannot recollect his 
 very words, but I am much mistaken indeed, if 
 my memory fails me with respect to the purport of 
 them. " His words," he says, " appear to be 
 forced into their proper places. There indeed we 
 find them, but find likewise that their arrangement 
 has been the effect of constraint, and that without 
 violence they would certainly have stood in a 
 different order."* By your leave, most learned 
 Doctor, this is the most disingenuous remark I 
 ever met with, and would have come with a better 
 grace from Curl or Dennis. Every man conver- 
 sant with verse- writing knows, and knows by 
 painful experience, that the familiar style is of 
 all styles the most difficult to succeed in. To 
 make verse speak the language of prose, without 
 being prosaic, to marshal • the words of it in such 
 an order as they might naturally take in falling 
 from the lips of an extemporary speaker, yet 
 without meanness, harmoniously, elegantly, and 
 without seeming to displace a syllable for the sake 
 of the rhyme, is one of the most arduous tasks a 
 poet can undertake. He that could accomplish 
 
 * The language in the original is as follows: " His expres- 
 sion has every mark of laborious study ; the line seldom seems 
 to have been formed at once ; the words did not come till 
 they were called, and were then put by constraint into their 
 places, where they do their duty, but do it sullenly." — See 
 Lives of the Poets. 
 
 VOL. II. C
 
 18 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 this task was Prior ; many have imitated his excel- 
 lence in this particular, but the best copies have 
 fallen far short of the original. .. 7\nd now to tell us, 
 after we and our fathers have admired him for it so 
 long, that he is an easy writer indeed, but that his 
 ease has an air of stiffness in it ; in short, that his 
 ease is not ease, but only something like it, what 
 is it but a self-contradiction, an observation that 
 grants what it is just going to deny, and denies 
 what it has just granted, in the same sentence, and 
 in the same breath? — But I have filled the greatest 
 part of my sheet with a very uninteresting subject. 
 I will only say that, as a nation, we are not much 
 indebted, in point of poetical credit, to this too 
 sagacious and unmerciful judge ; and that, for my- 
 self in particidar, I have reason to rejoice that he 
 entered upon and exhausted the labours of his 
 office, before my poor volume could possibly become 
 an object of them. 
 
 [That Johnson, in his /' Lives of the Poets,' has 
 exhibited many instances of erroneous criticism, 
 and that he sometimes censures where he might 
 have praised, is we believe very generally admitted. 
 His treatment of Swift, Gay, Prior, and Gray, has 
 excited regret ; and Milton, though justly extolled 
 as a sublime poet, is lashed as a republican, with 
 unrelenting severity. Few will concur in Johnson's 
 remarks on Gray's celebrated " Progress of Poetry;" 
 and Murphy, in speaking of his critique on the 
 well-known and admired opening of " The Bard," 
 " Ruin seize tiiee, rutliless kins'," &:c.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 19 
 
 expresses a wish that it had been blotted out.* But 
 Johnson was the Jupiter Tonans of Hterature, and 
 not unfrequently hurls his thunder and darts his 
 lightning with an air of conscious superiority, which, 
 though it awakens terror by its power, does not 
 always command respect for its judgment. 
 
 With all these deductions, the " Lives of the 
 Poets" is a work abounding in inimitable beauties, 
 and is a lasting memorial of Johnson's fame. It 
 has been justly characterized as " the most brilliant, 
 and, certainly, the most popular, of all his wri- 
 tings."f The most splendid passage, among many 
 that might be quoted, is perhaps the eloquent com- 
 parison instituted between the relative merits of 
 Pope and Dryden. As Cowper alludes to this cri- 
 tique with satisfaction, we insert an extract from 
 it, to gratify those who are not familiar with its 
 existence. Speaking of Dryden, Johnson observes, 
 " His mind has a larger range, and he collects his 
 images and illustrations from a more extensive cir- 
 cumference of science. Dryden knew more of man 
 in his general nature, and Pope in his local man- 
 ners. The notions of Dryden were formed by com- 
 prehensive speculation ; and those of Pope by minute 
 attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge 
 of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.'" 
 Again : " Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid ; 
 Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dry- 
 den's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities, 
 and diversified by the varied exuberance of abun- 
 
 * See Murpbv's " Essay on the Genius of Dr. Johnson." 
 t Ibid. 
 
 c2
 
 20 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 dant vegetation ; Pope's is a velvet lawn, shaven 
 by the scythe, and levelled by the roller." 
 
 " Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; 
 that quality without which judgment is cold, and 
 knowledge is inert ; that energy which collects, com- 
 bines, amplifies, and animates ; the superiority 
 must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. 
 It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigour 
 Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more ; 
 for every other writer since Milton must give place 
 to Pope ; and even of Dryden it must be said that, 
 if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better 
 poems." 
 
 He concludes this brilliant comparison in the fol- 
 lowing words. " If the flights of Dryden, there- 
 fore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the 
 wing ; if of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of 
 Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dry- 
 den often surpasses expectation, and Pope never 
 falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent asto- 
 nishment, and Pope with perpetual delight."* 
 
 We now insert the sequel of the preceding letter 
 to Mr. Unwin.] 
 
 You have already furnished John's memory with 
 by far the greatest part of what a parent would 
 wish to store it with. If all that is merely trivial, 
 and all that has an immoral tendency, were ex- 
 punged from our English poets, how would they 
 shrink, and how would some of them completely 
 vanish! I believe there are some of Dryden's Fa- 
 * See " Life of Pope."
 
 LIFE OF COV/PER. 21 
 
 bles, which he would find very entertaining ; they 
 are for the most part fine compositions, and not 
 above his apprehension ; but Dryden has written 
 few things that are not blotted here and there with 
 an unchaste allusion, so that you must pick his way 
 for him, lest he should tread in the dirt. You did 
 not mention Milton's " Allegro" and " Penseroso,'" 
 which I remember being so charmed with when a 
 boy, that I was never weary of them. There are 
 even passages in the paradisiacal part of " Paradise 
 Lost," which he might study with advantage. And 
 to teach him, as you can, to deliver some of the 
 fine orations made in the Pandaemonium, and those 
 between Satan, Ithuriel, and Zephon, with em- 
 phasis, dignity, and propriety, might be of great 
 use to him hereafter. The sooner the ear is formed, 
 and the organs of speech are accustomed to the 
 various inflections of the voice, which the rehearsal 
 of those passages demands, the better. I should 
 think too that Thomson's " Seasons " might afford 
 him some useful lessons. At least they would have 
 a tendency to give his mind an observing and a 
 philosophical turn. I do not forget that he is but a 
 child, but I remember that he is a child favoured 
 with talents superior to his years. We were much 
 pleased with his remarks on your alms-giving, and 
 doubt not but it will be verified with respect to the 
 two guineas you sent us, which have made four 
 Christian people happy. Ships I have none, nor 
 have touched a pencil these three years ; if ever I 
 take it up again, which I rather suspect I shall
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 not, (the employment requiring stronger eyes than 
 mine,) it shall be at John's service. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Olney, Jan. 31, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — Having thanked you for a bar- 
 rel of very fine oysters, I should have nothing more 
 to say, if I did not determine to say every thing 
 that may happen to occur. The political world 
 affords us no very agreeable subjects at present, 
 nor am I sufficiently conversant with it to do justice 
 to so magnificent a theme, if it did. A man that 
 lives as I do, whose chief occupation, at this season 
 of the year, is to walk ten times in a day from the 
 fire-side to his cucumber frame and back again, 
 cannot shew his wisdom more, if he has any wis- 
 dom to shew, than by leaving the mysteries of go- 
 vernment to the management of persons, in point 
 of situation and information, much better qualified 
 for the business. Suppose not, however, that I am 
 perfectly an unconcerned spectator, or that I take 
 no interest at all in the affairs of the country ; far 
 from it — I read the news — I see that things go 
 wrong in every quarter. I meet, now and then, 
 with an account of some disaster that seems to be 
 the indisputable progeny of treachery, cowardice, 
 or a spirit of faction ; I recollect that in those hap- 
 * Private Correspondence. ■
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 23 
 
 pier days, when you and I could spend our evening 
 in enumerating victories and acquisitions, that 
 seemed to follow each other in a continued series, 
 there was some pleasure in hearing a politician ; 
 and a man might talk away upon so entertaining a 
 subject, without danger of becoming tiresome to 
 others, or incurring weariness himself. When poor 
 Bob Wliite brought me the news of Boscawen's 
 success off the coast of Portugal, how did I leap for 
 joy ! When Hawke demolished ConfloJis, I was 
 still more transported. But nothing could express 
 my rapture, when Wolfe made the conquest of 
 Quebec. I am not, therefore, I suppose, destitute 
 of true patriotism ; but the course of public events 
 has, of late, afforded me no opportunity to exert it. 
 I cannot rejoice, because I see no reason; and I will 
 not murmur, because for that I can find no good 
 one. And let me add, he that has seen both sides 
 of fifty, has lived to little purpose, if he has not 
 other views of the world than he had when he was 
 much younger. He finds, if he reflects at all, that 
 it will be to the end what it has been from the be- 
 ginning, a shifting, uncertain, fluctuating scene ; 
 that nations, as well as individuals, have their sea- 
 sons of infancy, youth, and age. If he be an 
 Englishman, he will observe that ours, in particular, 
 is affected with every symptom of decay, and is 
 already sunk into a state of decrepitude. I am 
 reading Mrs. Macaulay's History. I am not quite 
 such a superannuated simpleton as to suppose that 
 mankind were wiser or much better when I was 
 young than they are now. But I may venture to
 
 24 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 assert, without exposing myself to the charge of 
 dotage, that the men whose integrity, courage, and 
 wisdom, broke the bands of tyi'anny, established 
 our constitution upon its true basis, and gave a 
 people overwhelmed with the scorn of all countries 
 an opportunity to emerge into a state of the highest 
 respect and estimation, make a better figure in 
 history than any of the present day are likely to do, 
 when their petty harangues are forgotten, and 
 nothing shall survive but the remembrance of the 
 views and motives with which they made them. 
 
 My dear friend, I have written at random, in 
 every sense, neither knowing what sentiments I 
 should broach when I began, nor whether they 
 would accord with yours. Excuse a rustic, if he 
 errs on such a subject, and believe me sincerely 
 yours, 
 
 w. c 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 2, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — Though I value your corre- 
 spondence highly on its own account, I certainly value 
 it the more in consideration of the many difficulties 
 under which you carry it on. Having so many 
 other engagements, aiid engagements so much 
 more worthy your attention, 1 ought to esteem it, 
 as I do, a singular proof of your friendship that you 
 so often make an opportunity to bestow a letter 
 upon me ; and this not only because mine, which I
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 25 
 
 write in a state of mind not very favourable to re- 
 ligious contemplations, are never worth your read- 
 ing, but especially because, while you consult my 
 gratification, and endeavour to amuse my melan- 
 choly, your thoughts are forced out of the only 
 channel in which they delight to flow, and con- 
 strained into another so different, and so little inte- 
 resting to a mind like yours, that, but for me and 
 for my sake, they would perhaps never visit it. 
 Though I should be glad therefore to hear from 
 you every week, I do not complain that I enjoy 
 that privilege but once in a fortnight, but am rather 
 happy to be indulged in it so often. 
 
 I thank you for the jog you gave Johnson's elbow ; 
 communicated from him to the printer, it has pro- 
 duced me two more sheets, and two more will bring 
 the business, I suppose, to a conclusion. I some- 
 times feel such a perfect indifference, with respect 
 to the public opinion of my book, that I am ready 
 to flatter myself no censure of reviewers or other 
 critical readers would occasion me the smallest 
 disturbance. But, not feeling myself constantly pos- 
 sessed of this desirable apathy, I am sometimes apt 
 to suspect that it is not altogether sincere, or at 
 least that I may lose it just at the moment when I 
 may happen most to want it. Be it, however, as it 
 may, I am still persuaded that it is not in their 
 power to mortify me much. I have intended well, 
 and performed to the best of my ability : so far was 
 right, and this is a boast of which they cannot rob 
 me. If they condemn my poetry, I must even say 
 with Cervantes, " Let them do better if they can !"
 
 26 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 — if my doctrine, they judge that which they do 
 not understand ; I shall except to the jurisdiction 
 of the court, and plead Coram non judice. Even 
 Horace could say he should neither be the plumper 
 for the praise nor the leaner for the condemnation 
 of his readers ; and it will prove me wanting to 
 myself indeed, if, supported by so many sublimer 
 considerations than he was master of, I cannot sit 
 loose to popularity, which, like the wind, bloweth 
 where it listeth, and is equally out of our command. 
 If you, and two or three more such as you are, say, 
 well done, it ought to give me more contentment 
 than if I could earn Churchill's laurels, and by the 
 same means. 
 
 1 wrote to Lord Dartmouth to apprise him of my 
 intended present, and have received a most affec- 
 tionate and obliging answer. 
 
 I am rather pleased that you have adopted other 
 sentiments respecting our intended present to the 
 critical Doctor.* I allow him to be a man of gi- 
 gantic talents and most profound learning, nor have 
 I any doubts about the universality of his know- 
 ledge ; but, by what I have seen of his animad- 
 versions 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 am sure, I could 
 easily convict him of having denied many beauties 
 and overlooked more. Whether his judgment be in 
 * Dr. Jobnson.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 27 
 
 itself defective, or whether it be warped by col- 
 lateral considerations, a writer upon such subjects 
 as I have chosen would probably find but little 
 mercy at his hands. 
 
 No winter, since we knew Olney, has kept us 
 more confined than the present. We have not more 
 than three times escaped into the fields since last 
 autumn. Man, a changeable creature in himself, 
 seems to subsist best in a state of variety, as his 
 proper element : — a melancholy man, at least, is apt 
 to grow sadly weary of the same walks and the 
 same pales, and to find that the same scene will 
 suggest the same thoughts perpetually. 
 
 Though I have spoken of the utility of changes, 
 we neither feel nor wish for any in our friendships, 
 and consequently stand just where we did with re- 
 spect to your whole self. 
 
 Yours, my dear Sir, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 9, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — I thank you for Mr. Lowth's 
 verses. They are so good that, had I been present 
 when he spoke them, I should have trembled for 
 the boy, lest the man should disappoint the hopes 
 such early genius had given birth to. It is not 
 common to see so lively a fancy so correctly ma- 
 naged, and so free from irregular exuberance, at so
 
 28 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 unexperienced an age, fruitful, yet not wanton, and 
 gay without being tawdry. When schoolboys write 
 verse, if they have any fire at all, it generally 
 spends itself in flashes and transient sparks, which 
 may indeed suggest an expectation of something 
 better hereafter, but deserve not to be much com- 
 mended for any real merit of their own. Their wit 
 is generally forced and false, and their sublimity, if 
 they affect any, bombast. I remember well when 
 it was thus with me, and when a turgid, noisy, un- 
 meaning speech in a tragedy, which I should now 
 laugh at, afforded me raptures, and filled me with 
 wonder. It is not in general till reading and obser- 
 vation have settled the taste that we can give the 
 prize to the best writing in preference to the worst. 
 Much less are we able to execute what is good our- 
 selves. But Lowth seems to have stepped into ex- 
 cellence at once, and to have gained by intuition 
 what we little folks are happy if we can learn at 
 last, after much labour of our own and instruction 
 of others. The compliments he pays to the memory 
 of King Charles he would probably now retract, 
 though he be a bishop, and his majesty's zeal for 
 episcopacy was one of the causes of his ruin. An 
 age or two must pass before some characters can be 
 properly understood. The spirit of party employs 
 itself in veiling their faults and ascribing to them 
 virtues which they never possessed. See Charles's 
 face drawn by Clarendon, and it, is a handsome 
 portrait. See it more justly exhibited by Mrs. Ma- 
 caulay, and it is deformed to a degree that shocks
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 29 
 
 US. Every feature expresses cunning, employing 
 itself in the maintaining of tyranny ; and dissimu- 
 lation, pretending itself an advocate for truth. 
 
 My letters have already apprised you of that 
 close and intimate connexion that took place be- 
 tween the lady you visited in Queen Anne's-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. By her own desire, I wrote to her under 
 the assumed relation of brother, and she to me as 
 my sister 
 
 I thank you for the search you have made after 
 my intended motto, but I no longer need it. 
 
 Our love is always with yourself and family. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 Lady Austen returned in the following summer 
 to the house of her sister, situated on the brow of 
 a hill, the foot of which is washed by the river 
 Ouse, as it flows between Clifton and Olney. Her 
 benevolent ingenuity was exerted to guard the spi- 
 rits of Cowper from sinking again into that hypo- 
 chondriacal dejection to which, even in her company, 
 he still sometimes discovered an alarming tendency. 
 To promote his occupation and amusement, she 
 furnished him with a small portable printing-press, 
 
 * Lady Austen.
 
 30 LIFE OF COVVPER, 
 
 and he gratefully sent her the following verses 
 printed by himself, and enclosed in a billet that 
 alludes to the occasion on which they were com- 
 posed — a very unseasonable flood, that interrupted 
 the communication between Clifton and Olney. 
 
 To watch the storms, and hear the sky 
 Give all our almanacks the lie ; 
 To shake with cold, and see the plains 
 In autumn drown'd with wintrv rains; 
 'Tis thus I spend my moments here. 
 And wish myself a Dutch mynheer j 
 1 then should have no need of wit; 
 For lumpish Hollander unfit ! 
 Nor should I then repine at mud. 
 Or meadows deluged with a flood ; 
 But in a bog live well content, 
 And find it just my element ; 
 Should be a clod, and not a man ; 
 Nor wish in vain for Sister Ann, 
 With charitable aid to drag 
 My mind out of its proper quag ; 
 Should have the genius of a boor. 
 And no ambition to have more. 
 
 My dear Sister — You see my begirjning — I do 
 not know but, in time, I may proceed even to the 
 printing of halfpenny ballads — excuse the coarse- 
 ness of my paper — I wasted such a quantity before 
 I could accomplish any thing legible that I could 
 not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious 
 mechanic of the town to make me a longer case : 
 for you may observe that my lines turn up their 
 tails like Dutch mastiffs, so difficult do I find it to 
 make the two halves exactly coincide with each 
 other.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 31 
 
 We wait with impatience for the departure of 
 this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk 
 of you, but we can do no more till the waters shall 
 subside. I do not think our correspondence should 
 drop because we are within a mile of each other. 
 It is but an imaginary approximation, the flood 
 having in reality as effectually parted us as if the 
 British channel rolled between us. 
 
 Yours, my dear sister, with Mrs. Unwin's best 
 love, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 A flood that precluded him from the conversation 
 of such an enlivening friend was to Cowper a serious 
 evil ; but he was happily relieved from the appre- 
 hension of such disappointment in future, by seeing; 
 the friend so pleasing and so useful to him very 
 comfortably settled as his next-door neighbour. An 
 event so agreeable to the poet was occasioned by 
 circumstances of a painful nature, related in a letter 
 to Mr. Unwin, which, though it bears no date of 
 month or year, seems properly to claim insertion in 
 this place 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 My dear William — The modest terms in which 
 you express yourself on the subject of Lady Austen's 
 commendation embolden me to add my suffrage to 
 hers, and to confirm it by assuring you that I think 
 her just and well-founded in her opinion of you. 
 The compliment indeed glances at myself; for, were
 
 32 
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 you less than she accounts you, I ought not to 
 afford you that place in my esteem which you have 
 held so long. My own sagacity, therefore, and 
 discernment are not a little concerned upon the oc- 
 casion, for either you resemble the picture, or I 
 have strangely mistaken my man, and formed an 
 erroneous judgment of his character. With respect 
 to your face and figure, indeed, there I leave the 
 ladies to determine, as being naturally best qualified 
 to decide the point ; but whether you are perfectly 
 the man of> sense and the gentleman, is a question 
 in which I am as much interested as they, and 
 which, you being my friend, I am of course pre- 
 pared to settle in your favour. The lady (whom, 
 when you know her as well, you will love as much 
 as we do) is, and has been during the last fortnight, 
 a part of our family. Before she was perfectly re- 
 stored to health, she returned to Clifton. Soon 
 after she came back, Mr. Jones had occasion to go 
 to London. No sooner was he gone than the 
 chateau, being left without a garrison, was besieged 
 as regularly as the night came on. Villains were 
 both heard and seen in the garden, and at the doors 
 and windows. The kitchen window in particular 
 was attempted, from which they took a complete 
 pane of glass, exactly opposite to the iron by which 
 it was fastened, but providentially the window had 
 been nailed to the wood-work, in order to keep it 
 close, and that the air might be excluded ; thus 
 they were disappointed, and, being discovered by 
 the maid, withdrew. The ladies, being worn out 
 with continual watching and repeated alarms, were
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 33 
 
 at last prevailed upon to take refuge with us. Men 
 furnished with fire-arms were put into the house, 
 and the rascals, having intelligence of this circum- 
 stance, beat a retreat. Mr. Jones returned ; Mrs. 
 Jones and Miss Green, her daughter, left us, but 
 Lady Austen's spirits having been too much dis- 
 turbed to be able to repose in a place where she 
 had been so much terrified, she was left behind. 
 She remains with us till her lodgings at the vicarage 
 can be made ready for her reception. I have now 
 sent you what has occurred of moment in our his- 
 tory since my last. 
 
 I say amen with all my heart to your observation 
 on religious characters. Men who profess them- 
 selves adepts in mathematical knowledge, in as- 
 tronomy, 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 there- 
 fore take care to be what they pretend. In religion 
 alone a profession is often slightly taken up and slo- 
 venly 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 I In the mean time, perhaps, his 
 heart and his temper, and even his conduct, are 
 
 VOL. n. D
 
 34 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 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 per- 
 son, 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, and never enters it but when duty calls, and 
 even then with fear and trvembling— 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. 
 
 You are desirous of visiting the prisoners ; you 
 wish to administer to their necessities, and to give 
 them instruction. This task you will undertake, 
 though you expect to encounter many things in the 
 performance of it that will give you pain. Now 
 this I can understand — you will not listen to the 
 sensibilities that distress yourself, but to the dis- 
 tresses of others. Therefore, when I meet with 
 one of the specious praters above mentioned, I will 
 send him to Stock, that by your diffidence he may 
 be taught a lesson of modesty ; by your generosity, 
 a little feeling for others, and by your general con- 
 duct, in short, to chatter less and to do more. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 33 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 16. 1782. 
 
 Carraccioli says — " There is something very be- 
 witching in authorship, and that he who has once 
 written will write again." It may be so ; I can 
 subscribe to the former part of his assertion from 
 my own experience, having never found an amuse- 
 ment, among the many I have been obliged to have 
 recourse to, that so well answered the purpose for 
 which I used it. The quieting and composing effect 
 of it was such, and so totally absorbed have I some- 
 times been in my rhyming occupation, that neither 
 the past nor the future (those themes which to me 
 are so fruitful in regret at other times) had any 
 longer a share in my contemplation. For this reason 
 I wish, and have often wished, since the fit left me, 
 that it would seize me again ; but hitherto I have 
 wished it in vain. I see no want of subjects, but I 
 feel a total disability to discuss them. Whether it 
 is thus with other writers or not I am ignorant, but 
 I should suppose my case in this respect a little pe- 
 culiar. The voluminous writers, at least, whose 
 vein of fancy seems always to have been rich in 
 proportion to their occasions, cannot have been so 
 unlike and so unequal to themselves. There is this 
 difference between my poetship and the generality 
 of them — they have been ignorant how much they 
 have stood indebted to an Almighty power for the 
 exercise of those talents they have supposed their 
 own. Whereas I know, and know most perfectly, 
 
 D 2
 
 36 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and am perhaps to be taught it to the last, that my 
 power to think, whatever it be, and consequently 
 my power to compose, is, as much as my outward 
 form, afforded to me by the same hand that makes 
 me in any respect to differ from a brute. This les- 
 son, if not constantly inculcated, might perhaps be 
 forgotten, or at least too slightly remembered. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 24, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — If I should receive a letter from 
 you to-morrow, you must still remember, that I 
 am not in your debt, having paid you by antici- 
 pation. Knowing that you take an interest in my 
 publication, and that you have waited for it with 
 some impatience, I write to inform you, that, if it 
 is possible for a printer to be punctual, I shall come 
 forth on the first of March. I have ordered two 
 copies to Stock ; one for Mr. John Unwin. It is 
 possible, after all, that my book may come forth 
 without a preface. Mr. Newton has written (he 
 could indeed write no other) a very sensible, as well 
 as a very friendly one ; and it is printed. But the 
 bookseller, who knows him well, and esteems him 
 highly, is anxious to have it cancelled, and, with 
 my consent first obtained, has offered to negociate 
 that matter with the author. He judges, that, 
 though it would serve to recommend the volume to 
 the religious, it would disgust the profane, and that
 
 LIFE OF COWPER 37 
 
 there is in reality no need of a preface at all. I 
 have found Johnson a very judicious man on other 
 occasions, and am therefore willing that he should 
 determine for me upon this. 
 
 There are but i'ew persons to whom I present my 
 book. The Lord Chancellor is one. I enclose in 
 a packet I send by this post to Johnson a letter to 
 his lordship, which will accompany the volume ; 
 and to you I enclose a copy of it, because I know 
 you will have a friendly curiosity to see it. An 
 author is an important character. Whatever his 
 merits may be, the mere circumstance of authorship 
 warrants his approach to persons whom otherwise 
 perhaps he could hardly address without being 
 deemed impertinent. He can do me no good. If 
 I should happen to do him a little, I shall be a 
 greater man than he. I have ordered a copy like- 
 wise to Mr. Smith. 
 
 ^ ours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO LORD THURLOW. 
 
 (enclosed to MR. UNWIN.) 
 
 Olney, Bucks, Feb 25, 1782. 
 
 My Lord — I make no apology for what I account 
 a duty. I should offend against the cordiality of 
 our former friendship should I send a volume into 
 the world, and forget how much I am bound to pay 
 my particular respects to your lordship upon that 
 occasion. When we parted, you little thought of
 
 38 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 hearing from me again ; and I as little that I should 
 live to write to you, still less that I should wait on 
 you in the capacity of an author. 
 
 Among the pieces I have the honour to send 
 there is one for which I must intreat your pardon ; 
 I mean that of which your lordship is the subject. 
 The best excuse I can make is, that it flowed almost 
 spontaneously from the affectionate remembrance of 
 a connexion that did me so much honour. 
 
 As to the rest, their merits, if they have any, 
 and their defects, which are probably more than I 
 am aware of, will neither of them escape your notice. 
 But where there is much discernment, there is ge- 
 nerally much candour ; and I commit myself into 
 your lordship's hands with the less anxiety, being 
 well acquainted with yours. 
 
 If my first visit, after so long an interval, should 
 prove neither a troublesome nor a dull one, but es- 
 pecially, if not altogether an unprofitable one, omne 
 tuli punctum. 
 
 I have the honour to be, though with very dif- 
 ferent impressions of some subjects, yet with the 
 same sentiments of affection and esteem as ever, 
 your lordship's faithful and most obedient, humble 
 servant, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 1782. 
 My dear Friend — I enclose Johnson's letter 
 upon the subject of the Preface, and would send
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 39 
 
 you my reply to it, if I had kept a copy. This 
 
 however was the purport of it, That Mr. , 
 
 whom I described as you described him to me, had 
 made a similar objection, but that, being willing to 
 hope that two or three pages of sensible matter, 
 well expressed, might possibly go down, though of 
 a religious cast, I was resolved to believe him 
 mistaken, and to pay no regard to it. That his 
 judgment, however, who by his occupation is bound 
 to understand what will promote the sale of a 
 book, and what will hinder it, seemed to deserve 
 more attention. That therefore, according to his 
 own offer, written on a small slip of paper now lost, 
 I should be obliged to him if he would state his 
 difficulties to you ; adding, 1 need not inform him, 
 who is so well acquainted with you, that he would 
 find you easy to be persuaded to sacrifice, if neces- 
 sary, what you had written, to the interests of the 
 book. I find he has had an interview with you 
 upon the occasion, and your behaviour in it has 
 verified my prediction. What course he deter- 
 mines upon, I do not know, nor am I at all anxious 
 about it. It is impossible for me, however, to be 
 so insensible of your kindness in writing the 
 Preface, as not to be desirous of defying all contin- 
 gencies, rather than entertain a wish to suppress 
 it. It will do me honour in the eyes of those 
 whose good opinion is indeed an honour ; and if it 
 hurts me in the estimation of others, I cannot 
 help it; the fault is neither yours, nor mine, but 
 theirs. If a minister's is a more splendid character 
 than a poet's, and I think nobody that understands
 
 40 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 their value can hesitate in deciding that question, 
 then undoubtedly the advantage of having our 
 names united in the same volume is all on my 
 side. 
 
 We thank you for the Fast-sermon. I had not 
 read two pages before I exclaimed — the man has 
 read Expostulation. But though there is a strong 
 resemblance between the two pieces, in point of 
 matter, and sometimes the very same expressions 
 are to be met with, yet I soon recollected that, on 
 such a theme, a striking coincidence of both might 
 happen without a wonder. I doubt not that it is 
 the production of an honest man, it carries with it 
 an air of sincerity and zeal that is not easily coun- 
 terfeited. But, though I can see no reason why 
 kings should not hear sometimes of their faults as well 
 as other men, I think I see many good ones why they 
 should not be reproved so publicly. It can hardly 
 be done with that respect which is due to their 
 office, on the part of the author, or without en- 
 couraging a spirit of unmannerly censure in his 
 readers. His majesty too, perhaps, might answer 
 — my own personal feelings, and offences I am 
 ready to confess, but were I to follow your advice, 
 and cashier the profligate from my service, where 
 must I seek men of faith and true Christian piety, 
 qualified by nature and by education to succeed 
 them ? Business must be done, men of business 
 alone can do it, and good men are rarely found, 
 under that description. When Nathan reproved 
 David, he did not employ a herald, or accompany 
 his charge with the sound of the trumpet; nor
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 41 
 
 can I think the writer of this sermon quite justifi- 
 able in exposing the king's faults in the sight of the 
 people. 
 
 Your answer respecting iEtna is quite satisfac- 
 tory, and gives me much pleasure. I hate altering, 
 though I never refuse the task when propriety 
 seems to enjoin it ; and an alteration in this in- 
 stance, if I am not mistaken, would have been 
 singularly difficult. Indeed, when a piece has 
 been finished two or three years, and an author 
 finds occasion to amend or make an addition to it, 
 it is not easy to fall upon the very vein from which 
 he drew his ideas in the first instance, but either a 
 different turn of thought or expression will betray 
 the patch, and convince a reader of discernment 
 that it has been cobbled and varnished. 
 
 Our love to you both, and to the young Eu- 
 phrosyne ; the old lady of that name being long 
 since dead ; if she pleases, she shall fill her vacant 
 office, and be my muse hereafter. 
 
 Yours, my dear Sir. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, March 6, 1782. 
 Is peace the nearer because our patriots have 
 resolved that it is desirable ? Will the victory 
 they have gained in the House of Commons be 
 attended with any other ? Do they expect the 
 same success on other occasions, and, having once 
 gained a majority, are they to be the majority for
 
 42 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 ever ?* These are the questions we agitate by the 
 fire-side in an evening, without being able to come 
 to any certain conclusion, partly, I suppose, because 
 the subject is in itself uncertain, and partly be- 
 cause we are not furnished with the means of 
 understanding it. I find the politics of times past 
 far more intelligible than those of the present. 
 Time has thrown light upon what was obscure, and 
 decided what was ambiguous. The characters of 
 great men, which are always mysterious while they 
 live, are ascertained by the faithful historian, and 
 sooner or later receive the wages of fame or infamy, 
 according to their true deserts. How have I seen 
 sensible and learned men burn incense to the 
 memory of Oliver Cromwell, ascribing to him, as 
 the greatest hero in the world, the dignity of the 
 British empire, during the interregnum. A century 
 passed before that idol, which seemed to be of gold, 
 was proved to be a wooden one. The fallacy how- 
 ever was at length detected, and the honour of that 
 detection has fallen to the share of a woman. I 
 do not know whether you have read Mrs. Ma- 
 caulay's history of that period. She has handled 
 him more roughly than the Scots did at the battle 
 of Dunbar. He would have thought it little worth 
 his while to have broken through all obligations 
 
 * The nation was growing weary of tlie American war, 
 especially since the surrender of Lord Cornwallis's army 
 at York Town, and the previous capture of General 
 Burgoyne's at Saratoga. The ministry at this time were 
 frequently outvoted, and Lord North's administration was ulti- 
 mately dissolved.
 
 LIFE OF COWFER. 43 
 
 divine and human, to have wept crocodile's tears, 
 and vt^rapt himself up in the obscurity of speeches 
 that nobody could understand, could he have fore- 
 seen that, in the ensuing century, a lady's scissars 
 would clip his laurels close, and expose his naked 
 villany to the scorn of all posterity. This however 
 has been accomplished, and so effectually, that I 
 suppose it is not in the power of the most artificial 
 management to make them grow again. Even the 
 sagacious of mankind are blind, when Providence 
 leaves them to be deluded; so blind, that a tyrant 
 shall be mistaken for a true patriot: true patriots 
 (such were the Long Parliament) shall be abhorred 
 as tyrants, and almost a whole nation shall dream 
 that they have the full enjoyment of liberty, for 
 years after such a complete knave as Oliver shall 
 have stolen it completely from them. I am in- 
 debted for all this show of historical knowledge to 
 Mr. Bull, who has lent me five volumes of the work 
 1 mention. I was willing to display it while I have 
 it ; in a twelvemonth's time, I shall remember almost 
 nothing of the matter. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 It has been the lot of Cromwell to be praised too 
 little or too much. Of his political delinquencies, 
 and gross hypocrisy, there can be only one opinion. 
 But those who are conversant with that period well 
 know how the genius of Mazarine, the minister of 
 Louis XIII, was awed by the decision and boldness 
 of Cromwell's character; that Spain and Holland 
 experienced a signal humiliation, and that the vie-
 
 44 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 tories of Admiral Blake at that crisis are among 
 the most brilliant records of our naval fame. It 
 was in allusion to these triumphs that Waller 
 remarks, in his celebrated panegyric on the Lord 
 Protector. 
 
 " The seas our own, and now all nations greet, 
 With bending- sails each vessel of our fleet. 
 Your power extends as far as winds can blow, 
 Or swelling sails upon the globe may go."* 
 
 We add the following anecdote recorded of Waller, 
 though it is probably familiar to many of our 
 readers. On Charles's restoration, the poet pre- 
 sented that prince with a congratulatory copy of 
 verses, when the king shortly afterwards observed, 
 " You wrote better verses on Cromwell ; " to which 
 Waller replied, " Please your majesty, we poets 
 always succeed better in fiction than in truth." 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, March 7, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — We have great pleasure in the 
 contemplation of your northern journey, as it pro- 
 mises us a sight of you and yours by the way, and are 
 only sorry Miss Shuttleworth cannot be of the party. 
 A line to ascertain the hour when we may expect 
 you, by the next preceding post, will be welcome. 
 
 It is not much for my advantage that the printer 
 delays so long to gratify your expectation. It is a 
 state of mind that is apt to tire and disconcert us ; 
 
 ♦ Waller's Panegj'ric to my Lord Protector, 1654.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 45 
 
 and there are but few pleasures that make us 
 amends for the pain of repeated disappointment. I 
 take it for granted you have not received the 
 volume, not having received it myself, nor indeed 
 heard from Johnson, since he fixed the first of the 
 month for its publication. 
 
 What a medley are our public prints ! Half the 
 page filled with the ruin of the country, and the 
 other half filled with the vices and pleasures of it — 
 here is an island taken, and there a new comedy — 
 here an empire lost, and there an Italian opera, or 
 a lord's rout on a Sunday I * 
 
 " May it please your lordship ! I am an English- 
 man, and must stand or fall with the nation. 
 Religion, its true palladium, has been stolen away; 
 and it is crumbling into dust. Sin ruins us, the 
 sins of the great especially, and of their sins espe- 
 cially the violation of the sabbath, because it is 
 naturally productive of all the rest. Jf you wish 
 well to our arms, and would be glad to see the 
 kingdom emerging from her ruins, pay more respect 
 to an ordinance, that deserves the deepest! I do 
 
 not say pardon this short remonstrance! The 
 
 concern I feel for my country, and the interest I 
 have in its prosperity, give me a right to make it. 
 I am, &c." 
 
 Thus one might write to his lordship, and (I 
 suppose) might be as profitably employed in whist- 
 ling the tune of an old ballad. 
 
 I have no copy of the Preface, nor do I know at 
 present how Johnson and Mr. Newton have settled 
 
 * See Cowper's ingenious description of a newspaper, vol. 
 vii. p. 36.
 
 46 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 it. In the matter of it there was nothing offensively 
 peculiar. But it was thought too pious. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 It is impossible to read this passage without very 
 painful emotions. How low must have been the 
 state of religion at that period, when the introduc- 
 tion of a Preface to the Poems of Cowper, by the 
 Rev. John Newton, was sufficient to endanger their 
 popularity. We are at the same time expressly 
 assured, that there was nothing in the Preface 
 offensively peculiar; and that the only charge 
 alleged against it was that of its being " too pious." 
 What a melancholy picture does this single fact 
 present of the state of religion in those days ; and 
 with what sentiments of gratitude ought we to hail 
 the great moral revolution that has since occurred ! 
 Witness the assemblage of so many Christian chari- 
 ties, our Bible, Missionary, Jewish, and Tract 
 Societies, which, to use the emphatic language of 
 Burke, " like so many non-conductors, avert the 
 impending wrath of Heaven!" Witness the increas- 
 ing instances of rank ennobled by piety and conse- 
 crated to its advancement ! Witness too the 
 entrance of religion into our seats of learning, and 
 into some of our public schools, thus presenting the 
 delightful spectacle of classic taste and knowledge 
 in alliance with heavenly wisdom. To these causes 
 of pious gratitude we may add the revival of reli- 
 gion among our clergy, and generally among the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 47 
 
 ministers of the sanctuary, till we are constrained 
 to exclaim, " How beautiful upon the mountains 
 are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that 
 publisheth peace, that saith unto Zion, Thy God 
 reigneth." * We trust that we are indulging in no 
 vain expectation, when we express our firm persua- 
 sion, that the dawn of a brighter day is arrived; 
 and though we see, both at home and on the conti- 
 nent of Europe, much over which piety may weep 
 and tremble, while idolatry and superstition spread 
 their thick veil of darkness over the largest portion 
 of the globe, still, notwithstanding all these impedi- 
 ments and discouragements, we believe that the 
 materials for the moral amelioration of mankind are 
 all prepared; and that nothing but the fire of the 
 Eternal Spirit is wanting, to kindle them into flame 
 and splendour. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, March 14, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — I can only repeat what T said 
 some time since, that the world is grown more 
 foolish and careless, than it was when I had the 
 honour of knowing it. Though your Preface was oi" 
 a serious cast, it was yet free from every thing that 
 might with propriety expose it to the charge of 
 Methodism, being guilty of no offensive peculiari- 
 ties, nor containing any of those obnoxious doc- 
 trines, at which the world is apt to be angry, and 
 
 * Isaiah lii. 7.
 
 48 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 which we must give her leave to be angry at, 
 because we know she cannot help it. It asserted 
 nothing more than every rational creature must 
 admit to be true — " that divine and earthly things 
 can no longer stand in competition with each other, 
 in the judgment of any man, than while he con- 
 tinues ignorant of their respective value; and that 
 the moment the eyes are opened, the latter are 
 always cheerfully relinquished for the sake of the 
 former." Now I do most certainly remember the 
 time when such a proposition as this would have 
 been at least supportable, and when it would not 
 have spoiled the market of any voliune, to which it 
 had been prefixed ; ergo — the times are altered for 
 the worse. 
 
 I have reason to be very much satisfied with my 
 publisher — he marked such lines as did not please 
 him, and, as often as I could, I paid all possible 
 respect to his animadversions. You will accord- 
 ingly find, at least if you recollect how they stood 
 in the MS. that several passages are better for 
 having undergone his critical notice. Indeed I do 
 not know where I could have found a bookseller 
 who could have pointed out to me my defects with 
 more discernment; and as I find it is a fashion for 
 modern bards to publish the names of the literati 
 who have favoured their works with a revisal, 
 would myself most willingly have acknowledged my 
 obligations to Johnson, and so I told him. I am to 
 thank you likewise, and ought to have done it in 
 the first place, for having recommended to me the 
 suppression of some lines, which I am now more
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 49 
 
 than ever convinced would at least have done me 
 no honour 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Olney, March 14, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — As servant-maids, and such 
 sort of folks, account a letter good for nothing, 
 unless it begins with — This comes hoping you are 
 well, as I am at this present : so I should be charge- 
 able with a great omission, were I not to make fre- 
 quent use of the following grateful exordium — 
 Many thanks for a fine cod and oysters. — Your 
 bounty never arrived more seasonably. I had just 
 been observing that, among other deplorable effects 
 of the war, the scarcity of fish which it occasioned, 
 was severely felt at Olney; but your plentiful supply 
 immediately reconciled me, though not to the war, 
 yet to my small share in the calamities it pro- 
 duces. 
 
 I hope my bookseller has paid due attention to 
 the order I gave him to furnish you with my books. 
 The composition of those pieces afforded me an 
 agreeable amusement at intervals, for about a 
 twelvemonth; and I should be glad to devote the 
 leisure hours of another twelvemonth to the same 
 occupation ; at least, if my lucubrations should meet 
 with a favourable acceptance. But I cannot write 
 when I would; and whether I shall find readers is 
 
 * Private Correspondence 
 VOL. II. E
 
 50 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 a problem not yet decided. So the Muse and I are 
 parted for the present. 
 
 I sent Lord Thurlow a volume, and the foUowinfr 
 letter with it, which I communicate because you 
 will undoubtedly have some curiosity to see it.* 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, March 18, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — Nothing has given me so much 
 pleasure, since the publication of my volume, as 
 your favourable opinion of it. It may possibly meet 
 with acceptance from hundreds, whose commenda- 
 tion would afford me no other satisfaction than what 
 I should find in the hope that it might do them 
 good. I have some neighbours in this place, who 
 say they like it, doubtless I had rather they should 
 than that they should not, but I know them to be 
 persons of no more taste in poetry than skill in the 
 mathematics; their applause therefore is a sound 
 that has no music in it for me. But my vanity 
 was not so entirely quiescent when I read your 
 friendly account of the manner it had affected 
 you. It was tickled, and pleased, and told me in a 
 pretty loud whisper that others, perhaps, of whose 
 taste and judgment I had a high opinion, would 
 approve it too. As a giver of good counsel, I wish 
 to please all; as an author, I am perfectly indifFer- 
 
 * This letter has been inserted in the preceding pages.
 
 LIFE' OF COWPER. 51 
 
 ent to the judgment of all, except the few who are 
 indeed judicious. The circumstance, however, in 
 your letter which pleased me most was," that you 
 wrote in high spirits, and, though you said much, 
 suppressed more, lest you should hurt my delicacy ; 
 my delicacy is obliged to you, but you observe it is 
 not so squeamish but that, after it has feasted upon 
 praise expressed, it can find a comfortable dessert in 
 the contemplation of praise implied. I now feel as 
 if I should be glad to begin another volume, but 
 from the will to the power is a step too wide for me 
 to take at present, and the season of the year brings 
 with it so many avocations into the garden, where I 
 am my own fac-totimi, that I have little or no leisure 
 for the quill. I should do myself much wrong, 
 were I to omit mentioning the great complacency 
 with which I read your narrative of Mrs. Unwin's 
 smiles and tears; persons of much sensibility are 
 always persons of taste, and a taste for poetry 
 depends indeed upon that very article more than 
 upon any other. If she had Aristotle by heart, I 
 should not esteem her judgment so highly, were 
 she defective in point of feeling, as I do and must 
 esteem it, knowing her to have such feelings as 
 Aristotle could not communicate, and as half the 
 readers in the world are destitute of. This it is 
 that makes me set so high a price upon your 
 mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature and 
 not by rule, and has a perception of what is good 
 or bad in composition that I never knew deceive 
 her, insomuch that when two sorts of expression 
 have pleaded equally for the precedence in my 
 
 e2
 
 52 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I 
 always did, the decision of the point to lier, I never 
 knew her at a loss for a just one. 
 
 Whether I shall receive any answer from his 
 Chancellorship* or not, is at present in ambiguo, and 
 will probably continue in the same state of ambiguity 
 nmch longer. He is so busy a man, and at this time, 
 if the papers may be credited, so particularly busy, 
 that I am forced to mortify myself with the thought, 
 that both my book and my letter may be thrown 
 into a corner, as too insignificant for a statesman's 
 notice, and never found till his executor finds them. 
 This affair, however, is neither at my libitum nor his. 
 I have sent him the truth. He that put it into the 
 heart of a certain eastern monarch to amuse himself, 
 one sleepless night, with listening to the records of 
 his kingdom, is able to give birth to such another 
 occasion, and inspire his lordship with a curiosity to 
 know what he has received from a friend he once 
 loved and valued. If an answer comes, however, you 
 shall not long be a stranger to the contents of it. 
 
 I have read your letter to their worships, and 
 much approve of it. May it have the desired effect 
 it ought ! If not, still you have acted a humane 
 and becoming part, and the poor aching toes and 
 fingers of the prisoners will not appear in judgment 
 against you. I have made a slight alteration in the 
 last sentence, which perhaps you will not disapprove. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 * Lord Thuilow.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 53 
 
 The conclusion of the preceding letter alludes to 
 an application made by Mr. Unwin to the magis- 
 trates, for some warmer clothing for the prisoners 
 in Chelmsford gaol. 
 
 It is a gratifying reflection that the whole system 
 of prison discipline has undergone an entire revision 
 since the above period. This reformation first com- 
 menced under the great philanthropist Howard, 
 who devoted his life to the prosecution of so bene- 
 volent an object, and finally fell a victim to his zeal. 
 Subsequently, and in our own times, the system has 
 been extended still further ; and the names of a 
 Gurney, a Buxton, a Hoare, and others, will long be 
 remembered with gratitude, as the friends and bene- 
 factors of these outcasts of society. One more 
 effort was still wanting to complete this humane 
 enterprize, viz., to endeavour to eradicate the habits 
 of vice, and to implant the seeds of virtue. This 
 attempt has been made by Mrs. Fry and her excel- 
 lent female associates in the prison of Newgate ; 
 and the result, in some instances, has proved that 
 110 one, however depraved, is beyond the reach of 
 mercy ; and that divine truth, conveyed with zeal, 
 and in the accents of Christian love and kindness, 
 seldom fails to penetrate into the heart and con- 
 science. 
 
 The unwillingness with which the mind receives 
 the consolations of religion, when labouring under 
 an illusion, is painfully evinced in the following 
 letter
 
 54. LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, March 24, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — I was not unacquainted with 
 Mr. B — 's extraordinary case, before you favoured 
 me with his letter and his intended dedication to the 
 Queen, though I am obliged to you for a sight of 
 those two curiosities, which I do not recollect to 
 have ever seen till you sent them. I could, how- 
 ever, were it not a subject that would make us all 
 melancholy, point out to you some essential dif- 
 ferences between his state of mind and my own, 
 which would prove mine to be by far the most de- 
 plorable of the two. I suppose no man would de- 
 spair, if he did not apprehend something singular in 
 the circumstances of his own story, somethmg that 
 discriminates it from that of every other man, and 
 that induces despair as an inevitable consequence. 
 You may encounter his unhappy persuasion with as 
 many instances as you please of persons who, like 
 him, having renounced all hope, were yet restored; 
 and may thence infer that he, like them, shall meet 
 with a season of restoration — but it is in vain. 
 Every such individual accounts himself an exception 
 to all rules, and therefore the blessed reverse that 
 others have experienced affords no ground of com- 
 fortable expectation to him. But, you will say, it is 
 reasonable to conclude that as all your predecessors 
 in this vale of misery and horror have found them- 
 selves delightfully disappointed at last, so will you: — 
 I grant the reasonableness of it ; it would be sinful, 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWFER. 55 
 
 perhaps, because uncharitable, to reason otherwise ; 
 but an argument, hypothetical in its nature, how- 
 ever rationally conducted, may lead to a false con- 
 clusion ; and, in this instance, so will yours. But I 
 forbear. For the cause above mentioned, I will say 
 no more, though it is a subject on which I could 
 write more than the mail would carry. I must deal 
 with you as I deal with poor Mrs. Unwin, in all our 
 disputes about it, cutting all controversy short by an 
 appeal to the event. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, April 1, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — I could not have found a better 
 trumpeter. Your zeal to serve the interest of my 
 volume, together with your extensive acquaintance, 
 qualify you perfectly for that most useful office. 
 Methinks I see you with the long tube at your 
 mouth, proclaiming to your numerous connexions 
 my poetical merits, and at proper intervals levelling 
 it at Olney, and pouring into my ear the welcome 
 sound of their approbation. I need not encourage 
 you to proceed, your breath will never fail in such 
 a cause ; and, thus encouraged, I myself perhaps 
 may proceed also, and, when the versifying fit re- 
 turns, produce another volume. Alas ! we shall 
 never receive such commendations from him on the 
 woolsack as your good friend has lavished upon us. 
 Whence I learn that, however important I may be in 
 my own eyes, I am very insignificant in his. To
 
 OO LIFE OF COWPER, 
 
 make me amends, however, for this mortification, 
 Mr. Newton tells me that my book is likely to run, 
 spread, and prosper ; that the grave cannot help 
 smiling, and the gay are struck with the truth of it; 
 and that it is likely to find its way into his Majesty's 
 hands, being put into a proper course for that pur- 
 pose. Now, if the King should fall in love with my 
 muse, and with you for her sake, such an event 
 would make us ample amends for the Chancellor's 
 indifference, and you might be the first divine that 
 ever reached a mitre, from the shoulders of a poet. 
 But (I believe) we must be content, I with my 
 gains, if I gain any thing, and you with the pleasure 
 of knowing that I am a gainer. 
 
 We laughed heartily at your answer to little 
 John's question ; and yet I think you might have 
 
 given him a direct answer " There are various 
 
 sorts of cleverness, my dear 1 do not know that 
 
 mine lies in the poetical way, but I can do ten times 
 more towards the entertainment of company in the 
 way of conversation than our friend at Olney. He 
 can rhyme, and I can rattle. If he had my talent, 
 or I had his, we should be too charming, and the 
 world would almost adore us." 
 
 Yours, 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, April 27, 1782. 
 My dear William — A part of Lord Harrington's 
 nevv-raised corps have taken up their quarters at
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 57 
 
 Olney, since you left us. They have the regimental 
 music with them. The men have been drawn up 
 this morning upon the Market-hill, and a concert, 
 such as we have not heard these many years, has 
 been performed at no great distance from our window. 
 Your mother and I both thrust our heads into the 
 coldest cast wind that ever blew in April, that we 
 might hear them to greater advantage. The band 
 acquitted themselves with taste and propriety, not 
 blairing, like trumpeters at a fair, but producing 
 gentle and elegant symphony, such as charmed our 
 ears, and convinced us that no length of time can 
 wear out a taste for harmony, and that though plays, 
 balls, and masquerades, have lost all their power to 
 please us, and we should find them not only insipid 
 but insupportable, yet sweet music is sure to find a 
 corresponding faculty in the soul, a sensibility that 
 lives to the last, which even religion itself does not 
 extinguish. 
 
 When we objected to your coming for a single 
 night, it was only in the way of argument, and in 
 hopes to prevail on you to contrive a longer abode 
 with us. But rather than not see you at all. we 
 should be glad of you though but for an hour. If 
 the paths should be clean enough, and we are able 
 to walk, (for you know we cannot ride,) we will en- 
 deavour to meet you in Weston-park. But I men- 
 tion no particular hour, that I may not lay you 
 under a supposed obligation to be punctual, which 
 might be difficult at the end of so long a journey. 
 Only, if the weather be favourable, you shall find us 
 there in the evening. It is winter in the south.
 
 58 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 perhaps therefore it may be spring at least, if not 
 summer, in the north ; for I have read that it is 
 warmest in Greenland when it is coldest here. Be 
 that as it may, we may hope at the latter end of 
 such an April, that the first change of wind will 
 improve the season. 
 
 The curate's simile latinized — 
 
 Sors adversa gerit stimulum, sed tendit et alas; 
 Pungit api similis, sed velut ista fugit. 
 
 What a dignity there is in the Roman language ; 
 and what an idea it gives us of the good sense and 
 masculine mind of the people that spoke it ! The 
 same thought which, clothed in English, seems 
 childish and even foolish, assumes a different air in 
 Latin, and makes at least as good an epigram as 
 some of Martial's. 
 
 I remember your making an observation, when 
 here, on the subject of "parentheses," to which I ac- 
 ceded without limitation ; but a little attention will 
 convince us both that they are not to be universally 
 condemned. When they abound, and when they are 
 long, they both embarrass the sense, and are a proof 
 that the writer's head is cloudy; that he has not 
 properly arranged his matter, or is not well skilled 
 in the graces of expression. But, as parenthesis is 
 ranked by grammarians among the figures of rhe- 
 toric, we may suppose they had a reason for con- 
 ferring that honour upon it. Accordingly we shall 
 find that, in the use of some of our finest writers, as 
 well as in the hands of the ancient poets and orators,
 
 LIFE OK COWPER. 59 
 
 it has a peculiar elegance, and imparts a beauty 
 which the period would want without it. 
 
 " Hoc nemus, hunc, inquit, frondoso vertice coUem 
 (Quis deus incertuin estj habitat deus.'' 
 
 ViRG. JEn. 8. 
 
 In this instance, the first that occurred, it is graceful. 
 I have not time to seek for more, nor room to insert 
 them. But your own observation, I believe, will 
 confirm my opinion. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE KEV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, May 27, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — Hather ashamed of having been 
 at all dejected by the censure of the Critical Re- 
 viewers, who certainly could not read without pre- 
 judice a book replete with opinions and doctrines 
 to which they cannot subscribe, I have at present 
 no little occasion to keep a strict guard upon my 
 vanity, lest it should be too much flattered by the 
 following eulogium. I send it to you for the reasons 
 I gave, when I imparted to you some other anec- 
 dotes of a similar kind, while we were together. 
 Our interests in the success of this same volume are 
 so closely united, that you must share with me in 
 the praise or blame that attends it; and, sympa- 
 thizing with me under the burthen of injurious 
 treatment, have a right to enjoy with me the cor-
 
 CO LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 dials I now and then receive, as I happen to naeet 
 with more favourable and candid judges. 
 
 A merchant, a friend of ours,* (you will soon 
 guess him,) sent my Poems to one of the first phi- 
 losophers, one of the most eminent literary cha- 
 racters, as well as one of the most important in the 
 political world, that the present age can boast of. 
 Now perhaps your conjecturing faculties are puzzled, 
 and you begin to ask " who, where, and what is he ? 
 speak out, for I am all impatience." I will not say 
 a word more : the letter in which he returned his 
 thanks for the present shall speak for him.f 
 
 We may now treat the critics as the archbishop 
 of Toledo treated Gil Bias, when he found ftiult 
 with one of his sermons. His grace gave him a 
 kick, and said, " Begone for a jackanapes, and fur- 
 nish yourself with a better taste, if you know where 
 to find it." 
 
 We are glad that you are safe at home again. 
 Could we see at one glance of the eye what is 
 passing every day upon all the roads in the king- 
 dom, how many are terrified and hurt, how many 
 plundered and abused, we should indeed find reason 
 enough to be thankful for journeys performed in 
 safety, and for deliverance from dangers we are 
 not perhaps even permitted to see. When, in some 
 of the high southern latitudes, and in a dark tem- 
 pestuous night, a flash of lightning discovered to 
 Captain Cook a vessel, which glanced along close 
 
 * John Thornton, Esq. 
 
 t Here Cowper transcribed the letter written from Passy, 
 by the American ambassador, Franklin, in praise of Lis book.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 61 
 
 by his side, and which but for the Hghtning he must 
 have run foul of, both the danger and the transient 
 hght that shewed it were undoubtedly designed to 
 convey to him this wholesome instruction, that a 
 particular Providence attended him, and that he 
 was not only preserved from evils of which he had 
 notice, but from many more of which he had no 
 information, or even the least suspicion. What un- 
 likely contingencies may nevertheless take place I 
 How improbable that two ships should dash against 
 each other, in the midst of the vast Pacific Ocean, 
 and that, steering contrary courses from parts of the 
 world so immensely distant from each other, they , 
 should yet move so exactly in a line as to clash, 
 fill, and go to the bottom, in a sea, where all the 
 ships in the world might be so dispersed as that 
 none should see another ! Yet this must have 
 happened but for the remarkable interference which 
 he has recorded. The same Providence indeed 
 might as easily have conducted them so wide of 
 each other that they should never have met at all, 
 but then this lesson would have been lost ; at least, 
 the heroic voyager would have encompassed the 
 globe, without having had occasion to relate an in- 
 cident that so naturally suggests it. 
 
 I am no more delighted with the season than you 
 are. The absence of the sun, which has graced the 
 spring with much less of his presence than he vouch- 
 safed to the winter, has a very uncomfortable effect 
 upon my frame ; I feel an invincible aversion to 
 employment, which I am yet constrained to fly to as 
 my only remedy against something worse If I do
 
 62 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 nothing I am dejected, if I do any thing I am weary, 
 and that weariness is best described by the word 
 lassitude, which of all weariness in the world is the 
 most oppressive. But enough of myself and the 
 weather. 
 
 The blow we have struck in the West Indies* 
 will, I suppose, be decisive, at least for the present 
 year, and so far as that part of our possessions is 
 concerned in the present conflict. But the news- 
 writers and their correspondents disgust me and 
 make me sick. One victory, after such a long 
 series of adverse occurrences, has filled them with 
 self-conceit and impertinent boasting ; and, while 
 Rodney is almost accounted a Methodist for as- 
 cribing his success to Providence,f men who have 
 renounced all dependence upon such a friend, with- 
 out whose assistance nothing can be done, threaten 
 to drive the French out of the sea, laugh at the 
 Spaniards, sneer at the Dutch, and are to carry 
 
 * This alludes to the celebrated victory gained by Sir George 
 Rodney over Count de Grasse, April 12, 1782. On this 
 occasion, eight sail of the line were captured from the French, 
 three foundered at sea, two were for ever disabled, and the 
 French Admiral was taken in the Ville de Paris, which had 
 been presented by the city of Paris to Louis XV. Lord 
 Robert Manners fell in this engagement. It was the first in- 
 stance where the attempt was ever made of breaking the line, a 
 system adopted afterwards with great success by Lord Nelson. 
 
 t Lord Rodney's dispatches commenced in the following 
 words : " It has pleased God, out of his Divine Providence, to 
 grant to his Majesty's arms,"&c. This was more religious than 
 the nation at that time could tolerate. Lord Nelson after- 
 wards was the first British Admiral that adopted the same 
 lanoua^e.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 63 
 
 the world before them. Our enemies are apt to 
 brag, and we deride them for it; but we can sing 
 as loud as they can, in the same key ; and no doubt, 
 wherever our papers go, shall be derided in our 
 turn. An Englishman's true glory should be, to do 
 his business well and say little about it ; but he 
 disgraces himself when he puffs his prowess, as if 
 he had finished his task, when he has but just be- 
 gun it. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, June 12, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — Every extraordinary occurrence 
 in our lives affords us an opportunity to learn, if we 
 will, something more of our own hearts and tempers 
 than we were before aware of. It is easy to promise 
 ourselves beforehand that our conduct shall be wise, 
 or moderate, or resolute, on any given occasion. 
 But, when that occasion occurs, we do not always find 
 it easy to make good the promise : such a difference 
 there is between theory and practice. Perhaps 
 this is no new remark; but it is not a whit the 
 worse for being old, if it be true. 
 
 Before I had published, 1 said to myself — you 
 and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves 
 much about what the critics may say of our book. 
 But, having once sent my wits for a venture, I soon 
 became anxious about the issue, and found that 1
 
 fi4 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 could not be satisfied with a warm place in my own 
 good graces, unless my friends were pleased with 
 me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with 
 their approbation, I began to feel the workings of 
 ambition. It is well, said I, that my friends are 
 pleased ; but friends are sometimes partial, and 
 mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether 
 free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a 
 stranger or two speak well of me. I was presently 
 gratified by the approbation of the " London Maga- 
 zine" and the " Gentleman's,'" particularly by that 
 of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. Franklin. 
 By the way, magazines are publications we have 
 but little respect for, till we ourselves are chroni- 
 cled in them, and then they assume an importance 
 in our esteem which before we could not allow 
 them. But the " Monthly Review," the most for- 
 midable of all my judges, is still behind. What will 
 that critical Rhadamanthus say, when my shivering 
 genius shall appear before him > Still he keeps me 
 in hot water, and I must wait another month for 
 his award. Alas! when I wish for a favourable 
 sentence from that quarter, (to confess a weakness 
 that I should not confess to all,) I feel myself 
 not a little influenced by a tender regard to my re- 
 putation here, even among my neighbours at Olney. 
 Here are watchmakers, who themselves are wits, 
 and who at present perhaps think me one. Here is 
 a carpenter, and a baker, and not to mention others, 
 
 here is your idol, Mr. , whose smile is fame. 
 
 All these read the " Monthly Review," and all these 
 will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible cri
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. (15 
 
 tics should show them the example. But oh! wlier- 
 ever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let 
 me pass for a genius at Olney. 
 
 We are sorry for little WiUiam's illness. It is, 
 however, the privilege of infancy to recover almost 
 immediately what it has lost by sickness. We are 
 
 sorry too for Mr. 's dangerous condition. But 
 
 he that is well prepared for the great journey can- 
 not enter on it too soon for himself, though his 
 friends will weep at his departure. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 The immediate success of his first volume Avas 
 very far from being equal to its extraordinary merit. 
 For some time it seemed to be neglected by the 
 public, although the first poem in the collection 
 contains such a powerful image of its author as 
 might be thought sufficient not only to excite at- 
 tention but to secure attachment : for Cowper had 
 undesignedly executed a masterly portrait of him- 
 self in describing the true poet : we allude to the 
 following verses in " Table Talk." 
 
 Nature, exerting an unwearied power, 
 Forms, opens, and gives scent to everj flower; 
 Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads 
 The dancing Naiads thro' the dewy meads : 
 She fills profuse ten thousand little throats 
 With music, modulating all their notes; 
 And charms the woodland scenes, and wilds unknown. 
 With artless airs and concerts of her own ; 
 But seldom (as if fearful of expence) 
 Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence — 
 VOL. 11. F
 
 66 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought, 
 Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought; 
 Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky 
 Brings colours, dipt in heaven, that never die , 
 A soul exalted above earth, a mind 
 Skill'd in the characters that form mankind ; 
 And, as the sun in rising beauty drest 
 Looks from the dappled orient to the west, 
 And marks, whatever clouds may interpose. 
 Ere yet his race begins, its glorious close — 
 An eye like his to catch the distant goal, 
 Or, ere the wheels of veise begin to roll, 
 Like his to shed illuminating rays 
 On every scene and subject it surve_vs: 
 Thus grac'd, the man asserts a poet's name, 
 And the world cheerfully admits the claim. 
 
 The concluding lines may be considered as an 
 omen of that celebrity which such a writer, m the 
 process of time, could not fail to obtain. How just 
 a subject of surprise and admiration is it, to behold 
 an author starting under such a load of disad- 
 vantages, and displaying on the sudden such a variety 
 of excellence ! For, neglected as it was for a few 
 years, the first volume of Cowper exhibits such a 
 diversity of poetical powers as have very rarely 
 indeed been known to be united in the same in- 
 dividual. He is not only great in passages of 
 pathos and sublimity, but he is equally admirable in 
 wit and humour. After descanting most copiously 
 on sacred subjects, with the animation of a prophet 
 and the simplicity of an apostle, he paints the ludi- 
 crous characters of common life with the comic 
 force of a JMoliere, particularly in his poem on 
 Conversation, and his exquisite portrait of a fretful
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 67 
 
 temper ; a piece of moral painting so highly finished 
 and so happily calculated to promote good-humour, 
 that a transcript of the verses cannot but interest 
 the reader. 
 
 Some fretful tempers wince at every touch ; 
 You always do too little or too much: 
 You speak with life, in hopes to entertain ; 
 Your elevated voice goes through the brain ; 
 You fall at once into a lower key ; 
 That's worse : — the drone-pipe of an humble-bee ! 
 The southern sash admits too strong a light; 
 You rise and drop the curtain : — now it's night. 
 He shakes with cold ; — you stir the fire and strive 
 To make a blaze : — that's roasting him alive. 
 Serve him with ven'son, and he chooses fish ; 
 With sole, that's just the sort he would not wish. 
 He takes what he at first profess'd to loath ; 
 And in due time feeds heartily on both : 
 Yet, still o'erclouded with a constant frown. 
 He does not swallow, but he gulps it down. 
 Your hope to please him vain on every plan. 
 Himself should work that wonder, if he can. 
 Alas ! his efforts double his distress ; 
 He likes your's little and his own still less. 
 Thus, always teazing others, always teaz'd. 
 His only pleasure is — to be displeas'd. 
 
 F 2
 
 . ^art ti)€ 5cfonli» 
 
 Mr. Bull, to whom the following poetical epistle is 
 addressed, has already been mentioned in the pre- 
 ceding volume as the person who suggested to 
 Cowper the translation of Madame Guion's Hymns. 
 Cowper used to say of him, that he was the master 
 of a fine imagination, or, rather, that he was not 
 master of it. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* 
 
 Olnej, June 22, 1782. 
 My dear Friend, 
 
 If reading verse be your delight, 
 'Tis mine as much, or more, to write ; 
 But what we would, so weak is man, 
 Lies oi't remote from what we can. 
 For instance, at this very time, 
 I feel a wish, bv cheerful rhyme, 
 To soothe my friend, and, had I power. 
 To cheat him of an anxious hour ; 
 Not meaning (for I must confess, 
 " It were but folly to suppress,) 
 
 His pleasure or his good alone. 
 But squinting partly at my own. 
 But though the sun is flaming high 
 I' th' centre of yon arch, the sky. 
 And he had once (and who but he ?) 
 The name for setting genius free ; 
 Yet whether poets of past days 
 Yielded him undeserved praise, 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 69 
 
 And he by no uncommon lot 
 
 Was famed for virtues he had not ; 
 
 Or whether, which is like enough. 
 
 His Highness may have taken huff. 
 
 So seldom sought witli invocation, ■ 
 
 Since it has been the reigning fasljion 
 
 To disregard his inspiration, 
 
 I seem no brighter in my •wits. 
 
 For all the radiance he emits, 
 
 Than if I saw through midnight vapour 
 
 The glimm'ring of a farthing taper. 
 
 O for a succedaneum, then, 
 
 T' accelerate a creeping pen, 
 
 O for a ready succedaneum. 
 
 Quod caput, cerebrum, et cranium 
 
 Pondere liberet exoso, 
 
 Et morbo jam caliginoso ! 
 
 'Tis here; this oval box well fill'd 
 
 With best tobacco, finely mill'd. 
 
 Beats all Anticyra's pretences 
 
 To disengage the encumber'd senses. 
 
 O Nymph of Transatlantic fame, 
 Where'er thine haunt, whate'er thy name, 
 Whether reposing on the side 
 Of Oroonoquo's spacious tide, 
 Or list'ning with delight not small 
 To Niagara's distant fall, 
 'Tis thine to cherish and to feed 
 The pungent nose-refreshing weed, 
 Which, whether pulverized it gain 
 A speedy passage to the brain, 
 Or whether, touch'd with fire, it rise 
 In circling eddies to the skies. 
 Does thought more quicken and refine 
 Than all the breath of all the Nine — 
 Forgive the Bard, if Bard he be. 
 Who once too wantonly made free
 
 70 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 To touch with a satiric wipe 
 That symbol of thy power, the pipe; 
 So may no blig-ht infest thy plains, 
 And no unseasonable rains, 
 And so mav smiling: Peace once more 
 Visit America's sad shore ; 
 And thou, secure from all alarms 
 Of thund'ring drums and glitt'ring arms. 
 Rove unconfined beneath the shade 
 Thy wide-expanded leaves have made; 
 So may thy votaries increase. 
 And fumigation never cease. 
 , May Newton, with renew'd delights, 
 
 Perform thine odorif'rous rites. 
 While clouds of incense half divine 
 Involve thv disappearing shrine ; 
 And so may smoke-inhaling Bull 
 Be always filling, never full. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, July 16, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — Though some people pretend 
 to be clever in the way of prophetical forecast, and 
 to have a peculiar talent of sagacity, by which they 
 can divine the meaning of a providential dispensa- 
 tion while its consequences are yet in embryo, I 
 do not. There is at this time to be found, I sup- 
 pose, in the cabinet, and in both houses, a greater 
 assemblage of able men, both as speakers and 
 counsellors, than ever were cotemporary in the 
 same land. A man not accustomed to trace the 
 workings of Providence, as recorded in Scripture, 
 and that has given no attention to this particular
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 71 
 
 subject, while employed in the study of profane 
 history, would assert boldly, that it is a token for 
 good, that much may be expected from them, and 
 that the country, though heavily afflicted, is not yet 
 to be despaired of, distinguished as she is by so 
 many characters of the highest class. Thus he 
 would say, and I do not deny that the event might 
 justify his skill in prognostics. God works by 
 means ; and, in a case of great national perplexity 
 and distress, wisdom and political ability seem to be 
 the only natural means of deliverance. But a mind 
 more religiously inclined, and perhaps a little tinctured 
 with melancholy, might with equal probability of suc- 
 cess hazard a conjecture direct!}' opposite. Alas! what 
 is the wisdom of man, especially when he trusts in 
 it as the only god of his confidence ? When I 
 consider the general contempt that is poured upon 
 all things sacred, the profusion, the dissipation, the 
 knavish cunning, of some, the rapacity of others, 
 and the impenitence of all, I am rather inclined to 
 fear that God, who honours himself by bringing 
 human glory to shame, and by disappointing the 
 expectations of those whose trust is in creatures, 
 has signalized the present day as a daj^ of much 
 human sufficiency and strength, has brought toge- 
 ther from all quarters of the land the most illus- 
 trious men to be found in it, only that he may 
 prove the vanity of idols, and that, when a great 
 empire is falling, and he has pronounced a sentence 
 of ruin against it, the inhabitants, be they weak or 
 strong, wise or foolish, must fall with it. I am 
 rather confirmed in this persuasion by observing
 
 72 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 that these luminaries of the state had no sooner 
 fixed themselves in the political heaven, than the 
 fall of the brightest of them shook all the rest. 
 The arch of their power was no sooner struck than 
 the key-stone slipped out of its place, those that were 
 closest in connexion with it followed, and the 
 whole building, new as it is, seems to be already a 
 ruin. If a man should hold this language, who 
 could convict him of absurdity? The Marquis of 
 Rockingham is minister — all the world rejoices, 
 anticipating success in war and a glorious peace. 
 The Marquis of Rockingham is dead — all the world is 
 afflicted, and relapses into its former despondence. 
 What does this prove, but that the Marquis was 
 their Almighty, and that, now he is gone, they know 
 no other? But let us wait a little, they will find 
 another. Perhaps the Duke of Portland, or per- 
 haps the unpopular - — ■ — , whom they now repre- 
 sent as a devil, may obtain that honour. Thus God 
 is forgot, and, when he is, his judgments are gene- 
 rally his remembrancers. 
 
 How shall 1 comfort you upon the subject of 
 your present distress ? Pardon me that I find 
 myself obliged to smile at it, because who but 
 yourself would be distressed upon such an occa- 
 sion ? You have behaved politely, and, like a 
 gentleman, you have hospitably offered your house 
 to a stranger, who could not, in your neighbourhood 
 at least, have been comfortably accommodated any 
 where else. He, by neither refusing nor accepting 
 an offer that did him too much honour, has dis- 
 graced himself, but not you. I think for the future
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 73 
 
 you must be more cautious of laying yourself open 
 to a stranger, and never again expose yourself to 
 incivilities from an archdeacon you are not ac- 
 quainted with. 
 
 Though I did not mention it, I felt with you 
 
 what you suffered by the loss of Miss ; I was 
 
 only silent because I could minister no consolation 
 to you on such a subject, but what I knew your 
 mind to be already stored with. Indeed, the appli- 
 cation of comfort in such cases is a nice business, 
 and perhaps when best managed might as well be 
 let alone. I remember reading many years ago a 
 long treatise on the subject of consolation, written 
 in French, the author's name I forgot, but I wrote 
 these words in the margin. Special consolation I 
 at least for a Frenchman, who is a creature the 
 most easily comforted of any in the world ! 
 
 We are as happy in Lady Austen, and she in us, 
 as ever — having a lively imagination, and being 
 passionately desirous of consolidating all into one 
 family (for she has taken her leave of London) she 
 has just sprung a project v>'hich serves at least to 
 amuse us and to make us laugh ; it is to hire Mr. 
 Small's house, on the top of Clifton-hill, which is 
 large, commodious, and handsome, will hold us con- 
 veniently, and any friends who may occasionally 
 favour us with a visit; the house is furnished, but, 
 if it can be hired without the furniture will let for 
 a trifle — your sentiments if you please upon this 
 demarche I 
 
 I send you my last frank — our best love attends 
 you individually and all together. I give you joy
 
 74 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of a happy change in the season, and myself also. 
 I have filled four sides in less time than two would 
 have cost me a week ago; such is the effect of sun- 
 shine upon such a butterfly as I am. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Aug. 3, 1782. 
 My dear Friend — Entertaining some hope that 
 Mr. Newton's next letter would furnish me with the 
 means of satisfying your inquiry on the subject of 
 Dr. Johnson's opinion, I have till now delayed my 
 answer to your last; but the information is not yet 
 come, Mr. Newton having intermitted a week more 
 than usual, since his last writing. When I receive it, 
 favourable or not, it shall be communicated to you ; 
 but I am not over-sanguine in my expectations from 
 that quarter. Very learned and very critical heads 
 are hard to please. He may perhaps treat me with 
 lenity for the sake of the subject and design, but 
 the composition, I think, will hardly escape his 
 censure. But, though all doctors may not be of the 
 same mind, there is one doctor at least, whom I 
 have lately discovered, my professed admirer.* He 
 too, like Johnson, was with difficulty persuaded to 
 read, having an aversion to all poetry, except the 
 " Night Thoughts," which, on a certain occasion, 
 when being confined on board a ship he had no 
 other employment, he got by heart. He was how- 
 ever prevailed upon, and read me several times 
 • Dr. Franklin.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 75 
 
 over, so that, if my volume had sailed with him in- 
 stead of Dr. Young's, I perhaps might have occupied 
 that shelf in his memory which he then allotted to 
 the Doctor. 
 
 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 green-house to the 
 barn, I saw three kittens (for we have so many in 
 our retinue) looking with fixed attention on some- 
 thing 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 se- 
 conds, missed him : he was gone, and I feared had 
 escaped me. Still however the kitten sat watch- 
 ing immoveably 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 immediately, 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 in-
 
 76 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 quiry 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 
 upon 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, 
 when in the yard, met with ho interruption from 
 the cat, and secreted himself in any of the out- 
 houses, it is hardly possible but that some of the 
 family must have been bitten ; he might have been 
 trodden vipon without being perceived, and have 
 slipped away before the sufferer could have distin- 
 guished what foe had wounded him. Three years 
 ago we discovered one in the same place, which the 
 oarber slew with a trowel. 
 
 Our proposed removal to Mr. Small's was, as 
 you may suppose, a jest, or rather a joco-serious 
 matter. We never looked upon it as entirely fea- 
 sible, yet we saw in it something so like practica- 
 bility that we did not esteem it altogether unworthy 
 of our attention. It was one of those projects 
 which people of lively imaginations play with and 
 admire for a few days, and then break in pieces. 
 Lady Austen returned on Thursday from London, 
 where she spent the last fortnight, and whither she 
 was called by an unexpected opportunity to dispose 
 of the remainder of her lease. She has therefore 
 no longer any connexion with the great city, and 
 no house but at Olney. Her abode is to be at the 
 vicarage, where she has hired as much room as she 
 wants, which she will embellish with her own fur- 
 niture, and which she will occupy as soon as the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 77 
 
 minister's wife has produced another child, which is 
 expected to make its entry in October. 
 
 Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport, a 
 learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of 
 ours, who sometimes visits us, and whom we visited 
 last week, put into my hands three volumes of 
 French poetry, composed by Madame Guion — a 
 quietist, say you, and a fanatic, I will have nothing 
 to do with her. — 'Tis very well, you are welcome 
 to have nothing to do with her, but, in the mean 
 time, her verse is the only French verse I ever read 
 that I found agreeable ; there is a neatness in it 
 equal to that which we applaud, with so much 
 reason, in the compositions of Prior. I have trans- 
 lated several of them, and shall proceed in my 
 translations till I have filled a Lilliputian paper- 
 book I happen to have by me, which, when filled, I 
 shall present to Mr. Bull. He is her passionate ad- 
 mirer ; rode twenty miles to see her picture in the 
 house of a stranger, which stranger politely insisted 
 on his acceptance of it, and it now hangs over his 
 chimney. It is a striking portrait, too character- 
 istic not to be a strong resemblance, and, were it 
 encompassed with a glory, instead of being dressed 
 in a nun's hood, might pass for the face of an angel. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 To this letter we annex a very lively hisus po- 
 eticus from the pen of Cowper, on the subject 
 mentioned in the former part of the preceding 
 letter.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 THE COLUBRIAD. 
 
 Close by the threshold of a door nail'd fast 
 
 Three kittens sat ; each kitten look'd aghast. 
 
 I, passing swift and inattentive by, 
 
 At the three kittens cast a careless eye ; 
 
 Not much concern'd to know what they did there, 
 
 Not deeming kittens worth a poet's care. 
 
 But presently a loud and furious hiss 
 
 Caus'd me to stop, and to exclaim " What's this?' 
 
 When, lo! upon the threshold met my view. 
 
 With head erect, and eyes of fiery hue, 
 
 A viper, long as Count de Grasse's queue. 
 
 Forth from his head his forked tongue he throws. 
 
 Darting it full against a kitten's nose ; 
 
 Who, having never seer, in field or house, 
 
 The like, sat still and silent as a mouse : 
 
 Only projecting, with attention due. 
 
 Her whisker'd face, she ask'd him, '' Who are you : 
 
 On to the hall went I, with pace not slow. 
 
 But swift as lightning, for a long Dutch hoe : 
 
 With which well arm'd I hasten'd to the spot. 
 
 To find the viper, but I found him not. 
 
 And, turning up the leaves and shrubs around. 
 
 Found only — that he was not to be found 
 
 But still, the kittens sitting as before. 
 
 Sat watching close the bottom of the door. 
 
 " I hope," said I, " the villain I would kill 
 
 Has slipt between the door and the door's sill; 
 
 And, if I make despatch and follow hard. 
 
 No doubt but I shall find him in the yard :" 
 
 For long ere now it should have been rehears'd, 
 
 'Twas in the garden that I found him first, 
 
 Ev'n there I found him, there the full-grown cat 
 
 His head with velvet paw did gently pat : 
 
 As curious as the kittens erst had been 
 
 To learn what this phenomenon might mean.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 79 
 
 Fill'd witb heroic ardour at the sight, 
 
 And fearing every moment he would bite. 
 
 And rob our household of our only cat 
 
 That was of age to combat with a rat; 
 
 With outstretch'd hoe I slew him at the dooj. 
 
 And taught bim never to come there no more. 
 
 Lady Austen became a tenant of the vicarage 
 at Olney. When Mr. Newton occupied that par- 
 sonage, he had opened a door in the garden-wall, 
 which admitted him in the most commodious manner 
 to visit the sequestered poet, who resided in the 
 next house. Lady Austen had the advantage of" 
 this easy intercourse; and so captivating was her 
 society, both to Cowper and to Mrs. Unwin, that 
 these intimate neighbours might be almost said to 
 make one family, as it became their custom to dine 
 always together, alternately in the houses of the 
 two ladies. 
 
 The musical talents of Lady Austen induced 
 Cowper to write a few songs of peculiar sweetness 
 and pathos, to suit particular airs that she was ac- 
 customed to play on the harpsichord. We insert 
 three of these, as proofs that, even in his hours of 
 social amusement, the poet loved to dwell on ideas 
 of tender devotion and pathetic solemnity. 
 
 SONG WHITTEN IN THE SUMMER OF 1783, AT THE REQUEST OF 
 LADY AUSTEN. 
 
 Air — " My fond shepherds of lute," &cc. 
 
 No longer I follow a sound ; 
 
 No longer a dream I pursue : 
 O happiness ! not to be found, 
 
 Unattainable treasure, adieu!
 
 80 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 I have sought tliee in splendour and dress, 
 In the regions of pleasure and taste j 
 
 I have sought thee, and seem'd to possess, 
 But have proved thee a vision at last. 
 
 An humble ambition and hope 
 
 The voice of true wisdom inspires ! 
 
 'Tis sufficient, if peace be the scope. 
 And the summit of all our desires. 
 
 Peace may be the lot of the mind 
 That seeks it in meekness and love ; 
 
 But rapture and bliss are confined 
 To the glorified spirits above! 
 
 Air — " The lass of Pailie's mill." 
 When all vrithin is peace, 
 
 How Nature seems to smile ! 
 Delights that never cease. 
 
 The live-long day beguile. 
 From morn to dewy eve, 
 
 With open hand she showers 
 Fresh blessings to deceive 
 
 And soothe the silent hours. 
 
 It is content of heart 
 
 (jives Nature power to please ; 
 The mind that feels no smart 
 
 Enlivens all it sees ; 
 Can make a wintry sky 
 
 Seem bright as smiling INIay, 
 And evening's closing eye 
 
 As peep of early dav. 
 
 The vast majestic globe, 
 
 So beauteously array'd 
 In Nature's various robe. 
 
 With wond'rous skill display 'd.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 81 
 
 Is to a mourner's heart 
 
 A dreary wild at best; 
 It flutters to depart, 
 
 And longs to be at rest. 
 
 The following song, adapted to the march in 
 Scipio, obtained too great a celebrity not to merit 
 insertion in this place. It relates to the loss of the 
 Royal George, the flag-ship of Admiral Kempen- 
 felt, which went down with nine hundred persons 
 on board, (among whom was Rear-Admiral Kem- 
 penfelt,) at Spithead, August 29, 1782. The song 
 was a favourite production of the poet's ; so much 
 so, that he amused himself by ti'anslating it into 
 Latin verse. We take the version from one of his 
 subsequent letters, for the sake of annexing ic to 
 the original. 
 
 SONG, ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEOHGE. 
 
 Toll for the brave ! 
 
 The brave that are no more ! 
 All sunk beneath the wave, 
 
 Fast by their native shore ! 
 
 Eight hundred of the brave, 
 Whose courage well was tried, 
 
 Had made the vessel heel, 
 And laid her on her side. 
 
 A land-breeze shook the shrouds, 
 
 And she was overset ; 
 Down went the Royal George, • 
 
 With all her crew complete. 
 
 VOL. II
 
 82 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Toll for the brave ! 
 
 Brave Kempenfelt is gone ; 
 His last sea-fight is fought ; 
 
 His work of glory done. 
 
 It was not in the battle; 
 
 No tempest gave the shock; 
 She sprang no fatal leak ; 
 
 She ran upon no rock. 
 
 His sword was in its sheath ; 
 
 His fingers held the pen, 
 When Kempenfelt went down 
 
 With twice four hundred men. 
 
 Weigh the vessel up, 
 
 Once dreaded by our foes ! 
 And mingle with our cup 
 
 The tear that England owes. 
 
 Her timbers yet are sound. 
 
 And she may float again. 
 Full-charged with England's thunder. 
 
 And plough the distant main.* 
 
 But Kempenfelt is gone. 
 
 His victories are o'er ; 
 And he and his eight hundred 
 
 Shall plough the wave no more. 
 
 IN SUBMERSIONEM NAVIGII, GUI GEOHGIUS, REGALE NOMEN. 
 INDITUM. 
 
 Plangimus fortes. Periere fortes, 
 Patrium propter periere littus 
 Bis quater centum ; subito sub alto 
 iEquore mersi. 
 
 * Attempts have recendy been made to recover this vessel; 
 Hnd some of the guns have been raised, and found to be in 
 excellent order.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 83 
 
 Navis, innitens lateri, jacebat, 
 Malus ad summas trepidabat undas, 
 Cum levis, funes quatiens, ad imum 
 Depulit aura. 
 
 Plangimus fortes. Nimis, heu, caducam 
 Fortibus vitam voluere parcse, 
 Nee sinunt ultra tibi nos recentes 
 Nectere laurus. 
 
 MagTie, qui nomen, licet incanorum, 
 Traditum ex multis atavis tulisti ! 
 At tuos olim memorabit ruvum 
 Omne triumphos. 
 
 Non hyems illos furibunda mersit, 
 Non mari in clauso scopuli latentes, 
 Fissa non rimis abies, nee atrox 
 Abstulit ensis. 
 
 Navitse sed turn nimium jocosi 
 Voce fallebant hilari laborem, 
 Et quiescebat, calamoque dextram im- 
 pleverat heros. 
 
 Vos, quibus cordi est grave opus piumque, 
 Humidum ex alto spolium levate, 
 Et putrescentes sub aquis amicos 
 Reddite amieis ! 
 
 Hi quidem (sic diis placuit) fuere : 
 Sed ratis, nonduru putris, ire possit 
 Rursus in bellum, Britonumque nomen 
 ToUere ad astra. 
 
 Let the reader, who wishes to impress on liis 
 mind a just idea of the variety and extent of Cow- 
 per's poetical powers, contrast this heroic ballad of 
 exquisite pathos with his diverting history of John 
 Gilpin ! 
 
 G 2
 
 84 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 That admirable and highly popular piece of 
 pleasantry was composed at the period of which 
 we are now speaking. An elegant and judicious 
 writer, who has favoured the public with three 
 interesting volumes relating to the early poets of 
 our country,* conjectures, that a poem, written by 
 the celebrated Sir Thomas Moore in his youth, 
 (the merry jest of the Serjeant and Frere) may 
 have suggested to Cowper his tale of John Gilpin ; 
 but this singularly amusing ballad had a different 
 origin ; and it is a very remarkable fact, that, full of 
 gaiety and humour as this favourite of the public has 
 abundantly proved itself to be, it was really com- 
 posed at a time when the spirit of the poet was 
 very deeply tinged with his depressive malady. It 
 happened one afternoon, in those years when his 
 accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of 
 his little evening circle, that she observed him 
 sinking into increasing dejection. It was her cus- 
 tom, on these occasions, to try all the resources of 
 her sprightly powers for his immediate relief. She 
 told him the story of John Gilpin (which had been 
 treasured in her memory from her childhood) to 
 dissipate the gloom of the passing hour. Its effect 
 on the fiincy of Cowper had the air of enchant- 
 ment : he informed her the next morning, that 
 convulsions of laughter, brought on by his recollec- 
 
 * See Ellis's " Specimens of the parly English Poets, with 
 an historical sketch of the Rise and progress of English poetry 
 and language."
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 85 
 
 tion of her story, had kept him waking during the 
 greatest part of the night, and that he had turned 
 it into a ballad. — So arose the pleasant poem of John 
 Gilpin. It was eagerly copied, and, finding its way 
 rapidly to the newspapers, it was seized by the lively 
 spirit of Henderson the comedian, a man, like the 
 Yorick described by Shakspeare, " of infinite jest, 
 and most excellent fancy." By him it was se- 
 lected as a proper subject for the display of his own 
 comic powers, and, by reciting it in his public 
 readings, he gave uncommon celebrity to the ballad, 
 before the public suspected to what poet they were 
 indebted for the sudden burst of ludicrous amuse- 
 ment. Many readers were astonished when the 
 poem made its first authentic apjDearance in the 
 second volume of Cowper. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Olney, Sept. 6, J782. 
 My dear Friend — Yesterday, and not before, I 
 received your letter, dated the 1 1 th of June, from 
 the hands of Mr. Small. I should have been happy 
 to have known him sooner ; but, wliether being 
 afraid of that horned monster, a Methodist, or 
 whether from a principle of delicacy, or deterred 
 by a flood, which has rolled for some weeks between 
 Clifton and Olney, I know not, — he has favoured 
 me only with a taste of his company, and will leave 
 me on Saturday evening, to regret that our ac 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 86 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 quaintance, so lately begun, must be so soon sus- 
 pended. He will dine with us that day, which 1 
 reckon a fortunate circumstance, as I shall have an 
 opportunity to introduce him to the liveliest and 
 most entertaining woman in the country.* I have 
 seen him but for half an hour, yet, without boasting 
 of much discernment, I see that he is polite, easy, 
 cheerful, and sensible. An old man thus qualified, 
 cannot fail to charm the lady in question. As to 
 his religion, I leave it — I am neither his bishop nor 
 his confessor. A man of his character, and recom- 
 mended by you, would be welcome here, were he a 
 Gentoo or a Mahometan. 
 
 I learn from him that certain friends of mine, 
 whom I have been afraid to inquire about by letter, 
 are alive and well. The current of twenty years 
 has swept away so many whom I once knew, that 
 I doubted whether it might be advisable to send my 
 love to your mother and your sisters. They may 
 have thought my silence strange, but they have 
 here the reason of it. Assure them of my affec- 
 tionate remembrance, and that nothing would make 
 me happier than to receive you all in my green- 
 house, your own Mrs. Hill included. It is fronted 
 with myrtles, and lined with mats, and would just 
 hold us, for Mr. Small informs me your dimensions 
 are much the same as usual. 
 
 Yours, my dear Friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 • Lady Austen.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 87 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 4, 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — You are too modest ; though 
 your last consisted of three sides only, I am cer- 
 tainly a letter in your debt. It is possible that 
 this present writing may prove as short. Yet, 
 short as it may be, it will be a letter, and make me 
 creditor, and you my debtor. A letter, indeed, 
 ought not to be estimated by the length of it, but 
 by the contents, and how can the contents of any 
 letter be more agreeable than your last. 
 
 You tell me that John Gilpin made you laugh 
 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 wishes 
 them, and they will be much happier than he ! I 
 know there is in the book that wisdom which 
 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, it is all one. It is the water of lifie, 
 which whosoever drinketh shall thirst no more. 
 As to the famous horseman above-mentioned, he 
 and his feats are an inexhaustible source of merri- 
 ment. At least we find him so, and seldom meet 
 without refreshing ourselves with the recollection of 
 them. You are perfectly at liberty to deal with 
 them as you please. Auctore tantiim anonymo im- 
 primantur ; and when {printed send me a co\^y.
 
 88 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 I congratulate you on the discharge of your duty 
 and your conscience, by the pains you have taken 
 tor the relief of the prisoners. You proceeded 
 wisely, yet courageously, and deserved better suc- 
 cess. Your labours, however, will be remembered 
 elsewhere, when you shall be forgotten here ; and, 
 if the poor folks at Chelmsford should never receive 
 the benefit of them, you will yourself receive it in 
 heaven. It is pity that men of fortune should 
 be determined to acts of beneficence, sometimes by 
 popular whim or prejudice, and sometimes by mo- 
 tives still more unworthy. The liberal subscrip- 
 tion, raised in behalf of the widows of seamen lost 
 in the Royal George, was an instance of the 
 former. At least a plain, short, and sensible letter 
 in the newspaper, convinced me at the time that it 
 was an unnecessary and injudicious collection : and 
 the difficulty you found in effectuating your bene- 
 volent intentions on this occasion, constrains me 
 to think that, had it been an affair of more notoriety 
 than merely to furnish a kw poor fellows with a 
 little fuel to preserve their extremities from the 
 frost, you would have succeeded better. Men 
 really pious delight in doing good by stealth. But 
 nothing less than an ostentatious display of bounty 
 will satisfy mankind in general. I feel myself dis- 
 posed to furnish you with an opportunity to shine 
 in secret. We do what we can. But that can is 
 little. You have rich friends, are eloquent on all 
 occasions, and know how to be pathetic on a proper 
 one. The winter will be severely felt at Olney by 
 many, whose sobriety, industry, and honesty, re-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 89 
 
 commend them to charitable notice : and we think 
 
 we could tell such persons as Mr. , or Mr. , 
 
 half a dozen tales of distress, that would find their 
 way into hearts as feeling as theirs. You will do 
 as you see good ; and we in the mean time shall 
 remain convinced that you will do your best. Lady 
 Austen will, no doubt, do something, for she has 
 great sensibility and compassion. 
 
 Yours, my dear Unwin, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* 
 
 Olney, Nov, 5, 1782. 
 
 Charissime Taurorum — 
 
 Quot sunt, vel fuerunt, vel posthac aliiseruntin annis, 
 
 We shall rejoice to see you, and I just write to 
 tell you so. Whatever else I want, I have, at least, 
 this quality in common with publicans and sinners, 
 that 1 love those that love me, and, for that reason, 
 you in particular. Your warm and affectionate 
 manner demands it of me. And, though I consider, 
 your love as growing out of a mistaken expectation 
 that you shall see me a spiritual man hereafter, I do 
 not love you much the less for it. I only regret that 
 I did not know you intimately in those happier days, 
 when the frame of my heart and mind was such as 
 might have made a connexion with me not alto- 
 gether unworthy of you. 
 
 ♦ Private Correspondence
 
 90 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 1 add only Mrs. Unwins remembrances, and tliat 
 I am glad vou believe me to be, what I truly am, 
 Your faithful and affectionate, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL. ESQ. 
 
 Olnev, N'ov. 11, 1782. 
 
 Mv dear Friend — Your shocking scrawl, as you 
 term it. was however a very welcome one. The cha- 
 racter indeed has not quite the neatness and beauty 
 of an engraving ; but if it cost me some pains to 
 dec^'phe^ it, they were well rewarded by the minute 
 information it conveyed. I am glad your health is 
 such that vou have nothins more to complain of 
 than may be expected on the down-hill side of life. 
 If mine is better than yours, it is to be attributed, 
 I suppose, principally to the constant enjo}Tnent of 
 countrv air and retirement ; the most perfect regu- 
 larity in matters of eating, drinking, and sleeping ; 
 and a happy emancipation from every thing that 
 wears the face of business. I lead the life I always 
 wished for, and. (the single circumstance of de- 
 pendence excepted, (which, between ourselves, is 
 very contrary to mv predominant humour and dis- 
 position, ) have no want left broad enough for an- 
 other wish to stand upon. 
 
 You may not. perhaps, live to see your trees at- 
 tain to the dignity of timber : I nevertheless ap- 
 prove of your planting, and the disinterested spirit 
 that prompts you to it. Few people plant when 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 91 
 
 they are young; a thousand other less profitable 
 amusements divert their attention ; and most people, 
 when the date of youth is once expired, think it too 
 late to begin. I can tell you however for your 
 comfort and encouragement, that when a grove 
 which Major Cowper had planted was of eighteen 
 years' growth, it was no small ornament to his 
 grounds, and afforded as complete a shade as could 
 be desired. Were I as old as your mother, in whose 
 longevity I rejoice, and the more because I consider 
 it as in some sort a pledge and assurance of yours, 
 and should come to the possession of land worth 
 planting, I would begin to-morrow, and even with- 
 out previously insisting upon a bond from Provi- 
 dence that I should live five years longer. 
 
 I saw last week a gentleman who was lately at 
 Hastings. I asked him where he lodged. He re- 
 plied at P 's. I next inquired after the poor 
 
 man's wife, whether alive or dead. He answered, 
 dead. So then, said I, she has scolded her last ; 
 and a sensible old man will go down to his grave in 
 peace. Mr. P — — , to be sure, is of no great con- 
 sequence either to you or to me ; but, having so fair 
 an opportunity to inform myself about him, I could 
 not neglect it. It gives me pleasure to learn some- 
 what of a man I knew a little of so many years 
 since, and for that reason merely I mention the 
 circumstance to you. 
 
 I find a single expression in your letter which 
 needs correction. You say I carefully avoid paying 
 you a visit at Wargrave. Not so ; but connected 
 as I happily am, and rooted where I am, and not
 
 02 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 liaving travelled these twenty years — being besides 
 of an indolent temper, and having spirits that cannot 
 bear a bustle — all these are so many insuperables 
 in the way. They are not however in yours ; and 
 if you and Mrs. Hill wull make the experiment, 
 you shall find yourselves as welcome here, both to 
 me and to Mrs. Unwin, as it is possible you can be 
 any where. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.' 
 
 Olney, Nov. 1782. 
 
 My dear Friend — I am to thank you for a very 
 fine cod, which came most opportunely to make a 
 figure on our table, on an occasion that made him 
 singularly welcome. I write, and you send me 
 a fish. This is very well, but not altogether what 
 I want. 1 wish to hear from you, because the fish, 
 though he serves to convince me that you have me 
 still in remembrance, says not a word of those that 
 sent him ; and, with respect to your and Mrs. Hill's 
 health, prosperity, and happiness, leaves me as 
 much in the dark as before. You are aware, like- 
 wise, that where there is an exchange of letters 
 it is much easier to write. But I know the multi- 
 plicity of your affairs, and therefore perform my 
 part of the correspondence as well as I can, con- 
 vinced that you would not omit yours, if you could 
 help it. 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPEK. 93 
 
 Three days since I received a note from old Mr. 
 Small, which was more than civil — it was warm and 
 friendly. The good veteran excuses himself for not 
 calling upon me, on account of the feeble state in 
 which a fit of the gout had left him. He tells me 
 however that he has seen Mrs. Hill, and your im- 
 provements at Wargrave, which will soon become 
 an ornament to the place. May they, and may 
 you both live long to enjoy them ! I shall be sen- 
 sibly mortified if the season and his gout together 
 should deprive me of the pleasure of receiving him 
 here ; for he is a man much to my taste, and quite 
 an unique in this country. 
 
 My eyes are in general better than I remember 
 them to have been since I first opened them upon 
 this sublunary stage, which is now a little more 
 than half a century ago. We are growing old ; but 
 this is between ourselves: the world knows nothing 
 of the matter. Mr. Small tells me you look much 
 as you did; and as for me, being grown rather 
 plump, the ladies tell me I am as young as ever. 
 Yours ever, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olnoy, Nov. 18, 1782. 
 
 My dear William — On the part of the poor, and 
 
 on our part, be pleased to make acknowledgments, 
 
 such as the occasion calls for, to our beneficent 
 
 friend Mr. . I call him ours, because, having
 
 94 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 experienced his kindness to myself, in a former 
 instance, and in the present his disinterested readi- 
 ness to succour the distressed, my ambition will be 
 satisfied with nothing less. He may depend upon 
 the strictest secrecy ; no creature shall hear him 
 mentioned, either now or hereafter, as the person 
 from whom we have received this bounty. But 
 when I speak of him, or hear him spoken of by 
 others, which sometimes happens, I shall not forget 
 what is due to so rare a character. I wish, and 
 your mother wishes too, that he could sometimes 
 
 take us in his way to : he will find us happy 
 
 to receive a person whom we must needs account 
 it an honour to know. We shall exercise our best 
 discretion in the disposal of the money, but in this 
 town, where the gospel has been preached so many 
 years, where the people have been favoured so long 
 with laborious and conscientious ministers, it is not 
 an easy thing to find those who make no profession 
 of religion at all, and are yet proper objects of 
 charity. The profane are so profane, so drunken, 
 dissolute, and in every respect worthless, that to 
 make them partakers of his bounty would be to 
 abuse it. We promise, however, that none shall 
 touch it but such as are miserably poor, yet at the 
 same time industrious and honest, two characters 
 frequently united here, where the most watchful 
 and unremitting labour will hardly procure them 
 bread. We make none but the cheapest laces, and 
 the price of them is fallen almost to nothing. 
 Thanks are due to yourself likewise, and are hereby 
 accordingly rendered, for waving your claim in
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 95 
 
 behalf of your own parishioners. You are always 
 with them, and they are always, at least some of 
 them, the better for your residence among them. 
 Olney is a populous place, inhabited chiefly by the 
 half-starved and the ragged of the earth, and it is 
 not possible for our small party and small ability to 
 extend their operations so far as to be much felt among 
 such numbers. Accept, therefore, your share of 
 their gratitude, and be convinced that, when they 
 pray for a blessing upon those who relieved their 
 wants. He that answers that prayer, and when he 
 answers it, will remember his servant at Stock. 
 
 I little thought when I was writing the history 
 of John Gilpin, that he would appear in print — I 
 intended to laugh, and to make two or three others 
 laugh, of whom you were one. But now all the 
 world laugh, at least if they have the same relish 
 for a tale ridiculous in itself, and quaintly told, as 
 we have. Well, they do not always laugh so inno- 
 cently and at so small an expense, for, in a world 
 like this, abounding with subjects for satire, and 
 with satirical wits to mark them, a laugh that hurts 
 nobody has at least the grace of novelty to recom- 
 mend it. Swift's darling motto was, Vive la bagatelle, 
 a good wish for a philosopher of his complexion, the 
 greater part of whose wisdom, whencesoever it came, 
 most certainly carae not from above. La bagatelle 
 has no enemy in me, though it has neither so warm 
 a friend nor so able a one as it had in him. If I 
 trifle, and merely trifle, it is because I am reduced 
 to it by necessity — a melancholy that nothing else 
 so effectually disperses engages me sometimes in
 
 96 l-IFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the arduous task of being merry by force. And, 
 strange as it may seem, the most ludicrous lines I 
 ever wrote have been written in the saddest mood, 
 and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never 
 been written at all. 
 
 I hear from Mrs. Newton that some great per- 
 sons have spoken with great approbation of a certain 
 book — who they are, and what they have said, I 
 am to be told in a future letter. The Monthly 
 Reviewers in the mean time have satisfied me well 
 enough. 
 
 Yours, my dear William, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 My dear William — Dr. Beattie is a respectable 
 character.* I account him a man of sense, a phi- 
 losopher, a scholar, a person of distinguished genius, 
 and a good writer. I believe him too a Christian ; 
 with a profound reverence for the scripture, with 
 great zeal and ability to enforce the belief of it, 
 both which he exerts with the candour and good- 
 manners of a gentleman : he seems well entitled to 
 that allowance ; and to deny it him, would impeach 
 one's right to the appellation. With all these good 
 things to recommend him, there can be no dearth 
 of sufficient reasons to read his writings. You 
 favoured me some years since with one of his 
 
 * The well-known author of " The ^Minstrel."
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 97 
 
 \ oliimes ; by which I was both pleased and in- 
 structed : and I beg you will send me the new 
 one, when you can conveniently spare it, or rather 
 bring it yourself, while the sv/allows are yet upon 
 the wing : for the summer is going down apace. 
 
 You tell me you have been asked, if I am intent 
 upon another volume? I reply, not at present, 
 not being convinced that I have met with sufficient 
 encouragement. I account myself happy in having 
 pleased a few, but am not rich enough to despise 
 the many. I do not know what sort of market my 
 commodity has found, but, if a slack one, I must 
 beware how I make a second attempt. My book- 
 seller will not be willing to incur a certain loss ; 
 aijd I can as little ajFord it. Notwithstanding what 
 I have said, I write, and am even now writing, for 
 the press. I told you that I had translated several 
 of the poems of Madame Guion. I told you too, 
 or I am mistaken, that Mr. Bull designed to print 
 them. That gentleman is gone to the sea-side with 
 Mrs. Wilberforce, and will be absent six weeks. 
 My intention is to surprise him at his return with 
 the addition of as much more translation as I have 
 already given him. This, however, is still less 
 likely to be a popular work than my former. Men 
 that have no religion would despise it ; and men 
 that have no religious experience would not under- 
 stand it. But the strain of simple and un,affected 
 piety in the original is sweet beyond expression. 
 She sings like an angel, and for that very reason 
 has found but few admirers. Other things I write 
 
 VOL. II. H
 
 98 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 too, as you will see on the other side, but these 
 merely for my amusement.f 
 
 TO MRS. NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Nov. 23, 1782. 
 My dear Madam — Accept my thanks for the 
 trouble you take in vending my poems, and still 
 more for the interest you take in their success. 
 My authorship is undoubtedly pleased, when I hear 
 that they are approved either by the great or 
 the small ; but to be approved by the great as 
 Horace observed many years ago, is fame indeed. 
 Having met with encouragement, I consequently 
 wish to write again ; but wishes are a very small 
 part of the qualifications necessary for such a pur- 
 pose. Many a man, who has succeeded tolerably 
 well in his first attempt, has spoiled all by the 
 second. But it just occurs to me that I told you so 
 once before, and, if my memory had served me 
 with the intelligence a minute sooner, I would not 
 have repeated the observation now. 
 
 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 fire-side and a well-spread table are but very 
 indifferent substitutes for these better accommoda- 
 t This letter closed with the English and Latin verses on 
 the loss of the Royal George, inserted before. 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 99 
 
 tions ; so very indifferent, that I would gladly ex- 
 change 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 appear- 
 ance left to itself I 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 monu- 
 ment records every thing but his vices. The exact 
 contrast 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 mean time 
 they suffer every thing that infirmity and poverty 
 can inflict upon them. Who would suspect, that 
 has not a spiritual eye to discern it, that the fine gen- 
 tleman 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 
 
 h2
 
 100 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 absolutely to deny it, wlien 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 the privilege of 
 worship and honour ! But behind the curtain the 
 matter is explained ; very little, however, to the satis- 
 faction of the great. 
 
 If you ask me why I have written thus, and to 
 you especially, to whom there was no need to write 
 thus, I can only reply, that, having a letter to write, 
 and no news to communicate, I picked up the first 
 subject I found, and pursued it as far as was conve- 
 nient for my purpose. 
 
 Mr. Newton and I are of one mind on the subject 
 of patriotism. Our dispute was no sooner begun 
 than it ended. It would be well perhaps, if, when 
 two disputants begin to engage, their friends would 
 hurry each into a separate chaise, and order them 
 to opposite points of the compass. Let one travel 
 twenty miles east, the other, as many west; then 
 let them write their opinions by the post. Much 
 altercation and chafing of the spirit would be pre- 
 vented ; they would sooner come to a right under- 
 standing, and, running away from each other, would 
 carr}' on the combat more judiciously, in exact pro- 
 portion to the distance. 
 
 My love to that gentleman, if you please ; and 
 tell him that, like him, though I love my country, I 
 hate its follies and its sins, and had rather see it 
 scourged in mercy than judicially hardened by 
 prosperity. 
 
 Yours, my dear ?vladam, as ever, 
 
 W. C.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. lOI 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, Dec. 7, 178i>. 
 
 My dear Friend — At seven o'clock this evening, 
 being the seventh of December, I imagine I see you 
 in your box at the cofFee-house. No doubt the waiter, 
 as ingeniou-s and adroit as his predecessors were be- 
 fore him, raises the tea-pot to the ceiling with his 
 right hand, while in his left the tea-cup descending 
 almost to the floor, receives a limpid stream ; limpid 
 in its descent, but no sooner has it reached its des- 
 tination, than frothing and foaming to the view, it 
 becomes a roaring syllabub. This is the nineteenth 
 winter since I saw you in this situation ; and if nine- 
 teen more pass over me before I die, I shall still re- 
 member a circumstance v/e have often laughed at. 
 
 How different is the complexion of your evenings 
 and mine ! — yours, spent amid the ceaseless hum 
 that proceeds from the inside of fifty noisy and busy 
 periwigs ; mine, by a domestic fire-side, in a retreat 
 as silent as retirement can make it, where no noise 
 is made but what we make for our own amusement. 
 For instance, here are two rustics and your humble 
 servant in company. One of the ladies has been 
 playing on the harpsichord, while I with the other 
 have been playing at battledore and shuttlecock. A 
 little dog in the mean time, howling under the chair 
 of the former, performed in the vocal way to ad- 
 miration. This entertainment over, I began my 
 letter, and, having nothing more important to com- 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 102 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 municate, have given you an account of it. I know 
 you love dearly to be idle, when you can find an op- 
 portunity to be so ; but, as such opportunities are 
 rare with you, I thought it possible that a short de 
 scription of the idleness I enjoy might give you 
 pleasure. The happiness we cannot call our own 
 we yet seem to possess, while we sympathise with 
 our friends who can. 
 
 The papers tell me that peace is at hand, and 
 that it is at a great distance ; that the siege of 
 Gibraltar is abandoned, and that it is to be still 
 continued. It is happy for me, that, though I love 
 my country, I have but little curiosity. There was 
 a time when these contradictions would have dis- 
 tressed me; but I have learnt by experience that it 
 is best for little people like myself to be patient, and 
 to wait till time affords the intelligence which no 
 speculations of theirs can ever furnish. 
 
 I thank you for a fine cod with oysters, and hope 
 that ere long I shall have to thank you for procuring 
 me Elliott's medicines. Every time I feel the least 
 uneasiness in either eye, I tremble lest, my i?iscu- 
 lapius being departed, my infallible remedy should 
 be lost for ever. Adieu. My respects to Mrs. Hill. 
 Yours, faithfully, 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Jan. 19, 1783. 
 My dear William — Not to retaliate, but for want 
 of opportunity, I have delayed writing. From a
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 103 
 
 scene of most uninterrupted retirement, we liave 
 passed at once into a state of constant engagement 
 not that our society is much multiplied. The addi- 
 tion of an individual has made all this difference. 
 Lady Austen and we pass our days alternately at 
 each other's chdtean. In the morning I walk with 
 one or other of the ladies, and in the afternoon wind 
 thread. Thus did Hercules and Sampson, and thus 
 do I ; and, were both those heroes living, I should 
 not fear to challenge them to a trial of skill in that 
 l)usiness, or doubt to beat them both. As to killing 
 lions, and other amusements of that kind, with which 
 they were so delighted, I should be their humble 
 servant, and beg to be excused. 
 
 Having no frank, I cannot send you Mr. 's 
 
 two letters, as I intended. We corresponded as long 
 as the occasion required, and then ceased. Charmed 
 with his good sense, politeness, and liberality to the 
 poor, I was indeed ambitious of continuing a cor- 
 respondence with him, and told him so. Perhaps I 
 had done more prudently had I never proposed it. 
 But warm hearts are not famous for wisdom, and 
 mine was too warm to be very considerate on such 
 an occasion. I have not heard from him since, and 
 have long given up all expectation of it. I know he 
 is too busy a man to have leisure for me, and I ought 
 to have recollected it sooner. He found time to do 
 much good, and to employ us, as his agents, in doing 
 it, and that might have satisfied me. Though laid 
 under the strictest injunctions of secrecy, both by 
 him, and by you on his behalf, I consider myself as 
 under no obligation to conceal from you the remit-
 
 104 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 tances he made. Only, in my turn, I beg leave to 
 request secrecy on your part, because, intimate as 
 you are with him, and highly as he values you, I 
 cannot yet be sure, that the communication would 
 please him, his delicacies on this subject being as 
 singular as his benevolence. He sent forty pounds, 
 twenty at a time. Olney has not had such a friend 
 as this many a day ; nor has there been an instance, 
 at any time, of a few families so effectually relieved, 
 or so completely encouraged to the pursuit of that 
 honest industry, by which their debts being paid, 
 and the parents and children comfortably clothed, 
 they are now enabled to maintain themselves. Their 
 labour was almost in vain before ; but now it answers : 
 it earns them bread, and all their other wants are 
 plentifully supplied.* 
 
 I wish that, by Mr. — — 's assistance, your pur- 
 pose in behalf of the prisoners may be effectuated. 
 A pen so formidable as his might do much good, if 
 properly directed. The dread of a bold censure is 
 ten times more moving than the most eloquent per- 
 suasion. They that cannot feel for others are the 
 persons of all the world who feel most sensibly for 
 themselves. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c 
 
 * The benevolent character here alluded to is John Thorn- 
 ton, Esq.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 105 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Jan. 26, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — 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.f I saw this morning at 
 nine o'clock a group of about twelve figures very 
 closely engaged in a conference, as I suppose, upon 
 the same subject. The scene of consultation was a 
 blacksmith's shed, very comfortably screened from 
 the wind, and directly opposed to the morning sun. 
 Some held their hands behind them, some had them 
 folded across their bosom, and others had thrust 
 them into their breeches pockets. Every man's 
 posture bespoke a pacific turn of mind ; but, the 
 distance being too great for their words to reach 
 me, nothing transpired. I am willing, however, to 
 hope that the secret will not be a secret long, and 
 that you and I, equally interested in the event, 
 though not perhaps equally well-informed, shall soon 
 have an opportunity to rejoice in the completion of 
 it. The powers of Europe have clashed with each 
 other to a fine purpose;! that the Americans,' at 
 length declared independent, may keep themselves 
 
 * Private Corresponrlence. 
 
 t Preliminaries of peace with America and France were 
 signed at Versailles Jan. 20tli, 1783. 
 
 i France, Spain, and Holland, all of wLom united with 
 America against England.
 
 106 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 SO, if they can ; and that what the parties, M^ho have 
 thought proper to dispvite upon that point have 
 wrested from each other in the course of the con- 
 flict may be, in the issue of it, restored to the proper 
 owner. Nations may be guilty of a conduct that 
 would render an individual infamous for ever ; and 
 yet carry their heads high, talk of their glory, and 
 despise their neighbours. Your opinions and mine, 
 I mean our political ones, are not exactly of a piece, 
 yet I cannot think otherw^ise upon 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 them- 
 selves 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 asso- 
 ciating 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, and 
 having been always, such, I have consequently
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 107 
 
 orighter hopes for England than her situation some- 
 time since seemed to justify. She is the only in- 
 jured 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 upon them. I think, therefore, 
 that, whatever scourge may be prepared for England 
 on some future day, her ruin is not yet to be ex- 
 pected. 
 
 Acknowledge now that I am worthy of a place 
 under the shed I described, and that I should make 
 no small figure among the quidnuncs of Olney. 
 
 I wish the society you have formed may prosper. 
 Your subjects will be of greater importance, and 
 discussed with more sufficiency.-}- The earth is a 
 grain of sand, but the spiritual interests of man are 
 commensurate with the heavens. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, as ever, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 The humour of the following letter in reference 
 to the peace, is ingenious and amusing. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* 
 
 Olney, Feb. 2, 1783. 
 I give you joy of the restoration of that sincere 
 
 t This passacje alludes to the formation of what was called 
 " the Eclectic Society," consisting of several pious ministers, 
 who statedly met for the purpose of mutual edification. It con- 
 sisted of Newton, Scott, Cecil, Foster, &c. It is still in existence. 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 i'08 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and firm friendship between the kings of England 
 and France, that has been so long interrupted. 
 It is a great pity, when hearts so cordially united 
 are divided by trifles. Thirteen pitiful colonies, 
 which the king of England chose to keep, and the 
 king of France to obtain, if he could, have dis- 
 turbed that harmony which would else no doubt 
 have subsisted between those illustrious personages 
 to this moment. If the king of France, whose 
 greatness of mind is only equalled by that of his 
 queen, had regarded them, unworthy of his notice 
 as they were, with an eye of suitable indifference; 
 or, had he thought it a matter deserving in any 
 degree his princely attention, that they were in 
 reality the property of his good friend the king of 
 England ; or, had the latter been less obstinately 
 determined to hold fast his interest in them, and 
 could he, with that civility and politeness in which 
 monarchs are expected to excel, have entreated his 
 majesty of France to accept a bagatelle, for v.hich 
 he seemed to have conceived so strong a predilec- 
 tion, all this mischief had been prevented. But 
 monarchs, alas ! crowned and sceptred as they are, 
 are yet but men; they fall out, and are reconciled, 
 just like the meanest of their subjects. I cannot, 
 however, sufficiently admire the moderation and 
 magnanimity of the king of England. His dear 
 friend on the other side of the Channel has not 
 indeed taken actual possession of the colonies in 
 question, but he has effectually wrested them out 
 of the hands of their original owner, who, neverthe- 
 less, letting fall the extinguisher of patience upon
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 109 
 
 the flame of his resentment, and glowing with no 
 other flame than that of the sincerest affection, 
 embraces the king of France again, gives him 
 Senegal and Goree in Africa, gives him the islands 
 he had taken from him in the West, gives him his 
 conquered territories in the East, gives him a 
 fishery upon the banks of Newfoundland; and, as 
 if all this were too little, merely because he knows 
 that Louis has a partiality for the king of Spain, 
 gives to the l^itter an island in the Mediterranean, 
 which thousands of English had purchased with 
 their lives ; and in America all that he wanted, at 
 least all that he could ask. No doubt there will be 
 great cordiality between this royal trio for tlie 
 future : and, though wars may perhaps be kindled 
 between their posterity some ages hence, the pre- 
 sent generation shall never be witnesses of such a 
 calamity again. I expect soon to hear that the 
 queen of France, who just before this rupture 
 happened, made the queen of England a present 
 of a watch, has, in acknowledgment of all these 
 acts of kindness, sent her also a seal wherewith to 
 ratify the treaty. Surely she can do no less. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.^ 
 
 Oliiev, Feb. 8, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — When I consider the peace as 
 the Mork of our ministers, and reflect that, with 
 
 * Private Corresponder.ce.
 
 110 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 more wisdom, or more spirit, they might perhaps 
 have procured a better, I confess it does not please 
 me.* Such another peace would ruin us, I suppose, 
 as effectually as a war protracted to the extremest 
 inch of our ability to bear it. I do not think it just 
 that the French should plunder us and be paid for 
 doing it ; nor does it appear to me that tliere was 
 absolute necessity for such tameness on our part 
 as we discover in the present treaty. We give 
 away all that is demanded, and receive nothing but 
 what was our own before. So far as this stain 
 upon our national honour, and this diminution of 
 our national property, are a judgment upon our 
 iniquities, I submit, and have no doubt bvit that 
 lUtimately it will be found to be judgment mixed 
 with mercy. But, so far as I see it to be the effect 
 of French knavery and British despondency, I feel 
 it as a disgrace, and grumble at it as a wrong. I 
 dislike it the more, because the peacemaker has 
 
 * Lord Shelburne, who made this peace, was taunted in the 
 House of Commons by INIr. Fox with having been previouslv 
 averse to it, and even of having said that,ivhen the independence 
 of America should be granted, the stin of Britain would have set ; 
 and that the recognition of its independence deserved to he stained 
 ivith the blood of the minister who should sign it. It was in allu- 
 sion to this circumstance that Mr. Fox applied to him the 
 following ludicrous distich : 
 
 You've done a noble deed, in Nature's spite, 
 
 Tho' you think you are wrong, yet I'm sure you are right: 
 
 Lord Shelburne's defence was, that he was compelled to the 
 measure, and not so much the author as the instrument of it. 
 See Parliament a ri^ Debates of that time.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. Ill 
 
 been so immoderately praised for his performance, 
 which is, in my opinion, a contemptible one enough. 
 Had he made the French smart for their baseness, 
 I would have praised him too; a minister should 
 have shown his wisdom by securing some points, 
 at least, for the benefit of his country. A school- 
 boy might have made concessions. After all per- 
 haps the worst consequence of this awkward busi- 
 ness will be dissension in the two Houses, and 
 dissatisfaction throughout the kingdom. They that 
 love their country will be grieved to see her 
 trampled upon; and they that love mischief will 
 have a fair opportunity of making it. Were I a 
 member of the Commons, even with the same 
 religious sentiments as impress me now, I should 
 think it my duty to condemn it. 
 
 You will suppose me a politician; but in truth 
 I am nothing less. These are the thoughts that 
 occur to me while I read the newspaper; and, when 
 I have laid it down,' I feel myself more interested 
 in the success of my early cucumbers than in any 
 part of this great and important subject. If I see 
 them droop a little, I forget that we have been 
 many years at war; that we have made an humili- 
 ating peace ; that we are deeply in debt, and unable 
 to pay. All these reflections are absorbed at once 
 in the anxiety I feel for a plant, the fruit of which 
 I cannot eat when I have procured it. How wise, 
 how consistent, how respectable a creature is man I 
 
 Mrs. Unwin thanks Mrs. Newton for her kind 
 letter, and for executing her commissions. We 
 truly love you both, think of you often, and one
 
 112 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of US prays for you; — the other will, when he can 
 pray for himself. 
 
 w.c. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Oluey, Feb. 13, 1783. 
 
 i\Ty dear Friend — In writing to you I never want 
 a subject. Self is always at hand, and self, with 
 its concerns, is always interesting to a friend. 
 
 You may think perhaps that, having commenced 
 poet by profession, I am always writing verses. 
 Not so; I have written nothing, at least finished 
 nothing, since I published, except a certain face- 
 tious history of John Gilpin, which Mrs. Unwin 
 would send to the " Public Advertiser," perhaps 
 you might read it without suspecting the author. 
 
 My book procures me favours, which my modesty 
 will not permit me to specify, except one, which, 
 modest as I am, I cannot suppress, a very hand- 
 some letter from Dr. Franklin at Passy. These 
 fruits it has brought me. 
 
 I have been refreshing myself with a walk in the 
 garden, where I find that January (who according 
 to Chaucer was the husband of May) being dead, 
 February has married the wido\v. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 20, 1783. 
 Suspecting that I should not have hinted at Dr.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 113 
 
 Franklin's encomium under any other influence 
 than that of vanity, I was several times on the 
 point of burning my letter for that very reason. 
 But, not having time to write another by the same 
 post, and believing that you would have the grace 
 to pardon a little self-complacency in an author on 
 so trying an occasion, I let it pass. One sin natu- 
 rally leads to another and a greater, and thus it 
 happens now, for I have no way to gratify your 
 curiosity, but by transcibing the letter in question. 
 It is addressed, by the way, not to me, but to an 
 acquaintance of mine, who had transmitted the 
 volume to him without my knowledge. 
 
 " Passy,* May 8, 1782. 
 
 " Sir, I received the letter you did me the 
 honour of writing to me, and am much obliged by 
 your kind present of a book. The relish for read- 
 ing of poetry had long since left me, but there is 
 something so new in the manner, so easy, and yet 
 so correct in the language, so clear in the expres- 
 sion, yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that 
 I have read the whole with great pleasure, and 
 some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to 
 accept my thankful acknowledgments, and to pre- 
 sent my respects to the author. 
 
 " Your most obedient humble servant, 
 
 " B. Franklin." 
 
 * A beautiful village aear Paris, on the road to Versailles. 
 VOL. II. I
 
 114- LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 My dear Friend — Great revolutions happen in 
 this ants' nest of ours. One emmet of illustrious 
 character and great abilities pushes out another; 
 parties are formed, they range themselves in formi- 
 dable opposition, they threaten each other's ruin, 
 they cross over and are mingled together,* and like 
 the coruscations of the Northern Aurora amuse the 
 spectator, at the same time that by some they are 
 supposed to be forerunners of a general dissolu- 
 tion. 
 
 There are political earthquakes as well as natural 
 ones, the former less shocking to the eye, but not 
 always less fatal in their influence than the latter. 
 The image which Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream 
 was made up of heterogeneous and incompatible 
 materials, and accordingly broken. Whatever is so 
 formed must expect a like catastrophe. 
 
 I have an etching of the late Chancellor hanging 
 over the parlour chimney. I often contemplate it, 
 and call to mind the day when I was intimate with 
 the original. It is very like him, but he is dis- 
 guised by his hat, which, though fashionable, is 
 awkward ; by his great wig, the tie of which is 
 hardly discernible in profile, and by his band and 
 gown, which give him an appearance clumsily 
 
 • This expression, as well as the allusion to Nebuchad- 
 nezzar's image, refers to the famous coalition ministry, under 
 Lord North and Mr. Fox.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 115 
 
 sacerdotal. Our friendship is dead and buried ; 
 yours is the only surviving one of all with which I 
 was once honoured. 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 The sarcasm conveyed in the close of this letter, 
 and evidently pointed at Lord Thurlow, is severe, 
 and yet seems to be merited. It will be remem- 
 bered, that Lord Thurlow and Cowper were on 
 terms of great intimacy when at Westminster 
 school, though separated in after-life ; that Cowper 
 subsequently presented him with a copy of his 
 poems, accompanied by a letter, reminding him of 
 their former friendship ; and that his lordship 
 treated him with forgetfulness and neglect. It is 
 due, however, to the memory of Lord Thurlow, to 
 state that instances are not wanting to prove the 
 benevolence of his character. When the south of 
 Europe was recommended to Dr. Johnson, to reno- 
 vate his declining strength, he generously offered to 
 advance the sum of five hundred pounds for that 
 purpose.* 
 
 Nor ought we to forget Lord Thurlow's treatment 
 of the poet Crabbe. The latter presented to him 
 one of his poems. " I have no time," said Lord 
 Thurlow, " to read verses ; my avocations do not 
 permit it." " There was a time," retorted the poet, 
 " when the encouragement of literature was con- 
 sidered to be a duty appertaining to the illustrious 
 
 • See Murphy's Life of Johnson. 
 
 1 2
 
 116 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Station which your lordship holds." Lord Thurlow 
 frankly acknowledged his error, and nobly redeemed 
 it. " 1 ought," he observed, " to have noticed your 
 poem, and I heartily forgive your rebuke :" and in 
 proof of his sincerity he generously transmitted the 
 sum of one hundred pounds, and subsequently gave 
 him preferment in the church. 
 
 TO THE HEV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 24, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — A weakness in one of my eyes 
 may possibly shorten my letter, but I mean to make 
 it as long as my present materials, and my ability to 
 write, can suffice for. 
 
 1 am almost sorry to say that I am reconciled to 
 the peace, being reconciled to it not upon principles 
 of approbation but necessity. The deplorable con- 
 dition of the country, insisted on by the friends of 
 administration, and not denied by their adversaries, 
 convinces me that our only refuge under Heaven 
 was in the treaty with which I quarrelled. The 
 treaty itself I find less objectionable than I did. 
 Lord Shelburne having given a colour to some of 
 the articles that makes them less painful in the 
 contemplation. But my opinion upon the whole 
 aftair is, that now is the time (if indeed there is sal- 
 vation for the country) for Providence to interpose 
 to save it. A peace with the greatest political ad- 
 vantages would not have healed us ; a peace with 
 none may procrastinate our ruin for a season, but 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWl^ER. 117 
 
 cannot ultimately prevent it. The prospect may 
 make all tremble who have no trust in God, and 
 even they that trust may tremble. The peace will 
 probably be of short duration ; and in the ordinary 
 course of things another war must end us. A great 
 country in ruins will not be beheld with eyes of in- 
 difference, even by those who have a better country 
 to look to. But with them all will be well at 
 last. 
 
 As to the Americans, perhaps I do not forgive 
 them as I ouglit ; perhaps I shall always think of 
 them with some resentment as the destroyers, in- 
 tentionally the destroyers, of this country. They 
 have pushed that point farther than the house of 
 Bourbon could have carried it in half a century. I 
 may be prejudiced against them, but I do not think 
 them equal to the task of establishing an empire. 
 Great men are necessary for such a purpose ; and 
 their great men, I believe, are yet unborn.* They 
 have had passion and obstinacy enough to do us 
 much mischief; but whether the event will be 
 salutary to themselves or not, must wait for proof. 
 I agree with you that it is possible America may 
 become a land of extraordinary evangelical light ; 
 but at the same time, I cannot discover any thing 
 in their new situation peculiarly favourable to such 
 a supposition. They cannot have more liberty of 
 conscience than they had ; at least, if that liberty 
 
 • This anticipation has not been fulfillefl. America has 
 produced materials for national greatness, that have laid tlie 
 fotindation of a mighty empire ; and both General Washington 
 and Franklin were orreat men.
 
 118 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 was under any restraint, it was a restraint of their 
 own making. Perhaps a new settlement in church 
 and state may leave them less. -Well — all will be 
 over soon. The time is at hand when an empire 
 will be established that shall fill the earth. Neither 
 statesmen nor generals will lay the foundation of it, 
 but it shall rise at the sound of the trumpet. 
 
 I am well in body, but with a mind that would 
 wear out a frame ot adamant ; yet, upon my frame, 
 which is not very robust, its effects are not discerni- 
 ble. Mrs. Unwin is in health. Accept our un- 
 alienable love to you both. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, truly, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.^ 
 
 Olnev, March 7, 1783. 
 My dear Friend— When will you come and tell 
 us what you think of the peace ? Is it a good 
 peace in itself, or a good peace only in reference to 
 the ruinous condition of our country ? I quarrelled 
 most bitterly with it at first, finding nothing in the 
 terms of it but disgrace and destruction to Great 
 Britain. But, having learned since that we are al- 
 ready destroyed and disgraced, as much as we can 
 be, I like it better, and think myself deeply in- 
 debted to the King of France for treating us with 
 so much lenity. The olive-branch indeed has nei- 
 ther leaf nor fruit, but it is still an olive-branch. 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 119 
 
 Mr. Newton and I have exchanged several letters 
 on the subject ; sometimes considering, like grave 
 politicians as we are, the state of Europe at large ; 
 sometimes the state of England in particular ; some- 
 times the conduct of the house of Bourbon ; some- 
 times that of the Dutch ; but most especially that 
 of the Americans. We have not differed perhaps 
 very widely, nor even so widely as we seemed to 
 do ; but still we have differed. We have however 
 managed our dispute with temper, and brought it 
 to a peaceable conclusion. So far at least we have 
 given proof of a wisdom which abler politicians 
 than myself would do well to imitate. 
 
 How do you like your northern mountaineers ?* 
 Can a man be a good Christian that goes without 
 breeches ? You are better qualified to solve me 
 this question than any man I know, having, as I am 
 informed, preached to many of them, and conversed, 
 no doubt, with some. You must know I love a 
 Highlander, and think I can see in them what 
 Englishmen once were, but never will be again. 
 Such have been the effects of luxury ! 
 
 You know that I kept two hares. I have written 
 nothing since I saw you but an epitaph on one of 
 them, which died last week. I send you the first 
 impression of it. 
 
 Here lies, &c.f 
 
 Believe me, my dear friend, affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 * Scotch Highlanders, quartered at Newport Pagnel, where 
 Mr. Bull lived. 
 
 f Vide Cowper's Poems.
 
 120 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, March 7, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — Were my letters composed of 
 materials worthy of your acceptance, they should 
 be longer. There is a subject upon which they 
 who know themselves interested in it are never 
 weary of writing. Tliat subject is not within 
 my reach ; and there are few others that do not 
 soon fatigue me. Upon these, however, I might 
 possibly be more diffuse, could I forget that I 
 am writing to t/oh, to whom I think it just as 
 improper and absurd to send a sheet full of 
 trifles, as it would be to allow myself that liberty, 
 were I writing to one of the four evangelists. But, 
 since you measure me with so much exactness, give 
 me leave to requite you in your own way. Your 
 manuscript indeed is close, and I do not reckon 
 mine very lax. You make no margin, it is true; 
 if you did, you would have need of their Lilliputian 
 art, who can enclose the creed within the circle of 
 a shilling ; for upon the nicest comparison I find 
 your paper an inch smaller every way than mine. 
 Were my writing therefore as compact as yours, 
 my letters tvith a margin would be as long as yours 
 without one Let this consideration, added to that 
 of their futility, prevail with you to think them, if 
 not long, yet long enough. 
 
 Yesterday a body of Highlanders passed through 
 Olney. They are part of that regiment which lately 
 
 * Private CJorrespoiidence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 121 
 
 mutinied at Portsmouth. Convinced to a man that 
 General had sold the to them East India Com- 
 pany, they breathe nothing but vengeance, and 
 swear they w^ill pull down his house in Scotland, as soon 
 as they arrive there. The rest of them are quartered 
 at Dunstable, Woburn, and Newport ; m all eleven 
 hundred. A party of them, it is said, are to continue 
 some days at Olney. None of their principal officers 
 are with them ; either conscious of guilt, or at least 
 knowing themselves to be suspected as privy to and 
 partners in the iniquitous bargain, they fear the 
 resentment of the corps. The design of govern- 
 ment seems to be to break them into small divisions, 
 that they may find themselves, when they reach 
 Scotland, too weak to do much mischief. Forty of 
 them attended Mr. Bull, who found himself singu- 
 larly happy in an opportunity to address himself to 
 a flock bred upon the Caledonian mountains. He 
 told them he would walk to John OGroat's house 
 to hear a soldier pray. They are in general so far 
 religious that they will hear none but evangelical 
 preaching ; and many of them are said to be truly 
 
 so. Nevertheless, General 's skull was in some 
 
 danger among them ; for he was twice felled to the 
 ground with the butt-end of a musquet. The ser- 
 geant-major rescued him, or he would have been for 
 ever rendered incapable of selling Highlanders to the 
 India Company. I am obliged to you for your ex- 
 tract from Mr. Bowman's letter. I feel myself 
 sensibly pleased by the approbation of men of taste 
 and learning ; but that my vanity may not get too 
 much to windward, my spirits are kept under by a
 
 122 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 total inability to renew my enterprises in the poe- 
 tical way. 
 
 We are tolerably well, and love you both. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, April 5, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — When one has a letter to write, 
 there is nothing more useful than to make a be- 
 ginning. In the first place, because, unless it be 
 begun, there is no good reason to hope it will 
 ever be ended ; and secondly, because the beginning 
 is half the business, it being much more difficult to 
 put the pen in motion at first, than to continue 
 the progress of it, when once moved. 
 
 Mrs. C 's illness, likely to prove mortal, and 
 
 seizing her at such a time, has excited much com- 
 passion in my breast, and in Mrs. Unwin's, both 
 for her and her daughter. To have parted with a 
 child she loves so much, intending soon to follow 
 her ; to find herself arrested before she could set 
 out, and at so great a distance from her most va- 
 lued relations; her daughter's life too threatened 
 by a disorder not often curable, are circumstances 
 ti'uly affecting. She has indeed much natui'al forti- 
 tude, and, to make her condition still more tolerable, 
 a good Christian hope for her support. But so it 
 is, that the distresses of those who least need our
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 123 
 
 pity excite it most ; the amiableness of the cha- 
 racter engages our sympathy, and we mourn for 
 persons for whom perhaps we might more reason- 
 ably rejoice. There is still however a possibility 
 that she may recover ; an event we must wish for, 
 though for her to depart would be far better. Thus 
 we would always withhold from the skies those who 
 alone can reach them, at least till we are ready to 
 bear them company. 
 
 Present our love, if you please, to Miss C .f 
 
 1 saw in the " Gentleman's Magazine" for last 
 month, an account of a physician who has disco- 
 vered a new method of treating consumptive cases, 
 which has succeeded wonderfully in the trial. He 
 finds the seat of the distemper in the stomach, and 
 cures it principally by emetics. The old method 
 of encountering the disorder has proved so unequal 
 to the task, that I should be much inclined to any 
 new practice that comes well recommended. He 
 is spoken of as a sensible and judicious man, but 
 his name I have forgot. 
 
 Our love to all under your roof, and in particular 
 to Miss Catlett, if she is with you. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, April 20, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — My device was intended to 
 represent not my own heart, but the heart of a 
 
 + Miss Cunningham. * Piiviite Correspondence.
 
 124 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Christian, mou: ning and yet rejoicing, pierced with 
 thorns, yet wreathed about with roses. I have the 
 thorn without the rose. My briar is a wintry one ; 
 the flowers are withered, but the thorn remains. 
 My days are spent in vanit}', and it is impossible 
 for me to spend them otherwise. No man upon 
 earth is more sensible of the unprofitableness of a 
 life like mine than I am, or groans more heavily 
 under the burthen. The time when I seem to be 
 most rationally employed is when I am reading. 
 My studies however are very much confined, and of 
 little use, because I have no books but what I 
 borrow, and nobody will lend me a memory. My 
 own is almost worn out. I read the Biographia and 
 the Review. If all the readers of the former had 
 memories like mine, the compilers of that work 
 would in vain have laboured to rescue the great 
 names of past ages from oblivion, for what I read to- 
 day I forget to-morrow. A by-stander might say, 
 This is rather an advantage, the book is always 
 new ; — but I beg the by-stander's pardon ; I can 
 recollect, though I cannot remember, and with the 
 book in my hand I recognise those passages which, 
 without the book, I should never have thought of 
 more. The Review pleases me most, because, 
 if the contents escape me, I regret them less, being a 
 very supercilious reader of most modern writers. 
 Either I dislike the subject, or the manner of treating 
 it ; the style is affected, or the matter is disgusting. 
 
 I see (though he was a learned man, and 
 
 sometimes wrote like a wise one,) labouring under
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 125 
 
 invincible prejudices against the truth and its pro- 
 fessors; heterodox in his opinions upon some religious 
 subjects, and reasoning most weakly in support of 
 them. How has he toiled to prove that the perdition 
 of the wicked is not eternal, that there may be re- 
 pentance in hell, and that the devils may be saved at 
 last : thus establishing, as far as in him lies, the 
 belief of a purgatory. When I think of him, I think 
 too of some who shall say hereafter, " Have we not 
 prophesied in thy name, and in thy name done many 
 wondrous works ? Then shall he say unto them. 
 Depart from me, for I never knew you." But 
 perhaps he might be enlightened in his last moments, 
 and saved in the very article of dissolution. It is 
 much to be wished, and indeed hoped, that he was. 
 Such a man reprobated in the great day would be 
 the most melancholy spectacle of all that shall stand 
 at the left hand hereafter. But I do not think that 
 many, or indeed any^ will be found there, who in their 
 lives were sober, virtuous, and sincere, truly pious 
 in the use of their little light, and, though ignorant of 
 God, in comparison with some others, yet sufficiently 
 informed to know that He is to be feared, loved, and 
 trusted. An operation is often performed within 
 the curtains of a dying bed, in behalf of such men, 
 that the nurse and the doctor (I mean the doctor and 
 the nurse) have no suspicion of. The soul makes 
 but one step out of darkness into light, and makes 
 that step without a witness. My brother's case has 
 made me very charitable in my opinion about the 
 future state of such men. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 \V. C.
 
 126 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, May 5, 1783. 
 
 You may suppose that I did not hear Mr. 
 
 preach, but I heard of him. How different is that 
 plainness of speech which a spiritual theme requires, 
 from that vulgar dialect which this gentleman has 
 mistaken for it ! Affectation of every sort is odious, 
 especially in a minister, and more especially an 
 affectation that betrays Jiim into expressions fit only 
 for the mouths of the illiterate. Truth indeed needs 
 no ornament, neither does a beautiful person ; but to 
 clothe it therefore in rags, when a decent habit was 
 at hand, would be esteemed preposterous and absurd. 
 The best-proportioned figure may be made offensive 
 by beggary and filth, and even truths, which came 
 down from heaven, though they cannot forego their 
 nature, may be disguised and disgraced by unsuitable 
 language. It is strange that a pupil of yours should 
 blunder thus. You may be consoled however by re- 
 flecting, that he could not have erred so grossly if he 
 had not totally and wilfully departed both from your 
 instruction and example. Were I to describe your 
 style in two words, I shovdd call it plain and neat, 
 simplicem munditiis, and I do not know how I could 
 give it juster praise, or pay it a greater compliment. 
 He that speaks to be understood by a congregation of 
 rustics, and yet in terms that would not offend aca- 
 demical ears, has found the happy medium. This is 
 certainly practicable to men of taste and judgment,
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 127 
 
 and the practice of a few proves it. Hactenus de 
 concionando. 
 
 We are truly glad to hear that Miss Catlett is 
 better, and heartily wish you more promising ac- 
 counts from Scotland. Dehemur morti nos nos- 
 traque. We all acknowledge the debt, but are sel- 
 dom pleased when those we love are required to 
 pay it. The demand will find you prepared for it. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, May 12, 1783. 
 My dear Friend - A letter written from such a 
 place as this is a creation ; and creation is a work for 
 which mere mortal man is very indifferently qualified. 
 Ex nihilo nihil Jit, is a maxim that applies itself in 
 every case, where Deity is not concerned. With 
 this view of the matter, I should charge myself with 
 extreme folly for pretending to work without mate- 
 rials, did I not know that although nothing could be 
 the result, even that nothing will be welcome. If I 
 can tell you no news, I can tell you at least that I 
 esteem you highly ; that my friendship with you 
 and yours is the only balm of my life ; a comfort 
 sufficient to reconcile me to an existence destitute 
 of every other. This is not the language of to-day, 
 only the effect of a transient cloud suddenly brought 
 over me, and suddenly to be removed, but punctually 
 expressive of my habitual frame of mind, such as it 
 has been these ten years.
 
 1-8 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 In the " Review" of last month, I met with an ac- 
 count of a sermon preached by Mr. Paley, at the 
 consecration of his friend, Bishop L.* The critic 
 admires and extols the preacher, and devoutly prays 
 the Loi'd of the harvest to send forth more such la- 
 bourers into his vineyard. I rather differ from him 
 in opinion, not being able to conjecture in what re- 
 spect the vineyard will be benefited by such a mea- 
 sure. He is certainly ingenious, and has stretched 
 his ingenuity to the uttermost, in order to exhibit 
 the church established, consisting of bishops, priests, 
 and deacons, in the most favourable point of view. 
 I lay it down for a rule that when much ingenuity 
 is necessary to gain an argument credit, that argu- 
 ment is unsound at bottom. So is his, and so are 
 all the petty devices by which he seeks to enforce 
 it. He says first, " that the appointment of various 
 orders in the church is attended with this good con- 
 sequence, that each class of people is supplied with 
 a clergy of their own level and description, with 
 whom they may live and associate on terms of 
 equality." But, in order to effect this good purpose, 
 there ought to be at least three parsons in every 
 parish, one for the gentry, one for traders and me- 
 chanics, and one for the lowest of the vulgar. 
 Neither is it easy to find many parishes, where the 
 laity at large have any society with their minister 
 at all. This therefore is fanciful, and a mere inven- 
 tion : in the next place he says it gives a dignity to 
 the ministry itself, and the clergy share in the re- 
 sj-ect paid to their superiors. Much good may such 
 participation do them ! They themselves know how 
 * Dr. Law, Bisliop of Carlisle.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 129 
 
 little it amounts to. The dignity a parson derives 
 from the lawn sleeves and square cap of his diocesan 
 will never endanger his humility. 
 Pope says truly — 
 
 Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow, 
 The rest is all but leather or prunella. 
 
 Again — " Rich and splendid situations in the 
 church have been justly regarded as prizes, held 
 out to invite persons of good hopes and ingenuous 
 attainments." Agreed. But the prize held out in 
 the Scripture is of a very different kind ; and our 
 ecclesiastical baits are too often snapped by the 
 worthless, and persons of no attainments at all. 
 They are indeed incentives to avarice and ambition, 
 but not to those acquirements, by which only the 
 ministerial function can be adorned — zeal for the 
 salvation of men, humility, and self-denial. Mr. 
 Paley and I therefore cannot agree. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 We think Cowper has treated Paley, as well as 
 his subject, with no small portion of severity. 
 What Paley's arguments may have been, in esta- 
 blishing his first position, we know not, but we 
 should have expected that the poet would have ad- 
 mitted the principle, however he might have disap- 
 proved of the comment. There was a time when 
 the proper constitution of a Christian church fur- 
 nished a subject of inquiry that engaged the coun- 
 cils of princes, convulsed this empire to its basis, 
 
 VOL. II. K
 
 130 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and left the traces of an awful desolation behind. 
 We allude to the times of Charles the First, and 
 to the momentous events that characterized that 
 period. In the present age, the matters in dispute 
 are greatly changed. The important question now 
 agitated is the lawfulness of the union of church 
 and state, so far as that lawfulness is decided by 
 an appeal to the authority of Scripture. Upon this 
 subject it is not our intention to enter. For able 
 and masterly argument, in defence of establish- 
 ments, we beg to refer to the work of Dr. Chalmers,* 
 and to the two last Visitation Charges of Chancellor 
 Dealtry. We trust, however, that we may be al- 
 lowed to express our deep conviction that the timely 
 removal of abuses is not only essential to the effi- 
 ciency and preservation of the church of England, 
 but also imperatively due to our own honour and 
 credit, to the glory of God, and to the advance- 
 ment of true religion. 
 
 In the mean time we would appeal to every intel- 
 ligent observer, whether there has ever been a 
 period, in the annals of our church, more charac- 
 terized by an acknowledged increase of true piety 
 than in the era in which we are now vv riting ? 
 — whether there is not a perceptible revival of sound 
 doctrine in our pulpits, and of devotedness and zeal 
 in the lives of the clergy ? Appealing then to these 
 facts, which he that runneth may read, may we 
 not, though in the spirit of profound humiliation, 
 exclaim with the wife of Manoah, " If the Lord 
 were pleased to kill us, he would not have received 
 
 * See Dr. Chalmers on EstablisLments.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 131 
 
 a burnt-ofFering and a meat-ofFering at our hands ; 
 neither would he have shewed us all these things ; 
 nor would he, as at this time, have told us such 
 things as these." * 
 
 Let, then, the sacred edifice be suffered to remain, 
 built as it is on the foundation of the apostles and 
 prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
 corner-stone ; but let what time hath impaired, or 
 infirmity hath disfigured, be restored and amended. 
 And let this be the language of her friends, as well 
 as of every honourable and conscientious opponent, 
 which was once expressed by the celebrated Beza : 
 "If now the reformed churches of England, admi- 
 nistered by the authority of bishops and archbishops, 
 do hold on, as this hath happened to that church in 
 our memory, that she hath had men of that calling, 
 not only most notable martyrs of God, but also ex- 
 cellent pastors and doctors ; let her, in God's name, 
 enjoy this singular bounty of God, which I wish 
 she may hold for ever."t 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, May 26, 1783. 
 
 I feel for my uncle,+ and do not wonder that his 
 
 loss afflicts him. A connexion that has subsisted 
 
 SO many years could not be rent asunder without 
 
 great pain to the survivor. I hope however and 
 
 * Judges xiii. 23. 
 
 t " Fruatur sane ista singulari Dei beneficentia, qupc utinam 
 illi sit perpetua." — Beza. Besp. ad Sarav. p. 111. 
 
 t Ashley Cowper, Esq., who had recently lost his wife. 
 
 k2
 
 132 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 doubt not but when he has bad a little more time 
 for recollection, he will find that consolation in his 
 own family, which it is not the lot of every father to 
 be blessed with. It seldom happens that married 
 persons live together so long or so happily ; but 
 tliis, which one feels oneself ready to suggest as 
 matter of alleviation, is the very circumstance that 
 aggravates his distress ; therefore he misses her the 
 more, and feels that he can but ill spare her. It is 
 however a necessary tax, Avbich all who live long 
 must pay for their longevity, to lose many whom 
 they would be glad to detain (perhaps those in 
 whom all their happiness is centred) and to see 
 them step into the grave before them. In one 
 respect, at least, this is a merciful appointment. 
 When life has lost that to which it owed its prin- 
 cipal relish, we may ourselves the more cheerfully 
 resign it. I beg you would present him with my 
 most affectionate remembrance, and tell him, if you 
 think fit, how much I wish that the evening of his 
 long day may be serene and happy. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Oliiey, May 31, 1783. 
 We rather rejoice than mourn with you on the 
 occasion of Mrs. C 's death. In the case of be- 
 lievers, death has lost his sting, not only with respect 
 to those he takes away, but with respect to survivors 
 also. Nature indeed will always suggest some causes 
 of sorrow, when an amiable and Christian friend de-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 133 
 
 parts, but the scripture so many more and so much 
 more important reasons to rejoice, that, on such oc- 
 casions, perhaps more remarkably than on any other, 
 sorrow is turned into joy. The law of our land is 
 affronted if we say the king dies, and insists on it 
 that he only demises. This, which is a fiction where 
 a monarch only is in question, in the case of a 
 Christian is reality and truth. He only lays aside a 
 body which it is his privilege to be encumbered with 
 no longer ; and, instead of dying, in that moment he 
 begins to live. But this the world does not under- 
 stand, therefore the kings of it must go on demising 
 to the end of the chapter. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* 
 
 Olney, June 3, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — My green-house, fronted with 
 myrtles, and where I hear nothing but the pattering 
 of a fine shower and the sound of distant thunder, 
 wants only the fumes of your pipe to make it per- 
 fectly delightful. Tobacco was not known in the 
 golden age. So much the worse for the golden age. 
 This age of iron or lead would be insupportable with- 
 out it ; and therefore we may reasonably suppose 
 that the happiness of those better days would have 
 been much improved by the use of it. We hope 
 that you and your son are perfectly recovered. The 
 season has been most unfavourable to animal life ; 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 134 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and I, who am merely animal, have suffered much 
 by it. 
 
 Though I should be glad to v/rite, I write little or 
 nothing. The time for such fruit is not yet come ; 
 but I expect it, and I wish for it. I want amuse- 
 ment ; and, deprived of that, have nothing to supply 
 the place of it. I send you, however, according to 
 my promise to send you every thing, two stanzas 
 composed at the request of Lady Austen. She 
 wanted words to a tune she much admired, and I 
 gave her the following, 
 
 ON PEACE. 
 
 No longer I follow a sound, &c. * 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE EEV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Oluey, June 8, 1783. 
 My dear William — Our severest winter, commonly 
 called the spring, is now over, and I find myself 
 seated in my favourite recess, the green-house. In 
 such a situation, so silent, so shady, where no human 
 foot is heard, and where only my myrtles presume to 
 peep in at the window, you may suppose I have no 
 interruption to complain of, and that my thoughts 
 are perfectly at my command. But the beauties of 
 the spot are themselves an interruption, my attention 
 being called upon by those very myrtles, by a double 
 
 * Vide Poems.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 135 
 
 row of grass pinks just beginning to blossom, and by 
 a bed of beans already in bloom ; and you are to con- 
 sider it, if you please, as no small proof of my regard, 
 that, though you have so many powerful rivals, I 
 disengage myself from them all, and devote this 
 hour entirely to you. 
 
 You are not acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Bull of 
 Newport — perhaps it is as well for you that you are 
 not. You would regret still more than you do, that 
 there are so many miles interposed between us. He 
 spends part of the day with us to-morrow. A dis- 
 senter, but a liberal one ; a man of letters, and of 
 genius ; master of a fine imagination, or rather not 
 master of it — an imagination which, when he finds 
 himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, 
 runs away with him into such fields of speculation, as 
 amuse and enliven every other imagination that has 
 the happiness to be of the party ! at other times he 
 has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his 
 disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men 
 are better qualified for companions in such a world as 
 this than men of such a temperament. Every scene 
 of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the 
 mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and 
 vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation 
 of either. He can be lively without levity, and pen- 
 sive without dejection. Such a man is Mr. Bull. 
 But — he smokes tobacco — nothing is perfect 
 
 Nihil est ab omni 
 Parte beatum 
 
 On the other side I send you a something, a song
 
 136 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 if you please, composed last Thursday : the incident 
 happened the day before.* 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, June 13, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — I thank you for your Dutch 
 communications. The suffrage of such respectable 
 men must have given you much pleasure, a pleasure 
 only to be exceeded by the consciousness you had 
 before of having published truth, and of having served 
 a good master by doing so. 
 
 I have always regretted that your ecclesiastical 
 history went no further : I never saw a work that I 
 thought more likely to serve the cause of truth, nor 
 history applied to so good a purpose.f The facts 
 incontestable, the grand observation upon them all 
 irrefragable, and the style, in my judgment, incom- 
 parably better than that of Robertson or Gibbon. 
 
 * Here followed liis song of " The Rose." 
 
 t Newton's " Review of Ecclesiastical History," so far as 
 it proceeded, was much esteemed, but was incomplete. It 
 had the merit, however, of suggesting to the Rev. Joseph 
 Milner the first idea of his own more enlarged and valuable 
 undertaking, on the same subject. In this work the excellent 
 author pursued the design executed in part by Newton. Instead 
 of exhibiting the history of Christianity as a mere record of 
 facts and events, he traced the rise and progress of true religion, 
 and its preservation through successive ages ; and thus af- 
 forded an incontestable evidence of the superintending power 
 and faithfulness of. God.
 
 LIFE OF COWPEI?. 137 
 
 I would give you my reasons for thinking so, if I had 
 not a very urgent one for declining it. You have 
 no ear for such music, whoever may be the per- 
 former. What you added, but never printed, is quite 
 equal to what has appeared, which I think might 
 have encouraged you to proceed, though you missed 
 that freedom in writing which you found before. 
 While you were at Olney, this was at least possible ; 
 in a state of retirement you had leisure, without 
 which I suppose Paul himself could not have written 
 his epistles. But those days are fled, and every hope 
 of a continuation is fled with them. 
 
 The day of judgment is spoken of not only as a 
 surprise, but a snare, a snare upon all the inhabitants 
 of the earth. A difference indeed will obtain in 
 favour of the godly, which is, that though a snare, 
 a sudden, in some sense an unexpected, and in every 
 sense an awful, event, yet it will find them prepared 
 to meet it. But, the day being thus characterized, 
 a wide field is consequently open to conjecture: 
 some will look for it at one period, and some at 
 another; we shall most of us prove at last to have 
 been mistaken, and if any should prove to have 
 guessed aright, they will reap no advantage, the 
 felicity of their conjecture being incapable of proof, 
 till the day itself shall prove it. My own senti- 
 ments upon the subject appear to me perfectly 
 scriptural, though I have no doubt that they differ 
 totally from those of all who have ever thought 
 about it, being however so singular, and of no 
 importance to the happiness of mankind, and being
 
 138 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 moreover difficult to swallow just in proportion as 
 they are peculiar, I keep them to myself. 
 
 I am and always have been a great observer of 
 natural appearances, but I think not a superstitious 
 one. The fallibility of those speculations which 
 lead men of fanciful minds to interpret scripture by 
 the contingencies of the day, is evident from this 
 consideration, that what the God of the scriptures 
 has seen fit to conceal he will not as the God of 
 nature publish. He is one and the same in both 
 capacities, and consistent with himself and his pur- 
 pose, if he designs a secret impenetrable in what- 
 ever way we attempt to open it. It is impossible 
 however for an observer of natural phenomena not 
 to be struck with the singularity of the present 
 season. The fogs I mentioned in my last still con- 
 tinue, though till yesterday the earth was as dry as 
 intense heat could make it. The sun continues to 
 rise and set without his rays, and hardly shines at 
 noon, even in a cloudless sky. At eleven last night 
 the moon was a dull red ; she was nearly at her 
 highest elevation, and had the colour of heated 
 brick. She would naturally, I know, have such an 
 appearance looking through a misty atmosphere, 
 but that such an atmosphere should obtain for so 
 long a time, in a country where it has not happened in 
 my remembrance, even in the winter, is rather 
 remarkable. We have had more thunder-storms 
 than have consisted well with the peace of the 
 fearful maidens in Olney, though not so many as 
 have happened in places at no great distance, nor
 
 LIFE OF COWPEH. 139 
 
 SO violent. Yesterday morning however, at seven 
 o'clock, two fire-balls burst either on the steeple or 
 close to it. William Andrews saw them meet at 
 that point, and immediately after saw such a smoke 
 issue from the apertures in the steeple, as soon 
 rendered it invisible: the noise of the explosion 
 surpassed all the noises I ever heard; you would 
 have thought that a thousand sledge-hammers were 
 battering great stones to powder, all in the same 
 instant. . The weather is still as hot, and the air as 
 full of vapour, as if there had been neither rain nor 
 thunder all the summer. 
 
 There was once a periodical paper published, 
 called Mist's Journal : a name well adapted to the 
 sheet before you. Misty however as I am, I do not 
 mean to be mystical, but to be understood, like an 
 almanack-maker, according to the letter. As a poet 
 nevertheless, I claim, if any wonderful event should 
 follow, a right to apply all and every such post- 
 prognostic to the purposes of the tragic muse. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 It is worthy of being recorded that these singular 
 appearances presented by the atmosphere and hea- 
 vens, with accompanying thunder-storms, were 
 prevalent in many parts of England. At Dover, 
 the fog was of such long continuance, that the 
 opposite shore could not be discerned for three 
 weeks. In other places the storms of thunder and 
 lightning were awful, and destructive both to life 
 and property. But this phenomenon was not con-
 
 140 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 fined to England only; it extended to France, Italy, 
 Germany, Hungary, Spain, and even to some parts 
 of Afi-ica. In Paris, the appearances were so por- 
 tentous, and the alarm so considerable, that the 
 great astronomer Lalande addressed a letter to one 
 of the journals, in order to compose the public 
 mind. We subjoin it in a note for the gratification 
 of the reader, and as illustrating his views on the 
 subject.* In the preceding February occurred the 
 
 * "It is known lo you that for some days past people have 
 been incessantly inquiring what is the occasion of the thick 
 dry fog which almost constantly covers the heavens 1 And, as 
 this question is particularly put to astronomers, I think myself 
 obliged to say a few words on the subject, more especially since 
 a kind of terror begins to spread in society. It is said by 
 some, that the disasters in Calabria were preceded by similar 
 weather; and by others, that a dangerous comet reigns at pre- 
 sent. In 1773 I experienced how fast conjectures of this kind, 
 which begin amongst the ignorant, even in the most enlightened 
 ages, proceed from mouth to mouth, till they reach the best socie- 
 ties, and find their way even to the public prints. The multitude, 
 therefore, may easily be supposed to draw strange conclusions 
 when they see the sun of a blood colour, shed a melancholy 
 light, and cause a most sultry heat. 
 
 "This, however, is nothing more than a very natural effect 
 from a hot sun, after a long succession of heavy rain. The 
 first impression of heat has necessarily and suddenly rarefied 
 a superabundance of watery particles, with which the earth 
 was deeply impregnated, and given them, as they rose, a dim- 
 ness and rarefaction not usual to common fogs. 
 
 " De La Landk." 
 
 The danger to which men of philosophical minds seem to be 
 peculiarly exposed is the habit of accounting for the phenomena 
 of nature too exclusively by the operation of mere secondary 
 causes ; while the supreme agency of a first Great Cause is too
 
 LTFK OF COVVPER. 141 
 
 calamitous earthquakes in Calabria and Sicily ; by 
 which solemn catastrophe the city of Messina was 
 overthrown, and the greater portion of its population, 
 consisting of thirty thousand souls, wholly destroyed. 
 This awful event was preceded by an horizon full 
 of black intense fog, the earthquake next followed, 
 with two successive shocks, and subsequently a 
 whirlpool of fire issued from the earth, which com- 
 pleted the entire destruction of the noble and great 
 edifices that still remained. We refer the reader 
 for the terrible details of this afflicting calamity to 
 the narrative of Sir William Hamilton, which cannot 
 be read without alarm and terror. Nor can we 
 omit the following just and impressive moral from 
 the pen of Cowper. 
 
 What then! were they the wicked above all. 
 And we the righteous, whose fast anchor'd isle 
 I\Iov'd not, wliile theirs was rock'd, like a light skifF, 
 The sport of every wave? No: none are clear, 
 And none than we more auilty. But, where all 
 Stand chargeable with guilt, and to the shafts 
 
 mucn overlooked. Tne universality of these appearances 
 occurring at the same time in England, France, Italy, and so 
 many other countries, awakens reflections of a more solemn 
 cast, in o mind imbued with Christian prmciples. lie who 
 reads Professor Barruel's work, and the concurring testimony 
 adduced by Robinson, as to the extent of infidelity and even 
 atheism, gathering at that time ia the different states of Europe, 
 might, we think, see in these signs in the moon, and in the 
 stars, and in the heavens, some intimations of impending 
 judgments, which followed so shortly after ; and evidences of 
 the power and existence of that God, which many so impiously 
 questioned and defied.
 
 142 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Of wrath obnoxious, God may choose his mark ; 
 May punish, if he please, the less, to warn 
 The more malignant. If he spar'd not them. 
 Tremble and be amaz'd at thine escape. 
 Far guiltier England, lest he spare not thee. 
 
 Task, book ii. vol. vi. p. 258. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, June 17, 1783 
 My dear Friend — Your letter reached Mr, S — 
 
 while Mr. was with him ; whether it wrought 
 
 any change in his opinion of that gentleman, as a 
 preacher, I know not ; but for my own part I give you 
 full credit for the soundness and rectitude o^ yours. 
 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 vvill bite. There is no grace that the spirit of 
 self can counterfeit with more success than a reli- 
 gious zeal. A man thinks he is fighting for Christ, 
 and he is fighting for his own notions. He thinks 
 that he is skilfully searching the hearts of others, 
 when he is only gratifying the malignity of his own, 
 and charitably supposes his hearers destitute of all 
 grace, that he may shine the more in his own eyes 
 by comparison. When he has performed this no- 
 table task, he wonders that they are not converted, 
 " he has given it them soundly," and if they do not 
 tremble and confess that God is in him of a truth.
 
 LIFE OF roWPER. 143 
 
 he gives them up as reprobate, incorrigible, and lost 
 for ever. But a man that loves me, if he sees me 
 in an error, will pity me, and endeavour calmly to 
 convince me of it, and persuade me to forsake it If 
 he has great and good news to tell me, he will not 
 do it angrily, and in much heat and discomposure 
 of spirit. It is not therefore easy to conceive on 
 what ground a minister can justify a conduct, which 
 only proves that he does not understand his errand. 
 The absurdity of it would certainly strike him, if he 
 were not himself deluded. 
 
 A people will always love a minister, if a minister 
 seems to love his people. The old maxim. Simile 
 agit in simile, is in no case more exactly verified ; 
 therefore you were beloved at Olney, and, if you 
 preached to the Chicksaws and Chactaws, would 
 be equally beloved by them. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 Tenderness in a minister is a very important qua- 
 lification, and indispensable to his success. The 
 duty of it is enjoined in an apostolical precept, and 
 the wisdom of it inculcated in another passage of 
 scripture. " Speaking the truth in love." " He 
 that winneth souls is wise." We have often 
 thought that one reason why a larger portion 
 of divine blessing fails to accompany the ministra- 
 tions of the sanctuary, is the want of more affec- 
 tionate expostulation, more earnest entreaty, and 
 more tenderness and sympathy in the preacher. 
 The heart that is unmoved by our reproof may 
 perhaps yield to the persuasiveness of our appeal.
 
 144 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 We fully admit that it is divine grace alone that 
 can subdue the power of sin in the soul ; but, in the 
 whole economy of grace, as well as of Providence, 
 there is always perceptible a wise adaptation of 
 means to the end. Who is not impressed by the 
 tenderness and earnest solicitations of St. Paul ! 
 Who can contemplate the Saviour weeping over 
 Jerusalem, without emotions of the profoundest ad- 
 miration ! And who does not know that the spectacle 
 of man's misery and guilt first suggested the great 
 plan of redemption, and that the scheme of mercy 
 which divine love devised in heaven dying love 
 accomplished on earth ! 
 
 TO THE KEV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, June 19, 1783. 
 
 My deal' Friend — The translation of your letters* 
 into Dutch was news that pleased me much. I in- 
 tended plain prose, but a rhyme obtruded itself, and 
 I became poetical when I least expected it. WTien 
 you wrote those letters, you did not dream that you 
 were designed for an apostle to the Dutch. Yet 
 so it proves, and such among many others are the 
 advantages we derive from the art of printing — an 
 art in which indisputably man was instructed by the 
 same great teacher, who taught him to embroider 
 for the service of the sanctuary, and which amounts 
 almost to as great a blessing as the gift of tongues. 
 
 The summer is passing away, and hitherto has 
 
 * Newton's " Cardiphonia," a work of great merit and 
 interest, and full of edification.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 145 
 
 hardly been either seen or felt. Perpetual clouds 
 intercept the influence of the sun, and for the most 
 part there is an autumnal coldness in the weather, 
 though we are almost upon the eve of the longest 
 day. 
 
 We are well, and always mindful of you : be mind- 
 ful of us, and assured that we love you. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, July 27, 1783. 
 
 INIy dear Friend — Y( u cannot have more plea- 
 sure in receiving a letter from me than I should 
 find in writing it, were it not almost impossible in 
 such a place to find a subject. 
 
 I live in a world abounding with incidents, upon 
 which many grave and perhaps some profitable ob- 
 servations might be made ; but, those incidents never 
 reaching my unfortunate ears, both. the entertaining 
 narrative, and the reflection it might suggest, are to 
 me annihilated and lost. I look back to the past 
 week and say, what did it produce ? I ask the 
 same question of the week preceding, and duly re- 
 ceive the same answer from b ;tli — nothing! A 
 situation like this, in which I am as unknown to 
 the world as I am ignorant of all that passes in it, 
 in which I have nothing to do but to think, would 
 exactly suit me, were my subject of meditiition as 
 agreeable as my leisure is uninterrupted: my passion 
 
 VOL. II. L
 
 146 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 for retirement is not at all abated, after so many 
 years spent in the most sequestered state, but rather 
 increased. A circumstance I should esteem won- 
 derful to a degree not to be accounted for, consi- 
 dering the condition of my mind, did I not know 
 that we think as we are made to think, and of course 
 approve and prefer, as Providence, who appoints 
 the bounds of our habitation, chooses for us. Thus 
 I am both free and a prisoner at the same time. 
 The world is before me; I am not shut up in the 
 Bastile; there are no moats about my castle, no 
 locks upon my gates, of which I have not the key — 
 but an invisible, uncontrollable agency, a local at- 
 tachment, an inclination more forcible than I ever 
 felt, even to the place of my birth, serves me for 
 prison-walls, and for boimds which I cannot pass. 
 In former years I have known sorrow, and before I 
 had ever tasted of spiritual trouble. The effect 
 was an abhorrence of the scene in which I had 
 suffered so much, and a weariness of those objects 
 which I had so long looked at with an eye of de- 
 spondency and dejection. But it is otherwise with 
 me now. The same cause subsisting, and in a much 
 more powerful degree, fails to produce its natural 
 effect. The very stones in the garden-walls are 
 my intimate acquaintance. I should miss almost 
 the minutest object, and be disagreeably affected by 
 its removal, and am persuaded that, were it possible 
 I could leave this incommodious nook for a twelve- 
 month, I should return to it again with rapture, and 
 be transported with the sight of objects, which to 
 all the world beside would be at least indifferent ;
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 147 
 
 some of them, perhaps, such as the ragged thatch 
 and the tottering walls of the neighbouring cottages 
 disgusting. But so it is, and it is so, because here 
 is to be my abode, and because such is the appoint- 
 ment of Him that placed me in it. 
 
 Iste terrarum mihi prater omnes 
 Angulus ridet. 
 
 It is the place of all the world I love the most, not 
 for any happiness it affords me, but because here I 
 can be miserable with most convenience to myself, 
 and with the least disturbance to others. 
 
 You wonder, and (I dare say) unfeignedly, because 
 you do not think yourself entitled to such praise, 
 that I prefer your style, as an historian, to that of 
 the two most renowned writers of history the pre- 
 sent day has seen. That you may not suspect me 
 of having said more than my real opinion will 
 warrant, I will tell you why. In your style I 
 see no affectation, in every hne of theirs I see no- 
 thing else. They disgust me always ; Robertson 
 with his pomp and his strut, and Gibbon with his 
 finical and French manners. You are as correct as 
 they. You express yourself with as much pre- 
 cision. Your words are ranged with as much pro- 
 priety, but you do not set your periods to a tune. 
 They discover a perpetual desire to exhibit them- 
 selves to advantage, whereas your subject engrosses 
 you. They sing, and you say ; which, as history 
 is a thing to be said and not sung, is in my judg- 
 ment very much to your advantage. A writer 
 
 l2
 
 148 LIFE OF COVVPEK. 
 
 tliat despises their tricks, and is yet neither inelegant 
 nor inharmonious, proves himself, by that single 
 circumstance, a man of superior judgment and 
 ability to them both. You have my reasons. I 
 honour a manly character, in which good sense 
 and a desire of doing good are the predominant 
 features — but affectation is an emetic. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 It is impossible to read the former part of the 
 preceding letter without emotion. Who has not 
 felt the force of local associations, and their power 
 of presenting affecting recollections to the mind ! 
 
 " I could not bear," says Pope, in one of his 
 letters, " to have even an old post removed out of 
 the way with which my eyes had been familiar from 
 my youth." 
 
 Among the Swiss, the force of association is so 
 strong, that it is known by the appellation of the 
 " maladie du pays ;" and it is recorded that on 
 hearing one of their national airs in a foreign land, 
 so oveqjowering was the effect that, though engaged 
 in warfare at the time, they threw down their arms 
 and returned to their own country. The emotions 
 awakened by some of the Swiss airs, such as the 
 " Rantz des Vaches," and the affecting pathos of 
 " La suissesse au bord du lac," when heard on their 
 native lakes, are always remembered by the tra- 
 veller with delight. The feelings of a still higher 
 kind connected with local associations are expressed 
 with so much grace and eloquence in Dr. Johnson's
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 149 
 
 celebrated allusion to this subject, that we close our 
 remarks by inserting the passage. — 
 
 " We were now treading that illustrious island, 
 which was once the luminary of the Caledonian 
 regions, whence savage clans and roving barbarians 
 derived the benefits of knowledge and the blessings 
 of religion. To abstract the mind from all local 
 emotion would be impossible, if it were endeavoured, 
 and would be foolish if it were possible. What- 
 ever withdraws us from the power of our senses, what- 
 ever makes the past, the distant, or the future, pre- 
 dominate over the present, advances us in the 
 dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and from 
 my friends be such frigid philosophy, as may con- 
 duct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground 
 which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or 
 virtue. That man is little to be envied, whose 
 patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of 
 Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
 among the ruins of lona."* 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Aug. 4, 1783. 
 My dear William — I feel myself sensibly obliged 
 by the interest you take in the success of my pro- 
 ductions. Your feelings upon the subject are such 
 as I should have myself, had I an opportunity of 
 calling Johnson aside to make the inquiry you 
 propose But I am pretty well prepared for the 
 
 * See his Journey to tlie Western Islands.
 
 150 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 worst, and, so long as I have the opinion of a few- 
 capable judges in my favour, and am thereby con- 
 vinced that I have neither disgraced myself nor my 
 subject, shall not feel myself disposed to any ex- 
 treme anxiety about the sale. To aim, with success, 
 at the spiritual good of mankind, and to become 
 popular by writing on scriptural subjects, were an 
 unreasonable ambition, even for a poet to entertain 
 in days like these. Verse may have many charms, 
 but has nc.ne powerful enough to conquer the 
 aversion of a dissipated age to such instruction. 
 Ask the question therefore boldly, and be not 
 mortified, even though he should shake his head, 
 and drop his chin ; for it is no more than we have 
 reason to expect. We will lay the fault upon the 
 vice of the times, and we will acquit the poet. 
 
 I am glad you were pleased with my Latin ode, 
 and indeed with my English dirge as much as I 
 was myself. The tune laid me under a disadvan- 
 tage, obliging me to write in Alexandrines ; which 
 I suppose, would suit no ear but a French one ; 
 neither did I intend any thing more than that the 
 subject and the words should be sufficiently ac- 
 commodated to the music. The ballad is a species 
 of poetry, I believe, peculiar to this country, equally 
 adapted to the drollest and the most tragical sub- 
 jects. Simplicity and ease are its proper charac- 
 teristics. Our forefathers excelled in it ; but we 
 moderns have lost the art. It is observed, that we 
 have few good English odes. But, to make amends, 
 we have many excellent ballads, not inferior, per- 
 haps, m true poetical merit to some of the very
 
 LIFE OF COAVPER. 151 
 
 best odes that the Greek or Latin languages have 
 to boast of. It is a sort of composition I was ever 
 fond of, and, if graver matters had not called me 
 another way, should have addicted myself to it more 
 than to any other. I inherit a taste for it from my 
 father, who succeeded well in it himself, and who 
 lived at a time when the best pieces in that way 
 were produced. What can be prettier than Gay's 
 ballad, or rather Swift's, Arbuthnot's, Pope's, and 
 Gay's, in the What do ye call it — " 'Twas when 
 the seas were roaring." I have been well informed 
 that they all contributed, and that the most cele- 
 brated association of clever fellows this country 
 ever saw, did not think it beneath them to unite 
 their strength and abilities in the composition of a 
 song. The success, however, answered their wishes. 
 The ballads that Bourne has translated, beautiful 
 in themselves, are still more beautiful in his version 
 of them, infinitely surpassing in my judgment all 
 that Ovid or Tibullus have left behind them. They 
 are quite as elegant, and far more touching and 
 pathetic, than the tenderest strokes of either. 
 
 So much for ballads and ballad- writers. — " A 
 worthy subject," you will say, " for a man, whose 
 head might be filled with better things ;" — and it is 
 filled with better things, but to so ill a purpose, 
 that I thrust into it all manner of topics that may 
 prove more amusing ; as, for instance, I have two 
 goldfinches, which in the summer occupy the green- 
 house. A few days since, being employed in clean- 
 ing out their cages, I placed that which I had in 
 hand upon the table, while the other hung against
 
 152 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the wall : the windows and the doors stood wide 
 open. I went to fill the fountain at the pump, and, 
 on my return, was not a little surprised to find a 
 goldfinch sitting on the top of the cage I had been 
 cleaning, and singing to and kissing the goldfinch 
 within. I approached him, and he discovered no 
 fear ; still nearer, and he discovered none. I ad- 
 vanced my hand towards him, and he took no notice 
 of it. I seized him, and supposed I had caught a 
 new bird, but, casting my eye upon the other cage, 
 perceived my mistake. Its inhabitant, during my 
 absence, had contrived to find an opening, where 
 the wire had been a little bent, and made no other 
 use of the escape it afforded him than to salute his 
 friend, and to converse with him more intimately 
 than he had done before. I returned him to his 
 proper mansion, but in vain. In less than a minute, 
 he had thrust his little person through the aperture 
 again, and again perched upon his neighbour's cage, 
 kissing him, as at the first, and singing, as if trans- 
 ported with the fortunate adventure. I could not 
 but respect such friendship, as, for the sake of its 
 gratification, had twice declined an opportunity to 
 be free, and, consenting to their union, resolved that 
 for the future one cage should hold them both. I 
 am glad of such incidents. For at a pinch, and 
 when I need entertainment, the versification of them 
 serves to divert me. 
 
 I transcribe for you a piece of Madam Guion, not 
 as the best, but as being shorter than many, and 
 as good as most of them. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 w c.
 
 LIFE OF COWPEK. 153 
 
 The following letter contains a judicious and ex- 
 cellent critique on the writings of Madame Guion, 
 and on the school of mystics to which she belonged. 
 The defect attributed to that school is too m.uch 
 familiarity of address, and a warmth of devotional 
 fervour in their approach to the Deity, exceeding 
 the bounds of just propriety. There is, however, 
 much to quicken piety, and to elevate the affections 
 of the heart. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 7, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — So long a silence needs an 
 apology. I have been hindered by a three-weeks' 
 visit from our Hoxton friends,^ and by a cold and 
 feverish complaint which are but just removed. 
 
 The French poetess is certainly chargeable with 
 the fault you mention, though I thought it not so 
 glaring in the piece I sent you. I have endeavoured 
 indeed, in all the translations I have made, to cure 
 her of that evil, either by the suppression of pas- 
 sages exceptionable upon that account, or by a more 
 sober and respectful manner of expression. Still, 
 however, she will be found to have conversed fami- 
 liarly with God, but I hope not fulsomely, nor so as 
 to give reasonable disgust to a religious reader. 
 That God should deal familiarly with man, or, which 
 is the same thing, that he should permit man to 
 deal familiarly with him, seems not very difficult to 
 conceive, or presumptuous to suppose, when some 
 
 * Mr. and ^Irs. Newton.
 
 134 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 things are taken into consideration. Woe to the 
 sinner, that shall dare to take a liberty with him 
 that is not warranted by his word, or to which he 
 himself has not encouraged him. When he as- 
 sumed man's nature, he revealed himself as the 
 friend of man, as the brother of every soul that 
 loves him. He conversed freely with man while 
 he was on earth, and as freely with him after his 
 I'esurrection. I doubt not, therefore, that it is pos- 
 sible to enjoy an access to him even now, unin- 
 cumbered with ceremonious awe, easy, delightful, 
 and without constraint. This, however, can only 
 l)e the lot of those who make it the business of their 
 lives to please him, and to cultivate communion 
 M'ith him. And then I presume there can be no 
 danger of offence, because such a habit of the soul 
 is of his own creation, and, near as we come, we 
 come no nearer to him than he is pleased to draw 
 us. If we address him as children, it is because he 
 tells us he is our father. If Ave unbosom ourselves 
 to him as to a friend, it is because he calls us 
 friends, and if we speak to him in the language of 
 love, it is because he first used it, thereby teaching 
 us that it is the language he delights to hear from 
 his people. But I confess that, through the weak- 
 ness, the folly, and corruption of human nature, 
 this privilege, like all other Christian privileges, is 
 liable to abuse. There is a mixture of evil in every 
 thing we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach; 
 and, while we exercise the rights of children, we 
 become childish. Here I think is the point in 
 which my authoress failed, and here it is that I have
 
 LIFE OF COWPER 155 
 
 particularly guarded my translation, not afraid or 
 representing her as dealing with God familiarly, but 
 foolishly, irreverently, and without due attention to 
 his majesty, of which she is somewhat guilty. A 
 wonderful fault for such a woman to fall into, who 
 spent her life in the contemplation of his glory, who 
 seems to have been alway impressed with a sense of 
 it, and sometimes quite absorbed by the views she 
 had of it. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 8, 17R.S. 
 
 My dear Friend —Mrs. Unwin would have an- 
 swered your kind note from Bedford, had not a pain 
 in her side prevented her. I, who am her secretary 
 upon such occasions, should certainly have answered 
 it for her, but was hindered by illness, having been 
 myself seized with a fever immediately after your 
 departure. The account of your recovery gave us 
 great pleasure, and I am persuaded that you will 
 feel yourself repaid by the information that I give 
 you of mine. The reveries your head was filled 
 with, while your disorder was most prevalent, 
 though they were but reveries, and the offspring of 
 a heated imagination, afforded you yet a comfortable 
 evidence of the predominant bias of your heart and 
 mind to the best subjects. I had none such — in- 
 deed I was in no degree delirious, nor has any thing 
 less than a fever really dangerous ever made me so. 
 In this respect, if in no other, I may be said to have
 
 156 LIFE OF rOWPER. 
 
 a strong head, and, perhaps for the same reason that 
 wine would never make me drunk, an ordinary de- 
 gree of fever has no effect upon my understanding. 
 The epidemic begins to be more mortal as the au- 
 tumn comes on, and in Bedfordshire it is reported, 
 how truly I cannot say, to be nearly as fatal as the 
 plague. I heard lately of a clerk in a public office, 
 whose chief employment it was for many years to 
 administer oaths, who being light-headed in a fever, 
 of which he died, spent the last week of his life, in 
 crying day and night — " So help you God — kiss the 
 book — give me a shilling." What a wretch in com- 
 parison with you ! 
 
 Mr. Scott has been ill almost ever since you left 
 us, and last Saturday, as on many foregoing Sa- 
 turdays, was obliged to clap on a blister by way of 
 preparation for his Sunday labours. He cannot 
 draw breath upon any other terms. If holy orders 
 w^ere always conferred upon such conditions, 1 
 question but even bishopricks themselves woiild 
 want an occupant. But he is easy and clieerful. 
 
 I beg you will mention me kindly to Mr. Bacon, 
 and make him sensible that if I did not write the 
 paragraph he wished for, it was not owing to any 
 want of respect for the desire he expressed, but to 
 mere inability. If, in a state of mind that almost 
 disqualifies me for society, I could possibly wish to 
 form a new connexion, I should wish to know him ; 
 but I never shall, and, things being as they are, I 
 do not regret it. You are my old friend, therefore 
 1 do not spare you ; having known you in better 
 days, I make you pay for any pleasure I might then
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 167 
 
 afford you by a communication of my present pains. 
 But I have no claims of this sort upon Mr. Bacon. 
 
 Be pleased to remember us both, with much 
 affection, to Mrs. Newton, and to her and your 
 
 Eliza : to Miss C ,t likewise, if she is with you. 
 
 Poor Eliza droops and languishes ; but in the land 
 to which she is going she will hold up her head 
 and droop no more. A sickness that leads the way 
 to everlasting life is better than the health of an 
 antediluvian. Accept our united love. 
 My dear friend, 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Sept. 15, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — I have been lately more de- 
 jected and more distressed than usual ; more ha- 
 rassed by dreams in the night, and more deeply 
 poisoned by them in the following day. I know 
 not what is portended by an alteration for the worse 
 after eleven years of misery ; but firmly believe 
 that it is not designed as the introduction of a 
 change for the better. You know not what I suf- 
 fered while you were here, nor was there any need 
 you should. Your friendship for me would have 
 made you in some degree a partaker of my woes ; 
 
 t The young lady here alluded to is Miss Eliza Cuuningliain, 
 a niece of Mr. Kevvton's. 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 }5S LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and your share in them would have been increased 
 by your inabiUty to help me. Perhaps, indeed, they 
 took a keener edge from the consideration of your 
 presence. The friend of my heart, the person with 
 whom I had formerly taken sweet counsel, no longer 
 useful to me as a minister, no longer pleasant to me 
 as a Christian, was a spectacle that must necessarily 
 add the bitterness of mortification to the sadness of 
 despair. I now see a long winter before me, and 
 am to get through it as I can. I know the ground 
 before I tread upon it. It is hollow ; it is agitated ; 
 it suffers shocks in every direction ; it is like the 
 soil of Calabria — all whirlpool and undulation. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 23, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — We are glad that, having been 
 attacked by a fever, which has often proved fatal, 
 and almost always leaves the sufferer debilitated to 
 the last degree, you find yourself so soon restored 
 to health, and your strength recovered. Your health 
 and strength are useful to others, and, in that view, 
 important in his account who dispenses both, and 
 by your means a more precious gift than either. 
 For my own part, though I have not been laid up, 
 I have never been perfectly well since you left us. 
 A smart fever, which lasted indeed but a few hours, 
 succeeded by lassitude and want of spirits that
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 159 
 
 seemed still to indicate a feverish habit, has made 
 for some time and still makes me very unfit for my 
 favourite occupations, writing and reading : so that 
 even a letter, and even a letter to you, is not with- 
 out its burthen. 
 
 John has had the epidemic, and has it still, 
 
 but grows better. When he was first seized with 
 it, he gave notice that he should die, but in this only 
 instance of prophetic exertion he seems to have been 
 mistaken : he has however been very near it. I 
 should have told you that poor John has been very 
 ready to depart, and much comforted through his 
 whole illness. He, you know, though a silent has 
 been a very steady professor. He indeed fights battles 
 and gains victories, but makes no noise. Europe is 
 not astonished at his feats, foreign academies do not 
 seek him for a member, he will never discover the 
 art of flying, or send a globe of taffeta up to heaven. 
 But he will go thither himself. 
 
 Since you went, we dined with Mr. . I had 
 
 sent him notice of our visit a week before, which, 
 like a contemplative studious man as he is, he put 
 in his pocket and forgot. When we arrived, the 
 parlour windows were shut, and the house had the 
 appearance of being uninhabited. After waiting 
 some time, however, the maid opened the door, and 
 tiie master presented himself. It is hardly worth 
 while to observe so repeatedly that his garden seems 
 a spot contrived only for the growth of melancholy, 
 but being always affected by it in the same way, I 
 cannot help it. He shewed me a nook, in which he had 
 placed a bench, and where he said he found it very
 
 160 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 refreshing to smoke his pipe and meditate. Here 
 he sits with his back against one brick wall and his 
 nose against another, which must, you know, be 
 very refreshing and greatly assist meditation. He 
 rejoices the more in this niche, because it is an ac- 
 quisition made at some expense, and with no small 
 labour ; several loads of earth were removed in order 
 to make it, which loads of earth, had I the ma- 
 nagement of them, I should carry thither again, 
 and fill up a place more fit in appearance to be a 
 repository for the dead than the living. I would on 
 no account put any man out of conceit with his 
 innocent enjoyments, and therefore never tell fiim 
 my thoughts upon this subject, but he is not seldom 
 low-spirited, and I cannot but suspect that his si- 
 tuation helps to make him so. 
 
 I shall be obliged to you for Hawkesworth's 
 Voyages when it can be sent conveniently. The 
 long evenings are beginning, and nothing shortens 
 them so effectually as reading aloud. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 29, 1783. 
 My dear William — We 'are sorry that you and 
 your household partake so largely of the ill effects 
 of this unhealthy season. You are happy how- 
 ever in having hitherto escaped the epidemic fever, 
 which has prevailed much in this part of the king-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 161 
 
 dom, and carried many off. Your mother and I 
 are well. After more than a fortnight's indispo- 
 sition, which slight appellation is quite inadequate 
 to the description of all I suffered, I am at length 
 restored by a grain or two of emetic tartar. It is 
 a tax I generally pay in autumn. By this time, I 
 hope, a purer ether than we have seen for months, 
 and these brighter suns than the summer had to 
 boast, have cheered your spirits, and made your 
 existence more comfortable. We are rational : but 
 we are animal too ; and therefore subject to the in- 
 fluences of the weather. The cattle in the fields 
 shov,^ evident symptoms of lassitude and disgust in 
 an unpleasant season ; and we, their lords and masters, 
 are constrained to sympathize with them : the only 
 difference between us is, that they know not the 
 cause of their dejection, and we do, but, for our hu- 
 miliation, are equally at a loss to cure it. Upon this 
 account I have sometimes wished myself a philo- 
 sopher. How happy, in comparison with myself, 
 does the sagacious investigator of nature seem, 
 whose fancy is ever employed in the invention of 
 hypotheses, and his reason in the support of them ! 
 While he is accounting for the origin of the winds, 
 he has no leisure to attend to their influence upon 
 himself; and, while he considers what the sun is 
 made of, forgets that he has not shone for a month. 
 One project indeed supplants another. The vortices 
 of Descartes gave way to the gravitation of Newton, 
 and this again is threatened by the electrical fluid 
 of a modern.* One generation blows bubbles, and 
 
 * Dr. Franklin. 
 vni.. IT. M
 
 162 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the next breaks them. But in the mean time your 
 philosopher is a happy man. He escapes a thousand 
 inquietudes to which the indolent are subject, and 
 finds his occupation, whether it be the pursuit of a 
 butterfly or a demonstration, the wholesomest ex- 
 ercise in the world. As he proceeds, he applauds 
 himself. His discoveries, though eventually perhaps 
 they prove but dreams, are to him realities. The 
 world gaze at him as he does at new phenomena in 
 the heavens, and perhaps understand him as little. 
 But this does not prevent their praises, nor at all 
 disturb him in the enjoyment of that self-compla- 
 cence, to which his imaginary success entitles him. 
 He wears his honours while he lives, and, if another 
 strips them off when he has been dead a century, 
 it is no great matter ; he can then make shift with- 
 out them. 
 
 I have said a great deal upon this subject, and 
 know not what it all amounts to. I did not intend 
 a syllable of it when I began. But, currente calamo, 
 I stumbled upon it. My end is to amuse myself 
 and you. The former of these two points is se- 
 cured. I shall be happy if I do not miss the latter. 
 
 By the way, what is your opinion of these air- 
 balloons ? I am quite charmed with the discovery. 
 Is it not possible (do you suppose?) to convey such 
 a quantity of inflammable air into the stomach and 
 abdomen, that the philosopher, no longer gravitat- 
 ing to a centre, shall ascend by his own comparative 
 levity, and never stop till he has reached the me- 
 dium exactly in equilihrio with himself? May he 
 not, by the help of a pasteboard rudder attached to
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 163 
 
 his posteriors, steer himself in that purer element 
 with ease, and again by a slow and gradual discharge 
 of his aerial contents, recover his former tendency 
 to the earth, and descend without the smallest dan- 
 ger or inconvenience ? These things are worth 
 inquiry, and (I dare say) they will be inquired after 
 as they deserve : the pennce non homini datce are 
 likely to be less regretted than they were ; and per- 
 haps a flight of academicians and a covey of fine 
 ladies may be no uncommon spectacle in the next 
 generation. A letter which appeared in the public 
 prints last week convinces me that the learned are 
 not without hopes of some such improvement upon 
 this discovery. The author is a sensible and inge- 
 nious man, and, under a reasonable apprehension that 
 the ignorant may feel themselves inclined to laugh 
 upon a subject that affects himself with the utmost 
 seriousness, with much good manners and manage- 
 ment bespeaks their patience, suggesting many good 
 consequences that may result from a course of ex- 
 periments upon this machine, and amongst others, 
 that it may be of use in ascertaining the shape of 
 continents and islands, and the face of wide ex- 
 tended and far distant countries, an end not to be 
 hoped for, unless by these means of extraordinary 
 elevation, the human prospect may be immensely 
 enlarged, and the philosopher, exalted to tlie skies, 
 attain a view of the whole hemisphere at once. 
 But whether he is to ascend by the mere inflation 
 of his person, as hinted above, or whether in a sort 
 of band-box, supported upon balloons, is not yet 
 
 M 2
 
 164 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 apparent, nor (I suppose) even in his own idea per- 
 fectly decided. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 My dear William, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 6, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — It is indeed a melancholy con- 
 sideration, that the gospel, whose direct tendency is 
 to promote the happiness of mankind, in the present 
 as well as in the life to come, and which so effec- 
 tually answers the design of its author, whenever it 
 is well understood and sincerely believed, should, 
 through the ignorance, the bigotry, the superstition 
 of its professors, and the ambition of popes, and 
 princes, the tools of popes, have produced incidentally 
 so much mischief; only furnishing the world with 
 a plausible excuse to worry each other, while they 
 sanctified the worst cause with the specious pretext 
 of zeal for the furtherance of the best 
 
 Angels descend from heaven to publish peace 
 between man and his Maker — the Prince of Peace 
 himself comes to confirm and establish it, and war, 
 hatred, and desolation, are the consequence. Thou- 
 sands quarrel about the interpretation of a book 
 which none of them understand. He that is slain 
 dies firmly persuaded that the crown of martyrdom 
 expects him, and he that slew him is equally con-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 165 
 
 vinced that he has done God service.* In reaHty, 
 they are both mktaken, and equally unentitled to 
 tlie honour they arrogate to themselves. If a mul- 
 titude of blind men should set out for a certain city, 
 and dispute about the right road till a battle ensued 
 between them, the probable effect would be, that 
 none of them would ever reach it ; and such a fray, 
 preposterous and shocking in the extreme, would 
 exhibit a picture in some degree resembling the 
 original of which we have been speaking. And 
 why is not the world thus occupied at present ? 
 even because they have exchanged a zeal that was 
 no better than madness for an indifference equally 
 pitiable and absurd. The Holy Sepulchre has lost 
 its importance in the eyes of nations called Christian, 
 not because the light of true wisdom has delivered 
 tliem from a superstitious attachment to the spot, but 
 because he that was buried in it is no longer regarded 
 by them as the Saviour of the world. The exercise 
 of reason, enlightened by philosophy, has cured them 
 indeed of the misery of an abused understanding ; 
 but, together with the delusion, they have lost the 
 
 * Thebitter dissensions of professing Christians have^ilways 
 afforded ground for the ridicule and scoff of the infidel. Yo]- 
 taire parodied those well-known words, " See liow these 
 Christians love one another," in the following sarcastic-man- 
 ner, — " See how these Christians hate one another." It is 
 related of Charles the Fifth, that, after his voluntary abdication 
 of the throne, he amused himself by the occupation of making 
 watches ; and, finding that he never could, by any contrivance, 
 make two watches to agree together, he exclaimed against his 
 own folly, in having s|)ent so large a portion of his life in 
 endeavouring to make men agree on the subject o-f religion.
 
 166 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 substance, and, for the sake of the Hes that were 
 grafted upon it, have quarrelled with the truth itself 
 Here then we see the ne plus ultra of human wisdom, 
 at least in affairs of religion. It enlightens the mind 
 with respect to non-essentials, but, with respect to 
 that in which the essence of Christianity consists, 
 leaves it perfectly in the dark. It can discover many 
 errors that in different ages have disgraced the faith, 
 but it is only to make way for the admission of one 
 more fatal than them all, which represents that faith 
 itself as a delusion. Why those evils have been 
 permitted shall be known hereafter. One thing in 
 the mean time is certain ; that the folly and frenzy 
 of the professed disciples of the gospel have been 
 more dangerous to its interests than all the avowed 
 hostilities of its adversaries, and perhaps for this 
 cause these mischiefs might be suffered to prevail 
 for a season, that its divine original and nature might 
 be the more illustrated, when it should appear that 
 it was able to stand its ground for ages against that 
 most formidable of all attacks, the indiscretion of its 
 friends. The outrages that have followed this per- 
 version of the truth have proved indeed a stumbling- 
 block to individuals ; the wise of this world, with all 
 their wisdom, have not been able to distinguish be- 
 tween the blessing and abuse of it. Voltaire was 
 offended, and Gibbon has turned his back ; but the 
 flock of Christ is still nourished and still increases, 
 notwithstanding the unbelief of a philosopher is 
 able to convert bread into a stone and a fish into a 
 serpent. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for the Voyages, which
 
 LIFE OF COWPER 167 
 
 I received f and began to read last night. My ima- 
 gination is so captivated upon these occasions, that 
 I seem to partake with the navigators in all the 
 dangers they encountered. I lose my anchor ; my 
 main-sail is rent into shreds ; I kill a shark, and 
 by signs converse with a Patagonian, and all this 
 without moving from the fire-side. The principal 
 fruits of these circuits that have been made round 
 the globe seem likely to be the amusement of those 
 that staid at home. Discoveries have been made, 
 but such discoveries as will hardly satisfy the ex- 
 pense of such undertakings. We brought away an 
 Indian, and, having debauched him, we sent him 
 home again to communicate the infection to his 
 country — fine sport to be sure, but such as will 
 not defray the cost. Nations that live upon bread- 
 fruit, and have no mines to make them worthy of 
 our acquaintance, will be but little visited for the 
 future. So much the better for them ; their poverty 
 is indeed their mercy. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Oliiey, Oct. 10, 178.'). 
 My dear Friend — I have nothing to say on poli- 
 tical subjects, for two reasons ; first, because I know 
 none that at present would prove very amusing, 
 
 t Hawkes worth's. 
 
 ♦ Private Correspondence.
 
 168 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 especially to you, who love your country ; and, se- 
 condly, because there are none that I have the 
 vanity to think myself qualified to discuss. I must 
 beg leave, however, to rejoice a little at the failure 
 of the Caisse d'Escomptes, because I think the 
 French have well deserved it ; and to mourn equally 
 that the Royal George cannot be weighed : the 
 rather, because I wrote two poems, one Latin and 
 one English, to encourage the attempt.* The former 
 of these only having been published, which the sailors 
 would understand but little of, may be the reason, 
 perhaps, why they have not succeeded. Believe 
 me, my friend, 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 * An elegant monument, erected above the grave of thirty- 
 nine sailors, whose bodies were subsequently found, was 
 erected in the churchyard of Portsea, to commemorate the 
 melancholy loss of the Royal George. We subjoin the inte- 
 resting epitaph, which is inscribed on black marble, in gold 
 letters. 
 
 " READER, 
 
 WITH SOLEMN THOUGHT 
 
 SURVEY THIS GRAVE, 
 
 AND REFLECT 
 
 ON THE UNTIMELY DEATH 
 
 OF THY FELLOW MORTALS ; 
 
 AND WHILST, 
 
 AS A MAN, A BRITON, AND A PATRIOT, 
 
 THOU READEST 
 
 THE MELANCHOLY NARRATIVE, 
 
 DROP A TEAR 
 
 FOR THY country's 
 
 LOSS. 
 
 At the bottom of the monument, in a compartment bv itself,
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 169 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olnej-, October 13, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — I am much obliged to you for 
 your American anecdotes, and feel the obligation 
 perhaps more sensibly, the labour of transcribing 
 being in particular that to which I myself have the 
 greatest aversion. The loyalists are much to be 
 pitied : driven from all the comforts that depend 
 upon, and are intimately connected vifith, a resi- 
 dence in their native land, and sent to cultivate a 
 distant one, without the means of doing it, aban- 
 doned too through a deplorable necessity, by the 
 government to which they sacrificed all,* they 
 exhibit a spectacle of distress, which one cannot 
 view, even at this distance, without participating 
 in what they feel. Why could not some of our 
 useless wastes and forests have been allotted to 
 their support ? To have built them houses indeed, 
 and furnished them with implements of husbandry, 
 would have put us to no small expense ; but I sup- 
 are the following four lines, in allusion to the brave Admiral 
 Kempenfelt ; 
 
 " 'Tis not this stone, regretted chief, thy name, 
 Thy worth, and merit shall extend to fame: 
 Brilliant achievements have thy name imprest, 
 In lasting characters, on Albion's breast.'" 
 
 * In the terms of peace concluded with America, the 
 loyalists, who adhered in their allegiance to Great Britain, 
 were not sufficiently remembered, considering the sacrifices 
 they had made, and thus had the misfortune of being perse- 
 cuted by America, and neglected by England.
 
 170 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 pose the increase of population and the improve- 
 ment of the soil would soon have been felt as a 
 national advantage, and have indemnified the state 
 if not enriched it. We are bountiful to foreigners, 
 and neglect those of our own household. I re- 
 member that, compassionating the miseries of the 
 Portuguese, at the time of the Lisbon earthquake,* 
 we sent them a ship-load of tools to clear away the 
 rubbish with, and to assist them in rebuilding the 
 city. I remember too it was reported at the time 
 that the court of Portugal accepted our wheel- 
 barrows and spades with a very ill grace, and 
 treated our bounty with contempt. An act like 
 this in behalf of our brethren, carried only a little 
 farther, might possibly have redeemed them from 
 ruin, have resulted in emolument to ourselves, have 
 been received with joy, and repaid with gratitude. 
 Such are my speculations upon the subject, who, 
 not being a politician by profession, and very 
 seldom giving my attention for a moment to such a 
 matter, may not be aware of difficulties and objec- 
 tions, which they of the cabinet can discern with 
 half an eye. Perhaps to have taken under our 
 protection a race of men proscribed by the Con- 
 gress, might be thought dangerous to the interests 
 we hope to have hereafter in their high and mighty 
 regards and affections. It is ever the way of those 
 who rule the earth, to leave out of their reckoning 
 Him who rules the universe. They forget that the 
 poor have a friend more powerful to avenge than 
 
 * This event occurred in the yeaf I'J'SG.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 171 
 
 they can be to oppress, and that treachery and 
 perfidy must therefore prove bad policy in the end. 
 The Americans themselves appear to me to be in a 
 situation little less pitiable than that of the deserted 
 loyalists. Their fears of arbitrary imposition were 
 certainly well founded. A struggle therefore might 
 be necessary, in order to prevent it, and this end 
 might surely have been answered without a renun- 
 ciation of dependence. But the passions of a whole 
 people, once put in motion, are not soon quieted. 
 Contests beget aversion, a little success inspires 
 more ambitious hopes, and thus a slight quarrel ter- 
 minates at last in a breach never to be healed, and 
 perhaps in the ruin of both parties. It does not 
 seem likely that a country so distinguished by the 
 Creator with every thing that can make it desirable 
 should be given up to desolation for ever; and they 
 possibly have reason on their side, who suppose 
 that in time it will have the pre-eminence over all 
 others; but the day of such prosperity seems far 
 distant — Omnipotence indeed can hasten it, and it 
 may dawn when it is least expected. But we 
 govern ourselves in all our reasonings by present 
 appearances. Persons at least no better informed 
 than myself are constrained to do so. 
 
 I intended to have taken another subject when I 
 began, and I wish I had. No m.an living is less 
 qualified to settle nations than I am; but, when I 
 write to you, I talk, that is I write as fast as my 
 pen can run, and on this occasion it ran away with 
 me. I acknowledge myself in your debt for your 
 last favour, but cannot pay you now, unless you
 
 172 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 will accept as payment, what I know you valiKJ 
 more than all I can say beside, the most unfeigned 
 assurances of my affection for you and yours. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 20, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — I have made a point of saying 
 no fine things to Mr. Bacon, f upon an occasion 
 that would well have justified them; deterred by a 
 caveat he entered in his letter. Nothing can be 
 more handsome than the present, nor more obliging 
 than the manner in which he has made it. I take 
 it for granted that the plate is, line for line, and 
 stroke for stroke, an exact representation of his 
 performance, as nearly, at least, as light and shade 
 can exhibit, upon a flat surface, the effect of a piece 
 of statuary. I may be allowed therefore to say 
 that I admire it. My situation affords me no 
 opportunity to cultivate the science of connois- 
 seurship; neither would there be much propriety 
 in my speaking the language of one to you, who 
 disclaim the character. But we both know when 
 we are pleased. It occurs to me, however, that I 
 ought to say what it is that pleases me, for a gene- 
 
 * Private Correspondence. 
 
 t The celebrated statuary who executed the noble monu- 
 ment to tlie memory of Lord Chatham, in Westminster Abbey.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 173 
 
 ral commendation, where there are so many par- 
 ticular beauties, would be insipid and unjust. 
 
 I think the figure of Lord Chatham singularly 
 graceful, and his countenance full of the character 
 that belongs to him. It speaks not only great 
 ability and consummate skill, but a tender and 
 heartfelt interest in the welfare of the charge com- 
 mitted to him. In the figure of the City, there is 
 all that empressement, (pardon a French term, it 
 expresses my idea better than any English one 
 that occurs,) that the importance of her errand 
 calls for; and it is noble in its air, though in a 
 posture of supplication. But the figure of Com- 
 merce is indeed a perfect beauty. It is a literal 
 truth, that I felt the tears flush into my eyes while 
 I looked at her. The idea of so much elegance 
 and grace having found so powerful a protection, 
 was irresistible. There is a complacency and sere- 
 nity in the air and countenance of Britannia, more 
 suited to her dignity than that exultation and 
 triumph which a less judicious hand might have 
 dressed her in. She seems happy to sit at the feet 
 of her delivefer. I have most of the monuments 
 in the Abbey by heart, but I recollect none that 
 ever gave me so much pleasure. The faces are all 
 expressive, and the figures are all graceful. If you 
 think the opinion of so unlearned a spectator worth 
 communicating, and that I have not said more than^ 
 Mr. Bacon's modesty can bear without offence, you 
 are welcome to make him privy to my sentiments. 
 I know not why he should be hurt by just praise ;
 
 174 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 his fine talent is a gift, and all the merit of it is 
 His property who gave it. 
 
 Believe me, my dear friend, 
 
 sincerely and affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 I am out of your debt. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 20, 1783. 
 
 I should not have been thus long silent, had I 
 known with certainty where a letter of mine might 
 find you. Your summer excursions however are 
 now at an end, and, addressing a line to you in the 
 centre of the busy scene, in which j'ou spend your 
 winter, I am pretty sure of my mark. 
 
 I see the winter approaching without much 
 concern, though a passionate lover of fine weather, 
 and the pleasant scenes of summer; but the long 
 evenings have their comforts too, and there is 
 hardly to be found upon earth, I suppose, so snug 
 a creature as an Englishman by his fire-side in the 
 winter. I mean however an Englishman that lives 
 in the country, for in London it is not very easy to 
 avoid intrusion. I have two ladies to read to, 
 sometimes more, but never less — at present we are 
 circumnavigating the globe, and I find the old story 
 with which I amused myself some years since, 
 through the great felicity of a memory not very 
 retentive, almost new. I am however sadly at a 
 loss for Cook's Voyage — can you send it? I shall 
 be glad of Foster's too. These together will make
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 175 
 
 the winter pass merrily, and you will much oblige 
 me. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 The last letter contains a slight sketch of those 
 happy winter evenings, which the poet has painted 
 so exquisitely in verse.* The two ladies, whom he 
 mentions as his constant auditors, were Mrs. Unwin 
 and Lady Austen. The public, already indebted to 
 the friendly and cheerful spirit of the latter, for the 
 pleasant ballad of John Gilpin, had soon to thank 
 her inspiring benevolence for a v/ork of superior 
 dignity, the masterpiece of Cowper's rich and fer- 
 tile imagination. 
 
 This lady happened, as an admirer of Milton, to 
 be partial to blank verse, and often solicited her 
 poetical friend to try his powers in that species of 
 composition. After repeated solicitation, he pro- 
 mised her, if she would furnish the subject, to com- 
 ply with her request. " Oh ! " she replied, " you 
 can never be in want of a subject:— you can write 
 upon any : — write upon this sofa ! " The poet 
 obeyed her command, and from the lively repartee 
 of familiar conversation arose a poem of many thou- 
 sand verses, unexampled perhaps both in its origin 
 and excellence — a poem of such infinite variety, 
 that it seems to include every subject and every 
 style without any violation of harmony and order; 
 which delineates nature, under her most attractive 
 forms, and breathes a spirit of the purest and most 
 exalted morality. 
 
 A great part of the " Task" appears to have been 
 * See Task, book 4th.
 
 176 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 composed in the winter — a circumstance the more 
 remarkable, as the wintry months were generally 
 unfavourable to the health of the poet. In the com- 
 mencement of the poem, he marks both the season 
 and the year, in the tender address to his companion. 
 
 " Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive 
 Fast lock'd in mine." 
 
 Any circumstances which tend to illustrate the 
 origin and progress of this poem deserve to be re- 
 corded with minute attention. We select a series 
 of passages from Cowper's Letters to Mr. Bull, as 
 affording this interesting information. 
 
 August 3, 1783. — " Your sea-side situation, your 
 beautiful prospects, your fine rides, and the sight of 
 the palaces which you have seen, we have not en- 
 vied you ; but we are glad that you have enjoyed 
 them. Why should we envy any man ? Is not our 
 green-house a cabinet of perfumes ? It is at this 
 moment fronted with carnations and balsams, with 
 mignonette and roses, with jessamine and woodbine, 
 and wants nothing but your pipe to make it truly 
 Arabian;— a wilderness of sweets ! The "Sofa" 
 is ended, but not finished ; a paradox, which your 
 natural acumen, sharpened by habits of logical at- 
 tention, will enable you to reconcile in a moment. 
 Do not imagine however that I lounge over it — on 
 the contrary I find it severe exercise to mould and 
 fashion it to my mind !" 
 
 February 22, 1784.—" I congratulate you on the 
 thaw : I suppose it is an universal blessing, and 
 probably felt all over Europe. I myself am the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 177 
 
 better for it, who wanted nothing tliat might make 
 the frost supportable : what reason, therefore, have 
 they to rejoice, who, being in want of all things, were 
 exposed to its utmost rigour ? The ice in my ink 
 however is not yet dissolved. It was long before the 
 frost seized it, but it at last prevailed. The " Sofa" 
 has consequently received little or no addition since. 
 It consists at present of four books and part of a 
 fifth : when the sixth is finished, the work is accom- 
 plished, but, if I may judge by my present inability, 
 that period is at a considerable distance." 
 
 The following extract not only mentions the com- 
 pletion of his great work, but gives a particular ac- 
 count of his next production. 
 
 November 8, 1784. — " The Task," as you know, 
 is gone to the press ; since it went I have been em- 
 ployed in writing another poem, which I am now 
 transcribing, and which in a short time I design 
 shall follow. It is entitled " Tirocinium, or a Re- 
 view of Schools :" the business and purpose of it are 
 to censure the want of discipline, and the scandalous 
 inattention to morals, that obtain in them, especially 
 in the largest ; and to recommend private tuition as 
 a mode of education preferable on all accounts ; to 
 call upon fathers to become tutors to their own sons, 
 where that is practicable ; to take home a domestic 
 tutor, where it is not ; and, if neither can be done, 
 to place them under the care of such a man as he to 
 whom I am writing ; some rural parson, whose at- 
 tention is limited to a few." 
 
 The reader will find the poet himself relating in 
 more than one letter of the next year some parti- 
 
 VOL. II. N
 
 178 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 lars of the time in which his great work " The 
 Task" was composed. Writing to Mr. Newton, 
 on the 20th of October, 1784, Cowper says of his 
 " Task," then in the press, " I began it about this 
 time twelvemonth." These words of hasty and 
 hi. perfect recollection might give rise to a per- 
 suasion that this extensive and admirable production 
 was completed in a year. But, as it is proved by the 
 first extract from the poet's letters to Mr. Bull 
 that the first book (entitled the " Sofa") was ended 
 on the 3d of August, 1783, we may reasonably con- 
 clude that this interesting poem was begun in June 
 or Jul}'. It was not imparted, as it advanced to any 
 of the poet's confidential friends, except to the two la- 
 dies with whom he lived at the time of its commence- 
 ment, and to his kind and sympathizing neighbour, 
 Mr. Bull, who had shown his benevolent zeal in encou- 
 raging the spirit of Cowper to cheer and amuse 
 itself in poetical studies. The final verses of " The 
 Task" were probably written in September, 1784, 
 as Cowper sent a transcript of the poem for the press 
 lo his favourite young friend, Mr. Unwin, early in 
 October. His modest reserve appears very remark- 
 able in his not having communicated this compo- 
 sition even to Mr. Unwin, till it was absolutely 
 finished, and his tender delicacy of regard and at- 
 tention to that young friend was amiably displayed 
 in assigning to him the honourable office of revising 
 and consigning to the press a work so important.
 
 LIFF OF COWPEK. 179 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Nov. 3, 1783. 
 My dear Friend— My time is short, and my op- 
 portunity not the most favourable. My letter will 
 consequently be short likewise, and perhaps not 
 very intelligible. I find it no very easy matter to 
 bring my mind into that degree of composure, which 
 is necessary to the arrangement either of words or 
 matter. You will naturally expect to receive some 
 account of this confusion that I describe, some rea- 
 son given for it. On Saturday night, at eleven 
 o'clock, when I had not been in bed five minutes, 1 
 was alarmed by a cry of fire, announced by two or 
 three shrill screams upon our staircase. Our ser- 
 vants, who were going to bed, saw it from their 
 windows, and in appearance so near that they 
 thought our house in danger. I immediately rose, 
 and putting by the curtain saw sheets of fire rising 
 above the ridge of Mr. Palmer's house, opposite to 
 ours. The deception was such that I had no doubt 
 it had begun with him, but soon found that it was 
 rather farther off. In fact, it was at three places. 
 Having broke out in three different parts, it is 
 supposed to have been maliciously kindled. A tar- 
 barrel and a quantity of tallow made a most tre- 
 mendous blaze, and, the buildings it had seized upon 
 being all thatched, the appearance became every 
 moment more formidable. Providentially the night 
 was perfectly calm, so calm that candles without 
 lanterns, of which there were multitudes in the 
 
 * Private Correspondence. 
 
 N 2
 
 1^0 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Street, burnt as steadily as in the house. By four 
 in the morning It was so far reduced that all danger 
 seemed to be over ; but the confusion it had occa- 
 sioned was almost infinite. Every man, who sup- 
 posed his dwelling-house in jeopardy, emptied it as 
 fast as he could, and conveyed his moveables to 
 the house of some neighbour, supposed to be more 
 secure. Ours, in the space of two hours, was so 
 filled with all sorts of lumber that we had not even 
 
 room for a chair by the fire-side. George is 
 
 the principal sufferer. He gave eighteen guineas, 
 or nearly that sum, to a woman, whom, in his hurry, 
 he mistook for his wife ; but the supposed wife 
 walked oif with the money, and he will probably 
 never recover it. He has likewise lost forty pounds' 
 worth of wool. London never exhibited a scene of 
 greater depredation, drunkenness, and riot. Every 
 thing was stolen that could be got at, and every 
 drop of liquor drunk that was not guarded. Only 
 one thief has ye: been detected ; a woman of the 
 name of J , who was stopped by young Hands- 
 comb with an apron full of plunder. He was forced to 
 strike her down, before he could wrest it from her. 
 Could you visit the place, you would see a most 
 striking proof of a Providence interposing to stop the 
 progress of the flames. They had almost reached, 
 that is to say, within six yards of Daniel Raban's 
 wood-pile, in which were fifty pounds' worth of fag- 
 gots and furze ; and exactly there they were ex- 
 tinguished : otherwise, especially if a breath of 
 air had happened to move, all that side of the 
 town must probably have been consumed. After
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 181 
 
 all this dreadful conflagration, we find nothing 
 burnt but the out-houses ; and the dwellings to 
 which they belonged have suffered only the da- 
 mage of being unroofed on that side next the 
 fire. No lives were lost, nor any limbs broken. 
 Mrs. Unwin, whose spirits served her while the 
 hubbub lasted, and the day after, begins to feel 
 the effect of it now. But I hope she will be re- 
 lieved from it soon, being better this evening than 
 I expected. As for me, I am impregnable to all 
 such assaults I have nothing, however, but this 
 subject in my mind, and it is in vain that I in- 
 vite any other into it. Having, therefore, ex- 
 hausted this, I finish, assuring you of our united 
 love, and hoping to find myself in a frame of mind 
 more suited to my employment when I write next. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 10, 1783. 
 My dear William — I have lost and wasted almost 
 all my writing time, in making an alteration in the 
 verses I either inclose or subjoin, for I know not 
 which will be the case at present. If prose comes 
 readily, I shall transcribe them on another sheet, 
 otherwise on this. You will understand before you 
 have read many of them, that they are not for the 
 press. I lay you under no other injunctions. The 
 unkind behaviour of our acquaintance, though it is 
 possible that in some instances it may not much
 
 182 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 affect our happiness, nor engage many of our 
 thoughts, will sometimes obtrude itself upon us 
 with a degree of importunity not easily resisted, 
 and then, perhaps, though almost insensible of it 
 before, we feel more than the occasion will justify. 
 In such a moment it was that I conceived this 
 poem, and gave loose to a degree of resentment 
 which, perhaps, I ought not to have indulged, but 
 which in a cooler hour I cannot altogether con- 
 demn. My former intimacy with the two charac- 
 ters was such, that I could not but feel myself 
 provoked by the neglect with which they both 
 treated me oh a late occasion.* So much by way 
 of preface. 
 
 You ought not to have supposed that, if you had 
 visited us last summer, the pleasure of the inter- 
 view would have been all your own. By such an 
 imagination you wrong both yourself and us. Do 
 you suppose we do not love you ? You cannot 
 suspect your mother of coldness, and as to me, 
 assure yourself I have no friend in the world with 
 whom I communicate without the least reserve, 
 yourself excepted. Take heart then, and when 
 you find a favourable opportunity to come, assure 
 yourself of such a welcome from us both as you 
 have a right to look for. But I have observed in 
 your two last letters somewhat of a dejection and 
 melancholy, that I am afraid you do not sufficiently 
 strive against. I suspect you of being too seden- 
 tary. " You cannot walk." Why you cannot is 
 
 * Lord Thurlow and Colman, to wboni he presented his 
 first volume, and received no acknowledgment.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 183 
 
 best known to yourself. I am sure your legs are 
 long enough, and your person does not overload 
 them. But I beseech you ride, and ride often. 
 I think I have heard you say you cannot even do 
 that without an object. Is not health an object ? 
 Is not a new pros^^ect, which in most countries is 
 gained at the end of every mile, an object ? Assure 
 yourself that easy chairs are no friends to cheer- 
 fulness, and that a long winter spent by the fire- 
 side is a prelude to an unhealthy spring. Every 
 thing I see in the fields is to me an object ; and I 
 can look at the same rivulet, or at a handsome tree, 
 every day of my life with new pleasure. This 
 indeed is partly the effect of a natural taste for 
 rural beauty, and partly the effect of habit, for I 
 never in all my life have let slip the opportunity 
 of breathing fresh air, and conversing Avith nature, 
 when I could fairly catch it. I earnestly recom- 
 mend a cultivation of the same taste to you, sus- 
 pecting that you have neglected it, and suffer for 
 doing so. 
 
 Last Saturday se'nnight, the moment I had com- 
 posed myself in my bed, your mother too having 
 just got into hers, we were alarmed by a cry of 
 fire, on the staircase. I immediately rose, and saw 
 sheets of flame above the roof of Mr. Palmer's 
 house, our opposite neighbour. The mischief, how- 
 ever, was not so near to him as it seemed to be, 
 having begun at a butcher's yard, at a little distance. 
 We made all haste down stairs, and soon threw 
 open the street door, for the reception of as nmcli 
 lumber, of all sorts, as our house would hold.
 
 184 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 brought into it by several who thought it necessary 
 to move their furniture. In two hours' time we 
 had so much that we could hold no more, even the 
 uninhabited part of our building being filled. Not 
 that we ourselves were entirely secure — an adjoin- 
 ing thatch, on which fell showers of sparks, being 
 rather a dangerous neighbour. Providentially, how- 
 ever, the night was perfectly calm, and we escaped. 
 By four in the morning it was extinguished, having 
 consumed many out-buildings, but no dwelling- 
 house. Your mother suffered a little in her health, 
 from the fatigue and bustle of the night, but soon 
 recovered ; as for me, it hurt me not. The slightest 
 wind would have carried the fire to the very ex- 
 tremity of the town, there being multitudes of 
 thatched buildings, and faggot-piles so near to 
 each other, that they must have proved infallible 
 conductors. 
 
 The balloons prosper ; I congratulate you upon 
 it. Thanks to Montgolfier, we shall fly at last. 
 Yours, u y dear Friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Nov. 17, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — The country around us is much 
 alarmed with apprehensions of fire. Two have 
 happened since that of Olney. One at Hitchin, 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 185 
 
 where the damage is said to amount to eleven thou- 
 sand pounds, and another at a place not far from 
 Hitchin, of which I have not learnt the name. 
 Letters have been dropped at Bedford, threatening 
 to burn the town ; and the inhabitants have been 
 so intimidated as to have placed a guard in many 
 parts of it, several nights past. Since our con- 
 flagration here, we have sent two women and a boy 
 
 to the justice for depredation ; S R , for 
 
 stealing a piece of beef, which, in her excuse, she 
 said she intended to take care of. This lady, whom 
 you well remember, escaped for want of evidence ; 
 not that evidence was indeed wanting, but our men 
 of Gotham judged it unnecessary to send it. With 
 her went the woman whom I mentioned before, who, 
 it seems has made some sort of profession, but 
 upon this occasion allowed herself a latitude of 
 conduct rather inconsistent with it, having filled her 
 apron with wearing apparel which she likewise in- 
 tended to take care of. She would have gone to 
 tlie coimty gaol, had William Raban, the baker's 
 son, who prosecuted, insisted upon it ; but he good- 
 naturedly, though, I think, weakly, interposed in 
 her favour, and begged her off. The young gentle- 
 man who accompanied these fair ones is the junior 
 son of Molly Boswell. He had stolen some iron- 
 work, the property of Griggs, the butcher. Being 
 convicted, he was ordered to be whipt, which opera- 
 tion he underwent at the cart's tail, from the stone- 
 house to the high arch and back again. He seemed 
 to show great fortitude, but it was all an imposition 
 upon the public. The beadle, who performed it,
 
 186 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 had filled his left hand with red ochre, through 
 which after every stroke he drew the lash of his 
 whip, leaving the appearance of a wound upon the 
 skin, but in reality not hurting him at all. This 
 being perceived by Mr. Constable H , who fol- 
 lowed the beadle, he applied his cane, without any 
 such management or precaution, to the shoulders of 
 the too merciful executioner. The scene immedi- 
 ately became more interesting. The beadle could 
 by no means be prevailed upon to strike hard, 
 which provoked the constable to strike harder ; 
 and this double flogging continued, till a lass of 
 Silver-end, pitying the pitiful beadle thus suffering 
 under the hands of the pitiless constable, joined the 
 procession, and placing herself immediately be- 
 hind the latter, seized him by his capillary club, 
 and pulling him backwards by the same, slapt his 
 face with a most Amazonian fury. This concate- 
 nation of events has taken up more of my paper than 
 I intended it should, but I could not forbear to 
 inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the 
 constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, 
 and how the thief was the only person concerned 
 who suffered nothing. Mr. Teedon has been here, 
 and is gone again. He came to. thank me for some 
 left-off clothes. In answer to our inquiries after 
 his health, he replied that he had a slow fever, 
 which made him take all possible care not to inflame 
 his blood. I admitted his prudence, but in his 
 particular instance could not very clearly discern 
 the need of it. Pump water will not heat him 
 much ; and, to speak a little in his own style, more
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 187 
 
 jnebriating fluids are to him, I fancy, not v<?iy 
 attainable. He brought us news, the truth of 
 which, however, I do not vouch for, that the town 
 of Bedford was actually on fire yesterday, and the 
 flames not extinguished when the bearer of the 
 tidings left it.*- 
 
 Swift observes, when he is giving his reasons why 
 the preacher is elevated always above his hearers, 
 tliat, 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 per- 
 fection 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 travel- 
 ling is very delightful. I dreamt a night or two 
 since, that I drove myself through the upper re- 
 gions 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 pro- 
 gnosticated by my dream, when these airy exciu'sions 
 will be xmiversal, 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 merel} 
 
 * A considerable fire occurred at tliis time in the town of 
 Bedford, and thirtj^-nine bouses were consumed, but it is said 
 from accidental causes.
 
 188 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 for the sake of having it to say, that they have 
 made it.t 
 
 I beg you will accept for yourself and yours our 
 unfeigned love, and remember me affectionately to 
 Mr. Bacon, when you see him. 
 
 Yours, my dear Friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Olney, Nov. 23, 1783 
 
 My dear Friend — Your opinion of voyages and 
 travels would spoil an appetite less keen than mine ; 
 but being pretty much, perhaps more than any man 
 who can be said to enjoy his liberty, confined to a 
 spot, and being very desirous of knowing all that 
 can be known of this same planet of ours while I 
 have the honour to belong to it, — and having, be- 
 sides, no other means of information at my command — 
 I am constrained to be satisfied with narratives, not 
 always, indeed, to be implicitly depended upon, but 
 which, being subjected to the exercise of a little con- 
 sideration, cannot materially deceive us. Swinburn's 
 is a book I had fixed upon, and determined if possible 
 to procure, being pleased with some extracts from 
 it which I found in the Review. I need hardly add, 
 that I shall be much obliged to Mrs. Hill for a sight 
 
 f TJie discoveiy of balloons had attracted the attention of 
 the public at this period, and various speculations were in- 
 dulged as to the probable result. 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 189 
 
 of it. I account myself truly and much indebted to 
 that lady for the trouble she is so kind as to take 
 upon my account, and shall esteem myself her debtor 
 for all the amusement I meet with in the southern 
 hemisphere, should I be so fortunate as to get there. 
 My reading is pretty much circumscribed both by 
 want of books and the influence of particular rea- 
 sons. Politics are my abhorrence, being almost 
 always hypothetical, fluctuating, and impracticable. 
 Philosophy — I should have said natural philosophy, 
 mathematically studied, does not suit me ; and such 
 exhibitions of that subject as are calculated for less 
 learned readers, I have read in former days and re- 
 member in the present. Poetry, English poetry, I 
 never touch, being pretty much addicted to the 
 writing of it, and knowing that much intercourse 
 with those gentlemen betrays us unavoidably into a 
 habit of imitation, which I hate and despise most 
 cordially. 
 
 If he be the happiest man who has least money 
 in the funds, there are few upon earth whom I have 
 any occasion to envy. I would consent, however, 
 to have my pounds multiplied into thousands, even 
 at the hazard of all I might feel from that torment- 
 ing passion. I send nothing to the papers myself, 
 but Unwin sometimes sends for me. His receptacle 
 of my squibs is the Public Advertiser ; but they are 
 very few, and my present occupations are of a kind 
 that will still have a tendency to make them fewer. 
 Yours, my dear Friend, 
 
 w. c.
 
 190 LIFE OF COVVPER, 
 
 The neglect which Cowper had experienced fion 
 a high quarter seems deeply to have wounded his 
 sensitive spirit, and to have dictated some of the 
 remarks to be found in the following letter. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 24, 1783. 
 My dear Friend— An evening unexpectedly re- 
 tired, and which your mother and I spend without 
 company, (an occurrence far from frequent,) affords 
 me a favourable opportunity to write by to-morrow's 
 post, which else I could not have fomid. You are 
 very good to consider my literary necessities with so 
 much attention, and I feel proportionably grateful. 
 Blair's Lectures, (though I suppose they must make 
 a part of my private studies, not being ad captum 
 fcBminarum,^ will be perfectly welcome. You say 
 you felt my verses ; I assure you that in this you 
 followed my example, for I felt them first. A man's 
 lordship is nothing to me, any farther than in con- 
 nexion with qualities that entitle him to my respect. 
 If he thinks himself privileged by it to treat me 
 with neglect, I am his humble servant, and shall 
 never be at a loss to render him an equivalent. I 
 will not however belie my knowledge of mankind so 
 much as to seem surprised at a treatment which I 
 had abundant reason to expect. To these men, with 
 whom I was once intimate, and for many years, I 
 am no longer necessary, no longer convenient, or in 
 any respect an object. They think of me as of the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 191 
 
 man in the moon, and, whether I have a lantern or 
 a dog and faggot, or whether I have neither of 
 those desirable accommodations, is to them a matter 
 of perfect indifference : upon that point we are 
 agreed; our indifference is mutual ; and, were I to 
 publish again, which is not possible, I should give 
 them a proof of it. 
 
 L'Estrange's Josephus has lately furnished us 
 with evening lectures. But the historian is so tedi- 
 ously circumstantial, and the translator so insup- 
 portably coarse and vulgar, that we are all three 
 weary of him. How would Tacitus have shone 
 upon such a subject, great master as he was of the 
 art of description, concise without obscurity, and 
 affecting without being poetical. But so it was or- 
 dered, and for wise reasons no doubt, that the 
 greatest calamities any people ever suffered, and 
 an accomplishment of one of the most signal pro- 
 phecies in the Scripture, should be recorded by one 
 of the worst writers. The man was a temporizer 
 too, and courted the favour of his Roman masters 
 at the expense of his own creed, or else an infidel 
 and absolutely disbelieved it. You will think me 
 very difficult to please ; I quarrel with Josephus for 
 the want of elegance and with some of our modern 
 historians for having too much — with him for run- 
 ning right forward like a gazette, without stopping 
 to make a single observation by the way ; and with 
 them for pretending to delineate characters that 
 existed two thousand years ago, and to discover the 
 motives by which they were influenced, with the 
 same precision as if they had been their contem-
 
 192 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 poraries. 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 rare. The latter 
 Roman writers are remarkable for false ornament, 
 they were yet no doubt admired by the readers of 
 their own day ; and with respect to authors of the 
 present era, the most popular among them appear to 
 me equally censurable on the same account. Swift 
 and Addison were simple. 
 
 Your mother wants room for a postscript, so my 
 lecture must conclude abruptly. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Nov. 30, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — I have neither long visits to pay 
 nor to receive, nor ladies to spend hours in telling 
 me that which might be told in five minutes, yet 
 often find myself obliged to be an economist of 
 time, and to make the most of a short opportunity. 
 Let our station be as retired as it may, there is no 
 want of playthings and avocations, nor much need 
 to seek them, in this world of ours. Business, or 
 what presents itself to us under that imposing 
 character, will find us out, even in the stillest re- 
 treat, and plead its importance, however trivial in 
 reality, as a just demand upon our attention. It is 
 
 » Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 193 
 
 wonderful how, by means of such real or seeming 
 necessities, my time is stolen away. I have just 
 time to observe that time is short, and, by the time 
 I have made the observation, time is gone. I have 
 wondered in former days at the patience of the ante- 
 diluvian world, that they could endure a life almost 
 millenary, with so little variety as seems to have 
 fallen to their share. It is probable that they had 
 much fewer employments than we. Their affairs 
 lay in a narrower compass ; their libraries were in- 
 differently furnished ; philosophical researches were 
 carried on with much less industry and acuteness of 
 penetration, and fiddles, perhaps, were not even in- 
 vented. How then could seven or eight hundred 
 years of life be supportable ? I have asked this 
 question formerly, and been at a loss to resolve it ; 
 but I think I can answer it now. I will suppose 
 myself born a thousand years before Noah was born 
 or thought of. I rise with the sun; I worship; I 
 prepare my breakfast ; I swallow a bucket of goats'- 
 milk, and a dozen good sizeable cakes. I fasten a 
 new string to my how, and my youngest boy, a lad 
 of about thirty years of rge, having played with my 
 arrows till he has stript off" all the feathers, I find 
 myself obliged to repair them. The morning is 
 thus spent in preparing for the chace, and it is be- 
 come necessary that I should dine. I dig up my 
 roots ; I wash them ; I boil them ; I find them not 
 done enough, I boil them again ; my wife is angry ; 
 we dispute ; we settle the point ; but in the mean 
 time the fire goes out, and must be kindled again 
 All this is very amusing. I hunt ; I bring home 
 
 VOL. II. O
 
 194 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the prey ; with the skin of it I mend an old coat, or 
 I make a new one. By this time the day is far 
 spent; I feel myself fatigued, and retire to rest. 
 Thus, what with tilling the ground, and eating the 
 fruit of it, hunting, and walking, and running, and 
 mending old clothes, and sleeping and rising again, 
 I can suppose an inhabitant of the primeeval world 
 so much occupied as to sigh over the shortness of 
 life, and to find, at the end of many centuries, that 
 they had all slipt through his fingers, and were 
 passed away like a shadow. What wonder then 
 that I, who live in a day of so much greater refine- 
 ment, when there is so much more to be wanted, 
 and wished, and to be enjoyed, should feel myself 
 now and then pinched in point of opportunity, and 
 at some loss for leisure to fill four sides of a sheet 
 like this? Thus, however, it is, and, if the ancient 
 gentlemen to whom I have referred, and their com- 
 plaints of the disproportion of time to the occasions 
 they had for it, will not serve me as an excuse, I 
 must even plead guilty, and confess that I am often 
 in haste, when I have no good reason for being so. 
 
 This by way of introduction ; now for my letter. 
 Mr. Scott is desired by Mr. De Coetlogon to con- 
 tribute to the " Theological Review," of which I 
 suppose that gentleman is a manager. He says he 
 has insured your assistance, and at the same time 
 desires mine, either in prose or verse. He did well 
 to apply to you, because you can afford him sub- 
 stantial help ; but as for me, had he known me 
 better, he would never have suspected me for a 
 theologian, either in rhyme or otherwise.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 195 
 
 Lord Dartmouth's Mr. Wright spent near two 
 hours with me this morning ; a respectable old man, 
 whom I always see with pleasure, both for his mas- 
 ter's sake and for his own. I was glad to learn from 
 him that his lordship has better health than lie has 
 enjoyed for some years. 
 
 Believe me, my dear friend, 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Dec. 15, 1783. 
 My dear Friend — I know not how it fares with 
 you, at a time when philosophy has just brought 
 forth her most extraordinary production, not ex- 
 cepting, perhaps, that prodigy, a ship, in all re- 
 spects complete, and equal to the task of circum- 
 navigating the globe. My mind, however, is fre- 
 quently getting into these balloons, and is busy in 
 multiplying speculations as airy as the regions 
 through which they pass. The last account from 
 France, which seems so well authenticated, has 
 changed my jocularity upon this occasion into se- 
 rious expectation. The invention of these new 
 vehicles is yet in its infancy, yet already they seem 
 to have attained a degree of perfection which navi- 
 gation did not reach, till ages of experience had 
 matured it, and science had exhausted both her in- 
 dustry and her skill in its improvement. I am 
 aware, indeed, that the first boat or canoe that was 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 196 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 ever formed, though rude in its construction — per- 
 haps not constructed at all, being only a hollow tree 
 that had fallen casually into the water, and which, 
 though furnished with neither sails nor oars, might 
 yet be guided by a pole — was a more perfect crea- 
 ture in its kind than a balloon at present ; the single 
 circumstance of its manageable nature giving it a 
 clear superiority both in respect of safety and con- 
 venience. But the atmosphere, though a much 
 thinner medium, we well know, resists the impres- 
 sion made upon it by the tail of a bird, as eft'ectually 
 as the water that of a ship's rudder. Pope, when 
 inculcating one of his few useful lessons, and direct- 
 ing mankind to the providence of God, as the true 
 source of all their wisdom, says beautifully — 
 
 Learn of the little Nautilus to sail, 
 
 Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale. 
 
 It is easy to parody those lines, so as to give 
 them an accommodation and suitableness to the 
 present purpose. 
 
 Learn of the circle-making kite to fl)', 
 Spread the fan-tail, and wheel about the sky. 
 
 It is certain at least that nothing within the reach 
 of human ingenuity will be left unattempted to ac- 
 complish and add all that is wanting to this last 
 effort of philosophical contrivance.* The approxi- 
 
 * What would Cowper have thought, if he had lived to see 
 the modern invention of rail-roads, and the possibility of tra- 
 velling tliirty miles in one hour and twenty minutes, by means 
 of the operation of steam ?
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 197 
 
 mating powers of the telescope, and the powers by 
 which the thunder-storm is dehvered of its contents 
 peaceably and without mischief, were once perhaps 
 in appearance more remote from discovery, and 
 seemed less practicable, than we may now suppose 
 it to give direction to that which is already buoyant; 
 especially possessed as we are of such consummate 
 mechanical skill, already masters of principles which 
 we have nothing to do but to apply, of which we have 
 already availed ourselves in the similar case of navi- 
 gation, and having in every fowl of the air a pattern, 
 which now at length it may be sufficient to imitate. 
 Wings and a tail indeed were of little use, while the 
 body, so much heavier than the space of air it oc- 
 cupied, was sure to sink by its own weight, and 
 could never be held in equipoise by any implements 
 of the kind which human strength could manage. But 
 now we float ; at random indeed, pretty much, and as 
 the wind drives us ; for want of nothing, however, but 
 that steerage which invention, the conqueror of many 
 equal, if not superior, difficulties may be expected 
 to supply. Should the point be carried, and man at 
 last become as familiar with the air as he has long 
 been with the ocean, will it in its consequences 
 prove a mercy or a judgment? I think, a judg- 
 ment. First, because, if a power to convey himself 
 from place to place, like a bird, would have been 
 good for him, his Maker would have formed him 
 with such a capacity. But he has been a groveller 
 upon the earth for six thousand years, and now at 
 last, when the close of this present state of things 
 approaches, begins to exalt himself above it. So
 
 193 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 much the worse for him. Like a truant school-boy, 
 he breaks his bounds, and will have reason to repent 
 of his presumption. Secondly, I think it will prove 
 a judgment, because, with the exercise of a very 
 little foresight, it is easy to prognosticate a thousand 
 evils, which the project must necessarily bring after 
 it ; amounting at last to the confusion of all order, 
 the annihilation of all authority, with dangers both 
 to property and person, and impunity to the offenders. 
 Were I an absolute legislator, I would therefore 
 make it death for a man to be convicted of flying, 
 the moment he could be caught ; and to bring him 
 down from his altitude by a bullet sent through his 
 head or his carriage should be no murder. Philo- 
 sophers would call me a Vandal ; the scholar would 
 say that, had it not been for me, the fable of Daedalus 
 would have been realised ; and historians would load 
 my memory with reproaches of phlegm, and stu- 
 pidity, and oppression ; but in the mean time the 
 world would go on quietly, and, if it enjoyed less 
 liberty, would at least be more secure. 
 
 I knov/ not what are your sentiments upon the 
 subject of the East India Bill.* This, too, has fre- 
 
 * As repeated allusion is made to the affairs of the East 
 India Company, by Cowper, in the following letters, for the 
 information of those who may not be conversant with this 
 subject, we add the following information. 
 
 The great abuses that were imputed to the system of govern- 
 mentestablished in that country, where a company of merchants 
 exercised the supreme sway, led Mr. Fox, in 1783, (the period 
 in which he was a member of administration,) to introduce his 
 celebrated East India Bill, in which he proposed to annihilate 
 the charter of the Company, and to dispossess them of their
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 199 
 
 quently afforded me matter of speculation. I can 
 easily see that it is not without its blemishes ; but 
 its beauties, in my eye, are much predominant. 
 Whatever may be its author's views, if he delivers 
 so large a portion of mankind from such horrible 
 tyranny as the East has so long suffered, he deserves 
 a statue much more than Montgolfier,* who, it seems, 
 is to receive that honour. Perhaps he may bring 
 his own freedom into jeopardy; but to do this for 
 the sake of emancipating nations so much more nu- 
 merous than ourselves is at least generous, and a 
 design that should have my encouragement, if I had 
 any encouragement to afford it. 
 
 We are well, and love you. Remember us, as I 
 doubt not you do, with the same affection, and be 
 
 power. The measure passed in the Commons, but was thrown 
 out by the Lords ; and royal influence was said to have been 
 exerted to procure its rejection. The failure of this bill led 
 to the dissolution of that administration, in the December of 
 the same year. In the succeeding January of 1784, Mr. Pitt 
 introduced his no less celebrated bill. Instead of going the 
 length of violating the charter, granted in the time of William 
 III., (the great defect attributed to Mr. Fox's preceding bill,) 
 his object was to preserve it inviolate, but with certain modi- 
 fications. The main feature in his plan was to separate the 
 commercial from the territorial concerns of the Company, 
 and to vest the latter in a Board, nominated by government ; 
 thus withdrawing from the East India Compan_v the e.xercise 
 of powers belonging only to the supreme authority. This bill, 
 though more just and popular than the preceding, was never- 
 theless rejected by a majority of eight ; but it was subsequently 
 renewed, and carried, and is the origin of that Board of Con- 
 troul which is now so well known, as superintending and regu- 
 lating the concerns of our Indian era])ire. 
 * The inventor of balloons.
 
 200 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 content with my sentiments upon subjects such as 
 these, till I can send you, if that day should ever 
 come, a letter more worthy of your reception. 
 Nous sommes les votres, 
 
 GUILLAUME ET MaRIE. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Dec. 27, 1783. 
 
 My dear Friend — Thanks to the patriotic junto 
 whose efforts have staved oif the expected dissolu- 
 tion, franks have not yet lost their currency. Igno- 
 rant as they were that my writing by this post de- 
 pended upon the existence of the present parlia- 
 ment, they have conducted their deliberations with 
 a sturdiness and magnanimity that would almost 
 tempt one to suppose that they had known it. So 
 true it is that the actions of men are connected with 
 consequences they are little aware of; and that 
 events, comparatively trivial in themselves, may 
 give birth to the most important. 
 
 My thoughts of ministers and men in power are 
 nearly akin to yours. It is well for the public, when 
 the rulers of a state are actuated by principles that 
 may happen to coincide with its interests. The am- 
 bition of an individual has often been made sub- 
 servient to the general good ; and many a man has 
 served his country, merely for the sake of immor- 
 talizing himself by doing it. So far, it seems to me, 
 the natural man is to be trusted, and no farther. 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 201 
 
 Self is at the bottom of all his conduct. If self can 
 be pleased, flattered, enriched, exalted, by his exer- 
 tions, and his talents are such as qualify him for 
 great usefulness, his country shall be the better for 
 him. And this, perhaps, is all the patriotism we 
 have a right to look for. In the mean time, how- 
 ever, I cannot but think such a man in some degree 
 a respectable character, and am willing at least to 
 do him honour so far as I feel myself benefited by 
 him. Ambition and the love of fame are certainly 
 no Christian principles, but they are such as com- 
 monly belong to men of superior minds, and the 
 fruits they produce may often plead their apology. 
 The great men of the world are of a piece with the 
 world to which they belong ; they are raised up to 
 govern it, and in the government of it are prompted 
 by worldly motives : but it prospers perhaps under 
 their management ; and, when it does, the Christian 
 world, which is totally a distinct creation, partaking 
 of the advantage, has cause to be thankful. The 
 sun is a glorious creature ; he does much good, but 
 without intending it. I, however, who am conscious 
 of the good he does, though 1 know not what religion 
 he is of, or whether he has any or none, rejoice in 
 his effects, admire him, and am sensible that it is 
 every man's duty to be thankful for him. ,In this 
 sentiment I know you agree with me, for 1 believe 
 he has not a warmer votary than yourself. 
 
 We say the king can do no Avrong ; and it is well 
 for poor George the Third that he cannot. In my 
 opinion, however, he has lately been within a hair's-
 
 202 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 breadth of that predicament.* His advisers indeed 
 are guilty, and not he : but he will probably find, 
 however hard it may seem, that if he can do no 
 wrong, he may yet suffer the consequences of the 
 wrong he cannot do. He has dismissed his servants, 
 but not disgraced them ; they triumph in their 
 degradation, and no man is willing to supply their 
 places. Must their offices remain unoccupied, or 
 must they be courted to resume them ? Never was 
 such a distracted state of things within my remem- 
 brance ; and I much fear that this is but the begin- 
 ning of sorrows. It is not a time of day for a king 
 to take liberties with the people : there is a spirit in 
 the Commons that will not endure it ; and his Ma- 
 jesty's advisers must be less acquainted with the 
 temper of the times than it is possible to suppose 
 them, if they imagine that such strides of prerogative 
 will not be resented. The address will gall him. I 
 am sorry that he has exposed himself to such a 
 reprehension, but I think it warranted by the occa- 
 sion. I pity him ; but, king as he is, and much as I 
 have always honoured him, had I been a member I 
 should have voted for it. 
 
 I am obliged to Mr. Bacon for thinking of me. 
 That expression, however, does not do justice to my 
 feelings. Even with the little knowledge I have of 
 * This alludes to the influence supposed to have been exer- 
 cised by the kino' against the passing of Mr. Fox's celebrated 
 East India Bill j and to his having commissioned Lord Temple, 
 afterwards Lord Buckingham, to make known his sentiments 
 on that subject. This event led to the dissolution of the fa- 
 mous coalition ministry.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 203 
 
 him, I should love him, had I no reason to suppose 
 myself at any time an object of his attention ; but, 
 knowing that I am so happy as to have a share in 
 his remembrance, I certainly love him the more. 
 Truly I am not m his debt : I cannot say wherefore 
 it is so, but certainly few days pass in which I do 
 not remember him. The print, indeed, with which 
 he favoured me, and which is always in my view, 
 must often suggest the recollection of him ; but 
 though I greatly value it, I do not believe it is my 
 only prompter. 
 
 I finish with what I wish may make you laugh, as 
 it did me. Mr. Scott, exhorting the people to fre- 
 quent prayer, closed his address thus : — " You have 
 nothing to do but to ask, and you will ever find Him 
 ready to bestow. Open your wide mouths, and he 
 will fill them." 
 
 Mrs. Unwin is well. Accept an old but a true 
 conclusion — our united love to you and yours, and 
 believe me, my dear friend. 
 
 Your ever affectionate 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 No date. 
 My dear Friend — It is hard upon us striplings, 
 who have uncles still living, (N. B. I myself have 
 an uncle still alive,) that those venerable gentlemen 
 should stand in our way, even when the ladies are in 
 question ; that I, for instance, should find in one page 
 of your letter a hope that Miss Shuttleworth would
 
 204 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 be of your party, and be told in the next that she is 
 engaged to your uncle. Well, we may perhaps never 
 be uncles, but we may reasonably hope that the time 
 is coming, when others, as young as we are now, 
 shall envy us the privilege of old age, and see us 
 engross that share in the attention of the ladies, to 
 which their youth must aspire in vain. Make our 
 compHments, if you please, to your sister EHza, and 
 tell her that we are both mortified at having missed 
 the pleasure of seeing her. 
 
 Balloons are so much the mode, that even in this 
 country we have attempted a balloon. You may 
 possibly remember that at a place called Weston, 
 a little more than a mile from Olney, there lives a 
 family whose name is Throckmorton. The present 
 possessor is a young man, whom I remember a boy. 
 He has a wife, who is young, genteel, and handsome. 
 They are Papists, but much more amiable than many 
 Protestants. We never had any intercourse with the 
 family, though ever since we lived here we have 
 enjoyed the range of their pleasure-grounds, having 
 been favoured with a key, which admits us into all. 
 When this man succeeded to the estate, on the death 
 of his elder brother, and came to settle at Weston, I 
 sent him a complimentary card, requesting the con- 
 tinuance of that privilege, having till then enjoyed 
 it by favour of his mother, who on that occasion 
 went to finish her days at Bath. You may conclude 
 that he granted it, and for about two years nothing 
 more passed between us. A fortnight ago I received 
 an invitation, in the civilest terms, in which he told 
 me that the next day he should attempt to fill a bal-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 205 
 
 loon, and if it would be any pleasure to me to be 
 present, should be happy to see me. Your mother 
 and I went. The whole country were there, but the 
 balloon could not be filled. The endeavour was, I 
 believe, very philosophically made, but such a pro- 
 cess depends for its success upon such niceties as 
 make it very precarious. Our reception was, how- 
 ever, flattering to a great degree, insomuch that 
 more notice seemed to be taken of us than we could 
 possibly have expected, indeed rather more than of 
 any of his other guests. They even seemed anxious 
 to recommend themselves to our regards. We drank 
 chocolate, and were asked to dine, but were engaged. 
 A day or two afterwards, Mrs. Unwin and I walked 
 tliat way, and were overtaken in a shower. I found 
 a tree that I thought would shelter us both, a large 
 elm, in a grove that fronts the mansion. Mrs. T. 
 observed us, and, running towards us in the rain, 
 insisted on our walking in. He was gone out. We 
 sat chatting with her till the weather cleared up, 
 and then at her instance took a walk with her in the 
 garden. The garden is almost their only walk, and 
 is certainly their only retreat in which they are not 
 hable to interruption. She offered us a key of it, 
 in a manner that made it impossible not to accept 
 it, and said she would send us one. A few days 
 afterwards, in the cool of the evening, we walked 
 that way again. We saw them going toward the 
 house, and exchanged bows and curtsies at a dis- 
 tance, but did not join them. In a few minutes, 
 when we had passed the house, and had almost 
 reached the gate that opens out of the park into
 
 206 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the adjoining field, I heard the iron gate belonging 
 to the court-yard ring, and saw Mr. T. advancing 
 hastily towards us. We made equal haste to meet 
 him; he presented to us the key, which I told him 
 I esteemed a singular favour ; and, after a few such 
 speeches as are made on such occasions, we parted. 
 This happened about a week ago. I concluded 
 nothing less than that all this civility and attention 
 was designed, on their part, as a prelude to a nearer 
 acquaintance; but here at present the matter rests. 
 I should like exceedingly to be on an easy footing 
 there, to give a morning call now and then, and to 
 receive one, but nothing more. For, though he is 
 one of the most agreeable men I ever saw, I could 
 not wish to visit him in any other way ; neither our 
 house, furniture, servants, nor income, being such as 
 qualify us to make entertainments ; neither would I 
 on any account be introduced to the neighbouring 
 gentry. Mr. T. is altogether a man of fashion, and 
 respectable on every account."^ 
 
 I have told you a long story. Farewell. We num- 
 ber the days as they pass, and are glad that we shall 
 see you and your sister soon. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 Tlie year 1784 was a memorable period in the 
 life of the poet, not only as it witnessed the com- 
 pletion of one extensive performance, and the com- 
 mencement of another (his translation of Homer) 
 
 * He afterwards succeeded to tbe title of Sir John Throck- 
 morton.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 207 
 
 but as it terminated his intercourse with that highly 
 pleasing and valuable friend, whose unremitting at- 
 tention and seasonable advice had induced him to 
 engage in both. 
 
 Delightful and advantageous as his friendship with 
 Lady Austen had proved, he now began to feel that 
 it grew impossible to preserve that triple cord which 
 his own pure heart had led him to suppose not 
 speedily to be broken. Mrs. Unwin, though by no 
 means destitute of mental accomplishments, was 
 eclipsed by the brilliancy of the poet's new friend, 
 and naturally became apprehensive of losing that 
 influence which she had so long experienced over a 
 man of genius and virtue, and that honourable share 
 in his affections which she had previously enjoyed 
 without the fear of witnessing its diminution. 
 
 Cowper perceived the painful necessity of sacri- 
 ficing a great portion of his present gratifications. 
 He felt that he must relinquish that long-established 
 friendship which had formed the delight and hap- 
 piness of his past life, or the new associate, whom 
 he cherished as a sister, and whose heart and mind 
 were so peculiarly congenial with his own. His 
 gratitude for past services of unexampled magnitude 
 and weight would not allow him to hesitate ; with a 
 resolution and delicacy that do the highest honour 
 to his feelings, he wrote a farewell letter to Lady 
 Austen, explaining and lamenting the circumstances 
 that forced him to renounce the society of a friend, 
 whose enchanting talents and kindness had proved 
 so agreeably instrumental to the revival of his 
 spirits and to the exercise of his fancy.
 
 208 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 As Hayley's further account of this event is 
 minute and particular, we shall present it to the 
 reader in his own words. 
 
 " In those very interesting conversations with 
 which I was honoured by Lady Austen, I was irre- 
 sistibly led to express an anxious desire for the sight 
 of a letter written by Cowper in a situation that 
 must have called forth all the finest powers of his 
 eloquence as a monitor and a friend. The lady con- 
 firmed me in my opinion that a more admirable 
 letter covild not be written ; and, had it existed at 
 that time, I am persuaded from her noble frankness 
 and zeal for the honour of the departed poet, she 
 would have given me a copy ; but she ingenuously 
 confessed that in a moment of natural mortification 
 she burnt this very tender yet resolute letter. I 
 mention the circumstance, because a literary cor- 
 respondent whom I have great reason to esteem, has 
 recently expressed to me a wish (which may per- 
 haps be general) that I could introduce into this 
 compilation the letter in question. Had it been con- 
 fided to my care, I am persuaded I should have 
 thought it very proper for publication, as it display- 
 ed both the tenderness and the magnanimity of 
 Cowper ; nor could I have deemed it a want of de- 
 licacy towards the memory of Lady Austen, to 
 exhibit a proof that, animated by the warmest ad- 
 miration of the great poet, whose fancy she could 
 so successfully call forth, she was willing to devote 
 her life and fortune to his service and protection. 
 The sentiment is to be regarded as honourable to 
 the lady; it is still more honourable to the poet that
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 209 
 
 with such feelings as rendered liim perfectly sensible 
 of all Lady Austen's fascinating powers, he could 
 return her tenderness with innocent regard, and yet 
 resolutely preclude himself from her society when 
 he could no longer enjoy it without compromising 
 what he owed to the compassionate and generous 
 guardian of his sequestered life. No person can 
 justly blame Mrs. Unwin for feeling apprehensive 
 that Cowper's intimacy with a lady of such extra- 
 ordinary talents might lead him into perplexities of 
 which he was by no means aware. This remark 
 was suggested by a few elegant and tender verses, 
 addressed by the poet to Lady Austen, and shown 
 to me by that lady. 
 
 " Those who were acquainted with the unsuspect- 
 ing innocence and sportive gaiety of Cowper would 
 readily allow, if they had seen the verses to which I 
 allude, that they are such as he might have addressed 
 to a real sister ; but a lady only called by that en- 
 dearing name may be easily pardoned if she was 
 induced by them to hope that they might possibly 
 be a prelude to a still dearer alliance. To me they 
 appeared expressive of that peculiarity in his cha- 
 racter, a gay and tender gallantry, perfectly distinct 
 from the attachment of love. If the lady, who was 
 the subject of the verses, had given them to me with 
 a permission to print them, I should have thought 
 the poet himself might have approved of their ap- 
 pearance, accompanied with such a commentary. 
 
 " In the whole course of this work I have endea- 
 voured to recollect, on every doubtful occasion, the 
 feelings of Cowper, and made it a rule to reject 
 
 VOL 11. 1'
 
 210 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 whatever my perfect intimacy with those feelings 
 could lead me to suppose the spirit of the departed 
 poet might wish me to lay aside as unfit for publi- 
 cation. I consider an editor as guilty of the basest 
 injury to the dead who admits into the posthumous 
 volumes of an author, whom he professes to love 
 and admire, any composition which his own con- 
 science informs him that author, if he could speak 
 from the tomb, would direct him to suppress. On 
 this principle I have declined to print some letters 
 which entered, more than I think the public ought 
 to enter, into the history of a trifling feminine dis- 
 cord that disturbed the perfect harn ony of the 
 happy trio at Olney, when Lady Austen and Mrs. 
 Unwin were the united inspirers of the poet. Yet 
 as the brief and true account which I gave of their 
 separation has been thought to cast a shade of cen- 
 sure on the temper of Mrs. Unwin, which I was far 
 from intending, in justice to the memory of that 
 exemplary and sublime female friend, I here intro- 
 duce a passage from a letter of Cov.per to the Rev. 
 William Unwin, honourable to both the ladies in 
 question, as it describes them in a moment of ge- 
 nerous reconciliation. 
 
 " ' I enclose a letter from Lady Austen, which I 
 beg you to return me in your next. — We are re- 
 conciled. She seized the first opportunity to em- 
 brace your mother with tears of the tenderest 
 affection, and I of course am satisfied. We were 
 all a little awkward at first, but now are as easy as 
 ever.' 
 
 " This letter happens to have no date, but the
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 211 
 
 expressions I have cited from it are sufficient to 
 prove that Mrs. Unwin, instead of having shown an 
 envious infirmity of temper on this occasion, must 
 have conducted herself with a dehcate liberaHty of 
 mind." 
 
 We now enter upon the correspondence of the 
 year. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Jan. 3, 1784. 
 
 My dear WilHam — Your silence began to be dis- 
 tressing to both your mother and me, and had I not 
 received a letter from you last night, I should have 
 written by this post to inquire after your health. 
 How can it be that you, who are not stationary like 
 me, but often change your situation, and mix with 
 a variety of company, should suppose me furnished 
 with such abundant materials and yourself destitute ? 
 I assure you faithfully that I do not find the soil of 
 Olney prolific in the growth of such articles as make 
 letter-writing a desirable employment. No place 
 contributes less to the catalogue of incidents, or is 
 more scantily supplied with anecdotes worth notice. 
 
 We have 
 
 One parson, one poet, one bellman, one cryer. 
 And the poor poet is our only 'squire. 
 
 Guess then if I have not more reason to expect two 
 letters from you than you one from me. The prin- 
 cipal occurrence, and that which affects me most at 
 present, came to pass this moment. The stair foot 
 
 p 2
 
 '2['2 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 door being swelled by the thaw would do any thing 
 better than it would open. An attempt to force it 
 upon that office has been attended with such a hor- 
 rible dissolution of its parts that we were imme- 
 diately obliged to introduce a chirurgeon, commonly 
 called a carpenter, whose applications we have some 
 hope will cure it of a locked jaw, and heal its nu- 
 merous fractures. His medicines are powerful cha- 
 lybeates and a certain glutinous salve, which he 
 tells me is made of the tails and ears of animals. 
 The consequences however are rather unfavourable 
 to my present employment, which does not well 
 brook noise, bustle, and interruption. 
 
 This being the case, I shall not perhaps be either 
 so perspicuous or so diffuse on the subject of which 
 you desire my sentiments as I should be, but I will 
 do my best. Know then that I have learnt long 
 since, of Abbe Raynal, to hate all monopolies as 
 injurious, howsoever managed, to the interests of 
 commerce at large ; consequently the charter in 
 question would not at any rate be a favourite of 
 mine. This however is of itself I confess no suffi- 
 cient reason to justify the resumption of it. But 
 such reasons I think are not wanting. A grant of 
 that kind, it is well known, is always forfeited by 
 the non-performance of the conditions. And why 
 not equally forfeited if those conditions are ex- 
 ceeded ; if the design of it be perverted, and its 
 operation extended to objects which were never in 
 the contemplation of the donor? 'I'his appears to 
 me to be no misrepresentation of their case, whose 
 charter is supposed to be in danger. It constitutes
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 213 
 
 them a trading company, and gives them an excki- 
 sive right to traffic in the East Indies. But it does 
 no more. It invests them with no sovereignty ; it 
 does not convey to them the royal prerogative of" 
 making war and peace, which the king cannot 
 alienate if he would. But this prerogative they have 
 exercised, and, forgetting the terms of their insti- 
 tution, have possessed themselves of an immense 
 territory, which they have ruled with a rod of iron, 
 to which it is impossible they should even have a 
 right, unless such a one as it is a disgrace to plead 
 — the right of conquest. The potentates of this 
 country they dash in pieces like a potter's vessel, as 
 often as they please, making the happiness of thirty 
 millions of mankind a consideration subordinate to 
 that of their own emolument, oppressing them as 
 often as it may serve a lucrative purpose, and in no 
 instance, that I have ever heard, consulting their in- 
 terest or advantage. That government therefore is 
 bound to interfere and to unking these tyrants is to 
 me self-evident. And if, having subjugated so much 
 of this miserable world, it is therefore necessary 
 that we must keep possession of it, it appears to me 
 a duty so binding on the legislature to resume it 
 from the hands of those usurpers, that I should think 
 a curse, and a bitter one, must follow the neglect of 
 it. But, suppose this were done, can they be legally 
 deprived of their charter ? In truth I think so. II" 
 the abuse and perversion of a charter can amount to 
 a defeasance of it, never were they so grossly pal- 
 pable as in this instance; never was charter so 
 justly forfeited. Neither am I at all afraid that such
 
 214 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 a measure should be drawn into a precedent, unless 
 it could be alleged, as a sufficient reason for not 
 hanging a rogue, that perhaps magistracy might 
 grow wanton in the exercise of such a power, and 
 now and then hang up an honest man for its amuse- 
 ment. Wlien the Governors of the Bank shall 
 have deserved the same severity, I hope they will 
 meet with it. In the mean time I do not think 
 them a whit more in jeopardy because a corporation 
 of plunderers have been brought to justice. 
 
 We are well, and love you all. I never wrote in 
 such a hurry, nor in such disturbance. Pardon the 
 effects, and believe me yours affectionately, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO MRS. HILL.^ 
 
 Olney, Jan. 5, 1784. 
 
 Dear Madam — You will readily pardon the trou- 
 ble I give you by this line, when I plead my atten- 
 tion to your husband's convenience in my excuse. 
 I know him to be so busy a man, that I cannot in 
 conscience trouble him with a commission, which I 
 know it is impossible he should have leisure to 
 execute. After all, the labour would devolve upon 
 you, and therefore I may as well address you in the 
 first instance. 
 
 I have read, and return the books you were so 
 kind as to procure for me. Mr. Hill gave me hopes, 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 216 
 
 in his last, that from the hbrary, to which I have 
 subscribed, I might still be supplied with more. I 
 have not many more to wish for, nor do I mean to 
 make any unreasonable use of your kindness. In 
 about a fortnight I shall be favoured, by a friend in 
 Essex, with as many as will serve me during the 
 rest of the winter. In summer I read but little. 
 In the mean time, I shall be much obliged to you 
 for Forster's Narrative of the same voyage, if your 
 librarian has it ; and likewise for " Swinburn's 
 Travels," which Mr. Hill mentioned. If they can 
 be sent at once, which perhaps the terms of sub- 
 scription may not allow, I shall be glad to receive 
 them so. If not, then Forster's first, and Swinburn 
 afterwards : and Swinburn, at any rate, if Forstcr 
 is not to be procured. 
 
 Reading over what I have written, I find it per- 
 fectly free and easy ; so much indeed in that style, 
 that, had I not had repeated proofs of your good- 
 nature in other instances, I should have modesty 
 enough to suppress it, and attempt something more 
 civil, and becoming a person who has never had the 
 happiness of seeing you. But I have always ob- 
 served that sensible people are best pleased with 
 what is natural and unaffected. Nor can I tell you 
 a plainer truth, than that I am, without the least 
 dissimulation, and with a warm remembrance of 
 past favours, 
 
 My dear Madam, 
 Your affectionate humble servant, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 I beg to be remembered to Mr. Hill.
 
 216 LIFE OF COWPER, 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL ESQ.* 
 
 Olney, Jan. 8, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I wish you had more leisure, 
 that you might oftener favour me with a page of 
 politics. The authority of a newspaper is not of 
 sufficient weight to determine my opinions, and I 
 have no other documents to be set down by. I 
 therefore on this subject am suspended in a state 
 of constant scepticism, the most uneasy condition 
 in which the judgment can find itself. But your 
 politics have weight with me, because I know your 
 independent spirit, the justness of your reasonings, 
 and the opportunities you have of information. 
 But I know likewise the urgency and the multi- 
 plicity of your concerns ; and therefore, like a ne- 
 glected clock, must be contented to go wrong, ex- 
 cept when perhaps twice in the year you shall 
 come to set me right. 
 
 Public credit is indeed shaken, and the funds at 
 a low ebb. How can they be otherwise, when our 
 western wing is already clipt to the stumps, and 
 the shears at this moment threaten our eastern. 
 Low however as our public stock is, it is not lower 
 than my private one ; and, this being the article 
 that touches me most nearly at present, I shall be 
 obliged to you if you will have recourse to such 
 ways and means for the replenishment of mv ex- 
 chequer as your wisdom may suggest and your 
 best ability suffice to execute. The experience I 
 have had of vour readiness upon all similar occa- 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 217 
 
 sions has been very agreeable to me ; and I doubt 
 not but upon the present I shall find you equally 
 prompt to serve me. So, 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Jan.18,1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I too have taken leave of the 
 old year, and parted with it just when you did, but 
 with very different sentiments and feelings upon 
 the occasion. I looked back upon all the passages 
 and occurrences of it as a traveller looks back upon 
 a wilderness, through which he has passed with 
 weariness and sorrow of heart, reaping no other fruit 
 of his labour than the poor consolation that, dreary 
 as the desert was, he has left it all behind him. 
 The traveller would find even this comfort consi- 
 derably lessened, if, as soon as he had passed one 
 wilderness, another of equal length and equally 
 desolate should expect him. In this particular, his 
 experience and mine would exactly tally. I should 
 rejoice indeed that the old year is over and gone, if 
 I had not every reason to prophesy a new one similar 
 to it. 
 
 I am glad you have found so much hidden trea- 
 sure ; and Mrs. Unwin desires me to tell you, that 
 you did her no more than justice in believing that 
 she would rejoice in it. It is not easy to surmise 
 the reason why the Reverend Doctor, your prede-
 
 218 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 cesser, concealed it. Being a subject of a free 
 government, and I supjiose full of the divinity most 
 in fashion, he could not fear lest his great riches 
 should expose him to persecution. Nor can I sup- 
 pose that he held it any disgrace for a dignitary of 
 the church to be wealthy, at a time when church- 
 men in general spare no pains to become so. But 
 the Vfisdom of some men has a droll sort of knavish- 
 ness m it, much like that of the magpie, who hides 
 what he finds with a deal of contrivance, merely for 
 the pleasure of doing it. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Jan, 1784. 
 
 My dear William —When I first resolved to write 
 an answer to your last this evening, I had no thought 
 of any thing more sublime than prose. But before 
 I began, it occurred to me that perhaps you would 
 not be displeased with an attempt to give a poetical 
 translation of the lines you sent me. They are so 
 beautiful, that I felt the temptation irresistible. At 
 least, as the French say, it was plus forte que moi ; 
 and I accordingly complied. By this means I have 
 lost an hour ; and whether I shall be able to fill my 
 sheet before supper is as yet doubtful. But I will 
 do my best. 
 
 For your remarks, I think them perfectly just. 
 You have no reason to distrust your taste, or to
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 219 
 
 submit the trial of it to me. You understand the 
 use and the force of language as well as any man. 
 You have quick feelings, and you are fond of poetry. 
 How is it possible then that you should not be a 
 judge of it ? I venture to hazard only one alteration, 
 which, as it appears to me, would amount to a little 
 improvement. The seventh and eighth lines I think 
 I should like better thus — 
 
 Aspirante levi zepbyro et redeunte serenk 
 Anni teniperie foecundo e cespite surgunt. 
 
 My reason is, that the word cum is repeated too 
 soon. At least my ear does not like it, and, when 
 it can be done without injury to the sense, there 
 seems to be an elegance in diversifying the expres- 
 sion, as much as possible, upon similar occasions. 
 It discovers a command of phrase, and gives a more 
 masterly air to the piece. If extincta stood uncon- 
 nected with tells, I should prefer your word micant, 
 to the doctor's vigent. But the latter seems to 
 stand more in direct opposition to that sort of 
 extinction which is effected by a shaft or arrow. 
 In the daytime the stars may be said to die, and in 
 the night to recover their strength. Perhaps the 
 doctor had in his eye that noble line of Gray's, 
 Hyperion's march they spy, and glitt'ring shafts of war ! ' 
 
 But it is a beautiful composition. It is tender, 
 touching, and elegant. It is not easy to do it jus- 
 tice in English, as for example.* 
 
 * The verses appearing again with the original in the next 
 letter, are omitted.
 
 220 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Many thanks for the books, which being most 
 admirably packed came safe. They will furnish us 
 with many a winter evening's amusement. We are 
 glad that you intend to be the carrier back. 
 
 We rejoice too that your cousin has remembered 
 you in her will. The money she left to those who 
 attended her hearse, would have been better be- 
 stowed upon you: and by this time perhaps she 
 thinks so. Alas ! what an inquiry does that thought 
 suggest, and how impossible to make it to any pur- 
 pose! What are the employments of the departed 
 spirit? and where does it subsist ? Has it any cog- 
 nizance of earthly things? Is it transported to an 
 immeasurable distance; oris it still, though imper- 
 ceptible to us, conversant with the same scene, and 
 interested in what passes here? How little we know 
 of a state to which we are all destined; and how 
 does the obscurity that hangs over that undiscovered 
 country increase the anxiety we sometimes feel as 
 we are journeying towards it! It is sufficient how- 
 ever for such as you and a few more of my acquain- 
 tance to know that in your separate state you will 
 be happy. Provision is made for your recejition ; 
 and you will have no cause to regret aught that 
 you have left behind. 
 
 I have written to Mr. . My letter went 
 
 this morning. How I love and honour that man ! 
 For many reasons I dare not tell him how much. 
 But I hate the frigidity of the style in which I am 
 forced to address him. That line of Horace, 
 
 Dii tibi divitias dederunt artemque fruendi.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 221 
 
 uas never so applicable to the poet's friend, as to 
 
 Mr. . My bosom burns to immortalize him. 
 
 But prudence says " Forbear ! " and, though a poet, 
 I pay respect to her injunctions.* 
 
 I sincerely give you joy of the good you have 
 unconsciously done by your example and conversa- 
 tion. That you seem to yourself not to deserve the 
 acknowledgment your friend makes of it, is a proof 
 that you do. Grace is blind to its own beauty, 
 whereas such virtues as men may reach without it 
 are remarkable self-admirers. May you make such 
 impressions upon many of your order ! I know none 
 that need them more. 
 
 You do not want my praises of your conduct 
 
 towards Mr. . It is well for him however, 
 
 and still better for yourself, that you are capable of 
 such a part. It was said of some good man (my 
 memory does not serve me with his name) " do 
 him an ill turn, and you make him your friend for 
 ever." But it is Christianity only that forms such 
 friends. I wish his father may be duly affected by 
 this instance and proof of your superiority to those 
 ideas of you which he has so unreasonably har- 
 boured. He is not in my favour now, nor will be 
 upon any other terms. 
 
 I laughed at the comments you make on your 
 own feelings, when the subject of them was a news- 
 paper eulogium. But it was a laugh of pleasure, 
 and approbation : such indeed is the heart, and so 
 
 * John Thornton, Esq. is tJie person here alluded
 
 222 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 is it made up. There are few that can do good, 
 and keep their own secret, none perhaps without a 
 
 struggle. Yourself and your friend are no 
 
 very common instances of the fortitude that is 
 necessary in such a conflict. In former days I have 
 felt my heart belit, and every vein throb upon such 
 an occasion. To publish my own deed was wrong. 
 I knew it to be so. But to conceal it seemed like 
 a voluntary injury to myself. Sometimes I could, 
 and sometimes I could not succeed. My occasions 
 for such conflicts indeed were not very numerous. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE ,REV. JOHN NEWTON 
 
 Olney, Jan, 25, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — This contention about East 
 Indian patronage seems not unlikely to avenge upon 
 us by its consequences the mischiefs we have done 
 there. The matter in dispute is too precious to be 
 relinquished by either party; and each is jealous of 
 the influence the other would derive from the pos- 
 session of it. In a country whose politics have so 
 long rolled upon the wheels of corruption, an affair 
 of such value must prove a weight in either scale, 
 absolutely destructive of the very idea of a balance. 
 Every man has his sentiments upon this subject, 
 and I have mine. Were I constituted umpire of 
 this strife, with full powers to decide it, I would tie 
 a talent of lead about the neck of this patronage,
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 223 
 
 and plunge it into the depths of the sea. To speak 
 less figuratively, I would abandon all territorial 
 interest in a country, to which we can have no 
 right, and which we cannot govern with any secu- 
 rity to the happiness of the inhabitants, or without 
 the danger of incurring either perpetual broils, or 
 the most insupportable tyranny at home. That 
 sort of tyranny I mean, which flatters and tantalizes 
 the subject with a show of freedom, and in reality 
 allows him nothing more, bribing to the right and 
 left, rich enough to afford the purchase of a thousand 
 consciences, and consequently strong enough, if it 
 happen to meet with an incorruptible one, to render 
 all the efforts of that man, or of twenty such men, 
 if they could be found, romantic and of no effect. 
 I am the king's most loyal subject, and most obe- 
 dient humble servant. But, by his majesty's leave, 
 I must acknowledge I am not altogether convinced 
 of the rectitude even of his own measures, or of the 
 simplicity of his views ; and, if I were satisfied that 
 he himself is to be trusted, it is nevertheless pal- 
 pable that he cannot answer for his successors. 
 At the same time he is my king, and I reverence 
 him as such. I account his prerogative sacred, 
 and shall never wish prosperity to a party that 
 invades it, and, under that pretence of patriotism, 
 would annihilate all the consequence of a character 
 essential to the very being of the constitution. For 
 these reasons I am sorry that we have any domi- 
 nion in the East; that we have any such emolu- 
 ments to contend about. Their immense value 
 will probably prolong the dispute, and such strug-
 
 224 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 gles having been already made in the conduct of it 
 as have shaken our very foundations, it seems not 
 unreasonable to suppose that still greater efforts 
 and more fatal are behind; and, after all, the deci- 
 sion in favour of either side may be ruinous to the 
 whole. In the mean time, that the Company them- 
 selves are but indifferently qualified for the king- 
 ship is most deplorably evident. What shall I say 
 therefore ? I distrust the court, I suspect the 
 patriots ; I put the Company entirely aside, as 
 having forfeited all claim to confidence in such a 
 business, and see no remedy of course, but in the 
 annihilation, if that could be accomplished, of the 
 very existence of oiu- authority in the East Indies. 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 It was natural for Cowper to indulge in such a 
 reflection, if we consider that in his time India 
 presented a melancholy scene of rapine and cor- 
 ruption. It used to be said by Mr. Burke that 
 every man became unbaptized in going to India, 
 and that, should it please Providence, by some un- 
 foreseen dispensation, to deprive Great Britain o' 
 her Indian empire, she would leave behind no me- 
 morial but the evidences of her ambition, and the 
 traces of her desolating wars. 
 
 Happily we have lived to see a great moral 
 revolution, and England has at length redeemed 
 her character. She has ennobled the triumplis of 
 her arms, by making them subservient to the in-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 225 
 
 troduction of the Gospel ; and seems evidently 
 destined by Providence to be the honoured instru- 
 ment of evangelizing the nations of the East. 
 Already the sacred Scriptures have been translated, 
 in whole or in part, into nearly forty of the Oriental 
 languages or dialects. Schools have been estab- 
 lished, and are rapidly multiplying in the three 
 presidencies. The apparently insurmountable bar- 
 rier of caste is giving way, and the great fabric 
 of Indian superstition is crumbling into dust, while 
 on its ruins will arise the everlasting empire of 
 righteousness and truth. 
 
 The following lines, written by Dr. Jortin, to which 
 we subjoin Cowpcr's translation, were inclosed in the 
 last letter. 
 
 IN BREVITATEM VITJE SPATII, HOMINIEUS CONCESSI. 
 
 Hei mihi ! Lege rata sol occidit atque resurgit, 
 Lunaque mutate repavat dispendia formse, 
 Astraque, purpurei telis extincta diei, 
 Rursus nocte vigent. Humiles telluris alumni, 
 Gi-aminis herba virens, et florum picta propago, 
 Quos crudelis liyems letbali tabe peredit, 
 Cum zephyri vox blanda vocat, rediitque sereni 
 Temperies anni, foecundo e cespite surgunt. 
 Nos domini rerum, nos, magna et pulcbra minati, 
 Cum breve ver vitae robustaque transiit a;tas, 
 Deficimus ; nee nos ordo revolubilis auras 
 Reddit in ietherias, tumuli neque claustra resolvit 
 
 ON THE SHORTNESS OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 
 Suns that set, and moons that wane. 
 Rise, and are restored again. 
 Stars, that orient day subdues, 
 Night at her return renews. 
 VOL. II. ^
 
 226 
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Herbs and flowers, the beauteous birth 
 Of the genial womb of earrh, 
 Suffer but a transient death 
 From the winter's cruel breath. 
 Zephyr spepks ; serener skies 
 Warm the glebe, aud they arise. 
 We, alas ! earth's haughty kings. 
 We, that promise mighty things. 
 Losing soon life's happy prime. 
 Droop, aud fade, in little time. 
 Spring returns, but not our bloom. 
 Still 'tis winter in the tomb. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 1784. 
 My dear Friend — I am glad that you have finished 
 a work, of which I well remember the beginning, 
 and which I was sorry you thought it expedient to 
 discontinue.* Your reason for not proceeding was, 
 however, such as I was obliged to acquiesce in, 
 being suggested by a jealousy you felt, " lest your 
 spirit should be betrayed into acrimony, in writing 
 upon such a subject." I doubt not you have suffi- 
 ciently guarded that point, and indeed at the time 
 I could not discover that you had failed in it. I 
 have busied myself this morning in contriving a 
 Greek title, and in seeking a motto. The motto 
 you mention is certainly apposite. But I think it 
 an objection that it has been so much in use ; almost 
 every writer that has claimed a liberty to think for 
 himself, upon whatever subject, having chosen it. I 
 therefore send you one which I never saw in that 
 * The " Review of Ecclesiastical History."
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 227 
 
 shape yet, and which appears to me equally apt and 
 proper. The Greek word ce<Tyuoc, which signifies 
 literally a shackle, may figuratively serve to express 
 those chains which bigotry and prejudice cast upon 
 the mind. It seems therefore, to speak Hke a lawyer, 
 no misnomer of your book to call it — 
 
 Ml(TOC€(TIU0Q. 
 
 The following pleases me most of all the mottoes 
 I have thought of. But with respect both to that 
 and the title you will use your pleasure. 
 
 Querelis 
 Haud justis assurgis, et irrita jurgia jactas. 
 
 tEn. X. 94. 
 
 From the Httle I have seen, and the much I 
 have heard, of the manager of the Review you 
 mention, I cannot feel even the smallest push of 
 a desire to serve him in the capacity of a poet. 
 Indeed I dislike him so much, tha:, had I a drawer 
 full of pieces fit for his purpose, I hardly think I 
 should contribute to his collection. It is possible 
 too that I may live to be once more a publisher 
 myself; in which case, I should be glad to find 
 myself in possession of any such original pieces 
 as might decently make their appearance in a 
 volume of my own. At present, however, I have 
 nothing that would be of use to him, nor have I 
 many opportunities of composing, Sunday being the 
 only day in the week which we spend alone. 
 
 I am at this moment pinched for time, but was 
 desirous of proving to you with what alacrity my 
 Greek and Latin memory are always ready to obey 
 
 q2
 
 228 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 you, and therefore, by the first post, have to the best 
 of my abihty compHed with your request. 
 BeUeve me, my dear friend, 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 10, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — The morning is my writing 
 time, and in the morning I have no spirits. So 
 much the worse for my correspondents. Sleep, 
 that refreshes my body, seems to cripple me in 
 every other respect. As the evening approaches, I 
 grow more alert, and when I am retiring to bed am 
 more fit for mental occupation than at any other 
 time. So it fares with us whom they call nervous. 
 By a strange inversion of the animal economy, we 
 are ready to sleep when we have most need to be 
 awake, and go to bed just when we might sit up 
 to some purpose. The watch is irregularly wound 
 up, it goes in the night when it is not wanted, and 
 in the day stands still. In many respects we have 
 the advantage of our forefathers, the Picts. We 
 sleep in a whole skin, are not obliged to submit to 
 the painful operation of puncturing ourselves from 
 head to foot, in order that we may be decently 
 dressed, and fit to appear abroad. But, on the other 
 hand, we have reason enough to envy them their 
 tone of nerves, and that flow of spirits which effectu- 
 ally secured them from all uncomfortable impres-
 
 LIFE OF COWFER. 229 
 
 sions of a gloomy atmosphere, and from every shade 
 of melancholy from every other cause. They mi- 
 derstood, I suppose, the use of vulnerary herbs, 
 having frequent occasion for some skill in surgery, 
 but physicians I presume they had none, having 
 no need of any. Is it possible that a creature like 
 myself can be descended from such progenitors, in 
 whom there appears not a single trace of family 
 resemblance ? What an alteration have a few ages 
 made ! They, without clothing, would defy the 
 severest season, and I, with all the accommodations 
 that art has since invented, am hardly secure even 
 in the mildest. If the wind blows upon me when 
 my pores are open, I catch cold. A cough is the 
 consequence. I suppose, if such a disorder could 
 have seized a Pict, his friends would have concluded 
 that a bone had stuck in his throat, and that he 
 was in some danger of choking. They would per- 
 haps have addressed themselves to the cure of his 
 cough by thrusting their fingers into his gullet, 
 which would only have exasperated the case. But 
 they would never have thought of administering 
 laudanum, my only remedy. For this difference 
 however that has obtained between me and my 
 ancestors, I am indebted to the luxurious practices 
 and enfeebling self-indulgence of a long line of grand- 
 sires, who from generation to generation have been 
 employed in deteriorating the breed, till at last the 
 collected effects of all their follies have centred in 
 my puny self — a man, indeed, but not in the image 
 of those that went before me — a man who sighs 
 and groans, who wears out life in dejection and op-
 
 230 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 pression of spirits, and who never thinks of the 
 Aborigines of the country to which I belong, with- 
 out wishing that I had been born among them. The 
 evil is without a remedy, unless the ages that are 
 passed could be recalled, my whole pedigree be 
 permitted to live again, and being properly admo- 
 nished to beware of enervating sloth and refinement, 
 would preserve their hardiness of nature unimpaired, 
 and transmit the desirable quality to their posterity. 
 I once saw Adam in a dream. We sometimes say 
 of a picture that we doubt not its likeness to the 
 original, though we never saw him ; a judgment we 
 have some reason to form, when the face is strongly 
 charactered, and the features full of expression. So 
 I think of my visionary Adam, and for a similar 
 reason. His figure was awkward indeed in the 
 extreme. It was evident that he had never been 
 taught by a Frenchman to hold his head erect, or to 
 turn out his toes ; to dispose of his arms, or to 
 simper without a meaning. But, if Mr. Bacon was 
 called upon to produce a statue of Hercules, he 
 need not wish for a juster pattern. He stood like 
 a rock ; the size of his limbs, the prominence of his 
 muscles, and the height of his stature, all conspired 
 to bespeak him a creature whose strength had suf- 
 fered no diminution, and who, being the first of his 
 race, did not come into the world under a necessity 
 of sustaining a load of infirmities, derived to him 
 from the intemperance of others. He was as much 
 stouter than a Pict, as I suppose a Pict to be than I. 
 Upon my hypothesis, therefore, there has been a gra- 
 dual declension, in point of bodily vigour, from Adam
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 231 
 
 down to me; at least, if my dream were a just repre- 
 sentation of that gentleman, and deserve the credit 
 I cannot help giving it, such must have been the 
 case. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 1784. 
 My dear Friend — 1 give you joy of a thaw that 
 has put an end to a frost of nine weeks' continuance 
 with very little interruption ; the longest that has 
 happened since the year 1739. May I presume that 
 you feel yourself indebted to me for intelligence, 
 which perhaps no other of your correspondents will 
 vouchsafe to communicate, though they are as well 
 apprised of it, and as much convinced of the truth 
 of it, as myself. It is I suppose every where felt as 
 a blessing, but no where more sensibly than at Olney ; 
 though even at Olney the severity of it has been 
 alleviated in behalf of many. The same benefactor, 
 who befriended them last year, has with equal libe- 
 rality administered a supply to their necessities in 
 the present. Like the subterraneous flue that warms 
 my mjTtles, he does good and is unseen. His in- 
 junctions of secrecy are still as rigorous as ever, and 
 must therefore be observed with the same attention. 
 He however is a happy man, whose philanthropy is 
 not hke mine, an impotent principle, spending itself
 
 232 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 in fruitless wishes. At the same time I confess it 
 is a consolation, and I feel it an honour, to be em- 
 ployed as the conductor, and to be trusted as the 
 dispenser, of another man's bounty. Some have been 
 saved from perishing, and all that could partake of it 
 from the most pitiable distress. 
 
 I will not apologize for my politics, or suspect 
 them of error, merely because they are taken up 
 from the newspapers. I take it for granted that 
 those reporters of the wisdom of our representatives 
 are tolerably correct and faithful. Were they not, 
 and were they guilty of frequent and gross misrepre- 
 sentation, assuredly they would be chastised by the 
 rod of parliamentary criticism. Could I be present 
 at the debates, I should indeed have a better opinion 
 of my documents. But if the House of Commons 
 be the best school of British politics, which I think 
 an undeniable assertion, then he that reads what 
 passes there has opportunities of information infe- 
 rior only to theirs who hear for themselves, and can 
 be present upon the spot. Thus qualified, I take 
 courage ; and when a certain reverend neighbour of 
 ours curls his nose at me, and holds my opinions 
 cheap, merely because he has passed through Lon- 
 don, I am not altogether convinced that he has 
 reason on his side. I do not know that the air of 
 the metropolis has a power to brighten the intel- 
 lects, or that to sleep a night in the great city is a 
 necessary cause of wisdom. He tells me that Mr. 
 Fox is a rascal, and that Lord North is a villain ; 
 that every creature execrates them both, and that I 
 ought to do so too. But I beg to be excused. Vil-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER, 233 
 
 lain and rascal are appellations which we, who do 
 not converse with great men, are rather sparing in 
 the use of. I can conceive them both to be most 
 entirely persuaded of the rectitude of their conduct, 
 and the rather because I feel myself much inclined 
 to believe that, being so, they are not mistaken. I 
 cannot think that secret influence is a bugbear, a 
 phantom conjured up to serve a purpose, the mere 
 shibboleth of a party :* and being, and having always 
 been, somewhat of an enthusiast on the subject of 
 British liberty, I am not able to withhold my rever- 
 ence and good wishes from the man, whoever he 
 be, that exerts himself in a constitutional way to 
 oppose it. 
 
 Caraccioli upon the subject of self-acquaintance 
 was never I believe translated. I have sometimes 
 thought that the Theological Miscellany might be 
 glad of a chapter of it monthly. It is a work which 
 I much admire. You, who are master of their plan, 
 can tell me whether such a contribution would be 
 welcome. If you think it would, I would be punc- 
 tual in my remittances ; and a labour of that sort 
 would suit me better in my present state of mind 
 than original composition on religious subjects. 
 
 * The secret influence, here mentioned, was at tliis time, 
 and often afterwards, said to be employed by the Court; and, 
 being highly unconstitutional, was frequently adverted to, in 
 strong language of reprehension, in the House of Commons. 
 Mr. Powys, afterwards Lord Lilford, called it " a foiirih 
 estate in the realm ;" and Mr. Burke denominated it " u pouer 
 behind the throne, greater than the throne itself"
 
 234 LIFE OF rOWPER. 
 
 Remember us as those that love you, and are never 
 unmindful of you. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.* 
 
 Olney, Feb. 22, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend —I owe you thanks for your kind 
 remembrance of me in your letter sent me on occa- 
 sion of your departure, and as many for that which 
 I received last night. I should have answered, had 
 I known where a line or two from me might find 
 you ; but, uncertain whether you were at home or 
 abroad, my diligence I confess wanted the necessary 
 spur. 
 
 It makes a capital figure among the comforts we 
 enjoyed during the long severity of the season, 
 that the same incognito to all except ourselves 
 made us his almoners this year likewise, as he did 
 the last, and to the same amount. Some we have 
 been enabled I suppose to save from perishing, and 
 certainly many from the most pinching necessity. 
 
 Are you not afraid, Tory as you are, to avow your 
 principles to me, who am a Whig ? Know that I 
 am in the opposition ; that, though I pity the king, 
 I do not wish him success in the present contest.f 
 
 * Private Correspondence. 
 
 f This alludes to Mr. Pitt being retained in office, though 
 frequently outvoted in Parliament.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 235 
 
 But this is too long a battle to fight upon paper. 
 Make haste that we may decide it face to face. 
 
 Our respects wait upon Mrs. Bull, and our love 
 upon the young Hebraean.* I wish you joy of his 
 proficiency, and am glad that you can say, with 
 the old man in Terence, 
 
 Omnes continue laudare fortunas meas. 
 Qui natum habeam tali ingenio praeditum. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Feb. 29, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — We are glad that you have 
 such a Lord Petre in your neighbourhood. He 
 must be a man of a liberal turn to employ a heretic 
 in such a sei'vice. I wish you a further acquaintance 
 with him, not doubting that the more he knows 
 you, he will find you the more agreeable. You 
 despair of becoming a prebendary, for want of cer- 
 tain rhythmical talents, which you suppose me pos- 
 sessed of. But what think you of a cardinal's hat ? 
 Perhaps his lordship may have interest at Rome, 
 and that greater honour may await you. Seriously, 
 however, I respect his character, and should not 
 be sorry if there were many such Papists in the 
 land. 
 
 * Mr. Bull's son, who afterwards succeeded his father, both 
 in the ministerial office, and also in the seminary establislied 
 at Newport Pagnel, and with no less claim to respect and 
 esteem.
 
 236 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 Mr. has given free scope to his genero- 
 sity, add contributed as largely to the relief of 
 Olney as he did last year. Soon after I had given 
 you notice of his first remittance, we received a 
 second to the same amount, accompanied indeed 
 with an intimation that we were to consider it as 
 an anticipated supply, which, but for the uncommon 
 severity of the present winter, he should have 
 reserved for the next. The inference is that next 
 winter we are to expect nothing. But the man, and 
 his beneficent turn of mind considered, there is some 
 reason to hope that logical as the inference seems, 
 it may yet be disappointed. 
 
 Adverting to your letter again, I perceive that 
 you wish for my opinion of your answer to his lord- 
 ship. Had I forgot to tell you that I approve of it, 
 I know you well enough to be aware of the misinter- 
 pretation you would have put upon my silence. I am 
 glad therefore that I happened to cast my eye upon 
 your appeal to my opinion, before it was too late. 
 A modest man, however able, has always some rea- 
 son to distrust himself upon extraordinary occasions. 
 Nothing is so apt to betray us into absurdity as too 
 great a dread of it ; and the application of more 
 strength than enough is sometimes as fatal as too 
 little : but you have escaped very well. For my 
 own part, when I write to a stranger, I feel myself 
 deprived of half my intellects. I suspect that I shall 
 write nonsense, and I do so. 1 tremble at the 
 thought of an inaccuracy, and become absolutely 
 ungrammatical. I feel m.y self sweat. I have recourse 
 to the knife and the pounce. I correct half a dozen
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 237 
 
 blunders, which in a common case I should not have 
 committed, and have no sooner dispatched what I 
 have written, than I recollect how much better 
 I could have made it ; how easily and genteelly I 
 could have relaxed the stiffness of the phrase, and 
 have cured the insufferable awkwardness of the 
 whole, had they struck me a little earlier. Thus we 
 stand in awe of we know not what, and miscarry 
 through mere desire to excel. 
 
 I read Johnson's Prefaces every night, except 
 when the newspaper calls me off". At a time like 
 the present, what author can stand in competition 
 with a new spaper ; or who, that has a spark of pa- 
 triotism, does not point all his attention to the 
 present crisis. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 I am so disgusted with , for allowing him- 
 self to be silent, when so loudly called upon to write 
 to you, that I do not choose to express my feelings. 
 Woe to the man whom kindness cannot soften ! 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, March 8, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — I thank you for the two first 
 numbers of the Theological Miscellany. I have not 
 read them regularly through, but sufficiently to 
 observe that they are much indebted to Omicron.* 
 An essay, signed Parvulus, pleased me likewise ; 
 and I shall be glad if a neighbour of ours, to whom 
 * The signature assumed by Mr. Newton.
 
 238 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 I have lent them, should be able to apply to his own 
 use the lesson it inculcates. On farther considera- 
 tion, I have seen reason to forego my purpose of 
 translating Caraccioli. Though I think no book 
 more calculated to teach the art of pious meditation, 
 or to enforce a conviction of the vanity of all pur- 
 suits that have not the soul's interests for their 
 object, I can yet see a flaw in his manner of instruct- 
 ing, that in a comitry so enlightened as ours would 
 escape nobody's notice. Not enjoying the advan- 
 tages of evangelical ordinances and Christian com- 
 munion, he falls into a mistake, natui'al in his situa- 
 tion, ascribing always the pleasures he found in a 
 holy life, to his own industrious perseverance in 
 a contemplative course, and not to the immediate 
 agency of the great Comforter of his people, and 
 directing the eye of his readers to a spiritual prin- 
 ciple within, which he supposes to subsist in the 
 soul of every man, as the source of all divine enjoy- 
 ment, and not to Christ, as he would gladly have 
 done, had he fallen under Christian teachers. Allow- 
 ing for these defects, he is a charming writer, and 
 by those who know how to make such allowances 
 may be read with great delight and improvement. 
 But, with these defects in his manner, though, I 
 believe, no man ever had a heart more devoted to 
 God, he does not seem dressed with sufficient exact- 
 ness to be fit for the public eye, where man is known 
 to be nothing, and Jesus all in all. He must there- 
 fore be dismissed, as an unsuccessful candidate for a 
 place in this Miscellany, and will be less mortified at 
 being rejected in the first instance than if he had
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 239 
 
 met with a refusal from the publisher. I can only 
 therefore repeat what I said before, that, when I find 
 a proper subject, and myself at liberty to pursue it, 
 I will endeavour to contribute my quota. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, March 11, 1784. 
 
 I return you many thanks for your Apology, 
 which I have read with great pleasure. You know 
 of old that your style always pleases me; and having, 
 in a former letter, given you the reasons for which 
 I like it, I spare you now the pain of a repetition. 
 The spirit too in which you write pleases me as 
 much. But I perceive that in some cases it is pos- 
 sible to be severe, and at the same time perfectly 
 good-tempered ; in all cases, I suppose, where we 
 suffer by an injurious and unreasonable attack, and 
 can justify our conduct by a plain and simple nar- 
 rative. On such occasions truth itself seems ;i 
 satire, because by implication at least it convicts our 
 adversaries of the want of charity and candour. For 
 this reason perhaps you will find that you have made 
 many angry, though you are not so ; and it is pos- 
 sible they may be the more angry upon that very 
 account. To assert and to prove that an enlight- 
 ened minister of the gospel may, without any viola- 
 tion of his conscience, and even upon the ground cf 
 prudence and propriety, continue in the Establish- 
 ment, and to do this with the most absolute com- 
 posure, must be very provoking to the dignity of
 
 240 
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 some dissenting doctors; and, to nettle them still 
 more, you in a manner impose upon them the 
 necessity of being silent, by declaring that you will 
 be so yourself. Upon the whole, however, I have 
 no doubt that your Apology will do good. If it 
 should irritate some who have more zeal than know- 
 ledge, and more of bigotry than of either, it may 
 serve to enlarge the views of others, and to con- 
 vince them that there may be grace, truth, and 
 efficacy in the ministry of a church of which they 
 are not members. I wish it success, and all that 
 attention to which, both from the nature of the sub- 
 ject and the manner in which you have treated it, 
 it is so well entitled. 
 
 Tlie patronage of the East Indies will be a dan- 
 gerous weapon, in whatever hands. I have no pro- 
 spect of deliverance for this country, but the same 
 that I have of a possibility that we may one day be dis- 
 encumbered of our ruinous possessions in the East. 
 
 Our good neighbours,* who have so successfully 
 knocked away our western crutch from under us, 
 seem to design us the same favour on the opposite 
 side, in which case we shall be poor, but I think we 
 shall stand a better chance to be free ; and I had 
 rather drink water-gruel for breakfast, and be no 
 man's slave, than wear a chain, and drink tea. 
 
 I have just room to add that we love you as usual, 
 and are your very affectionate, William and Mary. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 * Tlie French nation, wbo aided America in her struggle for 
 independence.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 241 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, March 15, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I converse, you say, upon other 
 subjects than that of despair, and may therefore 
 write upon others. Indeed, my friend, I am a man 
 of very Httle conversation upon any subject. From 
 that of despair I abstain as much as possible, for the 
 sake of my company ; but I will venture to say that 
 it is never out of my mind one minute in the whole 
 day. I do not mean to say that I am never cheerful. 
 I am often so : always indeed when my nights have 
 been undisturbed for a season. But the effect of 
 such continual listening to the language of a heart 
 hopeless and deserted is that I can never give much 
 more than half my attention to what is started by 
 others, and very rarely start any thing myself. My 
 silence, however, and my absence of mind, make me 
 sometimes as entertaining as if I had wit. They 
 furnish an occasion for friendly and good-natured 
 raillery ; they raise a laugh, and I partake of it. 
 But you will easily perceive that a mind thus occu- 
 pied is but indifferently qualified for the considera- 
 tion of theological matters. The most useful and 
 the most delightful topics of that kind are to me for- 
 bidden fruit ; — I tremble if I approach them. It 
 has happened to me sometimes that I have found 
 myself imperceptibly drawn in, and made a party in 
 such discourse. The consequence has been, dis- 
 satisfaction and self-reproach. You will tell me, 
 * Private Correspondence. 
 VOL. II. ^
 
 242 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 perhaps, that I have written upon these subjects in 
 verse, and may therefore, if I please, in prose. But 
 there is a difference. The search after poetical 
 expression, the rhyme, and the numbers, are all 
 affairs of some difficulty ; they amuse indeed, but 
 are not to be attained without study, and engross, 
 perhaps, a larger share of the attention than the 
 subject itself. Persons fond of music will some- 
 times find pleasure in the tune, when the words 
 afford them none. There are, however, subjects 
 that do not always terrify me by their importance ; 
 such I mean as relate to' Christian life and manners ; 
 and when such an one presents itself, and finds me 
 in a frame of mind that does not absolutely forbid 
 the employment, I shall most readily give it my 
 attention, for the sake, however, of your request 
 merely. Verse is my favourite occupation, and 
 what I compose in that w^ay I reserve for my own 
 use hereafter. 
 
 I have lately finished eight volumes of Johnson's 
 Prefaces, or Lives of the Poets. In all that number 
 I observe but one man — a poet of no great fame — 
 of whom I did not know that he existed till I found 
 him there, whose mind seems to have had the slight- 
 est tincture of religion ; and he was hardly in his 
 senses. His name was Collins. He sunk into a state 
 of melancholy, and died young. Not long before 
 his death he was found at his lodgings in Islington, 
 by his biographer, with the New Testament in his 
 hand. He said to Johnson, " I have but one book, 
 but it is the best." Of him, therefore, there are 
 some hopes. But from the lives of all the rest there
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 243 
 
 is but one inference to be drawn- that poets are a 
 very worthless, wicked set of people. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, truly, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, March 19, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I wish it were in my power to 
 give you any account of the Marquis Caraccioli. 
 Some years since I saw a short history of him in 
 the ' Review,' of which I recollect no particulars, 
 except that he was (and for aught I know may be 
 still) an officer in the Prussian service. I have two 
 volumes of his works, lent me by Lady Austen. 
 One is upon the subject of self-acquaintance, and 
 the other treats of the art of conversing with the 
 same gentleman. Had I pursued my purpose of 
 translating him, my design was to have furnished 
 myself, if possible, with some authentic account of 
 him, which I suppose may be procured at any book- 
 seller's who deals in foreign publications. But for 
 the reasons given in my last I have laid aside the 
 design. There is something in his style that touches 
 me exceedingly, and which I do not know how to 
 describe. I should call it pathetic, if it were occa- 
 sional only, and never occurred but when his sub- 
 ject happened to be particularly aftecting. But it 
 is universal ; he has not a sentence that is not 
 marked with it. Perhaps therefore I may describe 
 it better by saying that his whole work has an air of 
 pious and tender melancholy, which to me at least 
 
 b2
 
 244 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 is extremely agreeable. This property of it, which 
 depends perhaps altogether upon the arrangement of 
 his words, and the modulation of his sentences, it 
 would be very difficult to preserve in a translation. 
 I do not know that our language is capable of being 
 so managed, and rather suspect that it is not, and 
 that it is peculiar to the French, because it is not 
 unfrequent among their writers, and I never saw 
 any thing similar to it in our own. 
 
 My evenings are devoted to books. I read aloud 
 for the entertainment of the party, thus making 
 amends by a vociferation of two hours for my 
 silence at other times. We are in good health, and 
 waiting as patiently as we can for the end of this 
 second winter. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 The following letter will be read with interest as 
 expressing Cowper's sentiments on Dr. Johnson's 
 " Lives of the Poets." 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* 
 
 Olney, March 21, 1784 
 My dear William — I thank you for the enter- 
 tainment you have afforded me. I often wish for a 
 library, often regret my folly in selling a good 
 collection, but I have one in Essex. It is rather 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 245 
 
 remote indeed, too distant for occasiontil rete- 
 rence ; but it serves the purpose of amusement, 
 and a waggon being a very suitable vehicle for 
 an author, I find myself commodiously supplied. 
 Last night I made an end of reading " John- 
 son's Prefaces ;" but the number of poets whom 
 he has vouchsafed to chronicle being fifty -six, 
 there must be many with whose history I am 
 not yet acquainted. These, or some of these, if it 
 suits you to give them a part of your chaise when 
 you come, will be heartily welcome. I am very 
 much the biographer's humble admirer. His un- 
 common share of good sense, and his forcible ex- 
 pression, secure to him that tribute from all his 
 readers. He has a penetrating insight into charac- 
 ter, and a happy talent of correcting the popular 
 opinion upon all occasions where it is erroneous ; 
 and this he does with the boldness of a man who 
 will think for himself, but at the same time with a 
 justness of sentiment that convinces us he does not 
 differ from others through affectation, but because 
 he has a sounder judgment. This remark, however, 
 has his narrative for its object rather than his 
 critical performance. In the latter I do not think 
 him always just, when he departs from the general 
 opinion. He finds no beauties in Milton's Lycidas. 
 He pours contempt upon Prior, to such a degree, 
 that, were he really as undeserving of notice as he 
 represents him, he ought no longer to be numbered 
 among the poets. These indeed are the two capital 
 instances in which he has offended me. There are 
 others less important, which I have not room to
 
 246 LIFE Of COWPER, 
 
 enumerate, and in which I am less confident that he 
 is wrong. What suggested to him the thought that 
 the Alma was written in imitation of Hudibras, I 
 cannot conceive. In former years, they were both 
 favourites of mine, and I often read them ; but never 
 saw in them the least resemblance to each other ; 
 nor do I now, except that they are composed in 
 verse of the same measure. After all, it is a me- 
 lancholy observation, which it is impossible not to 
 make, after having run through this series of poetical 
 lives, that where there were such shining talents 
 tliere should be so little virtue. These luminaries 
 of our country seem to have been kindled into a 
 brighter blaze than others only that their spots 
 might be more noticed ! So much can nature do 
 for our intellectual part, and so little for our moral. 
 What vanity, what petulance in Pope ! How pain- 
 fully sensible of censure, and yet how restless in 
 provocation ! To what mean artifices could Addison 
 stoop, in hopes of injuring the reputation of his 
 friend ! Savage, how sordidly vicious ! and the more 
 condemned for the pains that are taken to palliate 
 his vices. Offensive as they appear through a veil, 
 how would they disgust without one! What a sy- 
 cophant to the public taste was Dryden; sinning 
 against his feelings, lewd in his writings, though 
 chaste in his conversation. I know not but one 
 might search these eight volumes with a candle, as 
 the prophet says, to find a man, and not find one, 
 unless perhaps Arbuthnot were he. I shall begin 
 Beattie this evening, and propose to myself much 
 satisfaction in reading him. In him at lea&t I shall
 
 I 
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 247 
 
 find a man whose faculties have now and then 
 a ghmpse from heaven upon them ; a man, not 
 indeed in possession of much evangehcal Hght, but 
 faithful to what he has, and never neglecting an op- 
 portunity to use it ! How much more respectable 
 such a character than that of thousands who would 
 call him blind, and yet have not the grace to prac- 
 tise half his virtues ! He too is a poet and wrote 
 the Minstrel. The specimens which I have seen of 
 it pleased me much. If you have the whole, I 
 should be glad to read it. I may perhaps, since you 
 allow me the liberty, indulge myself here and 
 there with a marginal annotation, but shall not use 
 that allowance wantonly, so as to deface the vo- 
 lumes. 
 
 Yours, my dear William, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olnev, March '29, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — It being his majesty's pleasure 
 that 1 should yet have another opportunity to write 
 before he dissolves the parliament, I avail myself 
 of it with all possible alacrity. I thank you for 
 your last, which was not the less welcome for coming, 
 like an extraordinary gazette, at a time when it was 
 not expected. 
 
 As, when the sea is uncommonly agitated, the 
 water finds its way into creeks and holes of rocks, 
 which in its calmer state it never reaches, in like
 
 248 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 manner the effect of these turbulent times is felt 
 even at Orchard-side, where in general we live as 
 undisturbed by the political element as shrimps 
 or cockles, that have been accidentally deposited in 
 some hollow beyond the water-mark, by the usual 
 dashing of the waves. We were sitting yesterday 
 after dinner, the two ladies and myself, very com- 
 posedly, and without the least apprehension of any 
 such intrusion in our snug parlour, one lady knitting, 
 the other netting, and the gentleman winding 
 worsted, when, to our unspeakable surprise, a mob 
 appeared before the window ; a smart rap was heard 
 at the door, the boys hallooed, and the maid an- 
 nounced Mr. G . Puss* was unfortunately let 
 
 out of her box, so that the candidate, with all his 
 good friends at his heels, was refused admittance 
 at the grand entry, and referred to the back-door, 
 as the only possible way of approach. 
 
 Candidates are creatures not very susceptible of 
 affronts, and would rather, I suppose, climb in at a 
 window than be absolutely excluded. In a minute, 
 the yard, the kitchen, and the parlour, were filled. 
 
 Mr. G advancing toward me, shook me by the 
 
 hand wnth a degree of cordiality that was extremely 
 seducing. As soon as he, and as many more as 
 could find chairs were seated, he began to open the 
 intent of his visit. I told him I had no vote, for 
 which he readily gave me credit. I assured him I 
 had no influence, which he was not equally inclined 
 to believe, and the less, no doubt, because Mr. 
 
 * Ills tame hare.
 
 I 
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. ^49 
 
 A , addressing himself to me at that moment, 
 
 informed me that I had a great deal. Supposing 
 that I could not be possessed of such a treasure 
 without knowing it, I ventured to confirm my first 
 assertion, by saying that if I had any, I was utterly 
 at a loss to imagine where it could be, or wherein 
 it consisted. Thus ended the conference. Mr. 
 
 G squeezed me by the hand again, kissed the 
 
 ladies, and withdrew. He kissed likewise the maid 
 in the kitchen, and seemed upon the whole a most 
 loving, kissing, kind-hearted gentleman. He is 
 very young, genteel, and handsome. He has a pair 
 of very good eyes in his head, which not being suffi- 
 cient as it should seem for the many nice and diffi- 
 cult purposes of a senator, he has a third also, which 
 he wore suspended by a ribbon from his button- 
 hole. The boys hallooed, the dogs barked, Puss 
 scampered, the hero, with his long train of obse- 
 quious followers, withdrew. We made ourselves 
 very merry with the adventure, and in a short time 
 settled into our former tranquillity, never probably 
 to be thus interrupted more. I thought myself 
 however happy in being able to affirm truly that I 
 had not that influence for which he sued, and for 
 which, had I been possessed of it, with my present 
 views of the dispute between the Crown and the 
 Commons,* I must have refused him, for he is on 
 the side of the former. It is comfortable to be of 
 no consequence in a world, where one cannot exer- 
 
 * We have already stated that Mr. Pitt was frequently out- 
 voted at this time in the House of Commons, but, being sup- 
 ported by the king, did not choose to resign.
 
 230 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 cise any without disobliging somebody. The town 
 however seems to be much at his service, and, if he 
 be equally successful throughout the county, he will 
 undoubtedly gain his election. Mr. A , per- 
 haps, was a little mortified, because it was evident 
 that I owed the honour of this visit to his misrepre- 
 sentation of my importance. But had he thought 
 
 proper to assure Mr. G that I had three heads, 
 
 I should not I suppose have been bound to produce 
 them. 
 
 Mr. S , who you say was so much admired 
 
 in your pulpit, would be equally admired in his 
 own, at least by all capable judges, were he not so 
 apt to be angry with his congregation. This hurts 
 him, and, had he the understanding and eloquence 
 of Paul himself, would still hurt him. He seldom, 
 hardly ever indeed, preaches a gentle, well-tempered 
 sermon, but I hear it highly commended : but 
 warmth of temper, indulged to a degree that may 
 lie called scolding, defeats the end of preaching. 
 It is a misapplication of his powers, which it also 
 cripples, and teases away his hearers. But he is a 
 good man, and may perhaps outgrow it. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTOX. 
 
 Oluey, April, 1784 
 People that are but little acquainted with the 
 terrors of divine wrath, are not much afraid of 
 trifling with their Maker. But, for my own part, I
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 251 
 
 Avould sooner take Empedocles's leap, and fling 
 myself into Mount ^tna than I would do it in the 
 slightest instance, were I in circumstances to make 
 an election. In the scripture we find a broad and 
 clear exhibition of mercy ; it is displayed in every 
 page. Wrath is in comparison but slightly touched 
 upon, because it is not so much a discovery of wrath 
 as of forgiveness. But, had the displeasure of God 
 been the principal subject of the book, and had it 
 circumstantially set forth that measure of it only 
 which may be endured even in this life, the Chris- 
 tian world perhaps would have been less comfort- 
 able ; but I believe presumptuous meddlers with 
 the gospel would have been less frequently met 
 with. The word is a flaming sword ; and he that 
 touches it with unhallowed fingers, thinking to make 
 a tool of it, will find that he has burnt them. 
 
 What havoc in Calabria ! Every house is built 
 upon the sand, whose inhabitants have no God or 
 only a false one. Solid and fluid are such in 
 respect to each other; but with reference to the 
 divine power they are equally fixed or equally un- 
 stable. The inhabitants of a rock shall sink, while 
 a cock-boat shall save a man alive in the midst of 
 the fathomless ocean. The Pope grants dispensa- 
 tions for folly and madness during the carnival. 
 But it seems they are as offensive to him, whose 
 vicegerent he pretends himself, at that season as at 
 any other. Were I a Calabrian, I would not give 
 my papa at Rome one farthing for his amplest 
 indulgence, from this time forth for ever. There is a 
 word that makes this world tremble; and the Pope
 
 232 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 cannot countermand it. A fig for such a conjurer I 
 Pharaoh's conjurers had twice his abihty. 
 Beheve me, my dear friend, 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 We have already alluded to this awful catastrophe, 
 which occurred Feb. 5, 1783, though the shocks of 
 earthquake continued to be felt sensibly, but less 
 violently, till May 23d. The motions of the earth 
 are described as having been various, either whirling 
 like a vortex, horizontally, or by pulsations and 
 beatings from the bottom upwards ; the rains con- 
 tinual and violent, often accompanied with light- 
 ning and irregular and furious gusts of wind. The 
 sum total of the mortality in Calabria and Sicily, 
 by the earthquakes alone, as returned to the Secre- 
 tary of State's office, in Naples, was 32,367, and, in- 
 cluding other casualties, was estimated at 40,000.* 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, April 5, 1784. 
 My dear William — I thanked you in my last for 
 Johnson ; I now thank you with more emphasis for 
 Beattie, the most agreeable and amiable writer I 
 ever met with — the only author I have seen whose 
 critical and philosophical researches are diversified 
 and embellished by a poetical imagination, that 
 makes even the driest subject and the leanest a feast 
 
 * See Sir William Hamilton's account of this awful event.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 253 
 
 for an epicure in books. He is so much at his ease 
 too that his own character appears in every page, 
 and, which is very rare, we see not only the writer 
 but the man ; and that man so gentle, so well-tem- 
 [)ered, so happy in his religion, and so humane in 
 his philosophy, that it is necessary to love him if 
 one has any sense of what is lovely. If you have 
 not his poem called the Minstrel, and cannot borrow 
 it, I must beg you to buy it for me ; for, though I 
 cannot afford to deal largely in so expensive a com- 
 modity as books, I must afford to purchase at least 
 the poetical works of Beattie. I have read six of 
 Blair's Lectures, and what do I say of Blair ? That 
 he is a sensible man, master of his subject, and, 
 excepting here and there a Scotticism, a good 
 writer, so far at least as perspicuity of expression 
 and method contribute to make one. But, O the 
 sterility of that man's fancy ! if indeed he has any 
 such faculty belonging to him. Perhaps philoso- 
 phers, or men designed for such, are sometimes 
 born without one ; or perhaps it withers for want of 
 exercise. However that may be. Dr. Blair has 
 such a brain as Shakspeare somewhere describes — 
 " dry as the remainder biscuit after a voyage." * 
 I take it for granted, that these good men are 
 
 * This criticism on Blair's Lectures seems to be too severe. 
 There was a period whea his Sermons were among- the most 
 admired productions of the day: sixty thousand copies, it was 
 said, were sold. They formed the standard of divinity fifty 
 years ago : but they are now justljr considered to be deficient, 
 in not exhibiting the great and fundamental truths of the 
 Gospel, and to be merely entitled to the jiraise of being a 
 beautiful system of ethics.
 
 254 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 philosophically correct (for they are both agreed 
 upon the subject) in their account of the origin of 
 language ; and, if the Scripture had left us in the dark 
 upon that article, I should very readily adopt their 
 hypothesis for want of better information. I should 
 suppose for instance that man made his first effort in 
 speech, in the way of an interjection, and that ah ! or 
 oh I being uttered with wonderful gesticulation, and 
 variety of attitude, must have left his powers of ex- 
 pression quite exhausted : that in a course of time 
 he would invent many names for many things, but 
 first for the objects of his daily wants. An apple 
 would consequently be called an apple, and perhaps 
 not many years would elapse before the appellation 
 would receive the sanction of general use. In this 
 case, and upon this supposition, seeing one in the 
 hand of another man, he would exclaim with a most 
 moving pathos, " Oh apple !" — well and good — oh 
 apple ! is a very affecting speech, but in the mean 
 time it profits him nothing. The man that holds it, 
 eats it, and he goes away with Oh apple in his mouth, 
 and with nothing better. Reflecting on his disap- 
 pointment, and that perhaps it arose from his not 
 being more exjilicit, he contrives a term to denote 
 his idea of transfer or gratuitous communication, 
 and, the next occasion that offers of a similar kind, 
 performs his part accordingly. His speech now 
 stands thus, " Oh give apple !" The apple-holder 
 perceives himself called upon to part with his fruit, 
 and having satisfied his own hunger is perhaps not 
 unwilling to do so. But unfortunately there is still 
 room for a mistake, and a third person being present
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 255 
 
 lie gives the apple to him. Again disappointed, and 
 again perceiving that his language has not all the 
 precision that is requisite, the orator retires to his 
 study, and there after much deep thinking, conceives 
 that the insertion of a pronoun, whose office shall be 
 to signify that he not only wants the apple to be given 
 but given to himself, will remedy all defects, he uses 
 it the next opportunity, and succeeds to a wonder, ob- 
 tains the apple, and by his success such credit to his 
 invention, that pronouns continue to be in great 
 repute ever after. 
 
 Now, as my two syllable-mongers, Beattie and 
 Blair, both agree that language was originally in- 
 spired, and that the great variety of languages we 
 find upon earth at present took its rise from the con- 
 fusion of tongues at Babel, I am not perfectly con- 
 vinced that there is any just occasion to invent this 
 very ingenious solution of a difficulty, which Scrip- 
 ture has solved already. My opinion however is, if 
 1 may presume to have an opinion of my own, so 
 different from theirs, who are so much wiser than 
 myself, that, if a man had been his own teacher, and 
 had acquired his words and his phrases only as neces- 
 sity or convenience had prompted, his progress must 
 have been considerably slower than it was, and in 
 Homer's days the production of such a poem as the 
 Iliad impossible. On the contrary, I doubt not Adam, 
 on the very day of his creation, was able to express 
 himself in terms both forcible and elegant, and that 
 he was at no loss for sublime diction and logical com- 
 bination, when he Avanted to praise l)is Maker. 
 Yours, ni) dear friend, 
 
 W. C.
 
 256 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, April 15, 1784. 
 
 My dear William — I wish I had both burning 
 words and bright thoughts. But I have at present 
 neither. My head is not itself. Having had an 
 unpleasant night and a melancholy day, and having 
 already written a long letter, I do not find myself in 
 point of spirits at all qualified either to burn or 
 shine. The post sets out early on Tuesday. The 
 morning is the only time of exercise with me. In 
 order therefore to keep it open for that purpose, and 
 to comply with your desire of an immediate answer, 
 I give you as much as I can spare of the present 
 evening. 
 
 Since I despatched my last, Blair has crept a little 
 farther into my favour. As his subjects improve, 
 he improves with them ; but upon the whole I ac- 
 count him a dry writer, useful no doubt as an in- 
 structor, but as little entertaining as, with so much 
 know^ledge, it is possible to be. His language is 
 (except Swift's) the least figurative I remember to 
 have seen, and the few figures found in it are not 
 always happily employed. I take him to be a critic 
 very little animated by what he reads, who rather 
 reasons about the beauties of an author than really 
 tastes them, and who finds that a passage is praise- 
 worthy, not because it charms him, but because it 
 is accommodated to the laws of criticism, in that 
 case made and provided. I have a little complied 
 with your desire of marginal annotations, and should
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 257 
 
 have dealt in them more largely, had I read the 
 books to myself; but, being reader to the ladies, 
 I have not always time to settle my own opinion 
 of a doubtful expression, much less to suggest an 
 emendation. I have not censured a particular ob- 
 servation in the book, though, when I met with it, 
 it displeased me. I this moment recollect it, and 
 may as well therefore note it here. He is commend- 
 ing, and deservedly, that most noble description 
 of a thunder-storm in the first Georgic, which ends 
 with 
 
 .... Ingeminant austri et densissimus iiuber. 
 
 Being in haste, I do not refer to the volume for his 
 very words, but my memory will serve me with the 
 matter. When poets -lescribe, he says, they should 
 always select such circumstances of the subject as 
 are least obvious, and therefore most striking. He 
 therefore admires the effects of the thunderbolt 
 splitting mountains, and filling a nation with asto- 
 nishment, but quarrels with the closing member of 
 the period, as containing particulars of a storm not 
 worthy of Virgil's notice, because obvious to the 
 notice of all. But here I differ from him ; not being 
 able to conceive that wind and rain can be improper 
 in the description of a tempest, or how wind and 
 rain could possibly be more poetically described. 
 Virgil is indeed remarkable for finishing his periods 
 well, and never comes to a stop but with tlie most 
 consummate dignity of numbers and expression, and 
 in the instance in question I think his skill in this 
 respect is remarkably displayed. The hne is per- 
 
 VOL. II. s
 
 258 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 fectly majestic in its march. As to the wind, it is 
 such only as the word ingeminant could describe, 
 and the words densissimus imber give one an idea 
 of a shower indeed, but of such a shower as is not 
 very common, and such a one as only Virgil could 
 have done justice to by a single epithet. Far 
 therefore from agreeing with the Doctor in his 
 stricture, 1 do not think the iEneid contains a 
 nobler line, or a description more magnificently 
 finished. 
 
 We are glad that Dr. C has singled you out 
 
 upon this occasion. Your performance we doubt 
 not will justify his choice : fear not — you have a 
 heart that can feel upon charitable occasions, and 
 therefore will not fail you upon this. The burning 
 words will come fast enough, when the sensibility is 
 such as yours. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 The ingenuity and humour of the following verses, 
 as well as their poetical merit give them a just claim 
 to admiration. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* 
 
 Olney, April 25, 1784. 
 My dear William— Thanks for the fish with its 
 companion, a lobster, which we mean to eat to- 
 morrow. 
 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 259 
 
 TO THE IMMORTAL MEMORY OF THE HALYBTJTT, ON WHICH I 
 DINED THIS DAY, MONDAY, APRIL 26, 1784. 
 
 Where hast thou floated, in what seas pursued 
 
 Thy pastime 1 when wast thou an egg new-spawn'd 
 
 Lost in th' immensity of ocean's waste ? 
 
 Hoar as they might, the overbearing winds 
 
 'Ihat rock'd the deep, thy cradle, thou wast safe — 
 
 And in thy minikin and embryo state, 
 
 Attach'd to the firm leaf of some salt weed. 
 
 Didst outlive tempests, such as wrung and rack'd 
 
 The joints of many a stout and gallant bark. 
 
 And whelm'd them in the unexplored abyss. 
 
 Indebted to no magnet and no chart. 
 
 Nor under guidance of the polar fire. 
 
 Thou wast a voyager on many coasts. 
 
 Grazing at large in meadows submarine. 
 
 Where flat Batavia just emerging peeps 
 
 Above the brine — where Caledonia's rocks 
 
 Beat back the surge — and where Hi hernia shoots 
 
 Her wondrous causeway far into the main. 
 
 — Wherever thou hast fed, thou little thought'st. 
 
 And I not more, that I should feed on thee. 
 
 Peace, therefore, and good health, and much good fish, 
 
 To him who sent thee ! and success as oft 
 
 As it descends into the billowy gulph, 
 
 To the same drag that caught thee ! — Fare thee well ! 
 
 Thy lot, thy brethren of the slimy fin 
 
 Would envy, could they know that thou wast dooin'd 
 
 To feed a bard, and to be praised in verse. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, April 26, 17C!. 
 
 We are glad that your book runs. It will not 
 indeed satisfy those whom nothing could satisfy but 
 
 s2
 
 260 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 your accession to their party ; but the Uberal will 
 say you do well, and it is in the opinion of such 
 men only that you can feel yourself interested. 
 
 I have lately been employed in reading Beattie 
 and Blair's Lectures. The latter I have not yet 
 finished. I find the former the most agreeable of 
 the two, indeed the most entertaining writer upon 
 dry subjects I ever met with. His imagination is 
 highly poetical, his language easy and elegant, and 
 his manner so familiar that we seem to be convers- 
 ing with an old friend upon terms of the most so- 
 ciable intercourse while we read him. Blair is on 
 the contrary rather stiff, not that his style is pe- 
 dantic, but his air is formal. He is a sensible man, 
 and understands his subjects, but too conscious that 
 he is addressing the public, and too solicitous about 
 his success to indulge himself for a moment in that 
 play of fancy which makes the other so agreeable. 
 In Blair we find a scholar, in Beattie both a scholar 
 and an amiable man, indeed so amiable that I have 
 wished for his acquaintance ever since I read his 
 book. Having never in my life perused a page of 
 Aristotle, I am glad to have had an opportunity of 
 learning more than (I suppose) he would have taught 
 me, from the writings of two modern critics. I felt 
 myself too a little disposed to compliment my own 
 acumen upon the occasion. For, though the art of 
 writing and composing was never much my study, I 
 did not find that they had any great news to tell 
 me. They have assisted me in putting my obser- 
 vations into some method, but have not suggested 
 many of which I was not by some means or other
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 261 
 
 previously apprized. In fact, critics did not origi- 
 nally beget authors, but authors made critics. 
 Common sense dictated to writers the necessity of 
 method, connexion, and thoughts congruous to the 
 nature of their subject ; genius prompted them with 
 embellishments, and then came the critics. Ob- 
 serving the good effects of an attention to these 
 items, they enacted laws for the observance of them 
 in time to come, and, having drawn their rules for 
 good writing from what was actually well written, 
 boasted themselves the inventors of an art which 
 yet the authors of the day had already exemplified. 
 They are however useful in their way, giving us at 
 one view a map of the boundaries which propriety 
 sets to fancy, and serving as judges to whom the 
 public may at once appeal, when pestered with the 
 vagaries of those who have had the hardiness to 
 transgress them. 
 
 The candidates for this county have set an ex- 
 ample of economy which other candidates would do 
 well to follow, having come to an agreement on both 
 sides to defray the expenses of their voters, but to 
 open no houses for the entertainment of the rabble ; 
 a reform however which the rabble did not at 
 all approve of, and testified their dislike of it by a 
 riot. A stage was built, from which the orators had 
 designed to harangue the electors. This became 
 the first victim of their fury. Having very little 
 curiosity to hear what gentlemen could say who 
 would give them nothing better than words, they 
 broke it in pieces, and threw the fragments upon the 
 hustings. The sheriff, the members, the lawyers,
 
 262 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 the voters, were instantly put to flight. They ral- 
 lied, but were again routed by a second assault like 
 the former. They then proceeded to break the 
 windows of the inn to which they had fled ; and a 
 fear prevailing that at night they would fire the 
 town, a proposal was made by the freeholders to 
 face about, and endeavour to secure them. At that 
 instant a rioter, dressed in a merry andrew's jacket, 
 stepped forward and challenged the best man among 
 tliem. Olney sent the hero to the field, who made 
 
 him repent of his presumption : Mr. A was 
 
 he. Seizing him by the throat, he shook him — he 
 threw him to the earth, he made the hollowness of 
 his scull resound by the application of his fists, and 
 dragged him into eustody without the least damage 
 to his person. Animated by this example, the other 
 freeholders followed it, and in five minutes twenty- 
 eight out of thirty ragamuffins were safely lodged in 
 gaol. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend, 
 
 We love you, and are yours, 
 
 W. & M. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, May 3, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — The subject of face-painting 
 may be considered (I think) in two points of view. 
 First, there is room for dispute with respect to the 
 consistency of the practice with good morals, and, 
 secondly, whether it be on the whole convenient or
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 263 
 
 not may be a matter worthy of agitation. I set out 
 with all the formality of logical disquisition, but do 
 not promise to observe the same regularity any far- 
 ther than it may comport with my purpose of writ- 
 ing as fast as I can. 
 
 As to the immorality of the custom, were 1 in 
 France, I should see none. On the contrary, it 
 seems in that country to be a symptom of modest 
 consciousness and a tacit confession of what all know 
 to be true, that French faces have in fact neither 
 red nor white of their own. This humble acknow- 
 ledgment of a defect looks the more like a virtue, 
 being found among a people not remarkable for hu- 
 mility. Again, before we can prove the practice 
 to be immoral, we must prove immorality in the 
 design of those who use it; either, that they intend 
 a deception or to kindle unlawful desires in the be- 
 holders. But the French ladies, as far as their 
 purpose comes in question, must be acquitted of 
 both these charges. Nobody supposes their colour 
 to be natural for a moment, any more than if it were 
 blue or green : and this unambiguous judgment or 
 the matter is owing to two causes ; first, to the 
 universal knowledge we have that French women 
 are naturally brown or yellow, with very few ex- 
 ceptions, and, secondly, to the inartificial manner 
 in which they paint : for they do not, as I am satis- 
 factorily informed, even attempt an imitation or 
 nature, but besmear themselves hastily and at a 
 venture, anxious only to lay on enough. Where, 
 therefore, there is no wanton intention nor a wish 
 to deceive, 1 can discover no immorality. But in
 
 264 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 England (I am afraid) our painted ladies are not 
 clearly entitled to the same apology. They even 
 imitate nature with such exactness that the whole 
 public is sometimes divided into parties, who litigate 
 with great warmth the question, whether painted or 
 not. This was remarkably the case with a Miss 
 
 B , whom I well remember. Her roses and 
 
 lilies were never discovered to be spurious till she 
 attained an age that made the supposition of their 
 being natural impossible. This anxiety to be not 
 merely red and white, which is all they aim at in 
 France, but to be thought very beautiful and much 
 more beautiful than nature has made them, is a 
 symptom not very favourable to the idea we would 
 wish to entertain of the chastity, purity, and mo- 
 desty of our countrywomen. That they are guilty 
 of a design to deceive is certain ; otherwise, why so 
 much art ? and if to deceive, wherefore and with 
 what purpose ? Certainly either to gratify vanity 
 of the silliest kind, or, which is still more criminal, 
 to decoy and inveigle, and carry on more success- 
 fully the business of temptation. Here therefore 
 my opinion splits itself into two opposite sides upon 
 the same question. I can suppose a French woman, 
 though painted an inch deep, to be a virtuous, dis- 
 creet, excellent character, and in no instance should 
 I think the worse of one because she was painted. 
 But an English belle must pardon me if I have not 
 the same charity for her. She is at least an im- 
 postor, whether she cheats me or not, because she 
 means to do so ; and it is well if that be ail the cen- 
 sure she deserves.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 265 
 
 This brings me to my second class of ideas upon 
 this topic : and here I feel that I should be fear- 
 fully puzzled were I called upon to recommend the 
 practice on the score of convenience. If a husband 
 chose that his wife should paint, perhaps it might 
 be her duty as well as her interest to comply ; but 
 I think he would not much consult his own for rea- 
 sons that will follow. In the first place, she would 
 admire herself the more, and, in the next, if she 
 managed the matter well, she might be more ad- 
 mired by others ; an acquisition that might bring 
 her virtue under trials to which otherwise it might 
 never have been exposed. In no other case, how- 
 ever, can I imagine the practice in this country to 
 be either expedient or convenient. As a general 
 one, it certainly is not expedient, because in general 
 English women have no occasion for it. A swarthy 
 complexion is a rarity here, and the sex, especially 
 since inoculation has been so much in use, have 
 very little cause to complain that nature has not 
 been kind to them in the article of complexion. 
 They may hide and spoil a good one, but they can- 
 not (at least they hardly can) give themselves a 
 better. But, even if they could, there is yet a tra- 
 gedy in the sequel, which should make them trem- 
 ble. I understand that in France, though the use 
 of rouge be general, the use of white paint is far 
 from being so. In England, she that uses one com- 
 monly uses both. Now all white paints, oi lotions, 
 or whatever they be called, are mercurial, conse- 
 quently poisonous, consequently ruinous in time to 
 the constitution. The Miss B above mentioned.
 
 266 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 was a miserable witness oi this truth, it being cer- 
 tain that her flesh fell from her bones before she 
 
 died. Lady C was hardly a less melancholy 
 
 proof of it ; and a London physician perhaps, were 
 he at liberty to blab, could publish a bill of female 
 mortality of a length that would astonish us. 
 
 For these reasons I utterly condemn the practice 
 as it obtains in England ; and for a reason superior 
 to all these I must disapprove it. I cannot indeed 
 discover that Scripture forbids it in so many words. 
 But that anxious solicitude about the person which 
 such an artifice evidently betrays is, I am sure, 
 contrary to the tenor and spirit of it throughout. 
 Show me a woman Avith a painted face, and I will 
 show you a woman whose heart is set on things of 
 the earth, and not on things above. But this ob- 
 servation of mine applies to it only when it is an 
 imitative art : for, in the use of French women, I 
 think it as innocent as in the use of the wild In- 
 dian, who draws a circle round her face, and makes 
 two spots, perhaps blue perhaps white, in the middle 
 of it. Such are my thoughts upon the matter. 
 Vwe, valeque. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, May 8, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — You do well to make your let- 
 ters merry ones, though not very merry yourself,
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 2fi7 
 
 aiid that both for my sake and your own ; for your 
 own sake, because it sometimes happens that, by as- 
 suming an air of cheerfuhiess, we become cheerful 
 in reahty ; and for mine, because I have always more 
 need of a laugh than a cry, being somewhat dis- 
 posed to melancholy by natural temperament, as 
 well as by other causes. 
 
 It was long since, and even in the infancy of John 
 Gilpin, recommended to me by a lady, now at Bris- 
 tol, to write a sequel. But, having always observed 
 that authors, elated with the success of a first part, 
 have fallen below themselves when they have at- 
 tempted a second, I had more prudence than to 
 take her counsel. I want you to read the history 
 of that hero published by Bladon, and to tell me 
 what it is made of. But buy it not. For, puffed 
 as it is in the papers, it can be but a bookseller's 
 job, and must be dear at the price of two shillings. 
 In the last packet but one that I received from 
 Johnson, he asked me if I had any improvements 
 of John Gilpin in hand, or if I designed any ; for 
 diat to print only the original again would be to 
 publish what has been hackneyed in every maga- 
 zine, in every newspaper, and in every street, I 
 answered that the copy which I sent him contained 
 two or three small variations from the first, except 
 which I had none to propose ; and if he thought 
 him now too trite to make a part of my volume, I 
 should willingly acquiesce in his judgment. I take 
 it for granted therefore that he will not bring up 
 the rear of my Poems according to my first in- 
 tention, and shall not be sorry for the omission. It
 
 268 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 may spring from a principle of pride ; but spring 
 from what it may, I feel and have long felt a disin- 
 clination to a public avowal that he is mine ; and 
 since he became so popular, I have felt it more than 
 ever; not that I should ever have expressed a 
 scruple, if Johnson had not. But a fear has sug- 
 gested itself to me, that I might expose myself to 
 a charge of vanity by admitting him into my book, 
 and that some people would impute it to me as a 
 crime. Consider what the world is made of, and 
 you will not find my suspicions chimerical. Add to 
 this, that when, on correcting the latter part of the 
 fifth book of " The Task," I came to consider the 
 solemnity and sacred nature of the subjects there 
 handled, it seemed to me an incongruity at the 
 least, not to call it by a harsher name, to follow 
 up such premises with such a conclusion. I am 
 well content therefore with having laughed, and 
 made others laugh; and will build my hopes of 
 success as a poet upon more important matter. 
 
 In our printing business we now jog on merrily 
 enough. The coming week will I hope bring me 
 to an end of " The Task," and the next fortnight 
 to an end of the whole. I am glad to have Paley 
 on my side in the affair of education. He is cer- 
 tainly on all subjects a sensible man, and, on such, a 
 wise one. But I am mistaken if " Tirocinium" 
 do not make some of my friends angry, and procure 
 me enemies not a few. There is a sting in verse 
 that prose neither has nor can have ; and I do not 
 know that schools in the gross, and especially public 
 schools, have ever been so pointedly condemned
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 269 
 
 before. But tliey are become a nuisance, a pestj 
 an abomination; and it is fit that the eyes and 
 noses of mankind should if possible be opened to 
 perceive it. 
 
 This is indeed an authors letter; but it is an au- 
 thor's letter to his friend. If you will be the friend 
 of an author, you must expect such letters. Come 
 July, and come yourself, with as many of your ex- 
 terior selves as can possibly come with you ! 
 
 Yours, my dear William, affectionately, and with 
 your mother's remembrances. Adieu, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, May 10, 3 784. ' 
 
 My dear Friend — We rejoice in the account you 
 give us of Dr. Johnson. His conversion will indeed 
 be a singular proof of the omnipotence of grace; and 
 the more singular, the more decided. The world will 
 set his age against his wisdom, and comfort itself with 
 the thought that he must be superannuated. Perhaps 
 therefore in order to refute the slander, and do 
 honour to the cause to which he becomes a convert, 
 he could not do better than devote his great abilities, 
 and a considerable part of the remainder of his 
 years, to the production of some important work, 
 not immediately connected with the interests of 
 religion. He would thus give proof that a man of 
 profound learning and the best sense may become a 
 child without being a fool ; and that to embrace the 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 270 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 gospel is no evidence either of enthusiasm, infirmity, 
 or insanity. But He who calls him will direct him. 
 On Friday, by particular invitation, we attended 
 an attempt to throw oft' a balloon at Mr. Throck- 
 morton's, but it did not succeed. We expect how- 
 ever to be summoned again in the course of the en- 
 suing week. Mrs. Unwin and I were the party. 
 We were entertained with the utmost politeness. 
 It is not possible to conceive a more engaging and 
 agreeable character than the gentleman's, or a more 
 consummate assemblage of all that is called good- 
 nature, complaisance, and innocent cheerfulness, than 
 is to be seen in the lady. They have lately received 
 many gross affronts from the people of this place, 
 on account of their religion. We thought it there- 
 fore the more necessary to treat them with respect. 
 Best love and best wishes, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 We think that there must be an error of date in 
 this letter, because the period of time generally 
 ascribed to the fact recorded in the former part 
 of it, occurred in the last illness of Dr. Johnson, 
 which was in December, 1784. A discussion has 
 arisen respecting the circumstances of this case, 
 but not as to the fact itself. As regards this latter 
 point, it is satisfactorily established that Dr. John- 
 son, throughqut a long life, had been peculiarly 
 harassed by fears of death, from which he was at 
 length happily delivered, and enabled to die in 
 peace. This happy change of mind is generally at- 
 tributed to the Rev. Mr. Latrobe having attended him
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 271 
 
 on his dying bed, and directed him to the only sure 
 ground of acceptance, viz. a rehance upon God's 
 promises of mercy in Christ Jesus. The truth of this 
 statement rests on the testimony of the Rev. Christian 
 Ignatius Latrobe, who received the account from 
 his own father. Some again assign the instrumen- 
 taUty to another pious individual, Mr. Winstanley.* 
 We do not see why the services of both may not 
 have been simultaneously employed, and equally 
 crowned with success. It is the fact itself' which 
 most claims our own attention. We here see a man 
 of profound learning and great moral attainments de- 
 ficient in correct views of the grand fundamental 
 doctrine of the gospel, the doctrine of the atone- 
 ment ; and consequently unable to look forward to 
 eternity without alarm. We believe this state of 
 mind to be peculiar to many who are distinguished 
 by genius and learning. The gospel, clearly under- 
 stood in its design, as a revelation of mercy to 
 every penitent and believing sinner, and cordially 
 received into the heart, dispels these fears, and by 
 directing the eye of faith to the Lamb of God that 
 taketh away the sins of the world, will infallibly fill 
 the mind with that blessed hope which is full of life 
 and immortality. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, May 22, i784. 
 My dear Friend — I am glad to have received at 
 last an account of Dr. Johnson's favourable opinion 
 
 * See " Christian Observer," Jan. 1835.
 
 272 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of my book. I thought it wanting, and had long 
 since concluded that, not having the happiness to 
 please him, I owed my ignorance of his sentiments 
 to the tenderness of my friends at Hoxton, who 
 would not mortify me with an account of his disap- 
 probation. It occurs to me, that I owe him thanks 
 for interposmg between me and the resentment of 
 the Reviewers, who seldom shew mercy to an advo- 
 cate for evangelical truth, whether in prose or verse. 
 I therefore enclose a short acknowledgment, which, 
 if you see no impropriety in the measure, you can, 
 I imagine, without much difficulty, convey to him 
 through the hands of Mr. Latrobe. If on any ac- 
 count you judge it an inexpedient step, you can very 
 easily suppress the letter. 
 
 I pity Mr. Bull. What harder task can any man 
 undertake than the management of those who have 
 reached the age of manhood without having ever 
 felt the force of authority, or passed through any of 
 the preparatory parts of education ? I had either 
 forgot, or never adverted to the circumstance, that 
 his disciples were to be men. At present, how- 
 ever, I am not surprised that, being such, they are 
 found disobedient, untractable, insolent, and con- 
 ceited ; qualities that generally prevail in the minds 
 of adults in exact proportion to their ignorance. He 
 dined with us since I received vour last. It was on 
 Thursday that he was here. He came dejected, 
 burthened, full of complaints. But we sent him 
 away cheerful. He is very sensible of the prudence, 
 delicacy, and attention to his character, which the 
 Society have discovered in their conduct towards 
 him upon this occasion ; and indeed it does them
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 273 
 
 lionour ; for it were past all enduring, if a charge 
 of insufficiency should obtain a moment's regard, 
 when brought by five such coxcombs against a man 
 of his erudition and ability.* Lady Austen is gone 
 to Bath. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, June 5, 1784. 
 Wlien you told me that the critique upon my 
 volume was written, though not by Doctor Johnson 
 himself, yet by a friend of his, to whom he recom- 
 mended the book and the business, I inferred from 
 that expression that I was indebted to him for an 
 active interposition in my favour, and consequently 
 that he had a right to thanks. But now I concur 
 entirely in sentiment with you, and heartily second 
 your vote for the suppression of thanks which do not 
 seem to be much called for. Yet even now, were it 
 possible that I could fall into his company, I should 
 !iot think a slight acknowledgment misapplied. I 
 was no other way anxious about his opinion, nor could 
 be so, after you and some others had given a fa- 
 vourable one, than it was natural I should be, know- 
 ing as I did that his opinion had been consulted. 
 I am affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 * A spirit of insubordination liad manifested itself at the 
 Theological Seminary at Newport, under the sui)erintendence 
 of Mr. Bull. 
 
 VOL. li. T
 
 274 LIFE OF COWPER, 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, June 21, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — We are much pleased with your 
 designed improvement of the late preposterous cele- 
 bration, and have no doubt that in good hands the 
 foolish occasion will turn to good account. A reli- 
 gious service, instituted in honour of a musician, 
 and performed in the house of God, is a subject that 
 calls loudly for the animadversion of an enlightened 
 minister ; and would be no mean one for a satirist, 
 could a poet of that description be found spiritual 
 enough to feel and to resent the profanation. It is 
 reasonable to suppose that in the next year's alma- 
 nack we shall find the name of Handel among the 
 red-lettered worthies, for it would surely puzzle the 
 Pope to add any thing to his canonization. 
 
 This unpleasant summer makes me wish for winter. 
 The gloominess of that season is the less felt, both 
 because it is expected, and because the days are 
 short. But such weather, when the days are longest, 
 makes a double winter, and my spirits feel that it 
 does. We have now frosty mornings, and so cold a 
 wind that even at high noon we have been obliged 
 to break off our walk in the southern side of the 
 garden, and seek shelter, I in the green-house, and 
 Mrs. Unwin by the fire-side. Haymaking begins 
 here to-morrow, and would have begun sooner, had 
 the weather permitted it. 
 
 Mr. Wright called upon us last Sunday. The old 
 gentleman seems happy in being exempted from the 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 275 
 
 effects of time to such a degree that, though we meet 
 but once in the year, I cannot perceive that the 
 twelve months that have elapsed have made any 
 change in him. It seems, however, that, as much as 
 he loves his master, and as easy as I suppose he has 
 always found his service, he now and then heaves a 
 sigh for liberty, and wishes to taste it before he dies. 
 But his wife is not so minded. She cannot leave a 
 family, the sons and daughters of which seem all to 
 be her own. Her brother died lately in the East 
 Indies, leaving twenty thousand pounds behind him, 
 and half of it to her ; but the ship that was bringing 
 home this treasm-e is supposed to be lost. Her 
 husband appears perfectly unaffected by the misfor- 
 tune, and she perhaps may even be glad of it. Such 
 an acquisition would have forced her into a state of 
 independence, and made her her own mistress, whe- 
 ther she would or not. I charged him with a peti- 
 tion to Lord Dartmouth to send me Cook's last 
 Voyage, which I have a great curiosity to see, and 
 no other means of procuring. I dare say I shall ob- 
 tain the favour, and have great pleasure in taking 
 my last trip with a voyager whose memory I respect 
 so much. Farewell, my dear friend : our affectionate 
 remembrances are faithful to you and yours. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.* 
 
 Olney, July 3, [probably 1784.] 
 My dear Friend— I am writing in the green- 
 • Private Correspondence. 
 
 T 2
 
 276 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 house for retirement sake, where I shiver with cold 
 on this present third of July. Summer and winter 
 therefore do not depend on the position of the sun 
 with respect to the earth, but on His appointment 
 who is sovereign in all things. Last Saturday night 
 the cold was so severe that it pinched off many of 
 the young shoots of our peach-trees. The nursery- 
 man we deal with informs me that the w all-trees 
 are almost every where cut off; and that a friend of 
 his, near London, has lost all the full-grown fruit- 
 trees of an extensive garden. The very walnuts, 
 which are now no bigger than small hazel-nuts, 
 drop to the ground ; and the flowers, though they 
 blow, seem to have lost all their odours. I walked 
 with your mother yesterday in the garden, wrapped 
 up in a winter surtout, and found myself not at all 
 incumbered by it ; not more indeed than I was in 
 January. Cucumbers contract that spot which is 
 seldom found vipon them except late in the autumn ; 
 and melons hardly grow. It is a comfort however 
 to reflect that, if we cannot have these fruits in per- 
 fection, neither do we want them. Our crops of 
 wheat are said to be very indifferent : the stalks of 
 an unequal height, so that some of the ears are in 
 danger of being smothered by the rest ; and the 
 ears, in general, lean and scanty. I never knew a 
 summer in which we had not now and then a cold 
 day to conflict with ; but such a wintry fortnight as 
 the last, at this season of the year, I never remember. 
 I fear you have made a discovery of the webs you 
 mention a day too late. The vermin have probably 
 by this time left them, and may laugh at all human
 
 LIFE OF COVVFER. 277 
 
 attempts to destroy them. For every web they 
 have hung upon the trees and bushes tliis year, you 
 will next year probably find fifty, perhaps a hun- 
 dred. Their increase is almost infinite ; so that, if 
 Providence does not interfere, and man see fit to 
 neglect them, the laughers you mention may live to 
 be sensible of their mistake. 
 Love to all. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 . Olney, July 5, 1784, 
 
 My dear Friend — A dearth of materials, a con- 
 sciousness that my subjects are for the most part, 
 and must be, uninteresting and unimportant, but 
 above all, a poverty of animal spirits, that makes 
 writing much a great fatigue to me, have occasioned 
 my choice of smaller paper. Acquiesce in the jus- 
 tice of these reasons for the present ; and, if ever 
 tlie times should mend with me, I sincerely promise 
 to amend with them. 
 
 Homer says on a certain occasion, that Jupiter, 
 when he was wanted at home, was gone to partake 
 of an entertainment provided for him by the .Ethio- 
 pians. If by Jupiter we understand the weather, or 
 the season, as the ancients frequently did, we may 
 say that our English Jupiter has been absent on 
 account of some such invitation : during the whole 
 month of June he left us to experience almost the
 
 278 LIFE OF COVVPER. 
 
 rigours of winter. Tliis fine day? however, affords 
 us some hope that the feast is ended, and that we 
 shall enjoy his company without the interference 
 of his ^Ethiopian friends again. 
 
 Is it possible that the wise men of antiquity could 
 entertain a real reverence for the fabulous rubbish 
 which they dignified with the name of religion? We, 
 who have been favoured from our infancy with so 
 clear a light, are perhaps hardly competent to decide 
 the question, and may strive in vain to imagine the 
 absurdities that even a good understanding may 
 receive as truths, when totally unaided by revela- 
 tion. It seems, however, that men, whose concep- 
 tions upon other subjects were often sublime, whose 
 reasoning powers were undoubtedly equal to our 
 own, and whose management in matters of juris- 
 prudence, that required a very industrious exami- 
 nation of evidence, was as acute and subtle as that 
 of a modern Attorney-general, could not be the 
 dupes of such imposture as a child among us would 
 detect and laugh at. Juvenal, I remember, intro- 
 duces one of his Satires with an observation that 
 there were some in his day who had the hardiness 
 to laugh at the stories of Tartarus and Styx, and 
 Charon, and of the frogs that croak upon the banks 
 of the Lethe, giving his reader, at the same time, 
 cause to suspect that he was himself one of that pro- 
 fane number. Horace, on the other hand, declares in 
 sober sadness, that he would not for all the world 
 get into a boat with a man who had divulged the 
 Eleusinian mysteries. Yet we know that those mys- 
 teries, whatever they might be, were altogether as
 
 LIFE OF COWFER. 279 
 
 unworthy to be esteemed divine, as the mythology 
 of the vulgar. How then must we determine ? If 
 Horace were a good and orthodox heathen, how 
 came Juvenal to be such an ungracious libertine in 
 principle as to ridicule the doctrines which the other 
 held as sacred ? Their opportunities of information, 
 and their mental advantages, were equal. I feel 
 myself rather inclined to believe that Juvenal's 
 avowed infidelity was sincere, and that Horace was 
 no better than a canting, hypocritical professor.* 
 
 You must grant me a dispensation for saying any 
 thing, whether it be sense or nonsense, upon the 
 subject of politics. It is truly a matter in which I 
 am so little interested, that, were it not that it some- 
 times serves me for a theme when I can find no 
 other, I should never mention it. I would forfeit 
 a large sum, if, after advertising a month in the 
 Gazette, the minister of the day, whoever he may 
 be, could discover a man who cares about him or 
 his measures so little as I do. When I say that I 
 would forfeit a large sum, I mean to have it under- 
 stood that I would forfeit such a sum if I had it. If 
 Mr. Pitt be indeed a virtuous man, as such I respect 
 him. But, at the best, I fear that he will have to 
 say at last with j^neas, 
 
 Si Pergama dextra 
 Uefendi possent, etiam bac defensa fuissent. 
 
 Be he what he may, I do not like his taxes. At least 
 I am much disposed to quarrel with some of them. 
 
 * Some of the learned have been inclined to believe that the 
 J'leusinian mysteries inculcated a rejection of the absurd mytho- 
 logy of those times, and a belief in one Great Supreme Being.
 
 280 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 The additional duty upon candles, by which the poor 
 will be much affected, hurts me most. He says 
 indeed that they will but little feel it, because even 
 now they can hardly afford the use of them. He had 
 certainly put no compassion into his budget, when he 
 produced from it this tax, and such an argument to 
 support it. Justly translated, it seems to amount to 
 this — " Make the necessaries of life too expensive 
 for the poor to reach them, and you will save their 
 money. If they buy but few candles, they will pay 
 but little tax ; and if they buy none, the tax, as to 
 them, will be annihilated." True. But in the mean 
 time they will break their shins against their furni- 
 ture, if they have any, and will be but little the 
 richer when the hours in which they might work, if 
 they could see, shall be deducted. 
 
 I have bought a great dictionary, and want nothing 
 but Latin authors to furnish me with the use of it. 
 Had I purchased them first, 1 had begun at the 
 right end ; but I could not afford it. 1 beseech you 
 admire my prudence. 
 
 Vivite, valete, et mementote nostrClni. 
 
 Yours, affectionately, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNVVIN. 
 
 Olney, July 12, 1784. 
 
 My dear William — I think with you that Vinny's* 
 line is not pure. If he knew any authority that 
 • Vincent Bourne. *
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. S8I 
 
 would have justified his substitution of a participle 
 for a substantive, he vs^ould have done well to have 
 noted it in the margin ; but I am much inclined to 
 think that he did not. Poets are sometimes exposed 
 to difficulties insurmountable by lawful means, 
 whence I imagine was originally derived that indul- 
 gence that allows them the use of what is called the 
 poetica licentia. But that liberty, I believe, con- 
 tents itself with the abbreviation or protraction of a 
 word, or an alteration in the quantity of a syllable, 
 and never presumes to trespass upon grammatical 
 propriety. I have dared to attempt to correct my 
 master, but am not bold enough to say that I have 
 succeeded. Neither am I sure that my memory 
 serves me correctly with the line that follows ; but 
 when I recollect the English, am persuaded that it 
 cannot differ much from the true one. This there- 
 fore is my edition of the passage — 
 
 Basia amatori tot turn permissa beato ; 
 Or, 
 
 Basia quse juveni indulsit Susanna beato 
 Navarcha optaret maximus esse sua. 
 
 The preceding lines I have utterly forgotten, and 
 am consequently at a loss to know whether the 
 distich, thus managed, will connect itself with them 
 easily and as it ought. 
 
 We thank you for the drawing of your house. 1 
 never knew my idea of what I had never seen re- 
 semble the original so much. At some time or 
 other you have doubtless given me an exact account 
 of it, and I have retained the faithful impression
 
 282 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 made by your description. It is a comfortable 
 abode, and the time I hope will come when I shall 
 enjoy more than the mere representation of it. 
 
 I have not yet read the last " Review," but, dip- 
 ping into it, I accidentally fell upon their account of 
 " Hume's Essay on Suicide." I am glad that they 
 have liberality enough to condemn the licentious- 
 ness of an author, whom they so much admire. I 
 say liberality, for there is as much bigotry in the 
 world to that man's errors, as there is in the hearts 
 of some sectaries to their peculiar modes and tenets. 
 He is the Pope of thousands, as blind and pre- 
 sumptuous as himself. God certainly infatuates 
 those who will not see. It were otherwise impos- 
 sible that a man, naturally shrewd and sensible, and 
 whose understanding has had all the advantages of 
 constant exercise and cultivation, could have satis- 
 fied himself, or have hoped to satisfy others, with 
 such palpable sophistry as has not even the grace of 
 fallacy to recommend it. His silly assertion, that, 
 because it would be no sin to divert the course of 
 the Danube, therefore it is none to let out a few 
 ounces of blood from an artery, would justify not 
 suicide only, but homicide also. For the lives of 
 ten thousand men are of less consequence to their 
 country than the course of that river to the regions 
 through which it flows. Population would soon 
 make society amends for the loss of her ten thou- 
 sand members, but the loss of the Danube would be 
 felt by all the millions that dwell upon its banks, to 
 all generations. But the life of a man and the water 
 of a river can never come into competition with
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 283 
 
 each other in point of value, unless in the estimation 
 of an unprincipled philosopher. 
 
 I thank you for your offer of the classics. When 
 I want I will borrow. Hoi-ace is my own. Homer, 
 with a clavis, I have had possession of some years. 
 They are the property of Mr. Jones. A " Virgil," 
 
 the property of Mr. S , I have had as long. 1 
 
 am nobody in the affair of tenses, unless when you 
 are present. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 OIney, July 13, 1784. 
 
 My dear William — We rejoice that you had a safe 
 journey, and, though we should have rejoiced still 
 more had you had no occasion for a physician, we 
 are glad that, having had need of one, you had the 
 good fortune to find him — let us hear soon that his 
 advice has proved effectual, and that you are deli- 
 vered from all ill symptoms. 
 
 Thanks for the care you have taken to furnish me 
 with a dictionary : it is rather strange that, at my 
 time of life, and after a youth spent in classical 
 pursuits, I should want one; and stranger still that, 
 being possessed at present of only one Latin author 
 in the world, I should think it worth while to pur- 
 chase one. I say that it is strange, and indeed I 
 think it so myself. But I have a thought that, when 
 my present labours of the pen are ended, I may go 
 to school again, and refresh my spirits by a little 
 intercourse with the Mantuan and the Sabine bard.
 
 284 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and perhaps by a re-perusal of some .others, whose 
 works we generally lay by at that period of life when 
 we are best qualified to read them, when, the judg- 
 ment and the taste being formed, their beauties are 
 least likely to be overleoked. 
 
 This change of wind and weather comforts me, 
 and I should have enjoyed the first fine morning I 
 have seen this month with a peculiar relish, if our 
 new tax-maker had not put me out of temper. I 
 am angry with him, not only for the matter but for 
 the manner of his proposal. When he lays his impost 
 upon horses he is jocular, and laughs, though, consi- 
 dering that wheels, and miles, and grooms were 
 taxed before, a graver countenance upon the occa- 
 sion would have been more decent. But he pro- 
 voked me still more by reasoning as he does on the 
 justification of the tax upon candles. Some families 
 he says will suffer little by it. Why? because they 
 are so poor that they cannot afford themselves more 
 than ten pounds in the year. Excellent! They can 
 use but few, therefore they will pay but little, and 
 consequently will be but little burthened ; an argu- 
 ment which for its cruelty and effrontery seems 
 worthy of a hero : but he does not avail himself of 
 the whole force of it, nor with all his wisdom had 
 sagacity enough to see that it contains, when pushed 
 to its utmost extent, a free discharge and acquittal 
 of the poor from the payment of any tax at all : a 
 commodity being once made too expensive for their 
 pockets will cost them nothing, for they will not 
 buy it. Rejoice, therefore, O ye penniless! the mi- 
 nister will indeed send you to bed in the dark, but
 
 r 
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 285 
 
 your remaining halfpenny will be safe; instead of 
 being spent in the useless luxury of candle-light, it 
 will buy you a roll for breakfast, which you will eat 
 no doubt with gratitude to the man who so kindly 
 lessens the number of your disbursements, and, while 
 he seems to threaten your money, saves it. 1 wish 
 he would remember that the halfpenny which go- 
 vernment imposes the shopkeeper will swell to two- 
 pence. I wish he would visit the miserable huts of 
 our lace-makers at Olney, and see them working in 
 the winter months, by the light of a farthing candle, 
 from four in the afternoon till midnight : I wish he 
 had laid his tax upon the ten thousand lamps that 
 illuminate the Pantheon, upon the flambeaux that 
 wait upon ten thousand chariots and sedans in an 
 evening, and upon the wax candles that give light 
 to ten thousand card-tables. I wish, in short, that 
 he would consider the pockets of the poor as sacred, 
 and that to tax a people already so necessitous is 
 but to discourage the little industry that is left 
 among us, by driving the laborious to despair. 
 
 A neighbour of mine in Silver-end keeps an ass ; 
 the ass lives on the other side of the garden-wall, 
 and I am writing in the green-house : it happens 
 that he is this morning most musically disposed, 
 whether cheered by the fine weather, or some new 
 tune which he has just acquired, or by finding his 
 voice more harmonious than usual. It would be 
 cruel to mortify so fine a singer, therefore I do not 
 tell him that he interrupts and hinders me; but I 
 venture to tell you so, and to plead his performance 
 in excuse for my abrupt conclusion.
 
 286 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 I send you the goldfinches, with which you will do 
 as you see good. We have an affectionate remem- 
 brance of your late visit, and of all our friends at 
 Stock. 
 
 Believe me ever yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV, JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, July 14, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — Notwithstanding the justness 
 of the comparison by which you illustrate the folly 
 and wickedness of a congregation assembled to pay 
 divine honours to the memory of Handel, I could 
 not help laughing at the picture you have drawn of 
 the musical convicts. The subject indeed is awful, 
 and your manner of representing it is perfectly just ; 
 yet 1 laughed, and must have laughed had I been 
 one of your hearers. But the ridicule lies in the 
 preposterous conduct which you reprove, and not in 
 your reproof of it. A people so musically mad as 
 to make not only their future trial the subject of a 
 concert, but even the message of mercy from tbeir 
 King, and the only one he will ever send them, 
 must excuse me if I am merry where there is more 
 cause to be sad ; for, melancholy as their condition 
 is, their behaviour under it is too ludicrous not to 
 be felt as such, and would conquer even a more 
 settled gravity than mine. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 W. C.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 287 
 
 The Commemoration of Handel, mentioned in 
 the above letter, which was performed with great 
 pomp in a place of religious worship, and accom- 
 panied by his celebrated oratorio of the Messiah, 
 was considered by many pious minds to resemble 
 an act of canonization, and therefore censured as 
 profane. Mr. Newton, being at that time, rector 
 of St. Mary Woolnoth, in the city, preached a course 
 of sermons on the occasion, and delivered his senti- 
 ments on the subject of oratorios generally, but 
 with such originality of thought in the following 
 passage that we insert it for the benefit of those to 
 whom it may be unknown. It is introduced in the 
 beginning of his fourth sermon from Malachi iii. 
 1—3. 
 
 " ' Whereunto shall we liken the people of this 
 generation, and to what are they like ?' I represent 
 to myself a number of persons, of various charac- 
 ters, involved in one common charge of high trea- 
 son. They are already in a state of confinement, 
 but not yet brought to their trial. The facts, how- 
 ever, are so plain, and the evidence against them 
 so strong and pointed, that there is not the least 
 doubt of their guilt being fully proved, and that 
 nothing but a pardon can preserve them from 
 punishment. In this situation, it should seem 
 their wisdom to avail themselves of every ex- 
 pedient in their power for obtaining mercy. But 
 they are entirely regardless of their danger, 
 and wholly taken up with contriving methods of 
 amusing themselves, that they may pass away the 
 term of their imprisonment with as much cheerful-
 
 288 LIFE OF COWPER 
 
 ness as possible. Among other resources, they call 
 in the assistance of music. And, amidst a great va- 
 riety of subjects in this way, they are particularly 
 pleased with one : they choose to make the solemni- 
 ties of their impending trial, the character of their 
 judge, the methods of his procedure, and the awful 
 sentence to which they are exposed, the groundwork 
 of a musical entertainment : and, as if they were 
 quite unconcerned in the event, their attention is 
 chiefly fixed upon the skill of the composer, in 
 adapting the style of his music to the very solemn 
 language and subject with which they are trifling. 
 The King, however, out of his great clemency and 
 compassion towards those who have no pity for 
 themselves, presents them with his goodness : unde- 
 sired by them, he sends them a gracious message : 
 he assures them, that he is unwilling they should 
 suffer: he requires, yea, he entreats them to sub- 
 mit : he points out a way in which their confession 
 and submission shall be certainly accepted : and, in 
 this way, which he condescends to prescribe, he 
 offers them a free and full pardon. But, instead of 
 taking a single step towards a compliance with his 
 goodness, they set his message likewise to music : 
 and this, together with a description of their present 
 state, and of the fearful doom awaiting them if they 
 continue obstinate, is sung for their diversion ; ac- 
 companied with the sound of cornet, flute, harp, 
 sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of instru- 
 ments. Surely, if such a case as I have supposed 
 could be found in real life, though I might admire 
 the musical taste of <^hese people, I should commi- 
 serate their insensibility ! "
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 289 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, July 19,1784. 
 
 In those days when Bedlam vras open to the cruel 
 curiosity of holiday ramblers, I have been a visitor 
 there. Though a boy, I was not altogether insen- 
 sible of the misery of the poor captives, nor destitute 
 of feeling for them. But the madness of some of 
 them had such an humorous air, and displayed it- 
 self in so many whimsical freaks, that it was impos- 
 sible not to be entertained, at the same time that I 
 was angry with myself for being so. A line of 
 Bourne's is very expressive of the spectacle which 
 tliis world exhibits, tragi-comicaj as the incidents of 
 it are, absurd in themselves, but terrible in their 
 consequences ; 
 
 Sunt res Immanae flebile ludibrium. 
 
 An instance of this deplorable merriment has oc- 
 curred in the course of the last week at Olney. A 
 feast gave the occasion to a catastrophe truly 
 shocking.* 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Oliiey, July 28, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I may perhaps be short, but 
 am not willing that you should go to Lymington 
 
 * We presume that tliis is the same circumstance of which 
 more particular mention is made in the beginning of tlie lettei 
 to the Rev. Mr. Unwin, p. '292. 
 
 VOL. 11.
 
 290 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 without first having had a line from me. I know 
 that place well, having spent six weeks there above 
 twenty years ago. The town is neat, and the 
 country delightful. You walk well, and will conse- 
 quently find a part of the coast, called Hall-clifF, 
 within the reach of your ten toes. It was a favou- 
 rite walk of mine ; to the best of my remembrance 
 about three miles distant from Lymington. There 
 you may stand upon the beach and contemplate the 
 Needle-rock ; at least, you might have done so 
 twenty years ago ; but since that time I think it is 
 fallen from its base and is drowned, and is no longer 
 a visible object of contemplation. I wish you may 
 pass your time there happily, as in all probability 
 you will, perhaps usefully too to others, undoubtedly 
 so to yourself. 
 
 The manner in which you have been previously 
 made acquainted with Mr. Gilpin gives a provi- 
 dential air to your journey, and affords reason to 
 hope that you maybe charged with a message to him. 
 I admire him as a biographer. But, as Mrs. Unwin 
 and I were talking of him last night, we could not 
 but wonder that a man should see so much excel- 
 lence in the lives, and so much glory and beauty in 
 the death, of the martyrs whom he has recorded, 
 and at the same time disapprove the principles that 
 produced the very conduct he admired. It seems 
 how^ever a step towards the truth to applaud the 
 fruits of it ; and one cannot help thinking that one 
 step more would put him in possession of the truth 
 itself. By your means may he be enabled to take it ! 
 
 We are obliged to you for the preference you
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 291 
 
 would have given to Olney, had not Providence de- 
 termined your course another way. liut as, when 
 we saw you last summer, you gave us no reason to 
 expect you this, we are the less disappointed. At 
 your age and mine, biennial visits have such a gap 
 between them, that we cannot promise ourselves 
 upon those terms very numerous future interviews. 
 But, whether ours are to be many or few, you will 
 always be welcome to me for the sake of the com- 
 fortable days that are past. In my present state of 
 mind, my friendship for you indeed is as warm as 
 ever: but I feel myself very indifferently qualified to 
 be your companion. Other days than these inglo- 
 rious and unprofitable ones are promised me, and 
 when I see them I shall rejoice. 
 
 I saw the advertisement of your advers:ary's book. 
 He is happy at least in this, that, whether he have 
 brains or none, he strikes without the danger of 
 being stricken again. He could not wish to engage 
 in a controversy upon easier terms. The other, 
 whose publication is postponed till Christmas, is re- 
 solved I suppose to do something. But, do what he 
 will, he cannot prove that you have not been as- 
 persed, or that you have not refuted the charge ; 
 which, unless he can do, I think he will do little to 
 the purpose. 
 
 Mrs. Unwin thinks of you, and always with a 
 grateful recollection of your's and Mrs. Newton's 
 kindness. She has had a nervous fever lately ; but 
 I hope she is better. The weather forbids walking, 
 a prohibition hurtful to us both. 
 
 u 2
 
 292 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 We heartily wish you a good journey, and are 
 affectionately yours, 
 
 W. C. & M. U. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UXWIN. 
 
 Olney, August 14, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I give you joy of a journey 
 performed without trouble or danger. You have 
 ti'avelled five hundred miles without having encoun- 
 tered either. Some neighbours of ours, about a 
 fortnight since, made an excursion only to a neigh- 
 bouring village, and brought home with them frac- 
 tured sculls and broken limbs, and one of them is 
 dead. For my own part, I seem pretty much ex- 
 empted from the dangers of the road. Thanks to 
 that tender interest and concern which the legis- 
 lature takes in my security ! Having, no doubt, 
 their fears lest so precious a life should determine 
 too soon and by some untimely stroke of misad- 
 venture ; they have made wheels and horses so 
 expensive that I am not likely to owe my death to 
 either. 
 
 Your mother and I continue to visit Weston daily, 
 and find in those agreeable bowers such amusement 
 as leaves us but little room to regret that we can 
 go no farther. Having touched that theme, I can- 
 not abstain from the pleasure of telling you that 
 our neighbours in that place, being about to leave it 
 for some time, and meeting us there but a few even-
 
 LIFE OF cowpER. :>9:3 
 
 ings before their departure, entreated us, during 
 their absence, to consider the garden and all its 
 contents as our own, and to gather whatever we 
 liked without the least scruple. We accordingly 
 picked strawberries as often as we went, and brought 
 home as many bundles of honeysuckles as served 
 to perfume our dwelling till they returned. 
 
 Once more, by the aid of Lord Dartmouth, I find 
 myself a voyager in the Pacific Ocean. In our last 
 night's lecture we made our acquaintance with the 
 island of Hapaee, where we had never been before. 
 The French and Italians, it seems, have but little 
 cause to plume themselves on account of their 
 achievements in the dancing way, and we may here- 
 after, without much repining at it, acknowledge 
 their superiority in that art. They are equalled, 
 perhaps excelled, by savages. How wonderful that, 
 without any intercourse with a politer world, and 
 having made no proficiency in any other accom- 
 plishment, they should in this however have made 
 themselves such adepts, that for regularity and grace 
 of motion they might even be our masters ! How 
 wonderful too that with a tub and a stick they should 
 be able to produce such harmony, as persons accus- 
 tomed to the sweetest music cannot but hear with 
 pleasure! Is it not very difficult to account for the 
 striking difference of character that obtains among 
 the inhabitants of these islands ? Many of them 
 are near neighbours to each other : their opportu- 
 nities of improvement much the same ; yet some of 
 them are in a degree polite, discover symptoms of 
 taste, and have a sense of elegance ; while others
 
 294 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 are as rude as we naturally expect to find a people 
 who have never had any communication with the 
 northern hemisphere. These volumes furnish much 
 matter of philosophical speculation, and often en- 
 tertain me, even while I am not employed in read- 
 ing them. 
 
 I am sorry you have not been able to ascertain 
 the doubtful intelligence I have received on the 
 subject of cork skirts and bosoms. I am now every 
 day occupied in giving all the grace I can to my 
 new production and in transcribing it ; I shall soon 
 arrive at the passage that censures that folly, which 
 I shall be loth to expunge, but which I must not 
 spare unless the criminals can be convicted. The 
 world however is not so unproductive of subjects of 
 censure, but that it may probably supply me with 
 some other that may serve as well. 
 
 If you know any body that is writing, or intends 
 to write, an epic poem on the new regulation of 
 franks, you may give him my compliments, and these 
 two lines for a beginning — 
 
 Heu quot amatores nunc torquet epistola rara .' 
 Vectigal certum perituraque gratia Franki ! 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 We have elsewhere stated that the mode origi- 
 nally used in franking, was for the member to sign 
 his name at the left corner of the letter, with the 
 word "free" attached to it, leaving the writer of 
 the letter to add the superscription at his own con-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 295 
 
 venlence. But instances of forgery having become 
 frequent, by persons erasing the word '• free," and 
 using the name of the member for fraudulent pur- 
 poses, a new regulation was adopted at this time to 
 defeat so gross an abuse. In August, 1784, under 
 the act of the 24th of George III., chap. 37, a new 
 enactment passed, prescribing the mode of frank- 
 ing for the future as it is now practised. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, August 16, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — Had you not expressed a desire 
 to hear from me before you take leave of Lyming- 
 ton, I certainly should not have answered you so 
 soon. Knowing the place and the amusements it 
 affords, I should have had more modesty than to 
 suppose myself capable of adding any thing to 
 your present entertainments worthy to rank with 
 them. 1 am not however totally destitute of such 
 pleasures as an inland country may pretend to. If my 
 windows do not command a view of the ocean, at 
 least they look out upon a profusion of mignonette ; 
 which, if it be not so grand an object, is however 
 quite as fragrant, and, if I have not an hermit in a 
 grotto, I have nevertheless myself in a greenhouse, 
 a less venerable figure perhaps, but not at all less 
 animated than he : nor are we in this nook alto- 
 gether unfurnished with such means of philosophical 
 experiment and speculation as at present the world 
 rings with. On Thursday morning last, we sent up
 
 296 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 a balloon from Emberton meadow. Thrice it rose 
 and as oft descended, and in the evening it performed 
 another flight at Newport, where it went up and 
 came down no more. Like the arrow discharged at 
 the pigeon in the Trojan games, it kindled in the 
 air and was consumed in a moment. I have not 
 heard what interpretation the soothsayers have 
 given to the omen, but shall wonder a little if the 
 Newton shepherd prognosticate any thing less from 
 it than the most bloody war that was ever waged in 
 Europe. 
 
 I am reading Cook's last Voyage, and am much 
 pleased and amused with it. It seems that in some 
 of the Friendly Isles they excel so much in dancing, 
 and perform that operation with such exquisite deli- 
 cacy and grace, that they are not surpassed even 
 upon our European stages. Oh ! that Vestris had 
 been in the ship, that he might have seen himself 
 outdone by a savage ! The paper indeed tells us that 
 the queen of France has clapped this king of capers 
 up in prison, for declining to dance before her on a 
 pretence of sickness, when in fact he was in perfect 
 health. If this be true, perhaps he may by this 
 time be prepared to second such a wish as mine, and 
 to think that the durance he suffers would be well 
 exchanged for a dance at Annamooka. I should 
 however as little have expected to hear that these 
 islanders had such consummate skill in an art that 
 requires so much taste in the conduct of the person, 
 as that they were good mathematicians and astrono- 
 mers. Defective as they are in every branch of 
 knowledge, and in every other species of refine-
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 297 
 
 ment, it seems wonderful that they should arrive at 
 such perfection in the dance, which some of our 
 English gentlemen, with all the assistance of French 
 instruction, find it impossible to learn. We must 
 conclude therefore that particular nations have a 
 genius for particular feats, and that our neighbours 
 in France, and our friends in the South-sea, have 
 minds very nearly akin, though they inhabit coun- 
 tries so very remote from each other. 
 
 Mrs. Unwin remembers to have been in company 
 with Mr. Gilpin at her brother's. She thought him 
 very sensible and polite, and consequently very 
 agreeable. 
 
 We are truly glad that Mrs. Newton and your- 
 self are so well, and that there is reason to hope that 
 Eliza is better. You will learn from this letter that 
 we are so, and that for my own part I am not quite 
 so low in spirits as at some times. Learn too, what 
 you knew before, that we love you all, and that 1 
 am your 
 
 Affectionate friend, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olnej, Sept. 11, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — You have my thanks for the 
 inquiries you have made. Despairing however of 
 meeting with such confirmation of that new mode 
 as would warrant a general stricture, I had, before 
 the receipt of your last, discarded the passage in
 
 298 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 which I had censured it. I am proceeding in my 
 transcript with all possible dispatch, having nearly 
 finished the fourth book, and hoping by the end of 
 the month to have completed the work. When 
 finished, that no time may be lost, I purpose taking 
 the first opportunity to transmit it to Leman street, 
 but must beg that you will give me in your next 
 an exact direction, that it may proceed to the mark 
 without any hazai'd of a miscarriage. A second 
 transcript of it would be a labour I should very 
 reluctantly undertake ; for, though I have kept copies 
 of all the material alterations, there are many minutiae 
 of which I have made none ; it is besides slavish 
 work, and of all occupations that which I dislike the 
 most. I know that you will lose no time in reading 
 it, but I must beg you likewise to lose none in con- 
 veying it to Johnson, that, if he chooses to print it, 
 it may go to the press immediately ; if not, that it 
 may be offered directly to your friend Longman, or 
 any other. Not that I doubt Johnson's acceptance 
 of it, for he will find it more ad captiim populi than 
 the former. I have not numbered the lines, except of 
 the four first books, which amount to three thou- 
 sand two hundred and seventy-six. I imagine, 
 therefore, that the whole contains about five thou- 
 sand. I mention this circumstance now, because it 
 may save him some trouble in casting the size of 
 the book, and I might possibly forget it in another 
 letter. 
 
 About a fortnight since, we had a visit from Mr. 
 , whom I had not seen many years. He in- 
 troduced himself to us very politely, with many
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 299 
 
 thanks on his own part, and on the part of his family, 
 for the amusement which my book had afforded them. 
 He said he was sure that it must make its way, and 
 hoped that I had not laid down the pen. I only told 
 him in general terms that the use of the pen was ne- 
 cessary to my well being, but gave him no hint of 
 this last production. He said that one passage in 
 particular had absolutely electrified him, meaning 
 the description of the Briton in Table Talk. He 
 seemed indeed to emit some sparks, when he 
 mentioned it. I was glad to have that picture no- 
 ticed by a man of a cultivated mind, because I had 
 always thought well of it myself, and had never 
 heard it distinguished before. Assure yourself, my 
 William, that though I would not write thus freely 
 on the subject of me or mine to any but yourself, 
 the pleasure I have in doing it is a most innocent 
 one, and partakes not in the least degree, so far as 
 my conscience is to be credited, of that vanity with 
 which authors are in general so justly chargeable. 
 Whatever I do, I confess that I most sincerely wish 
 to do it well ; and, when I have reason to hope 
 that I have succeeded, am pleased indeed, but not 
 proud; for He who has placed every thing out of 
 the reach of man, except what he freely gives him, 
 has made it impossible for a reflecting mind that 
 knows this to indulge so silly a passion for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C.
 
 300 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 11, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — I have never seen Doctor Cot- 
 ton's book, concerning which your sisters question 
 me, nor did I Iznow, till you mentioned it, that he 
 had written any thing newer than his Visions ; I 
 have no doubt that it is so far worthy of him as to 
 be pious and sensible, and I believe no man living 
 is better qualified to write on such subjects as his 
 title seems to announce. Some years have passed 
 since I heard from him, and considering his great 
 age it is probable that I shall hear from him no 
 more ; but I shall always respect him. He is truly 
 a philosopher, according to my judgment of the cha- 
 racter, every tittle of his knowledge in natural sub- 
 jects being connected in his mind with the firm 
 belief of an Omnipotent agent. 
 
 Yours, &c. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Sept. 18, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — Following your good example, 
 I lay before me a sheet of my largest paper. It 
 was this moment fair and unblemished, but I have 
 begun to blot it, and, having begun, am not likely to 
 cease till I have spoiled it. I have sent you many a 
 sheet that, in my judgment of it, has been very un-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 301 
 
 worthy of your acceptance, but my conscience was 
 in some measure satisfied by reflecting that, if it 
 were good for nothing, at the same time it cost 
 you nothing, except the trouble of reading it. 
 But the case is altered now.* You must pay a 
 solid price for frothy matter, and though I do not 
 absolutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your 
 money, and, as the saying is, are never the wiser. 
 
 My green-house is never so pleasant as when we 
 are just upon the point of being turned out of it. 
 The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the calm- 
 ness of this latter season, make it a much more 
 agreeable retreat than we ever find it in the sum- 
 mer ; when, the winds being generally brisk, we can- 
 not cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air, 
 without being at the same time incommoded by it. 
 But now I sit with all the windows and the door 
 wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every 
 flower, in a garden as full of flowers as I have known 
 how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived 
 in a hive, I should hardly hear more of their music. 
 All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of 
 mignonette, opposite to the window, and pay me 
 for the honey they get out of it by a hum, v/hich 
 though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my 
 ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds 
 that nature utters are delightful, at least in this 
 country. I should not perhaps find the roaring of 
 lions in Africa or of bears in Russia very pleasing, 
 but I know no beast in England whose voice I do not 
 account musical, save and except always the braying 
 * He alludes to the new mode of f'rnnking.
 
 302 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of an ass. The notes of all our birds and fowls 
 please me without one exception. I should not 
 indeed think of keeping a goose in a cage, that 1 
 might hang him up in the parlour for the sake of his 
 melody, but a goose upon a common or in a farm- 
 yard is no bad performer : and as to insects, if the 
 black beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues, will 
 keep out of my way, I have no objection to any of 
 the rest ; on the contrary, in whatever key they 
 sing, from the gnat's fine treble to the bass of the 
 humble bee, I admire them all. Seriously, however, 
 it strikes me as a very observable instance of provi- 
 dential kindness to man, that such an exact accord 
 has been contrived between his ear and the sounds 
 with which, at least in a rural situation, it is almost 
 every moment visited. All the world is sensible of 
 the uncomfortable effect that certain sounds have 
 upon the nerves, and consequently upon the spirits. 
 And if a sinful world had been filled with such as 
 would have curdled the blood, and have made the 
 sense of hearing a perpetual inconvenience, I do not 
 know that we should have had a right to complain. 
 But now the fields, the woods, the gardens, have each 
 their concert, and the ear of man is for ever regaled 
 by creatures who seem only to please themselves. 
 Even the ears that are deaf to the Gospel are con- 
 tinually entertained, though without knowing it, by 
 sounds for which they are solely indebted to its 
 author. There is somewhere in infinite space a 
 world that does not roll within the precincts of mercy, 
 and as it is reasonable, and even scriptural, to sup- 
 pose that there is music in heaven, in those dismal
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 303 
 
 regions perhaps the reverse of it is found ; tones so 
 dismal, as to make woe itself more insupportable, 
 and to acuminate even despair. But my paper ad- 
 monishes me in good time to draw the reins, and to 
 check the descent of my fancy into deeps with which 
 she is but too familiar. 
 
 Our best love attends you both, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 2, 1784. 
 
 My dear William — A poet can but ill spare time 
 for prose. The truth is, I am in haste to finish my 
 transcript, that you may receive it time enough to 
 give it a leisurely reading before you go to town ; 
 which, whether I shall be able to accomplish, is at 
 present uncertain. I have the whole punctuation 
 to settle, which in blank verse is of the last import- 
 ance, and of a species peculiar to that composition ; 
 for I know no use of points, unless to direct the 
 voice, the management of which, in the reading of 
 blank verse, being more difficult than in the read- 
 ing of any other poetry, requires perpetual hints 
 and notices to regulate the inflexions, cadences, 
 and pauses. This however is an affair that, in spite 
 of grammarians, must be left pretty much ad libitum 
 scriptoris. For, I suppose, every author points ac- 
 cording to his own reading. If I can send the 
 parcel to the waggon by one o'clock next Wednes- 
 day, you will have it on Saturday the ninth. But
 
 304 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 this is more than I expect. Perhaps I shall not 
 be able to dispatch it till the eleventh, in which 
 case it will not reach you till the thirteenth. I the 
 rather think that the latter of these two periods 
 will obtain, because, besides the punctuation, I have 
 the argument of each book to transcribe. Add to 
 this that, in writing for the printer, I am forced to 
 write my best, which makes slow work. The motto 
 of the whole is — 
 
 Fit surculus arbor. 
 
 If you can put the author s name under it, do so — 
 if not, it must go without one ; for I know not to 
 whom to ascribe it. It was a motto taken by a cer- 
 tain prince of Orange, in the year 1733, but not to 
 a poem of his own writing, or indeed to any poem 
 at all, but, as I think, to a medal. 
 
 Mr. is a Cornish member; but for what 
 
 place in Cornwall I know not. All I know of him 
 is, that I saw him once clap his two hands upon a 
 rail, meaning to leap over it. But he did not think 
 the attempt a safe one, and therefore took them off 
 again. He was in company with Mr. Throck- 
 mortor. With that gentleman we drank chocolate, 
 since I wrote last. The occasion of our visit was, 
 as usual, a balloon. Your mother invited her, and 
 I him, and they promised to return the visit, but 
 have not yet performed. Tout le monde se tronvoit 
 Id, as you may suppose, among the rest Mrs. 
 
 W . She was driven to the door by her son, a 
 
 boy of seventeen, in a phaeton, drawn by four 
 horses from LillipuL This is an ambiguous ex-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 305 
 
 pression, and, sh uld what I write now be legible a 
 thousand years hence, might puzzle commentators. 
 Be it known therefore to the Alduses and the 
 Stevenses of ages yet to come, that I do not mean 
 
 to affirm that Mrs. W herself came from Lilli- 
 
 put that morning, or indeed that she ever was there, 
 but merely to describe the horses, as being so dimi- 
 nutive, that they might be with propriety said to be 
 Lilliputian. 
 
 The privilege of franking having been so crop- 
 ped, I know not in what manner I and my book- 
 seller are to settle the conveyance of proof sheets 
 hither and back again. They must travel I imagine 
 by coach, a large quantity of them at a time; for, 
 like other authors, I find myself under a poetical 
 necessity of being frugal. 
 
 We love you all, jointly and separately, as 
 usual. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 I have not seen, nor shall see, the Dissenter's 
 answer to Mr. Newton, unless you can furnish nie 
 with it. 
 
 TO THE UEV, JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Oct. '.', 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — The pains you have taken to 
 disengage our correspondence from the expense 
 with which it was threatened, convincing me that 
 my letters, trivial as they are, are yet acceptable to 
 
 VOL. II. X
 
 306 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 you, encourage me to observe my usual punctu- 
 ality. You complain of unconnected thoughts. 1 
 believe there is not a head in the world but might 
 utter the same complaint, and that all would do so, 
 were they all as attentive to their own vagaries and 
 as honest as yours. The description of your medi- 
 tations at least suits mine ; perhaps I can go a step 
 beyond you, upon the same ground, and assert with 
 the strictest truth that I not only do not think 
 with connexion, but that I frequently do not think 
 at all. I am much mistaken if I do not often catch 
 myself napping in this way ; for, when I ask myself, 
 what was the last idea, (as the ushers at West- 
 minster ask an idle boy what was the last word,) I 
 am not able to answer, but, like the boy in question, 
 am obliged to stare and say nothing. This may be 
 a very unphilosophical account of myself, and may 
 clash very much with the general opinion of the 
 learned, that, the soul being an active principle, and 
 her activity consisting in thought, she must conse- 
 quently always think. But pardon me, messieurs 
 les philosophes, there are moments when, if I think 
 at all, I am utterly unconscious of doing so, and the 
 thought and the consciousness of it seem to me at 
 least, who am no philosopher, to be inseparable 
 from each other. Perhaps however we may both 
 be right; and, if you will grant me that I do not 
 always think, I will in return concede to you the 
 activity you contend for, and will qualify the differ- 
 ence between us by supposing that, though the 
 soul be in herself an active principle, the influence 
 of her present union with a principle that is not
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 307 
 
 such makes her often dormant, suspends her ope- 
 rations, and affects her with a sort of deliquium, in 
 which she suffers a temporary loss of all her func- 
 tions. I have related to you my experience truly 
 and without disguise; you must therefore either 
 admit my assertion, that the soul does not neces- 
 sarily always act, or deny that mine is a human 
 soul : a negative, that I am sure you will not easily 
 prove. So much for a dispute which I little 
 thought of being engaged in to-day. 
 
 Last night I had a letter from Lord Dartmouth. 
 It was to apprise me of the safe arrival of Cook's 
 last Voyage, which he was so kind as to lend me, in 
 Saint James's Square. The reading of those 
 volumes afforded me much amusement, and I hope 
 some instruction. No observation however forced 
 itself upon me with more violence than one, that I 
 could not help making on the death of Captain 
 Cook. God is a jealous God, and at Owhyhee the 
 poor man was content to be worshipped. From 
 that moment, the remarkable interposition of Provi- 
 dence in his favour was converted into an opposi- 
 tion that thwarted all his purposes. He left the 
 scene of his deification, but was driven back to it by 
 a most violent storm, in which he suffered more 
 than in any that had preceded it. When he de- 
 parted, he left his worshippers still infatuated with 
 an idea of his godship, consequently well disposed 
 to serve him. At his return, he found them sullen, 
 distrustful, and mysterious. A trifling theft was 
 committed, which, by a blunder of his own in pur- 
 suing the thief after the property had been re- 
 
 X 2
 
 308 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 Stored, was magnified to an affair of the last import- 
 ance. One of their favourite chiefs was killed too 
 by a blunder. Nothing in short but blunder and 
 mistake attended him, till he fell breathless into 
 the water, and then all was smooth again. The 
 M^orld indeed will not take notice or see that the 
 dispensation bore evident marks of divine displea- 
 sure; but a mind, 1 think, in any degree spiritual 
 cannot overlook them. We know from truth itself 
 that the death of Herod was for a similar offence. 
 But Herod was in no sense a believer in God, nor 
 had enjoyed half the opportunities with which our 
 poor countryman had been favoured. It may be 
 urged perhaps that he was in jest, that he meant 
 nothing but his own amusement, and that of his 
 companions. I doubt it. He knows little of the 
 heart, who does not know that even in a sensible 
 man it is flattered by every species of exaltation. 
 But be it so, that he was in sport — it was not 
 humane, to say no worse of it, to sport with the 
 ignorance of his friends, to mock their simplicity, to 
 humour and acquiesce m their blind credulity. 
 Besides, though a stock or stone maybe worshipped 
 blameless, a baptized man may not. He knows 
 what he does, and, by suffering such honours to be 
 paid him, incurs the guilt of sacrilege.* 
 
 * We subjoin the following note of Hayley on tins sub- 
 ject : "Having- enjoyed in the year 1772, the pleasure of con- 
 versing with this illustrious seaman, on board his own sliip 
 the Resolution, I cannot pass the present letter without ob- 
 serving, that I am persuaded my friend Cowper utterly misap- 
 prehended the behaviour of Captain Cook in the affair alluded
 
 LIFE OF COW PER. 309 
 
 We are glad that you are so happy in your 
 church, in your society, and in all your connexions. 
 I have not left myself room to say any thing of the 
 love we feel for you. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 My dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 Several of the succeeding letters advert to the 
 poem of " The Task," and cannot fail to inspire 
 interest. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 10, 1784. 
 
 My dear William — I send you four quires of 
 verse, which, having sent, I shall dismiss from my 
 thoughts, and think no more of till I see them in 
 print. I have not after all found time or industry 
 enough to give the last hand to the points. I be- 
 lieve however they are not very erroneous, though, 
 in so long a work, and in a work that requires 
 nicety in this particular, some inaccuracies will 
 escape. Where you find any, you will oblige me 
 by correcting them. 
 
 In some passages, especially in the second book, 
 you will observe me very satirical. Writing on 
 
 to. From the little personal acquaintance which I bad my- 
 self with this humane and truly Christian navigator, and from 
 the whole tenor of his life, I cannot believe it possible for him 
 to have acted, under any circumstances, with such impious 
 arrogance as might appear offensive in the eyes of the Al- 
 miohty."
 
 310 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 such subjects I could not be otherwise. I can write 
 nothing without aiming at least at usefulness. It 
 were beneath my years to do it, and still more dis- 
 honourable to my religion. I know that a refor- 
 mation of such abuses as I have censured is not to 
 be expected from the efforts of a poet ; but to con- 
 template the world, its follies, its vices, its indiffer- 
 ence to duty, and its strenuous attachment to what 
 is evil, and not to reprehend, were to approve it. 
 From this charge at least I shall be clear, for I have 
 neither tacitly nor expressly flattered either its cha- 
 racters or its customs. I have paid one and only 
 one compliment, which was so justly due that I did 
 not know how to withhold it, especially having so 
 fair an occasion, (I forget myself, there is another 
 in the first book to Mr. Throckmorton,) but the 
 
 compliment I mean is to Mr. . It is however 
 
 so managed, that nobody but himself can make the 
 application, and you to whom I disclose the secret ; 
 a delicacy on my part, which so much delicacy on 
 his obliged me to the observance of! 
 
 ^\^lat there is of a religious cast in the volume, I 
 have thrown towards the end of it, for two reasons — 
 first, that I might not revolt the reader at his en- 
 trance — and, secondly, that my best impressions 
 might be made last. Were I to write as nfeny vo- 
 lumes as Lopez de Vega, or Voltaire, not one of 
 them would be without this tincture. If the world 
 like it not, so much the worse for them. I make 
 all the concessions I can, that I may please them, 
 hut I will not please them at the expense of my 
 conscience.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 311 
 
 My descriptions are all from nature ; not one 
 of them second-handed. My delineations of the 
 heart are from my own experience ; not one of 
 them borrowed from books, or in the least degree 
 conjectural. In my numbers, which I varied as 
 much as I could, (for blank verse without variety of 
 numbers is no better than bladder and string,) I 
 have imitated nobody, though sometimes perhaps 
 there may be an apparent resemblance ; because, at 
 the same time that I would not imitate, 1 have not 
 affectedly differed. 
 
 If the work cannot boast a regular plan, (in 
 which respect however I do not think it altogether 
 indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflections 
 are naturally suggested always by the preceding 
 passage, and that, excejit the fifth book, which is 
 rather of a political aspect, the whole ,has one ten- 
 dency ; to discountenance the modern enthusiasm 
 after a London life, and to recommend rural ease and 
 leisure, as friendly to the cause of piety and virtue. 
 
 If it pleases you I shall be happy, and collect 
 from your pleasure in it an omen of its general ac- 
 ceptance. 
 
 Yours, my dear friend, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM IINWIN. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 20, 1784. 
 My dear William Your letter has relieved me 
 from some anxiety, and given me a good deal of 
 positive pleasure. I have faith in your judgment,
 
 312 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 and an implicit confidence in the sincerity of your 
 approbation. The writing of so long a poem is a 
 serious business; and the author must know little 
 of his own heart who does not in some degree sus- 
 pect himself of partiality to his own production ; and 
 who is he that would not be mortified by the 
 discovery that he had written five thousand lines 
 in vain ? The poem, however, which you have in 
 hand, will not of itself make a volume so large as 
 the last, or as a bookseller would wish. I say this, 
 because when I had sent Johnson five thousand 
 verses, he applied for a thousand more. Two years 
 since I began a piece which grew to the length of 
 two hundred, and there stopped.* I have lately re- 
 sumed it, and (I believe) shall finish it. But the 
 subject is fruitful, and will not be comprised in a 
 smaller compass than seven or eight hundred verses. 
 It turns on the question whether an education at 
 school or at home be preferable, and I shall give the 
 preference to the latter. I mean that it shall pursue 
 the track of the former. That is to say, that it shall 
 visit Stock in its way to publication. My design 
 also is to inscribe it to you. But you must see it 
 first; and if, after seeing it, you should have any 
 objection, though it should be no bigger than the 
 tittle of an i, I will deny myself that pleasure, and 
 find no fault with your refusal. I have not been 
 without thoughts of adding John Gilpin at the tail 
 of all. He has made a good deal of noise in the 
 world, and perhaps it may not be amiss to show 
 that though I write generally with a serious in- 
 tention, I know how to be occasionally merry. The 
 * Tirocinium. See Poems.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 313 
 
 Critical Reviewers charged me with an attempt at 
 humour. John, having been more celebrated upon 
 the score of humour than most pieces that have 
 appeared in modern days, may serve to exonerate 
 me from the imputation : but in this article I am 
 entirely under your judgment, and mean to be set 
 down by it. All these together will make an oc- 
 tavo like the last. I should have told you, that the 
 piece which now employs me is in rhyme. I do not 
 intend to write any more blank. It is more difficult 
 than rhyme, and not so amusing in the composition. 
 If, when you make the offer of my book to Johnson, 
 he should stroke his chin, and look up to the ceiling, 
 and cry, " Humph !" anticipate him, I beseech you, 
 at once, by saying, " that you know I should be 
 sorry that he should undertake for me to his ojvn 
 disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any 
 degree pressed upon him. I make him the offer 
 merely because I think he would have reason to 
 complain of me if I did not." But, that punctilio 
 once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to me 
 what publisher sends me forth. If Longman should 
 have difficulties, which is the more probable, as 
 I understand from you that he does not in these 
 cases see with his own eyes, but will consult a bro- 
 ther poet, take no pains to conquer them. The idea 
 of being hawked about, and especially of your being 
 the hawker, is insupportable. Nichols, I have heard, 
 is the most learned printer of the present day. He 
 may be a man of taste as well as learning ; and I 
 suppose that you would not want a gentleman usher 
 to introduce you. He prints " The Gentleman's Ma-
 
 314 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 gazine," and may serve us, if the others should de- 
 cHne ; if not, give yourself no farther trouble about 
 the matter. I may possibly envy authors who can 
 aflPord to publish at their own expense, and in that 
 case should write no more. But the mortification 
 would not break my heart. 
 
 I proceed to your corrections, for which I most 
 unaffectedly thank you, adverting to them in their 
 order. 
 
 Page 140. — Truth generally without the article 
 the, would not be sufficiently defined. There are 
 many sorts of truth, philosophical, mathematical, 
 moral, (ix. and a reader not much accustomed to 
 hear of religious or scriptural truth, might possibly 
 and indeed easily doubt what truth was particularly 
 intended. I acknowledge that grace, in my use of 
 the word, does not often occur in poetry. So neither 
 does the subject which I handle. Every subject 
 has its own terms, and religious ones take theirs 
 with most propriety from the scripture. Thence I 
 take the word grace. The sarcastic use of it in the 
 mouths of infidels I admit, but not their authority 
 to proscribe it, especially as God's favour in the 
 abstract has no other word in all our language by 
 which it can be expressed. 
 
 Page 130. — Impress the mind faintly, or not at 
 all. — I prefer this line, because of the interrupted 
 run of it, having always observed that a little uneven- 
 ness of this sort, in a long work, has a good effect, 
 used as I mean, sparingly, and with discretion. 
 
 Page 127. — This should have been noted first, 
 but was overlooked. Be pleased to alter for me
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 315 
 
 thus, with the difference of only one word, from the 
 alteration proposed by you — 
 
 We too are friends to royalty. We love 
 
 The king who loves the law, respects his bounds, 
 
 And reigns content within them. 
 
 You observed probably, in your second reading, 
 that I allow the life of an animal to be fairly taken 
 away, when it interferes either with the interest or 
 convenience of man. Consequently snails and all 
 reptiles that spoil our crops, either of fruit or grain, 
 may be destroyed, if we can catch them. It gives 
 me real pleasure that Mrs. Unwin so readily under- 
 stood me. Blank verse, by the unusual arrange- 
 ment of the words, and by the frequent infusion of 
 one line into another, not less than by the style, 
 which requires a kind of tragical magnificence, can- 
 not be chargeable with much obscurity, must rather 
 be singularly perspicuous, to be so easily compre- 
 hended. It is my labour, and my principal one, to 
 be as clear as possible. You do not mistake me, 
 when you suppose that I have great respect for the 
 virtue that flies temptation. It is that sort of prow- 
 ess, which the whole train of scripture calls upon us 
 to manifest, when assailed by sensual evil. Inte- 
 rior mischiefs must be grappled with. There is no 
 flight from them. But solicitations to sin, that ad- 
 dress themselves to our bodily senses, are, I believe, 
 seldom conquered in any other way. 
 
 I can easily see that you may have very reasonable 
 objections to my dedicatory proposal. You are a 
 clerg}'man, and I have banged your order. You are 
 a child of alma 7nater, and I have banged her too.
 
 316 LIFE OF fOWPEIJ. 
 
 Lay yourself, therefore, under no constraints that I 
 do not lay you under, but consider yourself as per- 
 fectly free. 
 
 With our best love to you all, I bid you heartily 
 farewell. I am tired of this endless scribblement. 
 Adieu ! 
 
 Yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE KEY. JOHN NEWTON.* 
 
 Olney, Oct. 22, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — I am now reading a book which 
 you have never read, and will probably never read — 
 Knox's Essays. Perhaps I should premise that I am 
 driven to such reading by the want of books that 
 would please me better, neither having any, nor the 
 means of procuring any. I am not sorry, however, 
 that I have met with him; though, when I have al- 
 lowed him the praise of being a sensible man, and 
 in /lis way a good one, I have allowed him all that I 
 can afford. Neither his style pleases me, which is 
 sometimes insufferably dry and hard, and sometimes 
 ornamented even to an Harveian tawdriness ; nor 
 his manner, which is never lively without being the 
 worse for it : so unhappy is he in his attempts at 
 character and narration. But, writing chiefly on the 
 manners, vices, and follies of the modern day, to me 
 he is at least so far useful, as that he gives me informa- 
 tion upon points which I neither can nor icould be in- 
 formed upon except by hearsay. Of such information, 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 317 
 
 however, I have need, being a writer upon those 
 subjects myself, and a satirical writer too. It is fit, 
 therefore, in order that I may find fault in the right 
 place, that I should know where fault may properly 
 be found. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Oct. 30, 1784, 
 My dear Friend — 1 accede most readily to the 
 justice of your remarks, on the subject of the truly 
 Roman heroism of the Sandwich islanders. Proofs 
 of such prowess, I believe, are seldom exhibited by 
 a people who have attained to a high degree of 
 civilization. Refinement and profligacy are too 
 nearly allied to admit of any thing so noble ; and I 
 question whether any instances of faithful friendship, 
 like that which so much affected you in the beha- 
 viour of the poor savage, were produced even by the 
 Romans themselves in the latter days of the empire. 
 They had been a nation, whose virtues it is impos- 
 sible not to wonder at. But Greece, which was to 
 them what France is to us, a Pandora's box of mis- 
 chief, reduced them to her own standard, and they 
 naturally soon sunk still lower. Religion in this case 
 seems pretty much out of the question. To the pro- 
 duction of such heroism undebauched nature herself 
 is equal. When Italy was a land of heroes, she 
 knew no more of the true God than her cicisbfeos 
 and her fiddlers know now ; and indeed it seems a 
 matter of indifference whether a man be born under
 
 318 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 a truth, which does not influence him, or under the 
 actual influence of a He ; or, if there be any differ- 
 ence between the cases, it seems to be rather in 
 favour of the latter: for a false persuasion, such as the 
 Mahometan for instance, may animate the courage, 
 and furnish motives for the contempt of death, while 
 despisers of the true religion are punished for their 
 folly, by being abandoned to the last degrees of de- 
 pravity. Accordingly, we see a Sandwich islander 
 sacrificing himself to his dead friend, and our Chris- 
 tian seamen and mariners, instead of being imprest by 
 a sense of his generosity, butchering him with a per- 
 severing cruelty that will disgrace them for ever ; for 
 he was a defenceless, unresisting enemy, who meant 
 nothing more than to gratify his love for the de- 
 ceased. To slay him in such circumstances was to 
 murder him, and with every aggravation of the crime 
 that can be imagined. 
 
 I am again at Johnson's, in the shape of a poem in 
 blank verse, consisting of six books and called " The 
 Task." I began it about this time twelvemonth, and, 
 writing sometimes an hour in a day, sometimes half 
 at one, and sometimes twohours, have lately finished 
 it. I mentioned it not sooner, because almost to the 
 last I was doubtful whether I should ever bring it to 
 a conclusion, working often in such distress of mind 
 as, while it spurred me to the work, at the same time 
 threatened to disqualify me for it. My bookseller, 
 I suppose, will be as tardy as before. I do not ex- 
 pect to be born into the world till the month of 
 March, when I and the crocusses shall peep together. 
 You may assure yourself that I shall take my first
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 319 
 
 opportunity to wait on you. I mean likewise to gra- 
 tify myself by obtruding my muse upon Mr. Bacon. 
 
 Adieu, my dear friend ! We are well, and love 
 you. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 1, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — Were I to delay my answer, I 
 must yet write without a frank at last, and may as 
 well therefore write without one now, especially 
 feeling as I do a desire to thank you for your 
 friendly offices so well performed. I am glad, for 
 your sake as well as for my own, that you succeeded 
 in the first instance, and that the first trouble proved 
 the last. 1 am willing too to consider Johnson's 
 readiness to accept a second volume of mine as an 
 argument that at least he was no loser by the former. 
 I collect from it some reasonable hope that the 
 volume in question may not wrong him neither. 
 My imagination tells me (for I know you interest 
 yourself in the success of my productions) that 
 your heart fluttered when you approached Johnson's 
 door, and that it felt itself discharged of a burthen 
 when you came out again. You did well to mention 
 
 it at the T s; they will now know that you 
 
 do not pretend to a share in my confidence, whatever 
 be the value of it, greater than you actually possess. 
 I wrote to Mr. Newton by the last post to tell him 
 that I was gone to the press again. He will be sur- 
 prised and perhaps not pleased. But I think he
 
 320 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 cannot complain, for he keeps his own authorl)^^ 
 secrets without participating them with me. I do 
 not think myself in the least injured by his reserve, 
 neither should I, if he were to publish a whole library 
 without favouring me with any previous notice of his 
 intentions. In these cases it is no violation of the 
 laws of friendship not to communicate, though there 
 must be a friendship where the communication is 
 made. But many reasons may concur in disposing 
 a writer to keep his work secret, and none of them 
 injurious to his friends. The influence of one I 
 have felt myself, for which none of them would 
 blame me — I mean the desire of surprising agreeably. 
 And, if I have denied myself this pleasure in your 
 instance, it was only to give myself a greater, by 
 eradicating from your mind any little weeds of sus- 
 picion that might still remain in it, that any man 
 living is nearer to me than yourself. Had not this 
 consideration forced up the lid of my strong-box 
 like a lever, it would have kept its contents with an 
 invisible closeness to the last; an-^ the first news 
 that either you or any of my friends would have 
 heard of " The Task," they would have received 
 from the public papers. But you know now that 
 neither as a poet nor a man do I give to any man 
 a precedence in my estimation at your expense. 
 
 I am proceeding with my new work (which at 
 present I feel myself much inclined to call by the 
 name of Tirocinium) as fast as the muse permits. 
 It has reached the length of seven hundred lines, 
 and will probably receive an addition of two or three 
 hundred more. When you see Mr. perhaps
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 321 
 
 you will not find it difficult to procure from him 
 half-a-dozen franks, addressed to yourself, and dated 
 the fifteenth of December, in which case they will 
 all go to the post, filled with my lucubrations, on the 
 evening of that day. I do not name an earlier, be- 
 cause I hate to be hurried ; and Johnson cannot 
 want it sooner than, thus managed, it wall reach 
 him. 
 
 I am not sorry that " John Gilpin," though hi- 
 therto he has been nobody's child, is likely to be 
 owned at last. Here and there I can give him a 
 touch that I think will mend him ; the language in 
 some places not being quite so quaint and old- 
 fashioned as it should be ; and in one of the stanzas 
 there is a false rhyme. When I have thus given the 
 finishing stroke to his figure, I mean to grace him 
 with two mottoes, a Greek and a Latin one, which, 
 when the world shall see that I have only a little one 
 of three words to the volume itself, and none to the 
 books of which it consists, they will perhaps under- 
 stand as a strictKrVe upon that pompous display of 
 literature, with which some authors take occasion to 
 crowd their titles. Knox in particular, who is a 
 sensible man too, has not I think fewer than half a 
 dozen to his " Essays." 
 
 Adieu, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — To condole with you on the 
 
 VOL. II. Y
 
 322 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 death of a mother aged eighty-seven would be ab- 
 surd — rather therefore, as is reasonable, I congra- 
 tulate you on the almost singular felicity of having 
 enjoyed the company of so amiable and so n^ar a 
 relation so long. Your lot and mine in this respect 
 have been very different, as indeed in almost every 
 other. Your mother lived to see you rise, at least 
 to see you comfortably established in the world. 
 Mine, dying when I was six years old, did not live 
 to see me sink in it. You may remember with plea- 
 sure while you live a blessing vouchsafed to you so 
 long, and I while I live must regret a comfort, of 
 which I was deprived so early. I can truly say 
 that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal 
 veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her. 
 Such was the impression her tenderness made upon 
 me, though the opportunity she had for showing it 
 was so short. But the ways of God are equal— and, 
 when 1 reflect on the pangs she would have suffered 
 had she been a witness of all mine, I see more cause 
 to rejoice than to mourn that she was hidden in the 
 grave so soon. 
 
 We have, as you say, lost a lively and sensible 
 neighbour in Lady Austen, but we have been long 
 accustomed to a state of retirement within one de- 
 gree of solitude, and, being naturally lovers of still 
 life, can relapse into our former duality without 
 being unhappy at the change. To me indeed a 
 third is not necessary, while I can have the com- 
 panion I have had these twenty years. 
 
 I am gone to the press again ; a volume of mine 
 will greet your hands some time either in the course
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 323 
 
 of the winter or early in the spring. You will find 
 it perhaps on the whole more entertaining than the 
 former, as it treats a greater variety of subjects, and 
 those, at least the most, of a sublunary kind. It 
 will consist of a poem in six books, called " The 
 Task." To which will be added another, which I 
 finished yesterday, called I believe " Tirocinium," 
 on the subject of education. 
 
 You perceive that I have taken your advice, and 
 given the pen no rest. 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 27, 178-1. 
 
 My dear Friend— All the interest that you take 
 in my new publication, and all the pleas that you 
 urge in behalf of your right to my confidence, the 
 moment I had read your letter, struck me as so 
 many proofs of your regard ; of a friendship in which 
 distance and time make no abatement. But it is 
 difficult to adjust opposite claims to the satisfaction 
 of all parties. I have done my best, and must leave 
 it to your candour to put a just interpretation upon 
 all that has passed, and to give me credit for it as a 
 certain truth that, whatever seeming defects in 
 point of attention and attachment to you my con- 
 duct on this occasion may have appeared to have 
 been chargeable with, I am in reality as clear of all 
 real ones as you would wish to find me. 
 
 I send you enclosed, in the first place, a copy of 
 the advertisement to the reader, which accounts for 
 
 Y 2
 
 324 LIFE OK COWPER. 
 
 my title, not otherwise easily accounted for : se- 
 condly, what is called an argument, or a summary 
 of the contents of each book, more circumstantial 
 and diffuse by far than that which I have sent to the 
 press. It will give you a pretty accurate acquaint- 
 ance with my matter, though the tenons and mor- 
 tices, by which the several passages are connected 
 and let into each other, cannot be explained in a 
 syllabus : and lastly, an extract, as you desired. 
 The subject of it I am sure will please you; and, as 
 I have admitted into my description no images but 
 what are scriptural, and have aimed as exactly as I 
 could at the plain and simple sublimity of the scrip- 
 ture language, I have hopes the manner of it may 
 please you too. As far as the numbers and diction 
 are concerned, it may serve pretty well for a sample 
 of the whole. But, the subjects being so various, no 
 single passage can in all respects be a specimen of 
 the book at large. 
 
 My principal purpose is to allure the reader, by 
 character, by scenery, by imagery, and such poetical 
 embellishments, to the reading of what may profit 
 him ; subordinately to this, to combat that predi- 
 lection in favour of a metropolis that beggars and 
 exhausts the country, by evacuating it of all its prin- 
 cipal inhabitants ; and collaterally, and, as far as is 
 consistent with this double intention, to have a stroke 
 at vice, vanity, and folly, wherever I find them. I 
 Lave not spared the Universities. A letter, which 
 appeared in the " General Evening Post " of Satur- 
 day, said to have been received by a general officer, 
 and by him sent to the press as worthy of public no-
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 325 
 
 tice, and which has all the appearance of authen- 
 ticity, would alone justify the severest censures of 
 those bodies, if any such justification were wanted. 
 By way of supplement to what I have written on this 
 subject, I have added a poem, called " Tirocinium," 
 which is in rhyme. It treats of the scandalous re- 
 laxation of discipline that obtains in almost all schools 
 universally, but especially in the largest, which are 
 so negligent in the article of morals that boys are 
 debauched in general the moment they are capable 
 of being so. It recommends the office of tutor to 
 the father where there is no real impediment, the 
 expedient of a domestic tutor where there is, and 
 the disposal of boys into the hands of a respectable 
 country clergyman, who limits his attention to two, 
 in all cases where they cannot be conveniently edu- 
 cated at home. Mr. Unwin happily affording me an 
 instance in point, the poem is inscribed to him. You 
 will now I hope command your hunger to be patient, 
 and be satisfied with the luncheon that I send, till 
 dinner comes. That piecemeal perusal of the work, 
 sheet by sheet, would be so disadvantageous to the 
 work itself, and therefore so uncomfortable to me, 
 that (I dare say) you will wave your desire of it. 
 A poem thus disjointed cannot possibly be fit for 
 any body's inspection but the author's. 
 
 Tully's rule — Nulla dies sine lined— -wWX make a 
 volume in less time than one would suppose. 1 
 adhered to it so rigidly that, though more than once 
 I found three lines as many as I had time to com- 
 pass, still I wrote ; and, finding occasionally, and as 
 it might happen, a more fluent vein, the abundance
 
 326 LIFE OF COWFER. 
 
 of one day made me amends for the barrenness of 
 another. But I do not mean to write blank verse 
 again. Not having the music of rhyme, it requires 
 so close an attention to the pause and the cadence, 
 and such a peculiar mode of expression, as render 
 it, to me at least, the most difficult species of poetry 
 that 1 have ever meddled with. 
 
 I am obliged to you and to Mr. Bacon for your 
 kind remembrance of me when you meet. No 
 artist can excel, as he does, without the finest 
 feelings ; and every man that has the finest feelings 
 is and must be amiable. 
 
 Adieu, my dear fi-iend I 
 
 Affectionately yours, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNVVI.N. 
 
 Olney, 1784. 
 My dear William — The slice which (you observe) 
 has been taken from the top of the sheet, it lost 
 before I began to write ; but, being a part of the 
 paper which is seldom used, I thought it would be 
 pity to discard, or to degrade to meaner purposes, 
 the fair and ample remnant, on account of so im- 
 material a defect. I therefore have destined it to 
 be the vehicle of a letter, which you will accept as 
 entire, though a lawyer perhaps would, without 
 much difficulty, prove it to be but a fragment. The 
 best recompence I can make you for writing without 
 a frank, is to propose it to you to take your revenge
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. S27 
 
 by returning an answer under the same predicament; 
 and the best reason I can give for doing it is the 
 occasion following. In my last I recommended it 
 to you to procure franks for the conveyance of 
 " Tirocinium," dated on a day therein mentioned, 
 and the earliest which at that time I could venture 
 to appoint. It has happened, however, that the 
 poem is finished a month sooner than I expected, 
 and two-thirds of it are at this time fairly tran- 
 scribed ; an accident to which the riders of a Par- 
 nassian steed are liable, who never know, before 
 they mount him, at what rate he will choose to 
 travel. If he be indisposed to dispatch, it is im- 
 possible to accelerate his pace; if otherwise, equally 
 impossible to stop him. Therefore my errand to 
 you at this time is to cancel the former assignation, 
 and to inform you that by whatever means you 
 please, and as soon as you please, the piece in 
 question will be ready to attend you ; for, without 
 exerting any extraordinary diligence, I shall have 
 completed the transcript in a week. 
 
 The critics will never know that four lines of it 
 were composed while I had a dose of ipecacuanha 
 on my stomach ; in short, that I was delivered of 
 the emetic and the verses at the same moment. 
 Knew they this, they would at least allow me to be a 
 poet of singular industry, and confess that I lose no 
 time. I have heard of poets who have found ca- 
 thartics of sovereign use, when they had occasion 
 to be particularly brilliant. Dryden always used 
 them, and, in commemoration of it, Bayes, in " The 
 Rehearsal," is made to inform the audience that in
 
 328 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 a poetical emergency he always had recourse to 
 stewed prunes. But I am the only poet who has 
 dared to reverse the prescription, and whose enter- 
 prize, having succeeded to admiration, warrants him 
 to recommend an emetic to all future bards, as the 
 most infallible means of producing a fluent and easy 
 versification. 
 
 My love to all your family. 
 
 Adieu, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. 
 
 Olney, Nov. 29, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I am happy that you are pleased, 
 and accept it as an earnest that I shall not at least 
 disgust the public. For, though I know your par- 
 tiality to me, I know at the same time with what 
 laudable tenderness you feel for your own reputation, 
 and that, for the sake of that most delicate part of 
 your property, though you would not criticise me 
 with an unfriendly and undue severity, you would 
 however beware of being satisfied too hastily, and 
 with no warrantable cause of being so. I called you 
 the tutor of your two sons, in contemplation of the 
 certainty of that event : it is a fact in suspense, not 
 in fiction. 
 
 My principal errand to you now is to give you 
 information on the following subject : — The moment 
 Mr. Newton knew (and I took care that he should 
 learn it first from me) that I had communicated to 
 you what I had concealed from him, and that you
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 329 
 
 were my authorship's go-between with Johnson on 
 this occasion, he sent me a most friendly letter 
 indeed, but one in every line of which I could hear 
 the soft murmurs of something like mortification, 
 that could not be entirely suppressed. It contained 
 nothing however that you yourself Vvould have 
 blamed, or that I had not every reason to consider 
 as evidence of his regard to me. He concluded the 
 subject with desiring to know something of my plan, 
 to be favoured with an extract, by way of specimen, 
 or (which he should like better still) with wishing 
 me to order Johnson to send him a proof as fast as 
 they were printed off. Determining not to accede 
 to this last request for many reasons, (but especially 
 because I would no more show my poem piece- 
 meal than I would my house, if I had one ; the 
 merits of the structure in either case being equally 
 liable to suffer by such a partial view of it,) I have 
 endeavoured to compromise the difference between 
 us, and to satisfy him without disgracing myself. 
 The proof-sheets I have absolutely, though civilly 
 refused. But I have sent him a copy of the argu- 
 ments of each book, more dilated and circumstantial 
 than those inserted in the work ; and to these I have 
 added an extract as he desired ; selecting, as most 
 suited to his taste, the view of the restoration of 
 all things — which you recollect to have seen near 
 the end of the last book. I hold it necessary to 
 tell you this, lest, if you should call upon him, he 
 should startle you by discovering a degree of infor- 
 mation upon the subject, which you could not other- 
 wise know how to reconcile or to account for.
 
 330 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 You have executed your commissions a merveille. 
 We not only approve but admire. No apology was 
 wanting for the balance struck at the bottom, which 
 we accounted rather a beauty than a deformity. 
 Pardon a poor poet, who connot speak even of 
 pounds, shillings, and pence, but in his own way. 
 
 I have read Lunardi with pleasure. He is a 
 lively, sensible young fellow, and I suppose a very 
 favourable sample of the Italians. When I look at 
 his picture, I can fancy that I can see in him that 
 good sense and courage that no doubt were legible in 
 the face of a young Roman two thousand years ago 
 Your affectionate 
 
 W. C. 
 
 TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.* 
 
 Obey, Dec. 4, 17-84. 
 My dear Friend — You have my hearty thanks 
 for a very good barrel of oysters ; which necessary 
 acknowledgement once made, I might perhaps show 
 more kindness by cutting short an epistle than by 
 continuing one, in which you are not likely to find 
 your account, either in the way of information or 
 amusement. The season of the year indeed is not 
 very friendly to such communications. A damp 
 atmosphere and a sunless sky will have their effect 
 upon the spirits ; and when the spirits are checked, 
 farewell to all hope of being good company, either 
 by letter or otherwise. I envy those happy voyagers, 
 * Private Correspondence.
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 331 
 
 who with so much ease ascend to regions unsullied 
 with a cloud, and date their epistles from an extra- 
 mundane situation. No wonder if they outshine us, 
 who poke about in the dark below, in the vivacity of 
 their sallies, as much as they soar above us in their 
 excursions. Not but that I should be very sorry to 
 go to the clouds for wit : on the contrary, I am satis- 
 fied that I discover more by contmuing where I am. 
 Every man to his business. Their vocation is to 
 see fine prospects, and to make pithy observations 
 upon the world below ; such as these, for instance : 
 that the earth, beheld from a height that one trem- 
 bles to think of, has the appearance of a circular 
 plain ; that England is a very rich and cultivated 
 country, in which every man's property is ascertained 
 by the hedges that intersect the lands ; and that 
 London and Westminster, seen from the neighbour- 
 hood of the moon, make but an insignificant figure. 
 I admit the utility of these remarks ; but in the mean 
 time, I say chacun a so?i gout ; and mine is rather 
 to creep than fly, and to carry with me, if possible, 
 an unbroken neck to the grave. 
 I remain, as ever, 
 
 Your affectionate 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Dec. 13, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — Having imitated no man, I may 
 reasonably hope that I shall not incur the disadvan-
 
 3.M2 LIFE OF COWPER 
 
 tage of a comparison with my betters. Milton's 
 manner was peculiar. So is Thomson's. He that 
 should write like either of them would in my judg- 
 ment deserve the name of a copyist, but not a poet. 
 A judicious and sensible reader therefore, like your- 
 self, will not say that my manner is not good, be- 
 cause it does not resemble theirs, but will rather 
 consider what it is in itself. Blank verse is suscep- 
 tible of a much greater diversification of manner 
 than verse in rhyme : and, why the modern writers 
 of it have all thought proper to cast their numbers 
 alike, I know not. Certainly it was not necessity 
 that compelled them to it. I flatter myself how- 
 ever that I have avoided that sameness with others, 
 which would entitle me to nothing but a share in 
 one common oblivion with them all. It is possible 
 that, as a reviewer of my former volume found cause 
 to say, that he knew not to what class of writers to 
 refer me, the reviewer of this, whoever he shall be, 
 may see occasion to remark the same singularity. 
 At any rate, though as little apt to be sanguine as 
 most men, and more prone to fear and despond than 
 to overrate my own productions, I am persuaded 
 that I shall not forfeit any thing by this volume that 
 I gained by the last. As to the title, I take it 
 to be the best that is to be had. It is not possible 
 that a book including such a variety of subjects, and 
 in which no particular one is predominant, should 
 find a title adapted to them all. In such a case it 
 seemed almost necessary to accommodate the name 
 to the incident that gave birth to the poem ; nor
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 333 
 
 does it appear to me that, because I performed more 
 than my task, therefore " The Task" is not a suitable 
 title. A house would still be a house, though the 
 builder of it should make it ten times as big as he 
 at first intended. I might indeed, following the 
 example of the Sunday newsmonger, call it the 
 Olio. But I should do myself wrong: for, though it 
 Iseve much variety, it has I trust no confusion. 
 
 For the same reason none of the inferior titles 
 apply themselves to the contents at large of that 
 book to which they belong. They are, every one 
 of them, taken either from the leading (I should say 
 the introductory) passage of that particular book, or 
 from tliaf which makes the most conspicuous figure 
 in it. Had 1 set off with a design to write upon a 
 gridiron, and had I actually written near two hun- 
 dred lines upon that utensil, as I have upon the 
 Sofa, the gridiron should have been my title. But 
 the Sofa being, as I may say, the starting-post, from 
 which I addressed myself to the long race that I 
 soon conceived a design to run, it acquired a just 
 pre-eminence in my account, and was very worthily 
 advanced to the titular honour it enjoys, its right 
 being at least so far a good one, that no word in the 
 language could pretend a better. 
 
 The Time-piece appears to me, (though by some 
 accident the import of that title has escaped you) 
 to have a degree of propriety beyond the most of 
 them. The book to which it belongs is intended 
 to strike the hour that gives notice of approaching 
 judgment ; and, dealing pretty largely in the signs
 
 334 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 of the times, seems to be denominated, as it is, 
 with a sufficient degree of accommodation to the 
 subject. 
 
 As to the word icorm, it is the very appellation 
 which Milton himself, in a certain passage of the 
 Paradise Lost, gives to the serpent. Not having 
 the book at hand, I cannot now refer to it, but I 
 am sure of the fact. I am mistaken too if Shaki*- 
 peare's Cleopatra do not call the asp by which she 
 thought fit to destroy herself by the same name : 
 but, not having read the play these five-and-twenty 
 years, I will not affirm it. They are however with- 
 out all doubt convertible terms. A worm is a small 
 serpent, and a serpent is a large worm. And when 
 an epithet significant of the most terrible species of 
 those creatures is adjoined, the idea is surely suffi- 
 ciently ascertained. No animal of the vermicular 
 or serpentine kind is crested but the most formidable 
 of all. 
 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 W. C. 
 
 The passages alluded to by Cowper are as fol- 
 lows : — 
 
 O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give eiir 
 To that false uorm, of whomsoever taught 
 To counterfeit man's voice ; &c. 
 
 Paradise Lost, book 9 
 
 Hast thou the pretty woi-m of Nilus there, 
 That kills and pains not ] 
 
 Shakspeare's Anthony (5f Cleopatra, Act, 5.
 
 LIFE OF COVVPER. 335 
 
 TO THE KEV. WILLIAxM UNVVIN. 
 
 Olney, Dec. 18, 1784. 
 
 My dear Friend — I condole with you that you 
 had the trouble to ascend St. Paul's in vain, but at 
 the same time congratulate you that you escaped 
 an ague. I should be very well pleased to have a 
 fair prospect of" a balloon under sail with a philo- 
 sopher or two on board, but at the same time should 
 be very sorry to expose myself, for any length of 
 time, to the rigour of the upper regions at this sea- 
 son for the sake of it. The travellers themselves, I 
 suppose, are secured from all injuries of the weather 
 by that fervency of spirit and agitation of mind 
 which must needs accompany them in their flight ; 
 advantages which the more composed and phleg- 
 matic spectator is not equally possessed of. 
 
 The inscription of the poem is more your own 
 affair than any other person's. You have therefore 
 an undoubted right to fashion it to your mind, nor 
 have I the least objection to the slight alteration that 
 you have made in it. I inserted what you have 
 erased for a reason that was perhaps rather chime- 
 rical than solid. I feared however that the re- 
 viewers, or some of my sagacious readers not more 
 merciful than they, might suspect that there was a 
 secret design in the wind, and that author and friend 
 liad consulted in what manner author might intro- 
 duce friend to public notice as a clergyman every 
 way qualified to entertain a pupil or two, if perad- 
 venture any gentleman of fortune were in want of a
 
 336 LIFE OF COWFER. 
 
 tutor for his childi-en : I therefore added the words, 
 " And of his two sons only," by way of insinuating 
 that you are perfectly satisfied with your present 
 charge, and that you do not wish for more ; thus 
 meaning to obviate an illiberal construction which 
 we are both of us incapable of deserving. But, the . 
 same caution not having appeared to you to be ne- 
 cessary, I am very willing and ready to suppose that 
 it is not so. 
 
 I intended in my last to have given you my rea- 
 sons for the compliment that I paid Bishop Bagot, 
 lest, knowing that I have no personal connexion with 
 him, you should suspect me of having done it rather 
 too much at a venture.* In the first place, then, I 
 wished the world to know that I have no objection to 
 a bishop, quid bishop. In the second place, the 
 brothers were all five my school-fellows, and very 
 amiable and valuable boys they were. Thirdljs 
 Lewis, the bishop, had been rudely and coarsely 
 treated in the Monthly Review, on account of a 
 sermon which appeared to me, when I read their 
 extract from it, to deserve the highest commen- 
 dations, as exhibiting explicit proof both of his good 
 sense and his unfeigned piety. For these causes, 
 me thereunto moving, I felt myself haj^py in an 
 opportunity to do public honour to a worthy man 
 w ho had been publicly traduced ; and indeed the 
 reviewers themselves have since repented of their 
 aspersions, and have travelled not a little out of 
 their way in order to retract them, having taken 
 occasion, by the sermon preached at the bishop's vi- 
 sitation at Norwich, to say every thing handsome of 
 
 * Tirocinium.
 
 LIFE OF COWFEK. 337 
 
 his lordship, who, whatever miglit be tlie merit of 
 the discourse, in that instance, at least could him- 
 self lay claim to no other than that of being a 
 hearer. 
 
 Since 1 wrote, I have had a letter from Mr, New- 
 ton that did not please me, and returned an answer 
 to it that possibly may not have pleased him. We 
 shall come together again soon (I suppose) upon as 
 amicable terms as usual : but at present he is in a 
 state of mortification. He would have been pleased 
 had the book passed out of his hands into yours, or 
 even out of yours into his, so that he had previously 
 had opportunity to advise a measure which I pur- 
 sued without his recommendation, and had seen the 
 poems in manuscript. But my design was to pay 
 you a whole compliment, and I have done it. If he 
 says more on the subject, I shall speak freely, and 
 perhaps please him less than I have done already. 
 Yours, with our love to you all, 
 
 w. c. 
 
 TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. 
 
 Olney, Christmas-eve, 1784. 
 My dear Friend — I am neither Mede nor Persian, 
 neither am I the son of any such, but was born at 
 Great Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, and yet I 
 can neither find a new title for my book nor please 
 myself with any additon to the old one. I am how- 
 ever willing to hope that when the volume shall cast 
 itself at your feet, you will be in some measure re- 
 
 VOL. 11. z
 
 338 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 conciled to tlie name it bears, especially when you 
 shall find it justified both by the exordium of the 
 poem and by the conclusion. But enough, as you 
 say with great truth, of a subject very unworthy of 
 so much consideration. 
 
 Had I heard any anecdotes of poor dying , 
 
 that would have bid fair to deserve your attention, 
 I should have sent them. The little that he is re- 
 ported to have uttered of a spiritual import, was not 
 very striking. That little, however, I can give you 
 upon good authority. His brother asking him how 
 he found himself, he replied, " I am composed, and 
 think that I may safely believe myself entitled to a 
 portion." The world has had much to say in his 
 praise, and both prose and verse have been employed 
 to celebrate him in " The Northampton Mercury," 
 But Christians, I suppose, have judged it best to 
 be silent. If he ever drank at the fountain of life, 
 he certainly drank also, and often too freely, of certain 
 other streams, which are not to be bought without 
 money and without price. He had virtues that 
 dazzled the natural eye, and failings that shocked 
 the spiritual one. But iste dies hidicabit. 
 
 w. c. 
 
 In reviewing the events in Cowper's Life, re- 
 corded in the present volume, our remarks must 
 be brief His personal history continues to present 
 the same afflicting spectacle of a man, always strug- 
 gling under the pressure o^ a load frcm which no
 
 LIFE OF COWPER. 339 
 
 effort, either on his own part, or on that of others, 
 is able to extricate him. We know nothing more 
 touching than some of the letters in the Private 
 Correspondence, in reference to this subject ; and 
 we consider them indispensable to a clear elucida- 
 tion of the state of his mind and feelings. Their 
 deep pathos, their ingenuous disclosure of all that 
 he feels, and still more, of all that he dreads ; the 
 delusion under which the mind evidently labours, 
 and yet the fixed and unalterable integrity of prin- 
 ciple that reigns within, form a sublime scene that 
 awakens sympathy and commands admiration. 
 
 That under circumstances of such deep trial, the 
 powers of his mind should remain free and unim- 
 paired ; that he should be able to produce a work 
 like " The Task," destined to survive so long as taste, 
 truth, and nature shall exercise their empire over 
 the heart, is not only a phenomenon in the history 
 of the human mind, but serves to show that the 
 greatest calamities are not without their alleviation ; 
 that God knows how to temper the wind to tlie 
 shorn lamb, and that the bush may be on fire with- 
 out being consumed. 
 
 It is by dispensations such as these that tiie 
 Moral Governor of the world admonishes and in- 
 structs us ; and that we learn to adore his wisdom 
 and overruling power and love. We also see the 
 value of mental resources, and that literature, and 
 art, and science, when consecrated to the highest 
 ends, not only ennoble our existence, but are a 
 solace under its heaviest cares and disquietudes.
 
 340 LIFE OF COWPER. 
 
 It was this divine philosophy, so richly poured over 
 the pages of the Task, that strengtliened and sustained 
 the mind of Covv^per. The Muse was his delight 
 and refuge, but it was the Muse clad in the panoply 
 of heaven, and soaring to the heights of Zion. He 
 taught the school of poets a sublime moral lesson, 
 not to debase a noble art by ministering to the cor- 
 rupt passions of our nature, but to make it the 
 vehicle of pure and elevated thought, the honourable 
 ally of virtue, and the handmaid of true religion : 
 that it is not sufficient to captivate the taste, and to 
 lead through the regions of poetic f«ncy ; 
 
 " The still small voice is wanted." 
 It is this characteristic feature that constitutes 
 the charm of Cowper's poetry, and his title to im- 
 mortality. He approached the temple of fame 
 through the vestibule of the sanctuary, and snatched 
 the live coal from the burning altar. It is his object 
 to reprove vice, to vindicate truth from error, to 
 endear home, by making it the scene of our virtues, 
 and the source of our joys, to enlarge the bounds of 
 simple and harmless pleasure, to exhibit nature in 
 all its attractive forms, and to trace God in the 
 works of his Providence, and in the mighty dispen- 
 sation of his Grace.
 
 NOTES TO VOLUME THE SECOND. 
 
 Page 10. 
 
 THE AMERICAN WAR. 
 
 Cowper, though a Whig, vindicates the American 
 war, keenly as he censures the inefficiency with 
 which it was conducted. The subject has now lost 
 much of its interest, and is become rather a matter 
 of historical record. Such is the influence of the 
 lapse of time on the intenseness of political feeling ! 
 The conduct of France, at this crisis, is exhibited 
 with a happy poignancy of wit. 
 
 " True we have lost an empire — let it pass. 
 True ; we may thank the perfidy of France, 
 That pick'd the jewel out of England's crown. 
 With all the cunning of an envious shrew. 
 And let that pass — 'twas but a trick of state." 
 
 Task, book ii. 
 
 Cowper subsequently raises the question how far 
 the attainment of Independence was likely to exer- 
 cise a salutary influence on the future prospects of
 
 342 NOTEi!. 
 
 America. He anticipates an unfavourable issue. 
 Events, however, have not fulfilled this prediction. 
 What country has made such rapid strides towards 
 Imperial greatness ? Where shall we find a more 
 boundless extent of" territory, a more rapid increase 
 ol" population, or ampler resources for a commerce 
 that promises to make the whole world tributary to 
 its support ? Besides, why should not the de- 
 scendants prove worthy of their sires ? Why should 
 a great experiment in legislation and government 
 suspend the natural course of political and moral 
 causes ? May the spiritual improvement of her 
 religious privileges keep pace with the career of 
 her national greatness ! What we most apprehend 
 for America is the danger of internal dissension. 
 If corruption be the disease of monarchies, faction 
 is the bane of republics. We add one more reflec- 
 tion, with sentiments of profound regret, and borrow 
 the muse of Cowper to convey our meaning and 
 our wishes. 
 
 '• 1 would not have a slave to till my ground. 
 To carry me, to fan me while I sleep. 
 And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth 
 That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd. 
 No ; dear as freedom is, and in my hearts 
 Just estimation priz'd above all price, 
 I had niucli rather be myself the slave. 
 And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.' 
 
 Tuik, book ii.
 
 343 
 
 Page 18. 
 Johnson's treatment of milton. 
 
 The severity of Johnson's strictures on Milton, 
 in his Lives of the Poets, awakened a keen sense of 
 indignation in the breast of Covvper, which he has 
 recorded in the marginal remarks, written in his 
 own copy of that work. They are characteristic of 
 the generous ardour of his mind, in behalf of a man 
 whose political views, however strong, were at least 
 sincere and conscientious ; and the splendour of 
 whose name ought to have dissipated the animosi- 
 ties of party feeling. From these curious and in- 
 teresting comments we extract the following. 
 
 Johnson — " I know not any of the Articles which 
 seem to thwart his opinions, but the thoughts of 
 obedience, whether canonical or civil, roused his 
 indignation." Coivper — " Candid !" 
 
 Johnson — " Of these Italian testimonies, poor as 
 they are, he was proud enough to publish them be- 
 fore his poems ; though he says he cannot be sus- 
 pected but to have known that they were said, Non 
 tarn de sc, qucun supra se." Cowper — " He did 
 well." 
 
 Johnson — " I have transcribed this title to shew, 
 by his contemptuous mention of Usher, that he had 
 now adopted a puritanical savageness of manners." 
 Covjper — "Why is it contemptuous? Especially, 
 why is it savage ?" 
 
 Johnson — " From this time it is observed, that 
 he became an enemy to the Presbyterians, whom
 
 344 NOTES. 
 
 he had favoured before. He that changes his party 
 by his humour, is not more virtuous than he that 
 changes it by his interest. He loves himself rather 
 than truth." Cowper — " You should have proved 
 that he was influenced by his humour." 
 
 ./o/</?so« — " It were injurious to omit, that Mil- 
 ton afterwards received her father and her brothers 
 in his own house when they were distressed, with 
 other Royalists." Coivper — " Strong proof of a 
 temper both forgiving and liberal." 
 
 Johnson — " But as faction seldom leaves a man 
 honest, however it may find him, Milton is suspected 
 of having interpolated the book called ' Ikon Basi- 
 like,' &c." Cotcper — " A strange proof of your 
 proposition !" 
 
 Johnson — " I cannot but remark a kind of re- 
 spect, perhaps unconsciously paid to this great man 
 by his biographers. Every house in which he re- 
 sided is historically mentioned, as if it were an in- 
 jury to neglect naming any place that he honoured 
 by his presence." Cowper — " They have all paid 
 him more than you." 
 
 Johnson — " If he considered the Latin Secretary 
 as exercising any of the powers of Government, he 
 that had showed authority either with the Parlia- 
 ment or with Cromwell, might have forborne to talk 
 very loudly of his honesty." Coioper — " He 
 might, if he acted on principle, talk as loudly as 
 lie pleased." 
 
 Johnson — " This darkness, had his eyes been 
 better employed, had undoubtedly deserved com- 
 passion." Coivper — " Brute !"
 
 NOTES. 345 
 
 Johmon — " That his own daugliters might not 
 break the ranks, he suffered them to be depressed 
 by a mean and penurious education. He thought 
 women made only for obedience, and man only for 
 rebellion." Coicper — " And could you write this 
 without blushing ? Os hominis /" 
 
 Johnson — " Such is his malignity, that hell 
 grows darker at his frown." Cowper — " And at 
 THINE !" 
 
 Page 54. 
 
 MR. B.'s EXTRAORDINARY CASE. 
 
 The person here alluded to is Simon Browne, a 
 learned Dissenting minister, born at Shepton Mallet, 
 about the year 1680. He laboured under a most 
 extraordinary species of mental derangement, which 
 led him to believe " that God had in a gradual 
 manner annihilated in him the thinking substance, 
 and utterly divested him of consciousness ; and 
 that, although he retained the human shape, and 
 the faculty of speaking, in a manner that appeared 
 to others rational, he had all the while no more no- 
 tion of what he said than a parrot." His intellec- 
 tual faculties were not in any way affected by this 
 singular alienation of mind, in proof of which lie 
 published many theological works, written with 
 great clearness and vigour of thought. He ad- 
 dressed a Dedication to Queen Caroline, in which 
 he details the peculiarities of his extraordinary case, 
 but his friends prevented its publication. It was 
 subsequently inserted in No. 88 of the " Adven-
 
 346 NOTES. 
 
 turer." Such was the force of his dehision, that he 
 considered liimself no longer to be a moral agent ; 
 he desisted from his ministerial functions, and could 
 never be induced to engage in any act of worship, 
 public or private. In this state he died, in the 
 year 1732, aged fifty-five years. 
 
 Page 62. 
 
 LORD Rodney's celebrated victory, april 12, 
 1782. 
 
 His Lordship, on receiving the thanks of Parlia- 
 ment on this occasion, addressed a letter of ac- 
 knowledgment to the Speaker, conveyed in the 
 following terms. " To fulfil," he observed, " the 
 wishes, and execute the commands of my Sove- 
 reign, was my duty. To command a fleet so well 
 appointed, both in officers and men, was my good 
 fortune ; as by their undaunted spirit and valour, 
 under Divine Providence, the glory of that day was 
 acquired." 
 
 Page 117. 
 
 AMERICA MAY BECOME A LAND OK EXTRAORDINARY 
 EVANGELICAL LIGHT. 
 
 There is a remarkable passage in Herbert's 
 Sacred Poems expressive of this expectation, and 
 indicating the probable period of its fulfilment. 
 
 " Religion stands on tiptoe in our ]and, 
 Ready to pass to the American strand. 
 When heigbt of malice, and prodigious lusts, 
 Impudent sinnin?, witchcrafts, and distrusts,
 
 NOTES. 347 
 
 The marks of future bane, sliall fill our cup 
 Unto the brim, and make our measure up : 
 When Seine shall swallow Tiber, and the Thames, 
 By letting in them both, pollute her streams ; 
 When Italy of us shall have her will, 
 And all her calendar of sins fulfil ; 
 Then shall Religion to America flee ; 
 They have their times of Gospel, ev'n as we." 
 
 Herbert concludes by predicting that Christia- 
 nity shall then complete its circuit by returning 
 once more to the East, the original source of Em- 
 pire, of the Arts, and of Religion, and so prepare 
 the way for the final consummation of all things. 
 
 Page 140. 
 
 EARTHQUAKES IN CALABRIA AND SICILY. 
 
 Cowper has selected this awful catastrophe for 
 the exercise of his poetic powers. His mind seems 
 to have been impregnated with the grandeur of 
 the theme, which he has presented to the imagina- 
 tion of the reader with all the accuracy of historic 
 detail. We quote the following extracts. 
 
 " Alas for Sicily ! rude fragments now 
 
 Lie scatter'd, where the shapely column stood. 
 Her palaces are dust. In all her streets 
 The voice of singing and the sprightly chord 
 Are silent. .... 
 
 The rocks fall headlong, and the vallies rise — 
 The sylvan scene 
 Migrates uplifted ; and with all its soil 
 Alighting in far distant fields, finds out 
 A new possessor, and survives the change. 
 Ocean has caught the frenzy, and, upnroujiht
 
 348 NOTES. 
 
 To an enormous and o'erbearing height. 
 Not by a mighty wind, but by that voice 
 Which winds and waves obey, invades the shore 
 Resistless. Never such a sudden flood, 
 Upridg'd so high, and sent on such a charge, 
 Possess'd an inland scene. Where now the throng 
 That press'd the beach, and, hasty to depart, 
 Look'd to the sea for safety 1 — They are gone, 
 Gone with the refluent wave into the deep — 
 A prince with half his people I" 
 
 Task, book ii. 
 
 Pa(/e 167. 
 cook's voyages. 
 
 "I seem to partake with the navigators in all the 
 dangers they encountered." 
 
 " He travels, and I too. I tread his deck. 
 Ascend his topmast, through liis peering eyes 
 Discover countries, with a kindred heart 
 Suffer his woes, and share in his escapes; 
 While fancy, like the finger of a clock, 
 Runs the great circuit, and is still at home." 
 
 Task, book iv. 
 
 END OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
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