Chapter XXXIII: Part THE SECOND (15)

I rejoice, my dear friend, that you enjoy some composure and cheerfulness of spirits; may God preserve and increase to you so great a blessing!

I am affectionately and truly yours,

W. C.

* * * * *

Cowper again resumes the subject of his painful dispensation, in the following letter to Newton.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[347]

[347] Private correspondence.

Olney, Aug. 5, 1786.

My dear Friend,--You have heard of our intended removal. The house that is to receive us is in a state of preparation, and, when finished, will be both smarter and more commodious than our present abode. But the circumstance that recommends it chiefly is its situation. Long confinement in the winter, and, indeed, for the most part in the autumn too, has hurt us both. A gravel-walk, thirty yards long, affords but indifferent scope to the locomotive faculty: yet it is all that we have had to move in for eight months in the year, during thirteen years that I have been a prisoner. Had I been confined in the Tower, the battlements of it would have furnished me with a larger space. You say well, that there was a time when I was happy at Olney; and I am now as happy at Olney as I expect to be any where without the presence of God. Change of situation is with me no otherwise an object than as both Mrs. Unwin's health and mine may happen to be concerned in it. A fever of the slow and spirit-oppressing kind seems to belong to all, except the natives, who have dwelt in Olney many years; and the natives have putrid fevers. Both they and we, I believe, are immediately indebted for our respective maladies to an atmosphere encumbered with raw vapours, issuing from flooded meadows; and we in particular, perhaps, have fared the worse for sitting so often, and sometimes for months, over a cellar filled with water. These ills we shall escape in the uplands; and, as we may reasonably hope, of course, their consequences. But, as for happiness, he that has once had communion with his Maker, must be more frantic than ever I was yet, if he can dream of finding it at a distance from Him. I no more expect happiness at Weston than here, or than I should expect it in company with felons and outlaws in the hold of a ballast-lighter. Animal spirits, however, have their value, and are especially desirable to him who is condemned to carry a burthen, which, at any rate, will tire him, but which, without their aid, cannot fail to crush him. The dealings of God with me are to myself utterly unintelligible. I have never met, either in books or in conversation, with an experience at all similar to my own. More than a twelvemonth has passed since I began to hope that, having walked the whole breadth of the bottom of this Red Sea, I was beginning to climb the opposite shore, and I prepared to sing the song of Moses. But I have been disappointed: those hopes have been blasted; those comforts have been wrested from me. I could not be so duped, even by the arch-enemy himself, as to be made to question the divine nature of them; but I have been made to believe (which, you will say, is being duped still more) that God gave them to me in derision and took them away in vengeance. Such, however, is, and has been, my persuasion many a long day, and when I shall think on that subject more comfortably, or, as you will be inclined to tell me, more rationally and scripturally, I know not. In the meantime, I embrace with alacrity every alleviation of my case, and with the more alacrity, because whatsoever proves a relief of my distress is a cordial to Mrs. Unwin, whose sympathy with me, through the whole of it, has been such that, despair excepted, her burden has been as heavy as mine. Lady Hesketh, by her affectionate behaviour, the cheerfulness of her conversation, and the constant sweetness of her temper, has cheered us both, and Mrs. Unwin not less than me. By her help we get change of air and of scene, though still resident at Olney, and by her means have intercourse with some families in this country, with whom, but for her, we could never have been acquainted. Her presence here would, at any time, even in my happiest days, have been a comfort to me, but in the present day I am doubly sensible of its value. She leaves nothing unsaid, nothing undone, that she thinks will be conducive to our well-being; and, so far as she is concerned, I have nothing to wish but that I could believe her sent hither in mercy to myself,--then I should be thankful.

I am, my dear friend, with Mrs. Unwin's love to Mrs. N. and yourself, hers and yours, as ever,

W. C.

* * * * *

Having so recently considered the peculiar circumstances of Cowper's depression, we shall not further advert to it than to state, on the authority of John Higgins, Esq., of Turvey, who, at that time, enjoyed frequent opportunities of observing his manner and habits, that there was no perceptible appearance of his labouring under so oppressive a malady. On the contrary his spirits, as far as outward appearances testified, were remarkably cheerful, and sometimes even gay and sportive. In a letter to Mrs. King, which will subsequently appear, will be found a remark to the same effect.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Olney, Aug. 24, 1786.

My dear Friend,--I catch a minute by the tail and hold it fast while I write to you. The moment it is fled I must go to breakfast. I am still occupied in refining and polishing, and shall this morning give the finishing hand to the seventh book. F---- does me the honour to say that the most difficult and most interesting parts of the poem are admirably rendered. But, because he did not express himself equally pleased with the more pedestrian parts of it, my labour therefore has been principally given to the dignification of them; not but that I have retouched considerably, and made better still the best. In short, I hope to make it all of a piece, and shall exert myself to the utmost to secure that desirable point. A story-teller, so very circumstantial as Homer, must of necessity present us often with much matter in itself capable of no other embellishment than purity of diction and harmony of versification can give to it. _Hic labor, hoc opus est._ For our language, unless it be very severely chastised, has not the terseness, nor our measure the music of the Greek, But I shall not fail through want of industry.

We are likely to be very happy in our connexion with the Throckmortons. His reserve and mine wear off; and he talks with great pleasure of the comfort that he proposes to himself from our winter evening conversations. His purpose seems to be that we should spend them alternately with each other. Lady Hesketh transcribes for me at present. When she is gone, Mrs. Throckmorton takes up that business, and will be my lady of the ink-bottle for the rest of the winter. She solicited herself that office.

Believe me,
My dear William, truly yours,
W. C.

Mr. Throckmorton will (I doubt not) procure Lord Petre's name, if he can, without any hint from me. He could not interest himself more in my success than he seems to do. Could he get the Pope to subscribe, I should have him, and should be glad of him and the whole conclave.

* * * * *

The following letters are without a date; nor do we know to what period they refer. We insert them in the order in which we find them.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

My dear Friend,--You are my mahogany box, with a slip in the lid of it, to which I commit my productions of the lyric kind, in perfect confidence that they are safe, and will go no farther. All who are attached to the jingling art have this peculiarity, that they would find no pleasure in the exercise, had they not one friend at least to whom they might publish what they have composed. If you approve my Latin, and your wife and sister my English, this, together with the approbation of your mother, is fame enough for me.

He who cannot look forward with comfort must find what comfort he can in looking backward. Upon this principle I the other day sent my imagination upon a trip thirty years behind me. She was very obedient and very swift of foot, presently performed her journey, and at last set me down in the sixth form at Westminster. I fancied myself once more a school-boy, a period of life in which, if I had never tasted true happiness, I was at least equally unacquainted with its contrary. No manufacturer of waking dreams ever succeeded better in his employment than I do. I can weave such a piece of tapestry, in a few minutes, as not only has all the charms of reality, but is embellished also with a variety of beauties, which, though they never existed, are more captivating than any that ever did:--accordingly, I was a school-boy, in high favour with the master, received a silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form, for the admiration of all who were able to understand it. Do you wish to see this highly applauded performance? It follows on the other side.

[_Torn off._][348]

[348] This jeu d'esprit has never been found, notwithstanding the
most diligent inquiry.

By way of compensation, we subjoin some verses addressed to a young lady, at the request of Mr. Unwin, to whom he thus writes:--

"I have endeavoured to comply with your request, though I am not good at writing upon a given subject. Your mother however comforts me by her approbation, and I steer myself in all that I produce by her judgment. If she does not understand me at the first reading, I am sure the lines are obscure and always alter them; if she laughs, I know it is not without reason; and if she says, "That's well, it will do," I have no fear lest any body else should find fault with it. She is my lord chamberlain, who licenses all I write.

TO MISS C----, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.

How many between east and west
Disgrace their parent earth,
Whose deeds constrain us to detest
The day that gave them birth!

Not so when Stella's natal morn
Revolving months restore,
We can rejoice that she was born,
And wish her born once more!

If you like it, use it: if not, you know the remedy. It is serious, yet epigrammatic--like a bishop at a ball!"

W. C.

* * * * *

It is remarkable, that the laudable efforts which are now making to enforce the better observance of the Lord's day, to diminish the temptations to perjury by the unnecessary multiplication of oaths, and to arrest the progress of the vice of drunkenness, appear from the following letter to have been anticipated nearly fifty years since, by the Rev. William Unwin. Deeply impressed with a sense of the extent and enormity of these national sins, his conscientious mind (always seeking opportunities for doing good) led him to urge the employment of Cowper's pen in the correction of these evils. What he suggested, as we believe, was as follows, viz. to draw up a memorial or representation on this subject to the bench of bishops, as the constituted guardians of public morals, and thus to call forth their united exertions; secondly, to awaken the public mind to the magnitude of these crimes, and, finally, to obtain some legislative enactment for their prevention.

We now insert Cowper's reply to the proposition of his friend Mr. Unwin.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

My dear Friend,--I am sensibly mortified at finding myself obliged to disappoint you; but, though I have had many thoughts upon the subjects you propose to my consideration, I have had none that have been favourable to the undertaking. I applaud your purpose, for the sake of the principle from which it springs, but I look upon the evils you mean to animadvert upon as too obstinate and inveterate ever to be expelled by the means you mention. The very persons to whom you would address your remonstrance are themselves sufficiently aware of their enormity; years ago, to my knowledge, they were frequently the topics of conversations at polite tables; they have been frequently mentioned in both houses of parliament; and, I suppose, there is hardly a member of either who would not immediately assent to the necessity of a reformation, were it proposed to him in a reasonable way. But there it stops; and there it will for ever stop, till the majority are animated with a zeal in which they are at present deplorably defective. A religious man is unfeignedly shocked when he reflects upon the prevalence of such crimes; a moral man must needs be so in a degree, and will affect to be much more so than he is. But how many do you suppose there are among our worthy representatives that come under either of these descriptions? If all were such, yet to new model the police of the country, which must be done in order to make even unavoidable perjury less frequent, were a task they would hardly undertake, on account of the great difficulty that would attend it. Government is too much interested in the consumption of malt liquor to reduce the number of venders. Such plausible pleas may be offered in defence of travelling on Sundays, especially by the trading part of the world, as the whole bench of bishops would find it difficult to overrule. And with respect to the violation of oaths, till a certain name is more generally respected than it is at present, however such persons as yourself may be grieved at it, the legislature are never likely to lay it to heart. I do not mean, nor would by any means attempt, to discourage you in so laudable enterprise, but such is the light in which it appears to me, that I do not feel the least spark of courage qualifying or prompting me to embark in it myself. An exhortation therefore written by me, by hopeless, desponding me, would be flat, insipid, and uninteresting; and disgrace the cause instead of serving it. If, after what I have said, however, you still retain the same sentiments, _Macte esto virtute tuâ_, there is nobody better qualified than yourself, and may your success prove that I despaired of it without a reason.

Adieu,
My dear friend,
W. C.

* * * * *

Cowper, it seems, declined his friend's proposal, and was by no means sanguine in his hopes of a remedy. The reasons he assigns are sufficient to deter the generality of mankind. Still there are men always raised up by the the providence of God, in his own appointed time--endowed from above with qualifications necessary for great enterprises--distinguished too by a perseverance that no toil can weary, and which no opposition can divert from its purpose, because they are inwardly supported by the integrity of their motives, and by a deep conviction of the importance of their object. To men of this ethereal stamp, trials are but an incentive to exertion, because they never fail to see through those besetting difficulties, which obstruct the progress of all good undertakings, the final accomplishment of all their labours.

Let no man despair of success in a righteous cause. Let him well conceive his plan and mature it: let him gain all the aid that can be derived from the counsel of wise and reflecting minds; and, above all, let him implore the illuminating influences of that Holy Spirit, which can alone impart what all want, "the wisdom that is from above," which is "pure, peaceable, gentle, and full of good fruits;" let him be simple in his view, holy in his purpose, zealous, prudent, and persevering in its pursuit; and we feel no hesitation in saying, _that man will be_ "_blessed in his deed_." There are no difficulties, if his object be practicable, and prosecuted in a right spirit, that he may not hope to conquer; no corrupt passions of men over which he may not finally triumph, because there is a Divine Power that can level the highest mountains and exalt the lowest valleys, and because it is recorded for our consolation and instruction: "And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light, to go by day and night. He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people."[349]

[349] Exodus, xiii. 21, 22.

With respect to the more immediate subject of Cowper's letter, so far as it is applicable to modern times, we must confess that we are sanguine in our hopes of improvement, founded on the increasing moral spirit of the times, and the Divine agency, now so visibly interposing in the affairs of men. Every abuse will progressively receive its appropriate and counteracting remedy. The Lord's day will be rescued from gross profanation, and the claims of the revenue be compelled to yield to the weight and authority of public feeling. How just and forcible is the following portrait drawn by the Muse of Cowper!

"The Excise is fattened with the rich result
Of all this riot; and ten thousand casks,
For ever dribbling out their base contents,
Touched by the Midas finger of the state.
Bleed gold for ministers to sport away.
Drink, and be mad then; 'tis your country bids!
Gloriously drunk obey the important call!
Her cause demands the assistance of your throats;
Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more."

_The Task_, Book iv.

We know not to what event the following letter refers, as it is without any date to guide us. It may probably relate to the period of Lord George Gordon's riots. We insert it as we find it.[350]

[350] Men who are of sufficient celebrity to entitle their
letters to the honour of future publication would do well in
never omitting to attach a date to them. The neglect of this
precaution, on the part of the Rev. Legh Richmond, led to much
perplexity.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

Though we live in a nook, and the world is quite unconscious that there are any such beings in it as ourselves, yet we are not unconcerned about what passes in it. The present awful crisis, big with the fate of England, engages much of our attention. The action is probably over by this time, and though we know it not, the grand question is decided, whether the war shall roar in our once peaceful fields, or whether we shall still only hear of it at a distance. I can compare the nation to no similitude more apt than that of an ancient castle, that had been for days assaulted by the battering-ram. It was long before the stroke of that engine made any sensible impression, but the continual repetition at length communicated a slight tremor to the wall; the next, and the next, and the next blow increased it. Another shock puts the whole mass in motion, from the top to the foundation; it bends forward, and is every moment driven farther from the perpendicular; till at last the decisive blow is given, and down it comes. Every million that has been raised within the last century, has had an effect upon the constitution like that of a blow from the aforesaid ram upon the aforesaid wall. The impulse becomes more and more important, and the impression it makes is continually augmented; unless therefore something extraordinary intervenes to prevent it--you will find the consequence at the end of my simile.

Yours,
W. C.

* * * * *

The letter which we next insert, is curious and interesting, as it contains a critique on the works of Churchill, whose style Cowper's is supposed to resemble, in its nervous strength and pungency. He calls him "the great Churchill."[351] One of his productions, not here mentioned, was entitled the Rosciad, containing strictures on the theatrical performers of that day, who trembled at his censures, or were elated by his praise. He has passed along the stream, and has ceased to be read, though once a popular writer. It is much to be lamented that his habits were irregular, his domestic duties violated, and his life at length shortened by intemperance. The reader may form an estimate of his poetical pretensions from the judgment here passed upon them by Cowper.

[351] Cowper was an admirer of Churchill, and is thought to have
formed his style on the model of that writer. But he is now no
longer "the _great_ Churchill." The causes of his reputation
have been the occasion of its decline. His productions are
founded on the popular yet evanescent topics of the time, which
have ceased to create interest. He who wishes to survive in
the memory of future ages must possess, not only the attribute
of commanding genius, but be careful to employ it on subjects
of abiding importance. His life was characterised by singular
imprudence, and by habits of gross vice and intemperance. A
preacher by profession, and a rake in practice, he abandoned the
church, or rather was compelled to resign its functions. Gifted
with a vigorous fancy, and superior powers, he prostituted them
to the purposes of political faction, and became the associate
and friend of Wilkes. A bankrupt, at length, both in fortune and
constitution, he was seized with a fever while paying a visit to
Mr. Wilkes, at Boulogne; and terminated his brilliant but guilty
career at the early age of thirty-four.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

My dear William,--How apt we are to deceive ourselves where self is in question! You say I am in your debt, and I accounted you in mine: a mistake to which you must attribute my arrears, if indeed I owe you any, for I am not backward to write where the uppermost thought is welcome.

I am obliged to you for all the books you have occasionally furnished me with: I did not indeed read many of Johnson's Classics--those of established reputation are so fresh in my memory, though many years have intervened since I made them my companions, that it was like reading what I read yesterday over again; and, as to the minor Classics, I did not think them worth reading at all. I tasted most of them, and did not like them: it is a great thing to be indeed a poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century. Churchill, the great Churchill, deserved the name of poet--I have read him twice, and some of his pieces three times over, and the last time with more pleasure than the first. The pitiful scribbler of his life seems to have undertaken that task, for which he was entirely unqualified, merely because it afforded him an opportunity to traduce him. He has inserted in it but one anecdote of consequence, for which he refers you to a novel, and introduces the story, with doubts about the truth of it. But his barrenness as a biographer I could forgive, if the simpleton had not thought himself a judge of his writings, and, under the erroneous influence of that thought informs his reader that Gotham, Independence, and the Times, were catchpennies. Gotham, unless I am a greater blockhead than he, which I am far from believing, is a noble and beautiful poem, and a poem with which I make no doubt the author took as much pains as with any he ever wrote. Making allowance (and Dryden, perhaps, in his Absolom and Achitophel stands in need of the same indulgence) for an unwarrantable use of scripture, it appears to me to be a masterly performance. Independence is a most animated piece, full of strength and spirit, and marked with that bold masculine character which I think is the great peculiarity of this writer. And the Times (except that the subject is disgusting to the last degree) stands equally high in my opinion. He is indeed a careless writer for the most part, but where shall we find, in any of those authors who finish their works with the exactness of a Flemish pencil, those bold and daring strokes of fancy, those numbers so hazardously ventured upon and so happily finished, the matter so compressed and yet so clear, and the colouring so sparingly laid on and yet with such a beautiful effect? In short, it is not his least praise that he is never guilty of those faults as a writer which he lays to the charge of others: a proof that he did not judge by a borrowed standard, or from rules laid down by critics, but that he was qualified to do it by his own native powers and his great superiority of genius: for he, that wrote so much and so fast, would, through inadvertence and hurry, unavoidably have departed from rules which he might have found in books, but his own truly poetical talent was a guide which could not suffer him to err. A race-horse is graceful in his swiftest pace, and never makes an awkward motion, though he is pushed to his utmost speed. A cart-horse might perhaps be taught to play tricks in the riding-school, and might prance and curvet like his betters, but at some unlucky time would be sure to betray the baseness of his original. It is an affair of very little consequence perhaps to the well-being of mankind, but I cannot help regretting that he died so soon. Those words of Virgil, upon the immature death of Marcellus, might serve for his epitaph.

"Ostendent terris hunc tantum fata, neque ultra
Esse sinent."

Yours,
W. C.

TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN.

My dear Friend,--I find the Register in all respects an entertaining medley, but especially in this, that it has brought to my view some long forgotten pieces of my own production. I mean by the way two or three. Those I have marked with my own initials, and you may be sure I found them peculiarly agreeable, as they had not only the grace of being mine, but that of novelty likewise to recommend them. It is at least twenty years since I saw them. You, I think, was never a dabbler in rhyme. I have been one ever since I was fourteen years of age, when I began with translating an elegy of Tibullus. I have no more right to the name of a poet than a maker of mouse-traps has to that of an engineer; but my little exploits in this way have at times amused me so much, that I have often wished myself a good one. Such a talent in verse as mine is like a child's rattle, very entertaining to the trifler that uses it and very disagreeable to all besides. But it has served to rid me of some melancholy moments, for I only take it up as a gentleman-performer does his fiddle. I have this peculiarity belonging to me as a rhymist, that though I am charmed to a great degree with my own work while it is on the anvil, I can seldom bear to look at it when it is once finished. The more I contemplate it the more it loses its value, till I am at last disgusted with it. I then throw it by, take it up again, perhaps ten years after, and am as much delighted with it as at the first.

Few people have the art of being agreeable when they talk of themselves; if you are not weary therefore, you pay me a high compliment.

I dare say Miss S----[352] was much diverted with the conjecture of her friends. The true key to the pleasure she found at Olney was plain enough to be seen, but they chose to overlook it. She brought with her a disposition to be pleased, which, whoever does, is sure to find a visit agreeable, because they make it so.

Yours,
W. C.

[352] Miss Shuttleworth.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Olney, August 31, 1786.

My dear Friend,--I began to fear for your health, and every day said to myself--I must write to Bagot soon, if it be only to ask him how he does--a measure that I should certainly have pursued long since, had I been less absorbed in Homer than I am. But such are my engagements in that quarter, that they make me, I think, good for little else.

Many thanks, my friend, for the names that you have sent me. The Bagots will make a most conspicuous figure among my subscribers, and I shall not, I hope, soon forget my obligations to them.

The unacquaintedness of modern ears with the divine harmony of Milton's numbers,[353] and the principles upon which he constructed them, is the cause of the quarrel that they have with elisions in blank verse. But where is the remedy? In vain should you or I, and a few hundreds more perhaps who have studied his versification, tell them of the superior majesty of it, and that for that majesty it is greatly indebted to those elisions. In their ears they are discord and dissonance, they lengthen the line beyond its due limits, and are therefore not to be endured. There is a whimsical inconsistence in the judgment of modern readers in this particular. Ask them all round, Whom do you account the best writer of blank verse? and they will reply, almost to a man, Milton, to be sure: Milton against the field! Yet if a writer of the present day should construct his numbers exactly upon Milton's plan, not one in fifty of these professed admirers of Milton would endure him. The case standing thus, what is to be done? An author must either be contented to give disgust to the generality, or he must humour them by sinning against his own judgment. This latter course, so far as elisions are concerned, I have adopted as essential to my success. In every other respect, I give as much variety in my measure as I can, I believe I may say as in ten syllables it is possible to give, shifting perpetually the pause and cadence, and accounting myself happy that modern refinement has not yet enacted laws against this also. If it had, I protest to you I would have dropped my design of translating Homer entirely; and with what an indignant stateliness of reluctance I make them the concession that I have mentioned, Mrs. Unwin can witness, who hears all my complaints upon the subject.

[353] Addison was the first, by his excellent critiques in the
Spectator, to excite public attention to a more just sense of
the immortal poem of the Paradise Lost. But it was reserved for
Johnson (Rambler, Nos. 86, 88, 90, 94) to point out the beauty
of Milton's versification. He showed that it was formed, as far
as our language admits, upon the best models of Greece and Rome,
united to the softness of the Italian, the most mellifluous
of all modern poetry. To these examples we may add the name
of Spenser, who is distinguished for a most melodious flow of
versification. Johnson emphatically remarks, that Milton's "skill
in harmony was not less than his invention or his learning." Dr.
J. Wharton also observes, that his verses vary, and resound as
much, and display as much majesty and energy, as any that can be
found in Dryden.

We subjoin the following passages as illustrating the melody
of his numbers, the grace and dignity of his style, the
correspondence of sound with the sentiment, the easy flow of his
verses into one another, and the beauty of his cadences.

THE DESCENT OF THE ANGEL RAPHAEL INTO PARADISE.

A seraph wing'd: six wings he wore, to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold,
And odours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
Sky tinctured grain. Like Maia's son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd
The circuit wide.

_Book_ v.

How sweetly did they float upon the wings
Of silence, through the empty vaulted night;
At every fall, smoothing the raven down
Of darkness, till it smiled.

THE BIRTH OF DEATH.

I fled, and cried out _Death_:
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
From all her caves, and back resounded _Death_!

EVE EATING THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT.

So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she ate.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
_That all was lost_.

_Book_ ix.

ADAM PARTICIPATING IN THE GREAT TRANSGRESSION.

He scrupled not to eat
Against his better knowledge--
Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs; and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky lour'd; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin--
Original.

_Book_ ix.

After having lived twenty years at Olney, we are on the point of leaving it, but shall not migrate far. We have taken a house in the village of Weston. Lady Hesketh is our good angel, by whose aid we are enabled to pass into a better air and a more walkable country. The imprisonment that we have suffered here, for so many winters, has hurt us both. That we may suffer it no longer, she stoops to Olney, lifts us from our swamp, and sets us down on the elevated grounds of Weston Underwood. There, my dear friend, I shall be happy to see you, and to thank you in person for all your kindness.

I do not wonder at the judgment that you form of--a foreigner; but you may assure yourself that, foreigner as he is, he has an exquisite taste in English verse. The man is all fire, and an enthusiast in the highest degree on the subject of Homer, and has given me more than once a jog, when I have been inclined to nap with my author. No cold water is to be feared from him that might abate my own fire, rather perhaps too much combustible.

Adieu! mon ami, Yours faithfully, W. C.

* * * * *

We reserve our remarks on the next letter till its close.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[354]

[354] Private correspondence

Olney, Sept. 30, 1786.

My dear Friend,--No length of separation will ever make us indifferent either to your pleasures or your pains. We rejoice that you have had so agreeable a jaunt and (excepting Mrs. Newton's terrible fall, from which, however, we are happy to find that she received so little injury) a safe return. We, who live encompassed by rural scenery, can afford to be stationary; though we ourselves, were I not too closely engaged with Homer, should perhaps follow your example, and seek a little refreshment from variety and change of place--a course that we might find not only agreeable, but, after a sameness of thirteen years, perhaps useful. You must, undoubtedly, have found your excursion beneficial, who at all other times endure, if not so close a confinement as we, yet a more unhealthy one, in city air and in the centre of continual engagements.

Your letter to Mrs. Unwin, concerning our conduct, and the offence taken at it in our neighbourhood, gave us both a great deal of concern; and she is still deeply affected by it. Of this you may assure yourself, that, if our friends in London have been grieved, they have been misinformed; which is the more probable, because the bearers of intelligence hence to London are not always very scrupulous concerning the truth of their reports; and that, if any of our serious neighbours have been astonished, they have been so without the smallest real occasion. Poor people are never well employed even when they judge one another; but when they undertake to scan the motives and estimate the behaviour of those whom Providence has exalted a little above them, they are utterly out of their province and their depth. They often see us get into Lady Hesketh's carriage, and rather uncharitably suppose that it always carries us into a scene of dissipation, which, in fact, it never does. We visit, indeed, at Mr. Throckmorton's, and at Gayhurst; rarely, however, at Gayhurst, on account of the greater distance: more frequently, though not very frequently, at Weston, both because it is nearer, and because our business in the house that is making ready for us often calls us that way. The rest of our journeys are to Bozeat turnpike and back again; or perhaps, to the cabinet-maker's at Newport. As Othello says,

The very head and front of my offending
Hath this extent, no more.

What good we can get or can do in these visits, is another question; which they, I am sure, are not at all qualified to solve. Of this we are both sure, that under the guidance of Providence we have formed these connexions; that we should have hurt the Christian cause, rather than have served it, by a prudish abstinence from them; and that St. Paul himself, conducted to them as we have been, would have found it expedient to have done as we have done. It is always impossible to conjecture, to much purpose, from the beginnings of a providence, in what it will terminate. If we have neither received nor communicated any spiritual good at present, while conversant with our new acquaintance, at least no harm has befallen on either side; and it were too hazardous an assertion even for our censorious neighbours to make, that, because the cause of the Gospel does not appear to have been served at present, therefore it never can be in any future intercourse that we may have with them. In the meantime, I speak a strict truth, and as in the sight of God, when I say that we are neither of us at all more addicted to gadding than heretofore. We both naturally love seclusion from company, and never go into it without putting a force upon our disposition; at the same time, I will confess, and you will easily conceive, that the melancholy incident to such close confinement as we have so long endured finds itself a little relieved by such amusements as a society so innocent affords. You may look round the Christian world, and find few, I believe, of our station, who have so little intercourse as we with the world that is not Christian.

We place all the uneasiness that you have felt for us upon this subject to the account of that cordial friendship of which you have long given us proof. But you may be assured, that, notwithstanding all rumours to the contrary, we are exactly what we were when you saw us last:--I, miserable on account of God's departure from me, which I believe to be final; and she, seeking his return to me in the path of duty and by continual prayer.

Yours, my dear friend,
W. C.

* * * * *

That the above letter may be fully understood, it is necessary to state that Mr. Newton had received an intimation from Olney that the habits of Cowper, since the arrival of Lady Hesketh, had experienced a change; and that an admonitory letter from himself might not be without its use. Under these circumstances, Newton addressed such a letter to his friend as the occasion seemed to require. The answer of Cowper is already before the reader, and in our opinion amounts to a full justification of the poet's conduct. We know, from various testimonies of unquestionable authority, that no charge tending to impeach the consistency of Mrs. Unwin or of Cowper can justly be alleged. If Newton should be considered as giving too easy a credence to these reports, or too rigid and ascetic in his spirit, we conceive that he could not, consistently with his own views as a faithful minister, and his deep interest in the welfare of Cowper, have acted otherwise, though he may possibly have expressed himself too strongly. As to Newton's own spirit and temper, no man was more amiable and sociable in his feelings, nor the object of more affectionate esteem and regard in the circles where he was known. His character has been already described by Cowper, as that of a man that lived in an atmosphere of Christian peace and love. "It is therefore," observes the poet, "you were beloved at Olney, and if you preached to the Chicksaws and Chactaws, would be equally beloved by them."[355]

[355] See page 135.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Olney, Oct. 6, 1786.

You have not heard, I suppose, that the ninth book of my translation is at the bottom of the Thames. But it is even so. A storm overtook it in its way to Kingston, and it sunk, together with the whole cargo of the boat in which it was a passenger. Not figuratively foreshowing, I hope, by its submersion, the fate of all the rest. My kind and generous cousin, who leaves nothing undone that she thinks can conduce to my comfort, encouragement, or convenience, is my transcriber also. _She_ wrote the copy, and _she_ will have to write it again--_hers_, therefore, is the damage. I have a thousand reasons to lament that the time approaches when we must lose her. She has made a winterly summer a most delightful one, but the winter itself we must spend without her.

W. C.

* * * * *

We are at length arrived at the period when Cowper removed to Weston. He fixed his residence there Nov. 15th, 1786. The first letters addressed from that place are to his friends Mr. Bagot and Mr. Newton.

TO THE REV. WALTER BAGOT.

Weston Underwood, Nov. 17, 1786.

My dear Friend,--There are some things that do not actually shorten the life of man, yet seem to do so, and frequent removals from place to place are of that number. For my own part, at least, I am apt to think if I had been more stationary, I should seem to myself to have lived longer. My many changes of habitation have divided my time into many short periods, and when I look back upon them they appear only as the stages in a day's journey, the first of which is at no very great distance from the last.

I lived longer at Olney than any where. There indeed I lived till mouldering walls and a tottering house warned me to depart. I have accordingly taken the hint, and two days since arrived, or rather took up my abode, at Weston. You perhaps have never made the experiment, but I can assure you that the confusion which attends a transmigration of this kind is infinite, and has a terrible effect in deranging the intellects. I have been obliged to renounce my Homer on the occasion, and, though not for many days, I yet feel as if study and meditation, so long my confirmed habits, were on a sudden become impracticable, and that I shall certainly find them so when I attempt them again. But, in a scene so much quieter and pleasanter than that which I have just escaped from, in a house so much more commodious, and with furniture about me so much more to my taste, I shall hope to recover my literary tendency again, when once the bustle of the occasion shall have subsided.

How glad I should be to receive you under a roof where you would find me so much more comfortably accommodated than at Olney! I know your warmth of heart toward me, and am sure that you would rejoice in my joy. At present indeed I have not had time for much self-gratulation, but have every reason to hope nevertheless that in due time I shall derive considerable advantage, both in health and spirits, from the alteration made in my _whereabout_.

I have now the twelfth book of the Iliad in hand, having settled the eleven first books finally, as I think, or nearly so. The winter is the time when I make the greatest riddance.

Adieu, my friend Walter! Let me hear from you, and

Believe me, ever yours,
W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.[356]

[356] Private correspondence.

Weston Underwood, Nov. 17, 1786.

My dear Friend,--My usual time of answering your letters having been unavoidably engrossed by occasions that would not be thrust aside, I have been obliged to postpone the payment of my debt for a whole week. Even now it is not without some difficulty that I discharge it: which you will easily believe, when I tell you that this is only the second day that has seen us inhabitants of our new abode. When God speaks to a chaos, it becomes a scene of order and harmony in a moment; but when his creatures have thrown one house into confusion by leaving it, and another by tumbling themselves and their goods into it, not less than many days' labour and contrivance is necessary to give them their proper places. And it belongs to furniture of all kinds, however convenient it may be in its place, to be a nuisance out of it. We find ourselves here in a comfortable dwelling. Such it is in itself; and my cousin, who has spared no expense in dressing it up for us, has made it a genteel one. Such, at least, it will be when its contents are a little harmonized. She left us on Tuesday, and on Wednesday in the evening Mrs. Unwin and I took possession. I could not help giving a last look to my old prison and its precincts; and, though I cannot easily account for it, having been miserable there so many years, felt something like a heart-ache when I took my last leave of a scene that certainly in itself had nothing to engage affection. But I recollected that I had once been happy there, and could not, without tears in my eyes, bid adieu to a place in which God had so often found me. The human mind is a great mystery; mine, at least, appeared to me to be such upon this occasion. I found that I not only had a tenderness for that ruinous abode, because it had once known me happy in the presence of God; but that even the distress I had suffered for so long a time, on account of his absence, had endeared it to me as much. I was weary of every object, had long wished for a change, yet could not take leave without a pang at parting. What consequences are to attend our removal, God only knows. I know well that it is not in situation to effect a cure of melancholy like mine. The change, however, has been entirely a providential one; for, much as I wished it, I never uttered that wish, except to Mrs. Unwin. When I learned that the house was to be let, and had seen it, I had a strong desire that Lady Hesketh should take it for herself, if she should happen to like the country. That desire, indeed, is not exactly fulfilled; and yet, upon the whole, is exceeded. We are the tenants; but she assures us that we shall often have her for a guest; and here is room enough for us all. You, I hope, my dear friend, and Mrs. Newton, will want no assurances to convince you that you will always be received here with the sincerest welcome. More welcome than you have been you cannot be; but better accommodated you may and will be.

Adieu, my dear friend. Mrs. Unwin's affectionate remembrances and mine conclude me ever yours,

W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Weston Lodge, Nov. 26, 1786.

It is my birth-day, my beloved cousin, and I determine to employ a part of it, that it may not be destitute of festivity, in writing to you. The dark, thick fog that has obscured it would have been a burden to me at Olney, but here I have hardly attended to it. The neatness and snugness of our abode compensates all the dreariness of the season, and, whether the ways are wet or dry, our house at least is always warm and commodious. Oh! for you, my cousin, to partake these comforts with us! I will not begin already to tease you upon that subject, but Mrs. Unwin remembers to have heard from your own lips that you hate London in the spring. Perhaps, therefore, by that time, you may be glad to escape from a scene which will be every day growing more disagreeable, that you may enjoy the comforts of the Lodge. You well know that the best house has a desolate appearance unfurnished. This house accordingly, since it has been occupied by us and our _meubles_, is as much superior to what it was when you saw it as you can imagine. The parlour is even elegant. When I say that the parlour is elegant, I do not mean to insinuate that the study is not so. It is neat, warm, and silent, and a much better study than I deserve, if I do not produce in it an incomparable translation of Homer. I think every day of those lines of Milton, and congratulate myself on having obtained, before I am quite superannuated, what he seems not to have hoped for sooner:

"And may at length my weary age
Find out the peaceful hermitage!"

For if it is not a hermitage, at least it is a much better thing, and you must always understand, my dear, that when poets talk of cottages, hermitages, and such like things, they mean a house with six sashes in front, two comfortable parlours, a smart staircase, and three bed-chambers, of convenient dimensions; in short, exactly such a house as this.

The Throckmortons continue the most obliging neighbours in the world. One morning last week, they both went with me to the cliffs--a scene, my dear, in which you would delight beyond measure, but which you cannot visit, except in the spring or autumn. The heat of summer, and clinging dirt of winter, would destroy you. What is called the cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a beautiful terrace, gently sloping down to the Ouse, and from the brow of which, though not lofty, you have a view of such a valley as makes that which you see from the hills near Olney, and which I have had the honour to celebrate, an affair of no consideration.[357]

[357]

"How oft, upon yon eminence, our pace
Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While Admiration, feeding at the eye,
And, still unsated, dwelt upon the scene,
Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned.
The distant plough slow moving, and, beside
His labouring team, that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain, diminished to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course,
Delighted," &c. &c.

_The Task_, Book I.

Wintry as the weather is, do not suspect that it confines me. I ramble daily, and every day change my ramble. Wherever I go, I find short grass under my feet, and, when I have travelled perhaps five miles, come home with shoes not at all too dirty for a drawing-room. I was pacing yesterday under the elms that surround the field in which stands the great alcove, when lifting my eyes I saw two black genteel figures bolt through a hedge into the path where I was walking. You guess already who they were, and that they could be nobody but our neighbours. They had seen me from a hill at a distance, and had traversed a great turnip field to get at me. You see, therefore, my dear, that I am in some request. Alas! in too much request with some people. The verses of Cadwallader have found me at last.

I am charmed with your account of our little cousin[358] at Kensington. If the world does not spoil him hereafter, he will be a valuable man.

Good night, and may God bless thee!

W. C.

[358] Lord Cowper.

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