Book 2 — ADELPHI.

Tu supplicanti protinus admoves Aurem, benignus: pro lachrimis mihi Risum reducis, pro dolore Lætitiamque, alacremque plausum. Buchanan, Ps. xxx. NEWTON'S ORIGINAL PREFACE. The Editor's motives, which induce him to publish the following narrative, are chiefly two. First, that so striking a display of the power and mercy of God may be more generally known, to the praise and glory of his grace and the instruction and comfort of his people. Secondly, the boasted spirit of refinement, the stress laid upon unassisted human reason, and the consequent scepticism to which they lead, and which so strongly mark the character of the present times, are not now confined merely to the dupes of infidelity; but many persons are under their influence, who would be much offended if we charged them with having renounced Christianity. While no theory is admitted in natural history, which is not confirmed by actual and positive experiment, religion is the only thing to which a trial by this test is refused. The very name of vital experimental religion excites contempt and scorn, and provokes resentment. The doctrines of regeneration by the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity of his continual agency and influence to advance the holiness and comforts of those in whose hearts he has already begun a work of grace, are not only exploded and contradicted by many who profess a regard for the Bible, and by some who have subscribed to the articles and liturgy of our established church, but they who avow an attachment to them are, upon that account, and that account only, considered as hypocrites or visionaries, knaves or fools. The Editor fears that many unstable persons are misled and perverted by the fine words and fair speeches of those who lie in wait to deceive. But he likewise hopes that, by the blessing of God, a candid perusal of what is here published, respecting the character, sentiments, and happy death of the late Reverend John Cowper, may convince them, some of them at least, of their mistake, and break the snare in which they have been entangled. John Newton. A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE LATE REV. JOHN COWPER, A.M. As soon as it had pleased God, after a long and sharp season of conviction, to visit me with the consolations of his grace, it became one of my chief concerns, that my relations might be made partakers of the same mercy. In the first letter I wrote to my brother,[765] I took occasion to declare what God had done for my soul, and am not conscious that from that period down to his last illness I wilfully neglected an opportunity of engaging him, if it were possible, in conversation of a spiritual kind. When I left St. Alban's, and went to visit him at Cambridge, my heart being full of the subject, I poured it out before him without reserve; and, in all my subsequent dealings with him, so far as I was enabled, took care to show that I had received, not merely a set of notions, but a real impression of the truths of the gospel. At first I found him ready enough to talk with me upon these subjects; sometimes he would dispute, but always without heat or animosity; and sometimes would endeavour to reconcile the difference of our sentiments, by supposing that, at the bottom, we were both of a mind and meant the same thing. He was a man of a most candid and ingenuous spirit; his temper remarkably sweet, and in his behaviour to me he had always manifested an uncommon affection. His outward conduct, so far as it fell under my notice, or I could learn it by the report of others, was perfectly decent and unblameable. There was nothing vicious in any part of his practice; but, being of a studious, thoughtful turn, he placed his chief delight in the acquisition of learning, and made such acquisitions in it that he had but few rivals in that of a classical kind. He was critically skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, was beginning to make himself master of the Syriac, and perfectly understood the French and Italian, the latter of which he could speak fluently. These attainments, however, and many others in the literary way, he lived heartily to despise, not as useless when sanctified and employed in the service of God, but when sought after for their own sake, and with a view to the praise of men. Learned however as he was, he was easy and cheerful in his conversation, and entirely free from the stiffness which is generally contracted by men devoted to such pursuits. Thus we spent about two years, conversing as occasion offered, and we generally visited each other once or twice a week, as long as I continued at Huntingdon, upon the leading truths of the gospel. By this time, however, he began to be more reserved; he would hear me patiently but never reply; and this I found, upon his own confession afterward, was the effect of a resolution he had taken, in order to avoid disputes, and to secure the continuance of that peace which had always subsisted between us. When our family removed to Olney, our intercourse became less frequent. We exchanged an annual visit, and, whenever he came amongst us, he observed the same conduct, conforming to all our customs, attending family worship with us, and heard the preaching, received civilly whatever passed in conversation upon the subject, but adhered strictly to the rule he had prescribed to himself, never remarking upon or objecting to any thing he heard or saw. This, through the goodness of his natural temper, he was enabled to carry so far that, though some things unavoidably happened which we feared would give him offence, he never took any; for it was not possible to offer him the pulpit, nor when Mr. Newton was with us once at the time of family prayer, could we ask my brother to officiate, though, being himself a minister, and one of our own family for the time, the office seemed naturally to fall into his hands. In September 1769, I learned by letters from Cambridge that he was dangerously ill. I set out for that place the day after I received them, and found him as ill as I expected. He had taken cold on his return from a journey into Wales; and, lest he should be laid up at a distance from home, had pushed forward as far as he could from Bath with a fever upon him. Soon after his arrival at Cambridge he discharged, unknown to himself, such a prodigious quantity of blood, that the physician ascribed it only to the strength of his constitution that he was still alive; and assured me, that if the discharge should be repeated, he must inevitably die upon the spot. In this state of imminent danger, he seemed to have no more concern about his spiritual interests than when in perfect health. His couch was strewed with volumes of plays, to which he had frequent recourse for amusement. I learned indeed afterwards, that, even at this time, the thoughts of God and eternity would often force themselves upon his mind; but, not apprehending his life to be in danger, and trusting in the morality of his past conduct, he found it no difficult matter to thrust them out again. As it pleased God that he had no relapse, he presently began to recover strength, and in ten days' time I left him so far restored, that he could ride many miles without fatigue, and had every symptom of returning health. It is probable, however, that though his recovery seemed perfect, this illness was the means which God had appointed to bring down his strength in the midst of his journey, and to hasten on the malady which proved his last. On the 16th of February, 1770, I was again summoned to attend him, by letters which represented him as so ill that the physician entertained but little hopes of his recovery. I found him afflicted with asthma and dropsy, supposed to be the effect of an imposthume in his liver. He was, however, cheerful when I first arrived, expressed great joy at seeing me, thought himself much better than he had been, and seemed to flatter himself with hopes that he should be well again. My situation at this time was truly distressful. I learned from the physician, that, in this instance as in the last, he was in much greater danger than he suspected. He did not seem to lay his illness at all to heart, nor could I find by his conversation that he had one serious thought. As often as a suitable occasion offered, when we were free from company and interruption, I endeavoured to give a spiritual turn to the discourse; and, the day after my arrival, asked his permission to pray with him, to which he readily consented. I renewed my attempts in this way as often as I could, though without any apparent success: still he seemed as careless and unconcerned as ever; yet I could not but consider his willingness in this instance as a token for good, and observed with pleasure, that though at other times he discovered no mark of seriousness, yet when I spoke to him of the Lord's dealings with myself, he received what I said with affection, would press my hand, and look kindly at me, and seemed to love me the better for it. On the 21st of the same month he had a violent fit of the asthma, which seized him when he rose, about an hour before noon, and lasted all the day. His agony was dreadful. Having never seen any person afflicted in the same way, I could not help fearing that he would be suffocated; nor was the physician himself without fears of the same kind. This day the Lord was very present with me, and enabled me, as I sat by the poor sufferer's side, to wrestle for a blessing upon him. I observed to him, that though it had pleased God to visit him with great afflictions, yet mercy was mingled with the dispensation. I said, "You have many friends, who love you, and are willing to do all they can to serve you; and so perhaps have others in the like circumstances; but it is not the lot of every sick man, how much soever he may be beloved, to have a friend that can pray for him." He replied, "That is true, and I hope God will have mercy upon me." His love for me from this time became very remarkable; there was a tenderness in it more than was merely natural; and he generally expressed it by calling for blessings upon me in the most affectionate terms, and with a look and manner not to be described. At night, when he was quite worn out with the fatigue of labouring for breath, and could get no rest, his asthma still continuing, he turned to me and said, with a melancholy air, "Brother, I seem to be marked out for misery; you know some people are so." That moment I felt my heart enlarged, and such a persuasion of the love of God towards him was wrought in my soul, that I replied with confidence, and, as if I had authority given me to say it, "But that is not your case; you are marked out for mercy." Through the whole of this most painful dispensation, he was blessed with a degree of patience and resignation to the will of God, not always seen in the behaviour of established Christians under sufferings so great as his. I never heard a murmuring word escape him; on the contrary, he would often say, when his pains were most acute, "I only wish it may please God to enable me to suffer without complaining; I have no right to complain." Once he said, with a loud voice, "Let thy rod and thy staff support and comfort me:" and "Oh that it were with me as in times past, when the candle of the Lord shone upon my tabernacle!" One evening, when I had been expressing my hope that the Lord would show him mercy, he replied, "I hope he will; I am sure I pretend to nothing." Many times he spoke of himself in terms of the greatest self-abasement, which I cannot now particularly remember. I thought I could discern, in these expressions, the glimpses of approaching day, and have no doubt at present but that the Spirit of God was gradually preparing him, in a way of true humiliation, for that bright display of gospel-grace which he was soon after pleased to afford him.[766] On Saturday the 10th of March, about three in the afternoon, he suddenly burst into tears, and said with a loud cry, "Oh, forsake me not!" I went to his bed-side, when he grasped my hand, and presently, by his eyes and countenance, I found that he was in prayer. Then turning to me he said, "Oh brother, I am full of what I could say to you." The nurse asked him if he would have any hartshorn or lavender. He replied, "None of these things will serve my purpose." I said, "But I know what would, my dear, don't I?" He answered, "You do, brother." Having continued some time silent, he said, "Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,"—then, after a pause, "Ay, and he is able to do it too." I left him for about an hour, fearing lest he should fatigue himself with talking, and because my surprise and joy were so great that I could hardly bear them. When I returned, he threw his arms about my neck, and, leaning his head against mine, he said, "Brother, if I live, you and I shall be more like one another than we have been. But whether I live or live not, all is well, and will be so; I know it will; I have felt that which I never felt before; and am sure that God has visited me with this sickness to teach me what I was too proud to learn in health. I never had satisfaction till now. The doctrines I had been used to referred me to myself for the foundation of my hopes, and there I could find nothing to rest upon. The sheet-anchor of the soul was wanting. I thought you wrong, yet wished to believe as you did. I found myself unable to believe, yet always thought that I should one day be brought to do so. You suffered more than I have done, before you believed these truths; but our sufferings, though different in their kind and measure, were directed to the same end. I hope he has taught me that, which he teaches none but his own. I hope so. These things were foolishness to me once, but now I have a firm foundation, and am satisfied." In the evening, when I went to bid him good night, he looked stedfastly in my face, and, with great solemnity in his air and manner, taking me by the hand, resumed the discourse in these very words: "As empty, and yet full; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things—I see the rock upon which I once split, and I see the rock of my salvation. I have peace in myself, and if I live I hope it will be that I may be made a messenger of peace to others. I have learned that in a moment, which I could not have learned by reading many books for many years. I have often studied these points, and studied them with great attention, but was blinded by prejudice; and, unless He, who alone is worthy to unloose the seals, had opened the book to me, I had been blinded still. Now they appear so plain, that though I am convinced no comment could ever have made me understand them, I wonder I did not see them before. Yet, great as my doubts and difficulties were, they have only served to pave the way, and being solved they make it plainer. The light I have received comes late, but it is a comfort to me that I never made the gospel-truths a subject of ridicule. Though I dissented from the persuasion and the ways of God's people, I ever thought them respectable, and therefore not proper to be made a jest of. The evil I suffer is the consequence of my descent from the corrupt original stock, and of my own personal transgressions; the good I enjoy comes to me as the overflowing of his bounty; but the crown of all his mercies is this, that he has given me a Saviour, and not only the Saviour of mankind, brother, but my Saviour. "I should delight to see the people at Olney, but am not worthy to appear amongst them." He wept at speaking these words, and repeated them with emphasis. "I should rejoice in an hour's conversation with Mr. Newton, and, if I live, shall have much discourse with him upon these subjects, but am so weak in body, that at present I could not bear it." At the same time he gave me to understand, that he had been five years inquiring after the truth, that is, from the time of my first visit to him after I left St. Albans, and that, from the very day of his ordination, which was ten years ago, he had been dissatisfied with his own views of the gospel, and sensible of their defect and obscurity; that he had always had a sense of the importance of the ministerial charge, and had used to consider himself accountable for his doctrine no less than his practice; that he could appeal to the Lord for his sincerity in all that time, and had never wilfully erred, but always been desirous of coming to the knowledge of the truth. He added, that the moment when he sent forth that cry[767] was the moment when light was darted into his soul; that he had thought much about these things in the course of his illness, but never till that instant was able to understand them. It was remarkable that, from the very instant when he was first enlightened, he was also wonderfully strengthened in body, so that from the tenth to the fourteenth of March we all entertained hopes of his recovery. He was himself very sanguine in his expectations of it, but frequently said that his desire of recovery extended no farther than his hope of usefulness; adding, "Unless I may live to be an instrument of good to others, it were better for me to die now." As his assurance was clear and unshaken, so he was very sensible of the goodness of the Lord to him in that respect. On the day when his eyes were opened, he turned to me, and, in a low voice, said, "What a mercy it is to a man in my condition to know his acceptance! I am completely satisfied of mine." On another occasion, speaking to the same purpose, he said, "This bed would be a bed of misery, and it is so—but it is likewise a bed of joy and a bed of discipline. Was I to die this night, I know I should be happy. This assurance I hope is quite consistent with the word of God. It is built upon a sense of my own utter insufficiency, and the all-sufficiency of Christ." At the same time he said, "Brother, I have been building my glory upon a sandy foundation; I have laboured night and day to perfect myself in things of no profit; I have sacrificed my health to these pursuits, and am now suffering the consequence of my misspent labour. But how contemptible do the writers I once highly valued now appear to me! 'Yea, doubtless, I count all things loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.' I must now go to a new school. I have many things to learn. I succeeded in my former pursuits. I wanted to be highly applauded, and I was so. I was flattered up to the height of my wishes: now, I must learn a new lesson." On the evening of the thirteenth, he said, "What comfort have I in this bed, miserable as I seem to be! Brother, I love to look at you. I see now who was right, and who was mistaken. But it seems wonderful that such a dispensation should be necessary to enforce what seems so very plain. I wish myself at Olney; you have a good river there, better than all the rivers of Damascus. What a scene is passing before me! Ideas upon these subjects crowd upon me faster than I can give them utterance. How plain do many texts appear, to which, after consulting all the commentators, I could hardly affix a meaning; and now I have their true meaning without any comment at all. There is but one key to the New Testament; there is but one interpreter. I cannot describe to you, nor shall ever be able to describe, what I felt in the moment when it was given to me. May I make a good use of it! How I shudder when I think of the danger I have just escaped! I had made up my mind upon these subjects, and was determined to hazard all upon the justness of my own opinions." Speaking of his illness, he said, he had been followed night and day from the very beginning of it with this text: I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. This notice was fulfilled to him, though not in such a sense as my desires of his recovery prompted me to put upon it. His remarkable amendment soon appeared to be no more than a present supply of strength and spirits, that he might be able to speak of the better life which God had given him, which was no sooner done than he relapsed as suddenly as he had revived. About this time he formed a purpose of receiving the sacrament, induced to it principally by a desire of setting his seal to the truth, in presence of those who were strangers to the change which had taken place in his sentiments. It must have been administered to him by the Master of the College, to whom he designed to have made this short declaration, "If I die, I die in the belief of the doctrines of the Reformation, and of the Church of England, as it was at the time of the Reformation." But, his strength declining apace, and his pains becoming more severe, he could never find a proper opportunity of doing it. His experience was rather peace than joy, if a distinction may be made between joy and that heartfelt peace which he often spoke of in the most comfortable terms; and which he expressed by a heavenly smile upon his countenance under the bitterest bodily distress. His words upon this subject once were these—"How wonderful is it that God should look upon man, especially that he should look upon me! Yet he sees me, and takes notice of all that I suffer. I see him too; he is present before me, and I hear him say, Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Matt. xi. 28. On the fourteenth, in the afternoon, I perceived that the strength and spirits which had been afforded him were suddenly withdrawn, so that by the next day his mind became weak, and his speech roving and faltering. But still, at intervals, he was enabled to speak of divine things with great force and clearness. On the evening of the fifteenth, he said, "'There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance.' That text has been sadly misunderstood by me as well as by others. Where is that just person to be found? Alas! what must have become of me, if I had died this day se'nnight? What should I have had to plead? My own righteousness! That would have been of great service to me, to be sure. Well, whither next? Why, to the mountains to fall upon us, and to the hills to cover us. I am not duly thankful for the mercy I have received. Perhaps I may ascribe some part of my insensibility to my great weakness of body. I hope at least that if I was better in health, it would be better with me in these respects also." The next day, perceiving that his understanding began to suffer by the extreme weakness of his body, he said, "I have been vain of my understanding and of my acquirements in this place; and now God has made me little better than an idiot, as much as to say, now be proud if you can. Well, while I have any senses left, my thoughts will be poured out in the praise of God. I have an interest in Christ, in his blood and sufferings, and my sins are forgiven me. Have I not cause to praise him? When my understanding fails me quite, as I think it will soon, then he will pity my weakness." Though the Lord intended that his warfare should be short, yet a warfare he was to have, and to be exposed to a measure of conflict with his own corruptions. His pain being extreme, his powers of recollection much impaired, and the Comforter withholding for a season his sensible support, he was betrayed into a fretfulness and impatience of spirit which had never been permitted to show itself before. This appearance alarmed me, and, having an opportunity afforded me by everybody's absence, I said to him, "You were happier last Saturday than you are to-day. Are you entirely destitute of the consolations you then spoke of? And do you not sometimes feel comfort flowing into your heart from a sense of your acceptance with God?" He replied, "Sometimes I do, but sometimes I am left to desperation." The same day, in the evening, he said, "Brother, I believe you are often uneasy, lest what lately passed should come to nothing." I replied by asking him, whether, when he found his patience and his temper fail, he endeavoured to pray for power against his corruptions? He answered, "Yes, a thousand times in a day. But I see myself odiously vile and wicked. If I die in this illness, I beg you will place no other inscription over me than such as may just mention my name and the parish where I was minister; for that I ever had a being, and what sort of a being I had, cannot be too soon forgot. I was just beginning to be a deist, and had long desired to be so; and I will own to you what I never confessed before, that my function and the duties of it were a weariness to me which I could not bear. Yet, wretched creature and beast as I was, I was esteemed religious, though I lived without God in the world." About this time, I reminded him of the account of Janeway, which he once read at my desire. He said he had laughed at it in his own mind, and accounted it mere madness and folly. "Yet base as I am," said he, "I have no doubt now but God has accepted me also, and forgiven me all my sins." I then asked him what he thought of my narrative?[768] He replied, "I thought it strange, and ascribed much of it to the state in which you had been. When I came to visit you in London, and found you in that deep distress, I would have given the universe to have administered some comfort to you. You may remember that I tried every method of doing it. When I found that all my attempts were vain, I was shocked to the greatest degree. I began to consider your sufferings as a judgment upon you, and my inability to alleviate them as a judgment upon myself. When Mr. M.[769] came, he succeeded in a moment. This surprised me; but it does not surprise me now. He had the key to your heart, which I had not. That which filled me with disgust against my office as a minister, was the same ill success which attended me in my own parish. There I endeavoured to soothe the afflicted, and to reform the unruly by warning and reproof; but all that I could say in either case was spoken to the wind, and attended with no effect." There is that in the nature of salvation by grace, when it is truly and experimentally known, which prompts every person to think himself the most extraordinary instance of its power. Accordingly, my brother insisted upon the precedence in this respect; and, upon comparing his case with mine, would by no means allow my deliverance to have been so wonderful as his own. He observed that, from the beginning, both his manner of life and his connexions had been such as had a natural tendency to blind his eyes, and to confirm and rivet his prejudices against the truth. Blameless in his outward conduct, and having no open immorality to charge himself with, his acquaintance had been with men of the same stamp, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised the doctrines of the cross. Such were all who, from his earliest days, he had been used to propose to himself as patterns for his imitation. Not to go farther back, such was the clergyman under whom he received the first rudiments of his education; such was the schoolmaster, under whom he was prepared for the University; and such were all the most admired characters there, with whom he was most ambitious of being connected. He lamented the dark and Christless condition of the place, where learning and morality were all in all, and where, if a man was possessed of these qualifications, he neither doubted himself, nor did any body else question, the safety of his state. He concluded, therefore, that to show the fallacy of such appearances, and to root out the prejudices which long familiarity with them had fastened upon his mind, required a more than ordinary exertion of divine power, and that the grace of God was more clearly manifested in such a work than in the conversion of one like me, who had no outside righteousness to boast of, and who, if I was ignorant of the truth, was not, however, so desperately prejudiced against it. His thoughts, I suppose, had been led to this subject, when, one afternoon, while I was writing by the fire-side, he thus addressed himself to the nurse, who sat at his bolster. "Nurse, I have lived three-and-thirty years, and I will tell you how I have spent them. When I was a boy, they taught me Latin; and because I was the son of a gentleman, they taught me Greek. These I learned under a sort of private tutor; at the age of fourteen, or thereabouts, they sent me to a public school, where I learned more Latin and Greek, and, last of all, to this place, where I have been learning more Latin and Greek still. Now has not this been a blessed life, and much to the glory of God?" Then directing his speech to me, he said, "Brother, I was going to say I was born in such a year; but I correct myself: I would rather say, in such a year I came into the world. You know when I was born." As long as he expected to recover, the souls committed to his care were much upon his mind. One day, when none was present but myself, he prayed thus:—"O Lord, thou art good; goodness is thy very essence, and thou art the fountain of wisdom. I am a poor worm, weak and foolish as a child. Thou hast entrusted many souls unto me; and I have not been able to teach them, because I knew thee not myself. Grant me ability, O Lord, for I can do nothing without thee, and give me grace to be faithful." In a time of severe and continual pain, he smiled in my face, and said, "Brother, I am as happy as a king." And, the day before he died, when I asked him what sort of a night he had had, he replied, a "sad night, not a wink of sleep." I said, "Perhaps, though, your mind has been composed, and you have been enabled to pray?" "Yes," said he, "I have endeavoured to spend the hours in the thoughts of God and prayer; I have been much comforted, and all the comfort I got came to me in this way." The next morning I was called up to be witness of his last moments. I found him in a deep sleep, lying perfectly still, and seemingly free from pain. I stayed with him till they pressed me to quit the room, and in about five minutes after I had left him he died; sooner, indeed, than I expected, though for some days there had been no hopes of his recovery. His death at that time was rather extraordinary; at least, I thought it so; for, when I took leave of him the night before, he did not seem worse or weaker than he had been, and, for aught that appeared, might have lasted many days; but the Lord, in whose sight the death of his saints is precious, cut short his sufferings, and gave him a speedy and peaceful departure. He died at seven in the morning, on the 20th of March, 1770. Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, eternal Word! From Thee departing, they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace. From Thee is all that soothes the life of man, His high endeavour and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But, oh! thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art of all thy gifts Thyself the crown. Give what thou canst, without Thee we are poor, And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away. The Task, book v. The fraternal love and piety of Cowper are beautifully illustrated in this most interesting document. No sooner had he experienced the value of religion, and its inward peace and hope, in his own heart, than he feels solicitous to communicate the blessing to others. True piety is always diffusive. It does not, like the sordid miser, hoard up the treasure for self-enjoyment, but is enriched by giving, and impoverished only by withholding. Friends, parents, kindred, first it will embrace, Our country next, and next all human race. The prejudices of his brother, and yet his mild and amiable spirit of forbearance; the zeal of Cowper, and its final happy result, impart to this narrative a singular degree of interest. Others would have been deterred by apparent difficulties; but true zeal is full of faith, as well as of love, and does not contemplate man's resistance but God's mighty power. The example of John Cowper furnishes also a remarkable evidence that a man may be distinguished by the highest endowments of human learning, and yet be ignorant of that knowledge which is emphatically called life eternal. The distinction between the knowledge that is derived from books and the wisdom that cometh from above, is drawn by Cowper with a happy and just discrimination. Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connexion—knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own. Knowledge, a rude, unprofitable mass, The mere materials with which wisdom builds, 'Till smooth'd, and squar'd, and fitted to its place, Does but encumber whom it seems t' enrich. Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. The Task, book vi. It is important to know how far the powers of human reason extend in matters of religion, and where they fail. Reason can examine the claims of a divine revelation, and determine its authority by the most conclusive arguments. It can expose error, and establish the truth; attack infidelity within its own entrenchments, and carry its victorious arms into the very camp of the enemy. It can defend all the outworks of religion, and vindicate its insulted majesty. But at this point its powers begin to fail. It cannot confer a spiritual apprehension of the truth in the understanding, nor a spiritual reception of it in the heart. This is the province of grace. "No man knoweth the things of God, but the Spirit of God, and he to whom the Spirit hath revealed them." "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Men of learning endeavour to attain to the knowledge of divine things, in the same manner as they acquire an insight into human things, that is, by human power and human teaching. Whereas divine things require a divine power and divine teaching. "All thy children shall be taught of God." Not that human reason is superseded in its use. Man is always a rational and moral agent. But it is reason, conscious of its own weakness, simple in its views, and humble in its spirit, enlightened, guided, and regulated in all its researches by the grace and wisdom that is from above. John Cowper expresses the substance of this idea in the following emphatic words:—"I have learned that in a moment, which I could not have learned by reading many books for many years. I have often studied these points, and studied them with great attention, but was blinded by prejudice; and unless He, who alone is worthy to unloose the seals, had opened the book to me, I had been blinded still." The information supplied respecting John Cowper by preceding biographers is brief and scanty. The following are the particulars which the Editor has succeeded in obtaining. John Cowper was considered to be one of the best scholars in the university of Cambridge. In 1759 he obtained the Chancellor's gold medal, and in 1762 gained both the prizes for Masters of Arts. He was subsequently elected Fellow of Bennet, and became private tutor to to Lord Walsingham. He translated the four first books of the Henriade; his brother William, it is said, the four next (Hayley states two cantos only, and alleges Cowper's own authority for the fact); E. B. Greene, Esq., a relative of Dr. Greene, the master of the college,[770] the ninth, and Robert Lloyd the tenth book. It appeared in Smollett's edition, in 1762, but the writer has not been able to procure a copy. He afterwards engaged in an edition of Apollonius Rhodius,[771] when his sedentary and studious habits produced an imposthume in the liver, which brought him to his grave in the thirty-third year of his age. He was buried at Foxton in Cambridgeshire, of which place he was rector. Dr. Bennet, Bishop of Cloyne, in a letter addressed to Dr. Parr, bears the following honourable testimony to his merits. "TO THE REV. DR. PARR. "Emanuel College, April 18, 1770. "We have lost the best classic and most liberal thinker in our university, Cowper of Ben'et. He sat so long at his studies, that the posture gave rise to an abscess in his liver, and he fell a victim to learning. The goddess has so few votaries here, that she resolved to take the best offering we had, and she employed Apollonius Rhodius to strike the blow. I write the author again, Apollonius Rhodius. Cowper had laboured hard at an edition of him for several years, and applied so much to his favourite author, that it cost his life. I shall make a bold push for his papers. Yet, what omens I have! Melancthon did but think of a translation, and he died. Hoeltzlinus owns he wrote the latter part of the annotations, manu lassissimâ et corpore imbecillo, and died before he put the last hand to them. Cowper collates all the editions, makes a new translation, and follows his predecessors. One would think that by some unknown fate, or by some curse of his master, Callimachus, our poet was doomed to remain in obscurity. His enemies may say, that the dulness of his verses bears some resemblance to the torpedo, and benumbs or kills whatever touches it."—See Dr. Parr's Works, vol. vii. p. 75. The following elegy was also composed in honour of his memory by one of his fellow collegians, which evinces the high sense entertained of his character and classical attainments. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. JOHN COWPER, OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, BY A FELLOW COLLEGIAN. Where art thou, Moschus, and where are we all? Thou from high Helicon's muse-haunted hill Advanc'd to Sion's mount celestial: Encumber'd we with earth and sorrow still. Before the throne thy golden lyre is strung, Seraphic descant fills thy raptur'd mind: On Camus' willows pale our harps are hung; Our footsteps linger on his banks behind. The chosen Lawgiver from Pisgah's hill, His wond'ring eyes around in transport threw: On earthly Canaan having gaz'd his fill, To heavenly Canaan's glories quick withdrew. So, nurst in sacred and in classic lore, With varied science at its fountain fraught, From human knowledge to th' exhaustless store Of heaven he stole to taste the fuller draught. What boots the beauty of the classic page, And what philosophy's sublimer rule, What all th' advances of maturing age, If dies the wise man as departs the fool? Master of Greece's thundering eloquence, The force of Roman grace to him was known; The well-turn'd period, join'd with manly sense: Sage criticism mark'd him for her own. Ah! what avails the power of harmony, The poet's melody, the critic's skill! The verse may live, yet must the maker die; Such is stern Atropos's solemn will. Sweet bard of Rhodes,[772] bright star of Egypt's court, Whom Ptolemy's discerning bounty drew To guard fair science in the learn'd resort, Thy muse alone can pay the tribute due. Thy muse, that paints Medea's frantic love, And all the transports of the enamour'd maid, Who dared each strongest obstacle remove, Her reason and her art by love betray'd. While hardy Jason ploughs old Ocean's plain, First of the Greeks to tempt Barbarian seas, With him we share the dangers of the main, Nor dread the crash of the Symplegades. Vain wish! thy deathless heroes should commend Thy verse to fame, and bid it sweeter sound. He who thy name's revival did intend, In bloom of youth is buried under ground.[773] So, nested on the rock, the parent dove Sees down the cleft her callow offspring fall; Full little may its chirping plaints behove; She only hears, but cannot help its call.[774] Like the fair swan of fame, the grateful muse Assiduous tends on Lethe's barren bank, To raise the name that envious time would lose, Where many millions erst for ever sank. While yet I wait, thou ever-honour'd shade, Some better bard should the memorial rear, The debt to friendship due by me be paid, Weak in poetic fire, in friendship's zeal sincere. We add the letter addressed by Cowper to his friend Mr. Unwin on this occasion. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. March 31, 1770. My dear Friend,—I am glad that the Lord made you a fellow labourer with us in praying my dear brother out of darkness into light. It was a blessed work; and when it shall be your turn to die in the Lord, and to rest from all your labours, that work shall follow you. I once entertained hopes of his recovery: from the moment when it pleased God to give him light in his soul, there was, for four days, such a visible amendment in his body as surprised us all. Dr. Glynn himself was puzzled, and began to think that all his threatening conjectures would fail of their accomplishment. I am well satisfied that it was thus ordered, not for his own sake, but for the sake of us, who had been so deeply concerned for his spiritual welfare, that he might be able to give such evident proof of the work of God upon his soul as should leave no doubt behind it. As to his friends at Cambridge, they knew nothing of the matter. He never spoke of these things but to myself; nor to me, when others were within hearing, except that he sometimes would speak in the presence of the nurse. He knew well to make the distinction between those who could understand him and those who could not; and that he was not in circumstances to maintain such a controversy as a declaration of his new views and sentiments would have exposed him to. Just after his death, I spoke of this change to a dear friend of his, a fellow of the college, who had attended him through all his sickness with assiduity and tenderness. But he did not understand me. I now proceed to mention such particulars as I can recollect; and which I had not opportunity to insert in my letters to Olney; for I left Cambridge suddenly, and sooner than I expected. He was deeply impressed with a sense of the difficulties he should have to encounter, if it should please God to raise him again. He saw the necessity of being faithful, and the opposition he should expose himself to by being so. Under the weight of these thoughts, he one day broke out in the following prayer, when only myself was with him. "O Lord, thou art light; and in thee is no darkness at all. Thou art the fountain of all wisdom, and it is essential to thee to be good and gracious. I am a child; O Lord, teach me how I shall conduct myself! Give me the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove! Bless the souls thou hast committed to the care of thy helpless miserable creature, who has no wisdom or knowledge of his own, and make me faithful to them, for thy mercy's sake!" Another time he said, "How wonderful it is, that God should look upon man; and how much more wonderful that he should look upon such a worm as I am! Yet he does look upon me, and takes the exactest notice of all my sufferings. He is present, and I see him (I mean, by faith), and he stretches out his arms towards me,"—and he then stretched out his own—"and he says, 'Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest!'" He smiled and wept, when he spoke these words. When he expressed himself upon these subjects, there was a weight and dignity in his manner such as I never saw before. He spoke with the greatest deliberation, making a pause at the end of every sentence; and there was something in his air and in the tone of his voice inexpressibly solemn, unlike himself, unlike what I had ever seen in another. This had God wrought. I have praised him for his marvellous act, and have felt a joy of heart upon the subject of my brother's death, such as I never felt but in my own conversion. He is now before the throne; and yet a little while and we shall meet, never more to be divided. Yours, my very dear friend, with my affectionate respects to yourself and yours, W. C. Postscript.—A day or two before his death, he grew so weak and was so very ill, that he required continual attendance, so that he had neither strength nor opportunity to say much to me. Only the day before, he said he had had a sleepless, but a composed and quiet night. I asked him, if he had been able to collect his thoughts. He replied, "All night long I have endeavoured to think upon God and to continue in prayer. I had great peace and comfort; and what comfort I had came in that way." When I saw him the next morning at seven o'clock he was dying, fast asleep, and exempted, in all appearance, from the sense of those pangs which accompany dissolution. I shall be glad to hear from you, my dear friend, when you can find time to write, and are so inclined. The death of my beloved brother teems with many useful lessons. May God seal the instruction upon our hearts! Besides the documents already inserted, Cowper translated the narrative of Mr. Van Lier, a minister of the Reformed Church, at the Cape of Good Hope. Mr. Van Lier was born in Holland, in the year 1764; his mother was pious, and brought him up in the principles of true religion, endeavouring from his early youth to direct his mind to the ministry. After the usual course of education, he entered at the University, where, though he did not neglect his studies, he forgot his God. His talents seem to have been considerable, his imagination ardent, but his passions not under sufficient control; and, with all the elements that might have formed a great character, by the misapplication of his time, opportunities, and faculties, he became vicious, and subsequently a sceptic. God, in mercy, exercised him with a series of trials, but the impression was always ultimately effaced—till at length the blow reached him which lacerated his heart, extinguished all his hopes of earthly happiness, and thus finally brought him to God. Among the excellent books that contributed to dispel his errors, he specified the "Cardiphonia" of Newton with grateful acknowledgment. It is justly considered the best of all his works, and has been made eminently useful. Mr. Van Lier subsequently wrote a narrative, in Latin, containing an account of his conversion, and of all the remarkable events of his life. This narrative he addressed to Newton, at whose request it was translated by Cowper. It was published under the title of "The Power of Grace illustrated." Interesting as are its contents, yet, as they comprise nearly two hundred pages, we find it impossible to allow space for its insertion, though it is well entitled to appear in a separate form. He concludes his narrative in these words: "O happy and glorious hour, when I shall be delivered from all trouble and sin, from this body of death, from the wicked world, and from the snares of Satan! when I shall appear before my Saviour without spot, and shall so behold his glory, and be filled with his presence, as to be wholly and for ever engaged in adoration, admiration, gratitude, and love!" As we are now drawing towards the conclusion of this undertaking, some reference is due to names once honoured by Cowper's friendship, and perpetuated in his works. A distinguished place is due to the Rev. William Cawthorne Unwin. His death has been recorded in a former volume, as well as his burial in the cathedral at Winchester. A Latin epitaph was composed on this occasion by Cowper, but objected to by a relative of the family, because it adverted to his mother's early prayers that God might incline his heart to the ministry. We subjoin the epitaph which replaced the pious and classical composition of Cowper. IN MEMORY OF THE REV. WILLIAM CAWTHORNE UNWIN, M.A. RECTOR OF STOCK, IN ESSEX. He was educated at the Charter-house, in London, under the Rev. Dr. Crusius; and, having gone through the education of that school, he was at an early period admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge. He died in this city, the 29th of Nov. 1786, aged forty-one years, leaving a widow and three young children. (The above is on a flat stone in the cathedral.) And is this the memorial of the interesting and pious Unwin? Shall no monumental tablet record that he was "the endeared and valued friend of Cowper?" We have seldom seen so cold and jejune an epitaph to commemorate a man distinguished by so many virtues, and associated with such interesting recollections. We are happy in being enabled to furnish a testimony more worthy of him in the following letter, addressed by Cowper to the present Lord Carrington. TO ROBERT SMITH, ESQ.[775] Weston-Underwood, near Olney, Dec. 9, 1786. My dear Sir,—We have indeed suffered a great loss by the death of our friend Unwin; and the shock that attended it was the more severe, as till within a few hours of his decease there seemed to be no very alarming symptoms. All the account that we received from Mr. Henry Thornton, who acted like a true friend on the occasion, and with a tenderness toward all concerned that does him great honour, encouraged our hopes of his recovery; and Mrs. Unwin herself found him on her arrival at Winchester so cheerful, and in appearance so likely to live, that her letter also seemed to promise us all that we could wish on the subject. But an unexpected turn in his distemper, which suddenly seized his bowels, dashed all our hopes, and deprived us almost immediately of a man whom we must ever regret. His mind having been from his infancy deeply tinctured with religious sentiments, he was always impressed with a sense of the importance of the great change of all; and, on former occasions, when at any time he found himself indisposed, was consequently subject to distressing alarms and apprehensions. But in this last instance his mind was from the first composed and easy; his fears were taken away, and succeeded by such a resignation as warrants us in saying, "that God made all his bed in his sickness." I believe it is always thus, where the heart, though upright toward God, as Unwin's assuredly was, is yet troubled with the fear of death. When death indeed comes, he is either welcome, or at least has lost his sting. I have known many such instances, and his mother, from the moment that she learned with what tranquillity he was favoured in his last illness, for that very reason expected it would be his last. Yet not with so much certainty, but that the favourable accounts of him at length, in a great measure, superseded that persuasion. She begs me to assure you, my dear sir, how sensible she is, as well as myself, of the kindness of your inquiries. She suffers this stroke, not with more patience and submission than expected, for I never knew her hurried by any affliction into the loss of either, but in appearance at least, and at present, with less injury to health than I apprehended. She observed to me, after reading your kind letter, that, though it was a proof of the greatness of her loss, yet it afforded her pleasure, though a melancholy one, to see how much her son had been loved and valued by such a person as yourself. Mrs. Unwin wrote to her daughter-in-law, to invite her and the family hither, hoping that a change of scene, and a situation so pleasant as this, may be of service to her, but we have not yet received her answer. I have good hope, however, that, great as her affliction must be, she will yet be able to support it, for she well knows whither to resort for consolation. The virtues and amiable qualities of our friends are the things for which we most wish to keep them; but they are, on the other hand, the very things that in particular ought to reconcile us to their departure. We find ourselves sometimes connected with, and engaged in affection, too, to a person of whose readiness and fitness for another life we cannot have the highest opinion. The death of such men has a bitterness in it, both to themselves and survivors, which, thank God! is not to be found in the death of Unwin. I know, my dear sir, how much you valued him, and I know also, how much he valued you. With respect to him, all is well; and of you, if I should survive you, which perhaps, is not very probable, I shall say the same. In the meantime, believe me, with the warmest wishes for your health and happiness, and with Mrs. Unwin's affectionate respects, Yours, my dear sir, Most faithfully, W. C. Joseph Hill, Esq., survived Cowper many years, and lived to an advanced age. He formerly resided in Great Queen Street, and afterwards in Saville Row, and was eminent in his profession. His widow survived him, and died in the year 1824. The letters addressed to him by Cowper were arranged by Dr. Johnson, and ornamented with a suitable binding. They were finally left as an heir-loom at Wargrave, near Henley. Joseph Jekyll, Esq., the barrister, once celebrated for his wit and humour, succeeded to that property, and still survives at the moment in which we are writing. Samuel Rose, Esq., after a comparatively short career of professional eminence, was seized with a rheumatic fever, which he caught at Horsham, in attending the Sussex sessions, in 1804. He died in the thirty-eighth year of his age, declaring to those around him, "I have lived long enough to review my grounds for confidence, and I have unspeakable comfort in assuring those I love that I am daily more reconciled in leaving the world now than at a later period." Cowper's sentiments of him are expressed in the following letter. TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Weston-Underwood, Dec. 2, 1788. My dear Friend,—I told you lately, that I had an ambition to introduce to your acquaintance my valuable friend, Mr. Rose. He is now before you. You will find him a person of genteel manners and agreeable conversation. As to his other virtues and good qualities, which are many, and such as are not often found in men of his years, I consign them over to your own discernment, perfectly sure, that none of them will escape you. I give you joy of each other, and remain, my dear old friend, most truly yours, W. C. In recalling the name of Lady Austen, it is sufficient to entitle her to grateful remembrance, that it is to her we are indebted for the first suggestion of the poem of "The Task," that lasting monument of the fame of Cowper. It has also been recorded that she subsequently furnished the materials for the story of John Gilpin. Her maiden name was Richardson; she was married very early in life to Sir Robert Austen, Baronet, and resided with him in France, where he died. After this event, she lived with her sister Mrs. Jones, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Jones, minister of Clifton, near Olney. It was thus that her intercourse commenced with Cowper. In a subsequent period, she was married to a native of France, M. de Tardif, a gentleman, and a poet, who has expressed, in some elegant French verses, his just and deep sense of her accomplished, endearing character. In visiting Paris with him in the course of the summer of 1802, she sank under the fatigue of the excursion, and died in that city on the 12th of August. It is due to the memory of this lady to rescue her name from a surmise injurious to her sincerity and honour; and the Editor rejoices that he possesses the means of affording her, what he conceives to be an ample justification. In the published correspondence of the late respected Alexander Knox, Esq., a doubt is expressed how far she is not chargeable with endeavouring to supplant Mrs. Unwin in the affections of Cowper. It is already recorded that a breach occurred between the two ladies, and that the poet, with a sensitiveness and delicacy that reflect the highest credit on his feelings and judgment, relinquished the society of Lady Austen from that period. They never met again. There is no direct charge conveyed by Mr. Knox, but there is evidently expressed the language of doubt and surmise. Local impressions are often the best interpretation of questionable occurrences. With this view the Editor has endeavoured to trace the nature of the rupture, on the spot, by a communication with surviving parties. From these sources of inquiry it appears that Lady Austen was a woman of great wit and vivacity, and possessed the power of exciting much interest by her manner and conversation—that Mrs. Unwin, who was of a more sedate and quiet character, seeing the ascendency that Lady Austen thus acquired, became jealous, and that a rupture was the consequence. Mr. Andrews, an intelligent inhabitant of Olney, who is my informant, assured me that such was the substance of the case, and that the rest was mere surmise and conjecture. On my asking him whether he knew the impressions on Mr. Scott's mind with regard to this event, he added, "that he himself asked Mr. Scott the question, and that his reply was, 'Who can be surprised that two women should be continually in the society of one man, and quarrel sooner or later with each other?'" The blunt and honest reply of Mr. Scott we apprehend to be the best commentary on the transaction. There may be jealousies in friendship as well as in love; and the possibility of female rivalship is sufficient to account for the rupture, without the intervention of either friendship or love. From Mrs. Livius, of Bedford, formerly Miss Barham,[776] and intimate with Newton, Cowper, and Lady Austen, I learn that, though the vivacity and manner of Lady Austen weakened the belief of the depth of her personal religion, yet Mrs. Livius never entertained any doubt of its reality. Her own deep personal piety during a long life, and her just discrimination of character, are sufficient to give weight and authority to her judgment. I take this opportunity of expressing her conviction that the loss of Lady Austen's society was a great privation to Cowper; that she both enlivened his spirits and stimulated his genius, and that the jealousy of Mrs. Unwin operated injuriously by compelling him to relinquish so innocent a source of gratification. Hayley, in some lines written on the occasion of her death, speaks of her as one who Wak'd in a poet inspiration's flame; Sent the freed eagle in the sun to bask, And from the mind of Cowper—call'd "The Task." Of the Rev. Walter Bagot, who departed in the year 1806; aged seventy-five, the poet always spoke in the language of unfeigned esteem and affection. Sir George Throckmorton's death has been already recorded, and with this event the genius of the place may be said to have deserted its hallowed retreats, for the mansion exists no longer. His surviving estimable widow the Catharina of Cowper, resides at Northampton. Lady Hesketh, whose affectionate kindness to the poet must have endeared her to every reader, died in the year 1807, aged seventy-four. To the Editor's brother-in-law, the Rev. Dr. Johnson, several testimonies have already been borne in the course of this work. He was cousin to the poet, by one remove, which was the reason why he was usually designated as Cowper's kinsman, his mother having been the daughter of the Rev. Roger Donne, rector of Catfield, Norfolk, own brother to Cowper's mother. His unremitting and watchful care over the poet, for several successive years, and during a period marked by a painful and protracted malady, his generous sacrifice of his time, and of every personal consideration, that he might administer to the peace and comfort of his afflicted friend—his affectionate sympathy, and uniform forgetfulness of self, in all the various relations of life—these virtues have justly claimed for Dr. Johnson the esteem and love of his friends, and the honourable distinction of being ever identified with the endeared name of Cowper. He was rector of the united parishes of Yaxham and Welborne, in the county of Norfolk, where he preached the doctrines of the gospel with fidelity, and adorned them by the Christian tenor of his life and conduct. He married Miss Livius, daughter of the late George Livius, Esq., formerly at the head of the commissariat, in India, during the government of Warren Hastings. The Editor was connected with him by marrying the sister of Mrs. Johnson. He departed in the autumn of the year 1833, after a short illness, and was followed to the grave by a crowded assemblage of his parishioners, to whom he was endeared by his virtues. He left his estimable widow and four surviving children to lament his loss. Cowper was engraved on his heart, and his Poems minutely impressed on his memory. Both, therefore, became a frequent theme of conversation; and it is to these sources of information, that the writer is indebted for the knowledge of many facts and incidents that are incorporated in the present edition. The value which Cowper attached to the esteem of the Rev. W. Bull, the friend and travelling companion of John Thornton, Esq., may be seen in the following letter. It alludes to the approbation expressed by Mr. Bull on the publication of his first volume of poems. TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL. March 24, 1782. Your letter gave me great pleasure, both as a testimony of your approbation and of your regard. I wrote in hopes of pleasing you, and such as you; and though I must confess that, at the same time, I cast a sidelong glance at the good liking of the world at large, I believe I can say it was more for the sake of their advantage and instruction than their praise. They are children; if we give them physic, we must sweeten the rim of the cup with honey—if my book is so far honoured as to be made the vehicle of true knowledge to any that are ignorant, I shall rejoice, and do already rejoice that it has procured me a proof of your esteem. Yours, most truly, W. C. Mr. Bull was distinguished by no common powers of mind, brilliant wit, and imagination. It was at his suggestion that Cowper engaged in translating the poems of Madame Guion. He died, as he lived, in the hopes and consolations of the Gospel, and left a son, the Rev. Thomas Bull, who inherits his father's virtues. Wherever men have acquired celebrity by those powers of genius with which Providence has seen fit to discriminate them, a curiosity prevails to learn all the minuter traits of person, habit, and real character. We wish to realize the portrait before our eyes, to see how far all the component parts are in harmony with each other; or whether the elevation of mind which raises them beyond the general standard is perceptible in the occurrences of common life. Tell me, said an inquirer, writing from America, what was the figure of Cowper, what the character of his countenance, the expression of his eye, his manner, his habits, the house he lived in, whether its aspect was north or south, &c. This is amusing, but it shows the power of sympathy with which we are drawn to whatever commands our admiration, and excites the emotions of esteem and love. The person and mind of Cowper seem to have been formed with equal kindness by nature; and it may be questioned if she ever bestowed on any man, with a fonder prodigality, all the requisites to conciliate affection and to inspire respect. He is said to have been handsome in his youth. His features strongly expressed the powers of his mind and all the sensibility of his heart; and even in his declining years, time seemed to have spared much of its ravages, though his mind was harassed by unceasing nervous excitement. He was of a middle stature, rather strong than delicate in the form of his limbs; the colour of his hair was a light brown, that of his eyes a bluish grey, and his complexion ruddy. In his dress he was neat, but not finical; in his diet temperate, and not dainty. He had an air of pensive reserve in his deportment, and his extreme shyness sometimes produced in his manners an indescribable mixture of awkwardness and dignity; but no person could be more truly graceful, when he was in perfect health, and perfectly pleased with his society. Towards women, in particular, his behaviour and conversation were delicate and fascinating in the highest degree. There was a simplicity of manner and character in Cowper which always charms, and is often the attribute of real genius. He was singularly calculated to excite emotions of esteem and love by those qualities that win confidence and inspire sympathy. In friendship he was uniformly faithful; and, if the events of life had not disappointed his fondest hopes, no man would have been more eminently adapted for the endearments of domestic life. His daily habits of study and exercise are so minutely and agreeably delineated in his letters, that they present a perfect portrait of his domestic character. His voice conspired with his features to announce to all who saw and heard him the extreme sensibility of his heart; and in reading aloud he furnished the chief delight of those social, enchanting, winter evenings, which he has described so happily in the fourth book of "The Task." Secluded from the world, as he had long been, he yet retained in advanced life singular talents for conversation; and his remarks were uniformly distinguished by mild and benevolent pleasantry, by a strain of delicate humour, varied by solid and serious good sense, and those united charms of a cultivated mind, which he has himself very happily described in drawing the character of a venerable friend: Grave without dullness, learned without pride, Exact, yet not precise: though meek, keen-eyed; Who, when occasion justified its use, Had wit, as bright as ready, to produce; Could fetch from records of an earlier age, Or from philosophy's enlightened page, His rich materials, and regale your ear With strains, it was a privilege to hear. Yet, above all, his luxury supreme, And his chief glory, was the gospel theme: Ambitious not to shine or to excel, But to treat justly what he lov'd so well. But the traits of his character are nowhere developed with happier effect than in his own writings, and especially in his poems. From these we shall make a few extracts, and suffer him to draw the portrait for himself. His admiration of the works of Nature: I never fram'd a wish, or form'd a plan, That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss But there I laid the scene. There early stray'd My fancy, ere yet liberty of choice Had found me, or the hope of being free, My very dreams were rural; rural too The first-born efforts of my youthful muse, Sportive and jingling her poetic bells, Ere yet her ear was mistress of their pow'rs. No bard could please me but whose lyre was tun'd To Nature's praises. Task, book iv. The love of Nature's works Is an ingredient in the compound man, Infus'd at the creation of the kind. This obtains in all, That all discern a beauty in his works, And all can taste them. Minds, that have been form'd And tutor'd with a relish more exact, But none without some relish, none unmov'd. It is a flame that dies not even there Where nothing feeds it: neither business, crowds, Nor habits of luxurious city-life, Whatever else they smother of true worth In human bosoms, quench it or abate. The villas with which London stands begirt, Like a swarth Indian with his belt or beads, Prove it. A breath of unadult'rate air, The glimpse of a green pasture, how they cheer The citizen, and brace his languid frame. Book iv. God seen, and adored, in the works of Nature: Not a flow'r But shows some touch, in freckle, streak, or stain, Of his unrivall'd pencil. He inspires Their balmy odours, and imparts their hues, And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes, In grains as countless as the sea-side sands, The forms with which he sprinkles all the earth. Book vi. His fondness for retirement: Since then, with few associates, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene; With few associates, and not wishing more. Here much I ruminate, as much I may, With other views of men and manners now Than once, and others of a life to come. I see that all are wand'rers, gone astray, Each in his own delusions; they are lost In chace of fancied happiness, still woo'd And never won. Dream after dream ensues; And still they dream that they shall still succeed, And still are disappointed. Rings the world With the vain stir. I sum up half mankind, And add two-thirds of the remaining half, And find the total of their hopes and fears Dreams, empty dreams. Book iii. His love for his country: England, with all thy faults I love thee still— My country! and, while yet a nook is left, Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Tho' thy clime Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost, I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies, And fields without a flower, for warmer France With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bow'rs. Book ii. His humane and generous feelings: I was born of woman, and drew milk As sweet as charity from human breasts. I think, articulate, I laugh and weep, And exercise all functions of a man. How then should I and any man that lives Be strangers to each other? Pierce my vein, Take of the crimson stream meand'ring there, And catechise it well; apply thy glass, Search it, and prove now if it be not blood Congenial with thine own. Book iii. His love of liberty: Oh Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream, The poet's muse, his passion and his theme; Genius is thine, and thou art fancy's nurse; Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse; Heroic song from thy free touch acquires Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires: Place me where winter breathes his keenest air, And I will sing, if liberty be there; And I will sing at liberty's dear feet, In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat. Table Talk. 'Tis liberty alone, that gives the flow'r Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it. Task, book v. His depressive malady, and the source of its cure: I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since; with many an arrow deep infix'd My panting side was charg'd, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by One, who had himself Been hurt by th' archers. In his side he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.[777] With gentle force soliciting the darts He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. Book iii. The employment of his time, and design of his life and writings: Me therefore studious of laborious ease, Not slothful, happy to deceive the time, Not waste it, and aware that human life Is but a loan to be repaid with use, When He shall call his debtors to account, From whom are all our blessings; business finds E'en here: while sedulous I seek t' improve, At least neglect not, or leave unemploy'd, The mind he gave me; driving it, though slack Too oft, and much impeded in its work By causes not to be divulg'd in vain, To its just point—the service of mankind. Book iii. But all is in his hand, whose praise I seek. In vain the poet sings, and the world hears, If he regard not, though divine the theme. 'Tis not in artful measures, in the chime And idle tinkling of a minstrel's lyre, To charm his ear whose eye is on the heart, Whose frown can disappoint the proudest strain, Whose approbation prosper—even mine. Book vi. The office of doing justice to the poetical genius of Cowper has been assigned to an individual so well qualified to execute it with taste and ability, that the Editor begs thus publicly to record his acknowledgements and his unmingled satisfaction. The bowers of the Muses are not unknown to the Rev. John Cunningham, and, in contemplating the poetical labours of others, he might, with a small variation, justly apply to himself the well-known exclamation, "Ed anch'io son pittore."[778] All therefore that seems necessary, is simply to illustrate the beauties of Cowper's poetry in the same manner as we have exhibited his personal character. We shall present a brief series of poetical portraits. The following portrait of Lord Chatham is drawn with great force and spirit: In him Demosthenes was heard again; And freedom taught him her Athenian strain. She clothed him with authority and awe, Spoke from his lips, and in his books gave law. His speech, his form, his action, full of grace, And all his country beaming in his face, He stood, as some inimitable hand Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose; And every venal stickler for the yoke Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke. Table Talk. Sir Joshua Reynolds: There, touch'd by Reynolds, a dull blank becomes A lucid mirror, in which Natures sees All her reflected features. Bacon the sculptor: Bacon there Gives more than female beauty to a stone, And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips.[779] John Thornton, Esq.: Some men make gain a fountain, whence proceeds A stream of liberal and heroic deeds; The swell of pity, not to be confined Within the scanty limits of the mind, Disdains the bank, and throws the golden sands, A rich deposit, on the bordering lands: These have an ear for his paternal call, Who make some rich for the supply of all; God's gift with pleasure in his praise employ, And Thornton is familiar with the joy. Charity. The martyrs of the Reformation: Their blood is shed In confirmation of the noblest claim, Our claim to feed upon immortal truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the skies. Yet few remember them. They liv'd unknown, Till persecution dragg'd them into fame, And chas'd them up to heav'n. Their ashes flew —No marble tells us whither. With their names No bard embalms and sanctifies his song: And history, so warm on meaner themes, Is cold on this. She execrates indeed The tyranny that doom'd them to the fire, But gives the glorious suff'rers little praise. Task, book v. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress: O thou, whom, borne on fancy's eager wing Back to the season of life's happy spring, I pleas'd remember, and, while mem'ry yet Holds fast her office here, can ne'er forget; Ingenious dreamer, in whose well-told tale Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail; Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simple style, May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile; Witty, and well-employ'd, and, like thy Lord, Speaking in parables his slighted word: I name thee not, lest so despis'd a name Should move a sneer at thy deserved fame: Yet, e'en in transitory life's late day, That mingles all my brown with sober grey, Revere the man, whose Pilgrim marks the road, And guides the Progress of the soul to God. Tirocinium. Brown, the rural designer:[780] Lo! he comes— Th' omnipotent magician, Brown appears. Down falls the venerable pile, th' abode Of our forefathers, a grave whisker'd race, But tasteless. Springs a palace in its stead, But in a distant spot; where more expos'd It may enjoy th' advantage of the north, And agueish east, till time shall have transform'd Those naked acres to a shelt'ring grove. He speaks. The lake in front becomes a lawn, Woods vanish, hills subside, and valleys rise, And streams, as if created for his use, Pursue the track of his directing wand, Sinuous or straight, now rapid and now slow, Now murm'ring soft, now roaring in cascades, E'en as he bids. Th' enraptur'd owner smiles. 'Tis finish'd. And yet, finished as it seems. Still wants a grace, the loveliest it could show, A mine to satisfy the enormous cost. The Task, book iii. London: Oh! thou resort and mart of all the earth, Chequer'd with all complexions of mankind, And spotted with all crimes; in whom I see Much that I love and much that I admire, And all that I abhor; thou freckled fair, That pleases and yet shocks me, I can laugh, And I can weep, can hope, and yet despond, Feel wrath and pity when I think on thee! Ten righteous would have sav'd a city once, And thou hast many righteous.—Well for thee— That salt preserves thee; more corrupted else, And therefore more obnoxious at this hour, Than Sodom in her day had power to be, For whom God heard his Abram plead in vain. THE CONTRAST. Where finds Philosophy her eagle eye, With which she gazes at yon burning disk Undazzled, and detects and counts his spots? In London. Where her implements exact, With which she calculates, computes, and scans, All distance, motion, magnitude, and now Measures an atom, and now girds a world? In London. Where has commerce such a mart, So rich, so throng'd, so drain'd, and so supplied, As London—opulent, enlarg'd, and still Increasing, London? Babylon of old Not more the glory of the earth than she, A more accomplish'd world's chief glory now. Book i. The gin-palace: Behold the schools, in which plebeian minds Once simple are initiated in arts, Which some may practice with politer grace, But none with readier skill. 'Tis here they learn The road that leads from competence and peace, To indigence and rapine, till at last Society, grown weary of the load, Shakes her incumber'd lap, and casts them out. But censure profits little: vain th' attempt To advertise in verse a public pest, That, like the filth with which the peasant feeds His hungry acres, stinks, and is of use. Th' excise is fatten'd with the rich result Of all this riot, and ten thousand casks, For ever dribbling out their base contents, Touch'd 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 th' important call! Her cause demands the assistance of your throats; Ye all can swallow, and she asks no more. Task, book iv. We add a few short passages: How sweet, how passing sweet, is solitude! But grant me still a friend in my retreat Whom I may whisper—solitude is sweet. Not to understand a treasure's worth Till time has stolen away the slighted good Is cause of half the poverty we feel, And makes the world the wilderness it is. Not a year but pilfers as he goes Some youthful grace, that age would gladly keep. When one that holds communion with the skies Has fill'd his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis even as if an angel shook his wings; Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, That tells us whence his treasures are supplied. We must not omit a most splendid specimen of Cowper's poetic genius, entitled the "Yardley Oak." It is an unfinished poem, and supposed to have been written in the year 1791, and laid aside, without ever having been resumed, when his attention was engrossed with the edition of Milton. Whatever may be the history of this admirable fragment, it has justly acquired for Cowper the reputation of having produced one of the richest and most highly finished pieces of versification that ever flowed from the pen of a poet. Its existence even was unknown both to Dr. Johnson and Hayley, till the latter discovered it buried in a mass of papers. We subjoin in a note a letter addressed by Dr. Johnson to Hayley, containing further particulars.[781] Though this fragment is inserted among the poems, we extract the following passages, as expressive of the vigour and inspiration of true poetic genius. Thou wast a bauble once, a cup and ball, Which babes might play with; and the thievish jay, Seeking her food, with ease might have purloin'd The auburn nut that held thee, swallowing down Thy yet close-folded latitude of boughs, And all thine embryo vastness at a gulp. But Fate thy growth decreed; autumnal rains Beneath thy parent tree mellow'd the soil, Design'd thy cradle; and a skipping deer, With pointed hoof dibbling the glebe, prepar'd The soft receptacle, in which, secure, Thy rudiments should sleep the winter through. So Fancy dreams. Time made thee what thou wast, king of the woods; And Time hath made thee what thou art—a cave For owls to roost in! Once thy spreading boughs O'erhung the champaign: and the numerous flocks, That graz'd it, stood beneath that ample cope Uncrowded, yet safe-sheltered from the storm. No flock frequents thee now. While thus through all the stages thou hast push'd Of treeship—first a seedling, hid in grass; Then twig; then sapling; and as cent'ry roll'd Slow after century, a giant bulk Of girth enormous, with moss-cushion'd root Upheav'd above the soil, and sides imboss'd With prominent wens globose—till, at the last, The rottenness which time is charg'd to inflict On other mighty ones found also thee. Time was, when, settling on thy leaf, a fly Could shake thee to the root—and time has been When tempests could not.[782] With these acknowledged claims to popular favour, it is pleasing to reflect on the singular moderation of Cowper amidst the snares of literary fame. His motives seem to have been pure and simple, and his main design to elevate the character of the age, and to glorify God. He was not insensible to the value of applause, when conferred by a liberal and powerful mind, but even in this instance it was a subdued and chastened feeling. A more pleasing evidence could not be adduced than when Hayley, in one of his visits to Weston, brought a recent newspaper containing a speech of Mr. Fox, in which that distinguished orator had quoted the following impressive verses on the Bastille, in the House of Commons. Ye horrid tow'rs, the abode of broken hearts: Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair, That monarchs have supplied from age to age With music, such as suits their sov'reign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men! There's not an English heart that would not leap, To hear that ye were fall'n at last; to know, That e'en our enemies, so oft employ'd In forging chains for us, themselves were free.[783] Mrs. Unwin discovered marks of vivid satisfaction, Cowper smiled, and was silent.[784] We have mentioned how little Cowper was elated by praise. We shall now state how much he was depressed by unjust censure. His first volume of poems had been severely criticised by the Analytical Review. His feelings are recorded in the following (hitherto unpublished) letter to John Thornton, Esq. Olney, May 21, 1782. Dear Sir,—You have my sincere thanks for your obliging communication, both of my book to Dr. Franklin, and of his opinion of it to me. Some of the periodical critics, I understand have spoken of it with contempt enough; but, while gentlemen of taste and candour have more favourable thoughts of it, I see reason to be less concerned than I have been about their judgment, hastily framed perhaps, and certainly not without prejudice against the subjects of which it treats. Your friendly intimation of the Doctor's sentiments reached me very seasonably, just when, in a fit of despondence, to which no man is naturally more inclined, I had begun to regret the publication of it, and had consequently resolved to write no more. For if a man has the fortune to please none but his friends and their connexions, he has reason enough to conclude that he is indebted for the measure of success he meets with, not to the real value of his book, but to the partiality of the few that approve it. But I now feel myself differently affected towards my favourite employment; for which sudden change in my sentiments I may thank you and your correspondent in France, his entire unacquaintedness with me, a man whom he never saw, nor will see, his character as a man of sense and condition, and his acknowledged merit as an ingenious and elegant writer, and especially his having arrived at an age when men are not to be pleased they know not why, are so many circumstances that give a value to his commendations, and make them the most flattering a poor poet could receive, quite out of conceit with himself, and quite out of heart with his occupations. If you think it worth your while, when you write next to the Doctor, to inform him how much he has encouraged me by his approbation, and to add my respects to him, you will oblige me still further; for next to the pleasure it would afford me to hear that it has been useful to any, I cannot have a greater, so far as my volume is in question, than to hear that it has pleased the judicious. Mrs. Unwin desires me to add her respectful compliments. I am, dear sir, Your affectionate and most obedient servant, W. C. To John Thornton, Esq. Clapham, Surrey. Through this harsh and unwarrantable exercise of criticism, the world might never have possessed the immortal poem of "The Task," if an American philosopher had not awarded that honourable meed of just praise and commendation, which an English critic thought proper to withhold. But it is not merely the poetic claims of Cowper which have earned for him so just a title to public gratitude and praise. It would be unjust not to bestow particular notice on a talent, in which he singularly excelled, and one that friendship ought especially to honour, as she is indebted to it for a considerable portion of her happiest sources of delight—we mean the talent of writing letters. Those of Pope are generally considered to be too laboured, and deficient in ease. Swift is frequently ill-natured and offensive. Gray is admirable, but not equal to Cowper either in the graces of simplicity, or in the warmth of affection. The letters of Cowper are not distinguished by any remarkable superiority of thought or diction; it is rather the easy and graceful flow of sentiment and feeling, his enthusiastic love of nature, his touching representations of common and domestic life, and above all, the ingenuous disclosure of the recesses of his own heart, that constitute their charm and excellence. They form a kind of biographical sketch, drawn by his own hand. His poetry proclaims the author, his correspondence depicts the man. We see him in his walks, in the privacy of his study, in his daily occupations, amid the endearments of home, and with all the qualities that inspire friendship, and awaken confidence and love. We learn what he thought, what he said, his views of men and manners, his personal habits and history. His ideas usually flow without premeditation. All is natural and easy. There is no display, no evidence of conscious superiority, no concealment of his real sentiments. He writes as he feels and thinks, and with such an air of truth and frankness, that he seems to stamp upon the letter the image of his mind, with the same fidelity of resemblance that the canvass represents his external form and features. We see in them the sterling good sense of a man, the playfulness and simplicity of a child, and the winning softness and delicacy of a woman's feelings. He can write upon any subject, or write without one. He can embellish what is real by the graces of his imagination, or invest what is imaginary with the semblance of reality. He can smile or he can weep, philosophize or trifle, descant with fervour on the loveliness of nature, talk about his tame hares, or cast the overflowings of an affectionate heart at the shrine of friendship. His correspondence is a wreath of many flowers. His letters will always be read with delight and interest, and by many, perhaps, will be considered to be the rivals of his poems. They are justly entitled to the eulogium which we know to have been pronounced upon them by Charles Fox,—that of being "the best specimens of epistolary excellence in the English language." Among men distinguished by classical taste and acquirements, his Latin poems will ever be considered as elegant specimens of composition, and formed after the best models of antiquity. There is one exquisite little gem, in Latin hexameters, entitled "Votum," beginning thus: O matutini rores, auræque salubres, which we believe has never received an English dress. A gentleman of literary taste has kindly furnished us with a pleasing version, which we are happy to subjoin in a note.[785] We trust the author will excuse the insertion of his name. We have thus endeavoured to exhibit the singular versatility of Cowper's genius, and the combination of powers not often united in the same mind. All that now remains is to consider the consecration of these faculties to high and holy ends; and the influence of his writings on the literary, the moral, and religious character of the age. The great end and aim which he proposed to himself as an author, has already been illustrated from his writings; we add one more passage to show the sanctity of his character. Since the dear hour that brought me to thy foot, And cut up all my follies by the root, I never trusted in an arm but thine, Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine. My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled, Were but the feeble efforts of a child; Howe'er perform'd, it was their brightest part, That they proceeded from a grateful heart. Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood, Forgive their evil, and accept their good. I cast them at thy feet—my only plea Is what it was—dependence upon thee: While struggling in the vale of tears below, That never failed, nor shall it fail me now. Truth. We confess that we are edified by this simple, yet sublime and holy piety. It was from this source that Cowper drew the materials that have given to his writings the character of so elevated a morality. Too seldom, alas! have poets consecrated their powers to the cause of divine truth. In modern times, especially, we have witnessed a voluptuous imagery and appeal to the passions, in some highly-gifted writers, which have contributed to undermine public morality, and to tarnish the purity of female minds. But it is the honourable distinction of Cowper's poetry, that nothing is to be found to excite a blush on the cheek of modesty, nor a single line that requires to be blotted out. He has done much to introduce a purer and more exalted taste; he is the poet of nature, the poet of the heart and conscience, and, what is a still higher praise, the poet of Christianity. He mingled the waters of Helicon with the hallowed streams of Siloam, and planted the cross amid the bowers of the muses. Johnson, indeed, has remarked, that religion is not susceptible of poetry.[786] If this be true, it can arise only from the want of religious authors and religious readers. But we venture to deny the position, and to maintain that religion ennobles whatever it touches. In architecture, what building ever rivalled the magnificence of the temple of Jerusalem, St. Peter's in Rome, or the imposing grandeur of St. Paul's? In painting, what power of art can surpass the Transfiguration of a Raphael, the Ecce Homo of a Guido, or the Elevation and Descent of the Cross in a Rubens? In poetry, where shall we find a nobler production of human genius than the Paradise Lost? Again, let us listen to the language of the pious Fénelon: "No Greek or Latin poetry is comparable to the Psalms. That which begins, 'The God of gods, the Lord hath spoken, and hath called up the earth,' exceeds whatever human imagination has produced. Neither Homer, nor any other poet, equals Isaiah, in describing the majesty of God, in whose presence empires are as a grain of sand, and the whole universe as a tent, which to-day is set up, and removed to-morrow. Sometimes, as when he paints the charms of peace, Isaiah has the softness and sweetness of an eclogue; at others, he soars above mortal conception. But what is there in profane antiquity comparable to the wailings of Jeremiah, when he mourns over the calamities of his people? or to Nahum, when he foresees in spirit the downfall of Nineveh, under the assault of an innumerable army? We almost behold the formidable host, and hear the arms and the chariots. Read Daniel, denouncing to Belshazzar the vengeance of God, ready to fall upon him; compare it with the most sublime passages of pagan antiquity; you find nothing comparable to it. It must be added that, in the Scriptures, every thing sustains itself; whether we consider the historical, the legal, or the poetical part of it, the proper character appears in all." It would be singular, if a subject which unveils to the eye of faith the glories of the invisible world, and which is to be a theme of gratitude and praise throughout eternity, could inspire no ardour in a poet's soul; and if the wings of imagination could take flight to every world save to that which is eternal. We leave our Montgomeries to refute so gross an error, and appeal with confidence to the page of Cowper. We quote the following passage, to show that religion can not only supply the noblest theme, but also communicate a corresponding sublimity of thought and language. It is the glowing and poetical description of the millennial period, commencing with— Sweet is the harp of prophecy. We have room only for the concluding portion:— One song employs all nations, and all cry, "Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!" The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round. Behold the measure of the promise fill'd; See Salem built, the labour of a god! Bright as a sun the sacred city shines; All kingdoms and all princes of the earth Flock to that light; the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there; The looms of Ormus, and the mines of Ind, And Saba's spicy groves pay tribute there. Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls, And in her streets, and in her spacious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest west; And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has travell'd forth Into all lands. From every clime they come To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, O Sion! An assembly such as Earth Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see. Task, book vi. By this devotional strain of poetry, so adapted to the spirit of the present age, Cowper is rapidly accomplishing a revolution in the public taste, and creating a new race of readers. He is purifying the literary atmosphere from its noxious vapours. The muse has too long taken her flight downwards; Cowper leads her to hold communion with the skies. He has taught us that literary celebrity, acquired at the cost of public morals, is but an inglorious triumph, and merits no better title than that of splendid infamy. His page has fully proved that the varied field of nature, the scenes of domestic life, and the rich domain of moral and religious truth, are sufficiently ample for the exercise of poetic taste and fancy; while they never fail to tranquillize the mind, to invigorate the principles, and to enlarge the bounds of virtuous pleasure. The writings of Cowper have also been highly beneficial to the church of England. If he has been a severe, he has also been a faithful monitor. We allude to such passages as the following— There stands the messenger of truth: there stands The legate of the skies!—His theme divine, His office sacred, his credentials clear. By him the violated law speaks out Its thunders; and by him, in strains as sweet As angels use, the gospel whispers peace. He 'stablishes the strong, restores the weak, Reclaims the wand'rer, binds the broken heart, And, arm'd himself in panoply complete Of heavenly temper, furnishes with arms Bright as his own, and trains, by every rule Of holy discipline, to glorious war, The sacramental host of God's elect! Are all such teachers? Would to Heaven all were! Task, book ii. I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause. To such I render more than mere respect, Whose actions say that they respect themselves. But, loose in morals, and in manners vain, In conversation frivolous, in dress Extreme— From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands On skulls that cannot teach and will not learn. There was a period when the chase was not considered to be incompatible with the functions of the sacred office. On this subject Cowper exclaims, with just and indignant feeling— Is this the path of sanctity? Is this To stand a way-mark in the road to bliss? Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet, Send your dishonour'd gown to Monmouth-street! The sacred function in your hands is made— Sad sacrilege! no function, but a trade! The Progress of Error. The danger of popular applause: O popular applause! what heart of man Is proof against thy sweet seducing charms? The wisest and the best feel urgent need Of all their caution in the gentlest gales; But, swell'd into a gust—who then, alas! With all his canvass set, and inexpert, And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power? Ah, spare your idol! think him human still. Charms he may have, but he has frailties too! Dote not too much, nor spoil what ye admire. These rebukes, pungent as they are, were needed. The works of Mrs. Hannah More bear unquestionable testimony to this fact. But we may now record with gratitude a very perceptible change, and appeal to the evidences of reviving piety among all classes of the clergy. Though the singular and mysterious malady of Cowper has been the occasion of repeated remark, yet we cannot dismiss the subject without a few concluding reflections. In contrasting with his other letters the correspondence with Newton, the chosen depositary of all his secret woe, it is difficult to recognise in the writer the same identity of character. His mind appears to have undergone some transforming process, and the gay and lively tints of his sportive imagination to be suddenly shrouded in the gloom of a mysterious and appalling darkness. We seem to enter into the regions of sorrow and despair, and to trace the terrific inscription so finely drawn by the poet, in his celebrated "Inferno:" "Voi ch' entrate lasciate ogni speranza."[787] Ye who enter here leave all hope behind. In contemplating this afflicting dispensation, and referring every event, as we must, to the appointment or permissive providence of God, we feel constrained to exclaim with the patriarch, "The thunder of his power who can understand?"[788] But life, as Bishop Hall observes, is made up of perturbations; and those seem most subject to their occurrence who are distinguished by the gifts of rank, fortune, or genius. Such is the discipline which the moral Governor of the world sees fit to employ for the purification of their possessors! In recording the lot of genius, Milton, it is known, was blind, Pope was afflicted with sickness, and Tasso, Swift, Smart, and Collins, were exposed to the aberrations of reason. "Moralists," says Dr. Johnson, "talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and of the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change—that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire." It seems as if the mind were too ethereal to be confined within the bounds of its earthly prison, or that the too frequent and intense exercise of thought disturbs the digestive organs, and lays the foundation of hypochondriacal feelings, which cloud the serenity of the soul. It is painful to reflect how much our sensations of comfort and happiness depend on the even flow and circulation of the blood. But the connexion of physical and moral causes has been the subject of philosophical remark in all ages. The somewhat analogous case of the celebrated Dr. Johnson seems to have been overlooked by preceding biographers of Cowper. "The morbid melancholy," observes Boswell, "which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those peculiarities, and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation, in 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence." Let those to whom Providence has assigned a humbler path, learn the duty of contentment, and be thankful that if they are denied the honours attendant on rank and genius, they are at least exempted from its trials. For where there are heights, there are depths; and he who occupies the summit is often seen descending into the valley of humiliation. That a similar morbid temperament may be traced in the case of Cowper is indisputable; nor can a more conclusive evidence be adduced than the words of his own memoir:—"I was struck, not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair."[789] In his subsequent attack, religion became an adjunct, not a cause, for he describes himself at that period as having lived without religion. The impression under which he laboured was therefore manifestly not suggested by a theological creed, but was the delusion of a distempered fancy. Every other view is founded on misconception, and must inevitably tend to mislead the public. Before we conclude the Life of Cowper, there are some important reflections, arising from his unhappy malady, which we beg to impress on the attention of the reader. The fruitful source of all his misery was the indulgence of an over-excited state of feeling. His mind was never quiescent. Occurrences, which an ordinary degree of self-possession would have met with calmness, or passive indifference, were to him the subject of mental agony and distress. His imagination gave magnitude to trifles, till what was at first ideal, at length assumed the character of a terrible reality. He was always anticipating evil; and so powerful is the influence of fancy that what we dread we seldom fail to realize. Thus Swift lived in the constant fear of mental imbecility, and at length incurred the calamity. We scarcely know a spectacle more pitiable, and yet more reprehensible. For what is the use of reason, if we reject its dictates? or the promise of the Spirit to help our infirmities, if we nevertheless yield to their sway? How important in the education of youth to repress the first symptoms of nervous irritability, to invigorate the principles, and to train the mind to habits of self-discipline, and firm reliance upon God! The far greater proportion of human trials originate not in the appointment of Providence, but may be traced to the want of a well-ordered and duly regulated mind; to the ascendency of passion, and to the absence of mental and moral energy. It is possible to indulge in a state of mind that shall rob every blessing of half its enjoyment, and give to every trial a double portion of bitterness. We turn with delight to a more edifying feature in his character— His submission under this dark dispensation. It is easy to exhibit the triumphs of faith in moments of exultation and joy; but the vivid energy of true faith is never more powerfully exemplified, than when it is left to its own naked exercise, unaided by the influence of exciting causes. It is amid the desolation of hope, and when the iron enters into the soul—it is amid pain, depression, and sorrow, when the eye is suffused with tears, and every nerve vibrates with emotion—to be able to exclaim at such a moment, "Here I am, let him do with me as seemeth him good;"[790] this is indeed the faith which is of the operation of the Spirit, which none but God can give, and which will finally lead to a triumphant crown. That the mind should still indulge its sorrows, in moments of awakened feeling, is natural. On this subject we know nothing more touching than the manner in which Cowper parodies and appropriates to himself Milton's affecting lamentation over his own blindness:[791] Seasons return, but not to me returns God, or the sweet approach of heavenly day, Or sight of cheering truth, or pardon seal'd, Or joy, or hope, or Jesus' face divine; But cloud, &c. To this quotation we might add the affecting conclusion of the poem of "The Castaway." We perish'd each alone; But I beneath a rougher sea, And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.[792] The overruling Providence of God is no less discernible in this event. The severest trials are not without their alleviation, nor the accompaniment of some gracious purpose. Had it not been for Cowper's visitation, the world might never have been presented with The Task, nor the Church of Christ been edified with the Olney Hymns. He was constrained to write, in order to divert his melancholy. "Despair," he observes, "made amusement necessary, and I found poetry the most agreeable amusement."[793] "In such a situation of mind, encompassed by the midnight of absolute despair, and a thousand times filled with unspeakable horror, I first commenced an author. Distress drove me to it; and the impossibility of subsisting without some employment, still recommends it."[794] How wonderful are the ways of God, and what a powerful commentary on Cowper's own celebrated hymn— God moves in a mysterious way, &c. It will probably be found, at the last great day, that the darkest dispensations were the most essential links in the chain of providential dealings; and that what we least understood, and often contemplated with solemn awe on earth, will form the subject of never-ceasing praise in eternity. Whatever were the trials of Cowper, they are now terminated. It will be remembered that his kinsman saw, or thought he saw, in the features of his deceased friend, "an expression of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise."[795] We would not attach too much importance to a look, but rather rest our hopes of Cowper's happiness on the covenanted mercy and faithfulness of God. Still the supposition is natural and soothing; and we by no means think it improbable that the disembodied spirit might communicate to the earthly lineaments, in the moment of departure, the impression of its own heavenly joy. And O! what must have been the expression of that surprise and joy, when, as his immortal spirit ascended to him that gave it, instead of beholding the averted eye of an offended God, he recognised the radiant smiles of his reconciled countenance, and the caresses of his tenderness and love—when all heaven burst upon his astonished view; and when, amid angels, and archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, he was invited to bear his part in the glorious song of the redeemed, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests for ever and ever. But it is time to close our remarks on the Life and Writings of Cowper. It is a name that has long entwined itself around the affections of our heart, and appealed, from early days, both to conscience and feeling. We lament our inadequacy to fulfil all the duties of the present important undertaking, but the motives which have powerfully urged us to engage in it, are founded on a wish to exhibit Cowper in accordance with his own Christian character and principles; to vindicate him from prevailing misconceptions; and in imputing the gloom of depression, under which he laboured, to its true causes, so to treat this delicate subject as to make it the occasion of sympathizing interest, and not of revolting and agonized feelings. The private correspondence, in this respect, is invaluable, and absolutely essential to the clear elucidation of his case. Other documents have also been inserted that never appeared in any previous biography of Cowper; and private sources of information have been explored, not easily accessible to other inquirers. We trust this object has been attained, and the hope of so important a result is a source of cheering consolation. The history of Cowper is fruitful in the pathetic, the sublime, and the terrible, so as to produce an effect that seems almost to realize the fictions of romance. A life composed of such materials cannot fail to command attention. It possesses all the bolder lineaments of character, relieved by the familiar, the tender, the sportive, and the gay. Emotions are thus excited in which the heart loves to indulge; for who does not delight alternately in the calmness of repose, and in the excitement of awakened feeling? But, independently of the interest created by the events of Cowper's life, there is something singularly impressive in the mechanism of his mind. It is so curiously wrought, and wonderfully made, as to form a subject for contemplation to the philosopher, the Christian, and the medical observer. The union of these several qualifications seems necessary to analyze the interior springs of thought and action, to mark the character of God's providential dealings, and to trace the influence of morbid temperament on the powers of the intellect and the passions of the soul. His mind presents the most wonderful combinations of the grave and the gay, the social and the retired, ministering to the spiritual joy of others, yet enveloped in the gloom of darkness, enchained with fetters, yet vigorous and free, soaring to the heights of Zion, yet precipitated to the depths below. It resembles a beautiful landscape, overshadowed by a dark and impending cloud. Every moment we expect the cloud to burst on the head of the devoted sufferer; and the awful anticipation would be fulfilled, were it not that a divine hand, which guides every event, and without which not even a sparrow falls to the ground, interposes and arrests the shock. Upwards of twenty years expired, during which he was thus graciously upheld. He then began to sink under his accumulated sorrows. But it is worthy of observation, that during this period his mind never suffered a total alienation. It was a partial eclipse, not night, nor yet day. He lived long enough, both for himself and others, sufficient to discharge all the claims of an affectionate friendship, and to raise to himself an imperishable name on the noble foundation of moral virtue. At length, when he stood alone, as it were, like a column in the melancholy waste; when he was his own world, and the solitary agent, around which clung the sensations of a heart always full, and the reflections of a mind unconscious of a pause—he died. But his last days and moments were soothed by the offices of Christian kindness, and the most disinterested regard. His beloved kinsman never left him till he had closed his eyes in death, and till the disembodied spirit, at length, found the rest in heaven, which for ever obliterated all its earthly sorrows. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign for ever and ever.—Rev. xxii. 3-5. ON THE GENIUS AND POETRY OF COWPER. BY THE REV. J. W. CUNNINGHAM, A.M., VICAR OF HARROW. In presenting to the public the first Complete Edition of the Works of Cowper, it is thought desirable to prefix to the Poems a short dissertation on his Genius and Poetry. It is true that criticisms abound which have nearly the same object. It is true also that some of these criticisms are of a very high order of excellence. But perhaps their very number and merit supply a reason for adding at least one to the catalogue. The observations of the different Reviewers are scattered over so large a number of volumes, and these volumes are many of them, either of so expensive or so ephemeral a character, that an essay which endeavours to collect these criticisms into a focus, and present them at once to the eye of the reader, is far from superfluous. And the present critique pretends to little more than the accomplishment of this object. The writer is not ashamed to profit from the labour and genius of his predecessors in the same course, and to let them say for him, what he could not say so well for himself. With this apology for what might otherwise be deemed a work of supererogation, we enter upon the proposed undertaking. And here we must begin by observing that it is impossible not to be struck with certain peculiarities in the history of Cowper, as connected with his poetical productions. Although, as it has been truly said of him—"born a poet, if ever there was one,"—thinking and feeling upon all occasions as none but a poet could, expressing himself in verse with almost incredible facility, it does not appear that Cowper, between the ages of fourteen and thirty-three, produced anything beyond the most trifling specimens of his art. The only lines characteristic of his genius and peculiarities as a poet, and which, though composed at a distance of more than thirty years from the publication of "The Task," have so intimate a resemblance to it as to seem to be a page out of the same volume, are those written at the age of eighteen, on finding the heel of an old shoe. "This ponderous heel of perforated hide, Compact, with pegs indented, many a row, Haply (for such its massy form bespeaks) The weighty tread of some rude peasant clown Upbore: on this supported, oft he stretched, With uncouth strides, along the furrow'd glebe, Flattening the stubborn clod; till cruel time, (What will not cruel time?) or a wry step, Sever'd the strict cohesion; when, alas! He who could erst, with even, equal pace, Pursue his destin'd way, with symmetry, And some proportion form'd, now, on one side, Curtail'd and maim'd, the sport of vagrant boys, Cursing his frail supporter, treach'rous prop! With toilsome steps, and difficult, moves on." A few light and agreeable poems, two hymns written at Huntingdon, with about sixty others composed at Olney, are almost the only known poetical productions of his pen between the years 1749 and 1782, at which last period he committed his volume of poems in rhyme to the press. There are examples in the physical world, of mountains reposing in coldness and quietness for ages; and, at length, without any apparently new stimulus, awaking from their slumber, and deluging the surrounding vineyards with streams of fire. But it is, we believe, an unheard-of poetical phenomenon, for a mind teeming with such tendencies and capabilities as that of Cowper, to sleep through so long a period, and, at length, suddenly to awake, when illness and age might seem to have laid their palsying hand upon its energies, and at once to erect itself into poetical life and supremacy. In general, the poet either 'lisps in numbers,' or begins to put forth his hidden powers under the exciting influence of some new passion or emotion—such as love, fear, hope, or disappointment. But, how wide of this was the history of Cowper! In his case, the muse had no infancy, but sprang full armed from the brain of the poet. But, if the tardy development of the poetical powers of our author was one peculiarity in his case, the suddenness and completeness of the development, when it did take place, was, under his circumstances, a still greater subject of surprise. In the account of his life we learn, that, after quitting Westminster school, at the age of eighteen, he spent three years in a solicitor's office; and passed from thence, at the age of twenty-one, into chambers in the Inner Temple. Soon after this event, he says of himself, "I was struck, not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, rising up in despair. I presently lost all relish for the studies to which before I had been closely attached. The classics had no longer any charm for me. I had need of something more salutary than amusement, but I had no one to direct me where to find it." This dejection of mind, as our readers are aware, led him onward from depth to depth of misery and despair, till at length he was borne away, helpless and hopeless, in the year 1768, to an asylum for insane patients at St. Albans. Released from the awful grasp of a perverted imagination, chiefly by the power of that religion, which, in spite of every fact in his history, has been, with malignant hatred to Christianity, charged as the cause of his madness, he spent the two happiest years of his life at Huntingdon. After this, he retired with the Unwin family to Olney, in Buckinghamshire; and there, after passing through the most tremendous mental conflicts, sank again into a state of despondency; from which he at length awoke, (if it might be called awaking,) not indeed to be freed from his delusions, but, whilst under their dominion, to delight, instruct, and astonish mankind, with some of the most original and enchanting poems in any language. The philosophical work of Browne, dedicated to Queen Caroline, and composed, as the author says, by a man who had lost his "rational soul," has been always reputed the miracle of literature. But Browne's case is scarcely more remarkable than that of Cowper. That a work sparkling with the most childlike gaiety and brilliant wit; exhibiting the most cheerful views of the character of God, the face of nature, and the circumstances of man, should proceed from a writer who at the time regarded God as an implacable enemy; the earth we live on, as the mere porch to a world of punishment; and human life, at least in his own case, as the cloudy morning of a day of interminable anguish—all this is to be explained only by the fact that madness disdains all rules, and reconciles all contrarieties. His history supplies an example, not without its parallel, of a mind—like some weapon drawn from its sheath to fight a particular battle, and then suspended on the walls again—called forth to accomplish an important end, and then sent back again into obscurity. And it is no less an evidence, amongst a thousand other instances, that our heavenly Father "in judgment remembers mercy," and bestows this mitigation of the heaviest of all maladies, that those exposed to its deadliest influence and themselves denied all access to the bright sources of happiness, are sometimes privileged to pour the streams of consolation over the path of others. How truly may it be said of such persons, "Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis apes." But whilst we speak of certain peculiarities in the case of Cowper, as calculated to destroy all reasonable expectation of such poems as he has given to the public, we are not sure that these very peculiarities have not assisted to supply his poetry with some of its characteristic and most valuable features. Among the qualities, for example, by which his compositions are distinguished, are those of strong sense—moderation on all the subjects most apt to throw the mind off its balance—maturity in thought, reasoning and imagination—fulness without inflation—the "strength of the oak without its nodosities"—the "inspiration of the Sybil without her contortions"—the most profound and extensive views of human nature. But perhaps every one of these qualities is oftener the growth of age than of youth; and is rather the tardy fruit of patient experience than the sudden shoot of untrained and undisciplined genius. In like manner, the poetry of Cowper is characterised by the most touching tenderness, by the deepest sympathy with the sufferings of others, by a penetrating insight into the dark recesses of a tempted and troubled heart. But where are qualities such as these so likely to be cultivated as in the shady places of a suffering mind, and in the school of that stern mistress who teaches us "from our own, to melt at others' woe," and to administer to others the medicines which have healed ourselves? A celebrated physician is said to have inoculated himself with the virus of the plague, in order to practise with more efficacy in the case of others. Such voluntary initiation in sorrow was needless in the case of Cowper;—another hand had opened the wound which was to familiarize him with the deepest trials of suffering humanity. It is time, however, that we should proceed to consider some of the claims of Cowper to the character of a poet. Large multitudes have found an almost irresistible charm in his writings. In what peculiarities does this powerful influence mainly reside? In order to reply to this question, we would first direct the attention of our readers to the constitution of his mind. And here we may enter on our work by observing, that almost all critics have regarded an ardent love of nature as a sine quâ non in the constitution of a poet. And nature, surely, never had a more enthusiastic admirer than the author of the Task. How feelingly does he write on this subject! "I have loved the rural walk through lanes Of grassy swarth, close cropp'd by nibbling sheep, And skirted thick with intertexture firm Of thorny bows; have loved the rural walk O'er hills, through valleys, and by river's brink, E'er since, a truant boy, I pass'd my bounds, T' enjoy a ramble on the banks of Thames. When Homer describes his shepherd as contemplating the heavens and earth by the light of the moon and stars, and says, with his accustomed simplicity and grace,—"The heart of the shepherd is glad;" our author might seem to have sat for the portrait. Although unacquainted with nature in her sublimest aspect, every point in creation appears to have a charm for him. To no lips would the strain of another poet be more appropriate. "I care not, fortune, what you me deny; You cannot rob me of free nature's grace; You cannot shut the windows of the sky, Through which Aurora shows her brightening face; You cannot bar my constant feet to trace The woods and lawns by living stream at eve." It is true, that every enthusiastic lover of nature is not a poet: but a man can scarcely rise to the dignity of that high office who has not a touch of this enthusiasm. Poetry is essentially an imitative art; and he who is no lover of nature loses all the finest subjects of imitation. On the contrary, this attachment, especially if it be of an ardent character, supplies subjects to the muse every where. Winter or summer, the wilderness and the garden, the cedar of Libanus, and the hyssop on the wall; all that is dull and ineloquent to another has a voice for him, and rouses him to think, to feel, to admire, and to speak. The following lines are said to have been introduced into "The Task," to gratify Mrs. Unwin, after the first draught of the poem was finished. But what language can exhibit a more genuine attachment to nature? "And witness, dear companion of my walks, Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive Fast lock'd in mine.... Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long. Thou know'st my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjur'd up To serve occasion of poetic pomp, But genuine; and art partner of them all." Nor was the delight which he derived from nature confined, in the case of our poet, to one sense. "All the sounds," he writes, "that nature utters are delightful, at least in this country. I should not perhaps find the roarings of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleasing; but I know of no beast in England, whose voice I do not account musical, save and except only the braying 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 I might hang him up in the parlour for the sake of his melody, but the goose upon a common, or in a farm-yard, is no bad performer. Seriously, however, it strikes me as a very observable instance of providential 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. The fields, the woods, the gardens, have each their concerts; 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 continually entertained, though without knowing it, by sounds for which they are solely indebted to its Author."[796] It is interesting to compare with this the poetical expression of the same thought. "Nor rural sights alone, but rural sounds Exhilirate the spirit, and restore The tone of languid nature.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds, But animated nature sweeter still, To soothe or satisfy the human ear. Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one The live-long night. Nor those alone whose notes Nice finger'd art must emulate in vain; But cawing rooks, and kites, that swim sublime In still repeated circles, screaming loud; The jay, the pie, and e'en the boding owl, That hails the rising moon, have charms for me." Another poetical quality in the mind of Cowper is his ardent love of his species—a love which led him to contemplate, with the most solicitous regard, their wants, tastes, passions; their diseases, and the appropriate remedies for them. It has been justly observed, that, if there are some who have little taste for the poetry which delineates only inanimate beings or objects, there is hardly any one who does not listen, with sympathy and delight, to that which exhibits the fortunes and feelings of man. The truth is, we suppose, that this last order of topics is most easily brought home to our own business and bosoms. Aristotle considers that the imitation or delineation of human action is one of the main objects of poetry. But if this be true, if the "proper study of mankind is man," and one of the highest offices of poetry be to exhibit, as upon the stage, the fortunes and passions of his fellow beings—few have attained such eminence in his art as Cowper. His hymns are the close transcripts of his own soul. His rhymed poems have more of a didactic character; but they are for the most part exhibitions of man in all his attitudes of thought and action. They are mirrors in which every man may contemplate his own mind. In the "Task," he passes every moment from the contemplation of nature to that of the being who inhabits this fair, though fallen, world. He lashes the vices, laughs at the follies, mourns over the guilt of his species; he spares no pains to conduct the guilty to the feet of their only true Friend, and to land the miserable amidst the green pastures and still waters of heavenly consolation. Another property in the mind of Cowper, which has given birth to some of the noblest passages in his poems, is his intense love of freedom. The political state of this country was scarcely ever more degraded than at the period when he began to write; and every real patriot who could wield the pen, or lift the voice in the cause of legitimate and regulated freedom, had plenty to do at home. At the same period also the profligacy and tyranny of the privileged orders in France, and other of the old European dynasties, were such as to provoke the indignation of every lover of liberty. And lastly, at this time, that horrible traffic in human flesh, that capital crime, disgrace, and curse of the human species, the Slave Trade, prevailed in all its horrors. How splendid are many of the passages scattered so prodigally through his poems, in which the author rebukes the crimes of despotism and cruelty at home or abroad, and claims for mankind the high privileges with which God, by an everlasting charter, had endowed them. What lines can breathe a deeper indignation, than those quoted with such admiration by Mr. Fox, in the House of Commons, on the Bastile? "Ye horrid towers, th' abode of broken hearts, Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair, That monarchs have supplied, from age to age, With music such as suits their sovereign ears, The sighs and groans of miserable men: There's not an English heart that would not leap To hear that ye were fallen at last." And what passage in any uninspired writer is more noble and heart-stirring, than that on the decision in the case tried by the illustrious Granville Sharpe, to establish the liberty of all who touched the soil of England—a passage confessedly the foundation of the noblest effort of Curran, in his great speech on the liberty of the subject! "I 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 heart's Just estimation priz'd above all price, I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home—then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loos'd. Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's noble, and bespeaks a nation proud And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through ev'ry vein Of all your empire; that, where Britain's pow'r Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too." But after all, perhaps, the peculiarity in the mind of Cowper, which gives the chief charm to his poetry, is the depth and ardour of his piety. It is impossible not to be aware of the severance which critics have laboured to effect between religion and poetry,—between the character of the prophet and the poet: and that Johnson's decision is thought by some to be final on the subject. Cowper himself admits that the connexion has been rare between the two characters—as witness the following lines— "Pity religion has so seldom found A skilful guide into poetic ground! For flow'rs would spring where'er she deigned to stray, And ev'ry muse attend her in her way. Virtue indeed meets many a rhyming friend, And many a compliment politely penn'd; But, unattir'd in that becoming vest Religion weaves for her, and half undrest, Stands in the desert, shiv'ring and forlorn, A wintry figure like a wither'd thorn." But he does not despair of seeing some "Bard all fire, Touch'd with a coal from heaven, assume the lyre, And tell the world, still kindling as he sung, With more than mortal music on his tongue, That He who died below, and reigns above, Inspires the song, and that his name is 'Love.'" Indeed no theory can have less foundation either in philosophy or in fact, than that poetry and religion have too little in common, for either to gain by an attempt to unite them. They seem to us born for each other. And, so important is this topic, that, although at the risk of repeating what has been said elsewhere, it may be well for a moment, to dwell upon it. The theory which endeavours to secure a perpetual divorce between religion and poetry has not the authority of the great critics of antiquity. Longinus maintains, in one place, that "he who aims at the reputation of a sublime writer must spare no labour to educate his soul to grandeur, and to impregnate it with great and generous ideas." And he affirms, in another, that "the faculties of the soul will grow stupid, the spirit be lost, and good sense and genius lie in ruins, when the care and study of man is engaged about the mortal and worthless part of himself, and he has ceased to cultivate virtue, and polish up the nobler part, his soul." Quintilian has a whole chapter to prove that a great writer must be a good man. And the greatest modern critics hold the same language. But, perhaps, in no passage is the truth upon this subject more nobly expressed, and a difficulty connected with it more ably explained, than in the following verses of a poem now difficult of access: "But, of our souls, the high-born loftier part, Th' ethereal energies that touch the heart; Conceptions ardent, labouring thought intense, Creative fancy's wild magnificence; And all the dread sublimities of song —These, Virtue, these to thee alone belong. Chill'd by the breath of Vice, their radiance dies, And brightest burns, when lighted at the skies; Like vestal lamps, to purest bosoms giv'n, And kindled only by a ray from heav'n."[797] Nor does this sentiment stand on the mere authority of critics; but appears to be founded on just views of the constitution of our nature. Lighter themes can be expected to awaken only light and transient feelings in the bosom. The profounder topics of religion sink deeper; touch all the hidden springs of thought and action; and awaken emotions, which have all the force and permanence of the great principles and interests in which they originate. To us, no assertion would seem to have less warrant, than that taste suffers by its alliance with religion. The proper objects of taste are beauty and sublimity; and if (as a modern critic seems to us to have incontrovertibly established) beauty and sublimity do not reside in the mere forms and colours of the objects we contemplate, but in the associations which they suggest to the mind, it cannot be questioned that the associations suggested to a man of piety, exceed both in beauty and sublimity those of every other class. God, as a Father, is the most lovely of all objects—God, as an avenger, is the most terrible; and it is to the religious man exclusively, that this at once most tender and most terrible Being is disclosed, in all the beauty and majesty of holiness, by every object which he contemplates— "Præsentiorem conspicimus Deum Per invias rupes, fera per juga, Clivosque præruptos sonantes, Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem." Or, as the same sentiment is expressed by Cowper, "His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired, Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say,—'My Father made them all!'" It is striking to what an extent the greatest poets of all ages and countries have called in religion, under some form or other, to their assistance. How are the Iliad and Odyssey ennobled by their mythological machinery; by the scales of Fate, the frown of Jove, and the intercession of Minerva! How anxiously does Virgil labour to give a moral and religious character to his Georgics and Æneid! And how nobly do these kindred spirits, by a bold fiction bordering upon truth, display the eternal mansions of joy and of misery, of reward and of punishment; thus disclosing, not by the light of revelation, but by the blended flashes of genius and tradition, the strongest incentives to virtue, and the most terrific penalties of crime. The same may be affirmed of many of our own most distinguished poets; of "the sage and serious Spenser," and the immortal author of "the Paradise Lost" himself. Nor can we hesitate to trace the deep interest continually excited by the poetry of Cowper, in great measure, to the same source. Though often careless in the structure of his verse; though sometimes lame, and lengthy, and prosaic in his manner; though frequently employed about unpopular topics; he is perhaps the most popular, with the exception of one, of all the English poets: and we believe that the main source of his general acceptance is the fact that he never fails to introduce the Creator into the scenes of his own universe; that, by the soarings of his own mind, he lifts us from earth to heaven, and "makes us familiar with a world unseen;" that he draws largely from the mine of Scripture, and thus exhibits the majesty and love of the Divine Being, in words and imagery which the great object of his wonder and love Himself provides. It is wholly needless for us to refer to any particular parts of the works of our author, as illustrative of his deep and sanguine spirit of piety. That spirit breathes through every line, and letter. It is, if we may so speak, the animating soul of his verses. The mind of the Christian reader is refreshed, in every step of his progress, by the conviction that the songs thus sung on earth were taught from Heaven; and that, in resigning himself to the sweetest associate for this world, he is choosing the very best guide to another. Indeed, few have been disposed to deny to Cowper the highest of all poetical titles—that of The Poet of Christianity. In this field he has but one rival, the author of the "Paradise Lost." And happily the provinces which they have chosen for themselves within the sacred enclosure are, for the most part, so distinct, that it is scarcely necessary to bring them into comparison. The distinguishing qualities of Milton are a surpassing elevation of thought and energy of expression, which leave the mind scarcely able to breathe under the pressure of his majesty, courage, and sublimity. The main defect of his poetry, as has been justly stated by an anonymous critic, is "the absence of a charm neither to be named nor defined, which would render the whole as lovely as it is beautiful, and as captivating as it is sublime." "His poetry," it is added by the same critic, "will be ever praised by the many, and read by the few. The weakest capacity may be offended by its faults, but it requires a genius equal to his own to comprehend and enjoy all his merits. "Cowper rarely equals Milton in sublimity, to which his subjects but seldom led; he excels him in easy expression, delicate pleasantry, and generous satire; and he resembles him in the temperate use of all his transcendent abilities. He never crushes his subject by falling upon it, nor permits his subject to crush him by falling beneath it. Invested with a sovereign command of diction, and enjoying unlimited freedom of thought, he is never prodigal of words, and he never riots amidst the exuberance of his conceptions; his economy displays his wealth, and his moderation is the proof of his power; his richest phrases seem the most obvious expression of his ideas, and his mightiest exertions are made apparently without toil. This, as we have already observed, is one of the grandest characteristics of Milton. It would be difficult to name a third poet of our country who could claim a similar distinction. Others, like Cowley, overwhelm their theme with their eloquence, or, like Young, sink exhausted beneath it, by aiming at magnificent, but unattainable, compression; a third class, like Pope, whenever they write well, write their best, and never win but at full speed, and with all their might; while a fourth, like Dryden and Churchill, are confident of their strength, yet so careless of their strokes, that when they conquer, it seems a matter of course, and when they fall, a matter of no consequence, for they can rise again as soon as they please. Milton and Cowper alone appear always to walk within the limits of their genius, yet up to the height of their great argument. We are not pretending to exalt them above all other British poets; we have only compared them together on one point, wherein they accord with each other, and differ from the rest. But there is one feature of resemblance between them of a nobler kind. These good and faithful servants, who had received ten talents each, neither buried them in the earth, nor expended them for their own glory, nor lavished them in profligacy, but occupied them for their Master's service; and we trust have both entered into his joy. Their unfading labours, (not subject to change, from being formed according to the fashion of this world, but being of equal and eternal interest to man in all ages,) have disproved the idle and impious position which vain philosophy, hating all godliness, has endeavoured to establish,—that religion can neither be adorned by poetry, nor poetry ennobled by religion."[798] Having thus noticed some of those grand peculiarities in the mind of Cowper, which appear to have mainly contributed to place him among the highest order of poets, we proceed to point out some subordinate qualifications, without which, those already referred to would have failed to raise him to his present elevation. Even the buoyant spirit of a poet has certain inferior members by which it is materially assisted in its upward flight. In the first place, then, he was one of the most simple and natural of all writers. With the exception of the sacred volume, it would perhaps be impossible to name any compositions with so large a proportion of simple ideas and Saxon monosyllables. He began to be an author when Pope, with his admirable critic Johnson, had established a taste for all that was most ornate, pompous, and complicated in phraseology. But, with due respect for the genius and power of this class of writers, he may be said to have hewn out for himself a new path to glory. It has been justly said by an accomplished modern critic and poet, that, "between the school of Dryden and Pope, with their few remembered successors, not one of whom ranks now above a fourth-rate poet; for Young, Thomson, Goldsmith, Gray, and Collins, though flourishing in the interval, were not of their school, but all, in their respective ways, originals;—between the school of Dryden and Pope, and our undisciplined, independent contemporaries, Cowper stands as having closed the age of the former illustrious masters, and commenced that of the eccentric leaders of the modern fashions in song. We cannot stop to trace the affinity which he bears to either of these generations, so dissimilar from each other; but it would be easy to show how little he owed to his immediate forerunners, and how much his immediate followers have been indebted to him. All the cant phrases, all the technicalities, of the former school he utterly threw away, and by his rejection of them they became obsolete. He boldly adopted cadences of verse unattempted before, which though frequently uncouth, and sometimes scarcely reducible to rhythm, were not seldom ingeniously significant, and signally energetic. He feared not to employ colloquial, philosophical, judicial idioms, and forms of argument, and illustrations, which enlarged the vocabulary of poetical terms, less by recurring to obsolete ones, (which has been too prodigally done since,) than by hazardous, and generally happy innovations of more recent origin, which have become graceful and dignified by usage, though Pope and his imitators durst not have touched them. The eminent adventurous revivers of English poetry about thirty years ago, Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, in their blank verse, trod directly in the steps of Cowper, and, in their early productions at least, were each, in a measure, what he made them. Our author may be legitimately styled the father of this triumvirate, who are, in truth, the living fathers of the innumerable race of moderns, whom no human ingenuity could well classify into their respective schools."[799] The simplicity of Cowper as a thinker, examiner, and writer, is unquestionably one of his greatest charms. He constantly reminds us of a highly-gifted and intelligent child. In all that he says and does, there is a total absence of all plot and stratagem, of all pretensions to think profoundly, or write finely; though, without an effort, he does both. His manner is to invite you to walk abroad with him amidst the glories of nature; to fix at random on some point in the landscape; to display its beauties or its peculiarities—to touch on some feature which has, perhaps, altogether escaped your own eye—to pour out the simplest thoughts in the simplest language—and to make you feel that never man before had so sweet, so moral, so devout, so affectionate, so gifted, so musical a companion. The simplicity of his style is, we believe, considering its strength, without a parallel. No author, perhaps, has done more to recover the language of our country from the grasp and tyranny of a foreign idiom, and to teach English people to speak in English accents. In some instances, it may be granted, that he is somewhat more colloquial and homely than the dignity of his subject warrants. But for offences of this kind he makes the amplest compensation, by leading us to those "wells of undefiled English," at which he had drunk so deeply, and whence alone the pure streams of our national composition are to be drawn. It is next to be noticed, as to the style of Cowper, that it is as nervous as it is clear and unpretending. It is impossible to compare the works of Addison, and others of the simple class of writers, with Johnson, and those of the opposite class, without feeling that what they gain in simplicity they often lose in strength and power. But the language of Cowper is often to the full as vigorous and masculine as that of Shakspeare. Bring a tyrant or a slave-driver before him for judgment; and the axe of the one and the scourge of the other are not keener weapons than the words of the poet. It would be difficult to find in any writer a more striking example of nervous phraseology than we have in the well-known lines: "But hark—the doctor's voice!—fast wedged between Two empirics he stands, and with swoll'n cheeks Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far Than all invective, is his bold harangue, While through that public organ of report He hails the clergy; and defying shame, Announces to the world his own and theirs! He teaches those to read, whom schools dismissed And colleges, untaught; sells accent, tone, And emphasis in score, and gives to pray'r Th' adagio and andante it demands. He grinds divinity of other days Down into modern use; transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gall'ry critics by a thousand arts. Are there who purchase of the doctor's ware? O name it not in Gath!—It cannot be, That grave and learned clerks should need such aid. He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll; Assuming thus a rank unknown before— Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church!" In the next place, it will not be questioned, we think, by any reader of the preceding letters, that Cowper was a wit of the very highest order—and this quality is by no means confined to his prose, but enters largely into everything that he writes. No author surprises us more frequently with rapid turns and unexpected coincidences. The mock sublime is one of his favourite implements; and he employs it with almost unrivalled success. There is also a delicacy of touch in his witticisms which is more easily felt than described. And his wit has this noble singularity, that it is never derived from wrong sources, or directed to wrong ends. It never wounds a feeling heart, or deepens the blush upon a modest cheek. Other wits are apt to dip their vessels in any stream which presents itself; Cowper draws only from the purest fountains. It has been said of Sterne, that he hides his pearls in a ditch, and forces his readers to dive for them; but the witticisms of Cowper are as well calculated to instruct as to delight. This last topic is intimately connected with another, which, in touching on the excellences of Cowper as a poet, cannot be passed over,—we mean, the astonishing fertility of his imagination. It was observed to the writer of these pages by the late Sir James Mackintosh, of the friend and ornament of his species, William Wilberforce, that "he was perhaps the finest of all orators of his own particular order—that the wealth of his imagination was such, that no idea seemed to present itself to his mind without its accompanying image or ghost, which he could produce at his pleasure, and which it was a matter of self-denial if he did not produce." And the latter part of this criticism might seem to be made for Cowper. His mind appears never to wait for an image, but to be overrun by them. In argument or description—in hurling the thunders of rebuke, or whispering the messages of mercy—he does but wave his wand, and a host of spiritual essences descend to darken or brighten the scenes at his bidding; to supply new weapons of rebuke, or new visions of love and joy. Some of his personifications are among the finest specimens in any language. What, for example, has more of the genuine spirit of poetry, than the personification of Famine, in the following lines?— "He calls for Famine...... ......and the meagre fiend Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips And taints the golden ear." What is more lively or forcible than his description of Time?— "Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing, Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken sound; But the world's Time is Time in masquerade! Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged With motley plumes; and where the peacock shows His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red With spots quadrangular of diamond form, Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife, And spades, the emblems of untimely graves. What should be and what was an hour-glass once, Become a dice-box, and a billiard mace Well does the work of his destructive scythe." What, again, is superior in this way to his address to Winter?— "O Winter! ruler of the inverted year! Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled, Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks Fringed with a beard made white with other snows Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds, A lifeless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne A sliding car, indebted to no wheels, But urged by storms along its slippery way." But the examples of this species of personification are without number; and we are not afraid to bring many of them into comparison with the Discord of Homer, the Fame of Virgil, or the Famine of Ovid—passages of so powerful a cast as at once, and without any assistance, to establish the poetical authority of their inventors. It may seem strange to some, that we should assign a place, among the poetical claims of Cowper, to his strong sense. He appears to us to be one of the most just, natural, and rational of all writers; and, however Poetry may seem to appropriate to herself rather the remote and visionary regions of fiction than that of dull reality, we are disposed to think, that, even in her wildest wanderings, she will maintain no real and permanent ascendency over the mind, if she widely deviates from nature and good sense. "Monstrous sights," says Beattie, and he might have added, monstrous conceptions, "please but for a moment, if they please at all; for they derive their charm merely from the beholders' amazement. I have read indeed of a man of rank in Sicily who chooses to adorn his villa with pictures and statues of the most unnatural deformity. But it is a singular instance; and one would not be much more surprised to hear of a man living without food, or growing fat upon poison. To say of anything that it is 'contrary to nature,' denotes censure and disgust on the part of the speaker; as the epithet 'natural' intimates an agreeable quality, and seems, for the most part, to imply that a thing is as it ought to be, suitable to our own taste, and congenial to our own disposition.... Think how we should relish a painting in which there was no regard to colours, proportions, or any of the physical laws of nature; where the eyes and ears of animals were placed in their shoulders; where the sky was green, and the grass crimson." Such distortions and anomalies would not be less offensive in poetry than in the sister art. And it is one of the main sources of delight in Cowper, that all is in its due proportion, and wears its right colours; that the "eyes and ears" are in "their proper places;" that his skies are blue, and his grass is green; and that every reflection of the poet has, what he himself calls the "Stamp and clear impression of good sense." The very passage in the sixth book of "The Task" from which this line is taken, and which furnishes perhaps the most perfect uninspired delineation of a true Christian, supplies, at the same time, an admirable example of the quality we mean; and shows, that even where his feelings were the most intensely interested, his passions were under the control of his reason; that, when he mounted the chariot of the sun, he took care not to approach too near the flaming luminary. It would be impossible, in a sketch such as this, not to advert to the powers of the author as a satirist. And here, we think the most partial critic will be scarcely disposed to deny, that he sometimes handles his knife a little at random and with too much severity. He had early in life been intimate with Churchill; and, with scarcely a touch of the temper of that right English poet, had plainly caught something of his manner. There is this wide distinction between him and his master—that his irony and rebuke are never the weapons of party, or personality, but of truth, honour, and the public good. The strong, though homely, image applied by Churchill to another critic,— "Like a butcher, doom'd for life In his mouth to wear his knife,"— is too just a picture of its author, but is infinitely far from being that of Cowper. It was well said of his satire, that "it was the offspring of benevolence; and that, like the Pelian spear, it furnishes the only cure for the wound it inflicts. When he is obliged to blame, he pities; when he condemns, it is with regret. His censures display no triumphant superiority; but rather express a turn of feeling such as we might suppose angels to indulge in at the prospect of human frailty." But, if his satirical powers were sometimes indulged to excess, it is impossible to deny that he was, generally and habitually, of all poets the most sympathizing and tender. Nothing in human composition can surpass the tenderness of the poem on receiving his mother's picture, or of those exquisite lines addressed to a lady in France suffering under deep calamity, of which last we shall quote a few for the ornament of our page:— "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown: No trav'ller ever reach'd that blest abode, Who found not thorns and briers in his road. The world may dance along the flowery plain, Cheer'd as they go by many a sprightly strain, Where Nature has her mossy velvet spread With unshod feet they yet securely tread, Admonish'd, scorn the caution and the friend, Bent all on pleasure, heedless of its end. But He, who knew what human hearts would prove, How slow to learn the dictates of his love, That, hard by nature, and of stubborn will, A life of ease would make them harder still, In pity to the souls his grace design'd To rescue from the ruins of mankind, Call'd for a cloud to darken all their years, And said, 'Go, spend them in the vale of tears.' O balmy gales of soul-reviving air! O salutary streams that murmur there! These flowing from the fount of grace above, Those breathed from lips of everlasting love." The Hymns are almost uniformly of the same character. Drawn from the deep recesses of a broken heart, they find a short and certain way to the bosom of others. And this leads to the notice of another peculiarity in his writings. It is said to have been a favourite maxim with Lord Byron, "that every writer is interesting to others in proportion as he is able and willing to seize and to display to them the hidden workings of his own soul." The noble critic is himself a strong exemplification of the truth of his own rule. Not merely his heroes and his heroines, but his rocks, mountains, and rivers, are a sort of fac simile of himself. The blue lake reposing among the mountains is the bard in a state of repose. The thunder leaping from rock to rock is the same mind under the strong excitement of passion. But perhaps of all writers Cowper is the most habitually what may be termed an experimentalist in poetry. He sought in "the man within," the secret machinery by which to touch and to control the world without. He felt deeply; and caught the feeling as it arose, and transferred it, warm from the heart to his own paper. Hence one great attraction of his writings. "As face answereth to face in water, so the heart of man to man." The sensations of other men are to a great degree our own; and the poetical exhibition of these sensations is the presenting to us a sort of illuminated mirror, in which we see ourselves, and are, according to the view, moved to sorrow or to joy. Preachers as well as poets will do well to remember this law of our nature, and will endeavour to analyze and to delineate their own feelings, if they mean to reach those of others. Unhappily, the noble author of this canon in philosophy and literature had no very profitable picture of this kind to display to his fellow men. He speaks, however, of "unmasking the hell that dwelt within." And he has taught no unimportant lesson to his species, if he has instructed us in the utter wretchedness of those who, gifted with the noblest powers, refuse to consecrate them to the glorious Giver. But, however unprofitable his own application of the rule, the rule itself is valuable; and, in the case of Cowper, we have the application of it, both on the largest scale and to the best possible purpose. There is one other feature in the mind of Cowper on which, before quitting the subject of this examination, we must be permitted to say a few words. It has been the habit with many, while freely conceding to our poet most of the humbler claims to reputation for which we have contended, to assign him only a second or third place in the scale of poets, on the ground that he is, according to their estimate, altogether "incapable of the true sublime." Now it must be admitted that, if the only true sublimity in writing be to write like Milton, Cowper cannot be ranked in the same class as a poet. Of Milton it may be said, in the words of a poet as great as himself— "He doth bestride the world Like a Colossus: and we petty men Walk under his huge legs." Nothing can be more astonishing than the composure and dignity with which, like his own Satan, he climbs the "empyreal height"—sails between worlds and worlds—and moves among thrones and principalities, as if in his natural element. "The genius of Cowper," as it has been justly said, "did not lead him to emulate the songs of the seraphim:" but though, in one respect, he moves in a lower region than his great master, in what may be termed the "moral sublime," he is by no means inferior to him. Scarcely any poetry awakens in the mind more of those deep emotions of "pity and terror," which the great critic of antiquity describes as the main sources of the sublime; and by which poetry is said to "purge the mind of her votaries." In this view of the sublime we know of few passages which surpass the description of "liberty of soul," in the conclusion of the 5th book of "The Task." "Then liberty, like day, Breaks on the soul; and, by a flash from heav'n, Fires all the faculties with glorious joy. A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not, Till Thou hast touch'd them; 'tis the voice of song, A loud hosanna sent from all thy works; Which he that hears it with a shout repeats, And adds his rapture to the gen'ral praise. In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wide Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile The Author of her beauties; who, retir'd Behind His own creation, works unseen By the impure, and hears his pow'r denied. Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, eternal Word! From Thee departing, they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace. From Thee is all that soothes the life of man, His high endeavour, and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But, O Thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown! Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor; And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away!" In like manner the Millennium of Cowper is at least not inferior to the Messiah of Pope. The corresponding passage in the latter writer is greatly inferior to that in which our poet says,— "... No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now—the mother sees, And smiles to see, her infant's hand Stretch'd forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, and to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue." And few passages in any poem have more of the true sublime than that which follows soon after the last extract:— "One song employs all nations, and all cry 'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!' The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy: Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round." Having offered these general observations "on the Genius and Poetry" of Cowper, and having so largely drawn from his sweet and instructive pages, it is not thought necessary to supply any more specific notice of his several poems. It is superfluous to enter upon a detailed proof that his poems in rhyme, though occasionally brightened by passages of extraordinary merit, are often prosaic in their character, and halting and feeble in the versification; that his shorter poems, whether of a gay or of a devotional cast, are, for pathos, wit, delicacy of conception, and felicity of expression, unequalled in our language; that his Homer is an evidence, not of his incapacity as a translator, but of the impossibility of transmuting into stiff unyielding English monosyllables the rich compounds of the Greek, without a sacrifice both of sound and sense; that "The Task" outruns in power, variety, depth of thought, fertility of imagination, vigour of expression, in short, in all which constitutes a poet of the highest order, every hope which his earlier poems had allowed his readers to indulge. The dawn gave little or no promise of such a day. The porch was in no sense commensurate to the temple afterwards to be erected.—On the whole, his "Poems" will always be considered as one of the richest legacies which genius and virtue have bequeathed to mankind; and will be welcomed wherever the English language is known, and English minds, tastes, and habits prevail; wherever the approbation of what is good and the abhorrence of what is evil are felt; wherever truth is honoured, and God and his creatures are loved. With these observations, we bring our imperfect criticisms on the Poems of Cowper to a conclusion. The writer of them does not hesitate to say that he has been amply rewarded for his own critical labours, by the privilege of often escaping from his own page to that of his author. And the reader of them will be still more largely compensated if, when weary of the critic, he will turn aside to breathe an ardent supplication to the Giver of all that was good and great in Cowper, that he himself may drink deeply of the spirit, without participating in the sorrows of this most holy, most distinguished, most suffering, but now most triumphant, servant of the God and Saviour to whom he so nobly and habitually dedicated all his powers. PREFACE TO THE POEMS. When an author, by appearing in print, requests an audience of the public, and is upon the point of speaking for himself, whoever presumes to step before him with a preface, and to say, "Nay, but hear me first," should have something worthy of attention to offer, or he will be justly deemed officious and impertinent. The judicious reader has probably, upon other occasions, been beforehand with me in this reflection: and I am not very willing it should now be applied to me, however I may seem to expose myself to the danger of it. But the thought of having my own name perpetuated in connexion with the name in the title-page is so pleasing and flattering to the feelings of my heart, that I am content to risk something for the gratification. This Preface is not designed to commend the Poems to which it is prefixed. My testimony would be insufficient for those who are not qualified to judge properly for themselves, and unnecessary to those who are. Besides, the reasons which render it improper and unseemly for a man to celebrate his own performances, or those of his nearest relatives, will have some influence in suppressing much of what he might otherwise wish to say in favour of a friend, when that friend is indeed an alter idem, and excites almost the same emotions of sensibility and affection as he feels for himself. It is very probable these Poems may come into the hands of some persons, in whom the sight of the author's name will awaken a recollection of incidents and scenes, which through length of time they had almost forgotten. They will be reminded of one, who was once the companion of their chosen hours, and who set out with them in early life in the paths which lead to literary honours, to influence and affluence, with equal prospects of success. But he was suddenly and powerfully withdrawn from those pursuits, and he left them without regret; yet not till he had sufficient opportunity of counting the cost, and of knowing the value of what he gave up. If happiness could have been found in classical attainments, in an elegant taste, in the exertions of wit, fancy, and genius, and in the esteem and converse of such persons, as in these respects were most congenial with himself, he would have been happy. But he was not—he wondered (as thousands in a similar situation still do) that he should continue dissatisfied, with all the means apparently conducive to satisfaction within his reach—But in due time the cause of his disappointment was discovered to him—he had lived without God in the world. In a memorable hour, the wisdom which is from above visited his heart. Then he felt himself a wanderer, and then he found a guide. Upon this change of views, a change of plan and conduct followed of course. When he saw the busy and the gay world in its true light, he left it with as little reluctance as a prisoner, when called to liberty, leaves his dungeon. Not that he became a Cynic or an Ascetic—a heart filled with love to God will assuredly breathe benevolence to men. But the turn of his temper inclining him to rural life, he indulged it, and, the providence of God evidently preparing his way and marking out his retreat, he retired into the country. By these steps the good hand of God, unknown to me, was providing for me one of the principal blessings of my life; a friend and a counsellor, in whose company for almost seven years, though we were seldom seven successive waking hours separated, I always found new pleasure—a friend who was not only a comfort to myself, but a blessing to the affectionate poor people among whom I then lived. Some time after inclination had thus removed him from the hurry and bustle of life, he was still more secluded by a long indisposition, and my pleasure was succeeded by a proportionable degree of anxiety and concern. But a hope, that the God whom he served would support him under his affliction, and at length vouchsafe him a happy deliverance, never forsook me. The desirable crisis, I trust, is now nearly approaching. The dawn, the presage of returning day, is already arrived. He is again enabled to resume his pen, and some of the first fruits of his recovery are here presented to the public. In his principal subjects, the same acumen, which distinguished him in the early period of life, is happily employed in illustrating and enforcing the truths of which he received such deep and unalterable impressions in his maturer years. His satire, if it may be called so, is benevolent, (like the operations of the skilful and humane surgeon, who wounds only to heal,) dictated by a just regard for the honour of God, an indignant grief excited by the profligacy of the age, and a tender compassion for the souls of men. His favourite topics are least insisted on in the piece entitled Table Talk; which therefore, with some regard to the prevailing taste, and that those, who are governed by it, may not be discouraged at the very threshold from proceeding farther, is placed first. In most of the large poems which follow, his leading design is more explicitly avowed and pursued. He aims to communicate his own perceptions of the truth, beauty, and influence of the religion of the Bible—a religion, which, however discredited by the misconduct of many, who have not renounced the Christian name, proves itself, when rightly understood, and cordially embraced, to be the grand desideratum, which alone can relieve the mind of man from painful and unavoidable anxieties, inspire it with stable peace and solid hope, and furnish those motives and prospects which, in the present state of things, are absolutely necessary to produce a conduct worthy of a rational creature, distinguished by a vastness of capacity which no assemblage of earthly good can satisfy, and by a principle and pre-intimation of immortality. At a time when hypothesis and conjecture in philosophy are so justly exploded, and little is considered as deserving the name of knowledge, which will not stand the test of experiment, the very use of the term experimental in religious concernments is by too many unhappily rejected with disgust. But we well know, that they, who affect to despise the inward feelings which religious persons speak of, and to treat them as enthusiasm and folly, have inward feelings of their own, which, though they would, they cannot, suppress. We have been too long in the secret ourselves, to account the proud, the ambitious, or the voluptuous, happy. We must lose the remembrance of what we once were, before we can believe that a man is satisfied with himself, merely because he endeavours to appear so. A smile upon the face is often but a mask worn occasionally and in company, to prevent, if possible, a suspicion of what at the same time is passing in the heart. We know that there are people who seldom smile when they are alone, who therefore are glad to hide themselves in a throng from the violence of their own reflections; and who, while by their looks and their language they wish to persuade us they are happy, would be glad to change their conditions with a dog. But in defiance of all their efforts they continue to think, forbode, and tremble. This we know, for it has been our own state, and therefore we know how to commiserate it in others.—From this state the Bible relieved us—when we were led to read it with attention, we found ourselves described. We learned the causes of our inquietude—we were directed to a method of relief—we tried, and we were not disappointed. Deus nobis hæc otia fecit. We are now certain that the gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. It has reconciled us to God, and to ourselves, to our duty and our situation. It is the balm and cordial of the present life, and a sovereign antidote against the fear of death. Sed hactenus hæc. Some smaller pieces upon less important subjects close the volume. Not one of them, I believe, was written with a view to publication, but I was unwilling they should be omitted. John Newton. Charles Square, Hoxton, February 18, 1782. TABLE TALK. Si te fortè meæ gravis uret sarcina chartæ, Abjicito. HOR. LIB. I. EP. 13. THE ARGUMENT. True and false glory—Kings made for man—Attributes of royalty in England—Quevedo's satire on kings—Kings objects of pity—Inquiry concerning the cause of Englishmen's scorn of arbitrary rule—Character of the Englishman and the Frenchman—Charms of freedom—Freedom sometimes needs the restraint of discipline—Reference to the riots in London—Tribute to Lord Chatham—Political state of England—The vices that debase her portend her downfall—Political events the instruments of Providence—The poet disclaims prophetic inspiration—The choice of a mean subject denotes a weak mind—Reference to Homer, Virgil, and Milton—Progress of poesy—The poet laments that religion is not more frequently united with poetry. A. You told me, I remember, glory, built On selfish principles, is shame and guilt: The deeds, that men admire as half divine, Stark naught, because corrupt in their design. Strange doctrine this! that without scruple tears The laurel that the very lightning spares; Brings down the warrior's trophy to the dust, And eats into his bloody sword like rust. B. I grant that, men continuing what they are, Fierce, avaricious, proud, there must be war, And never meant the rule should be applied To him that fights with justice on his side. Let laurels drench'd in pure Parnassian dews Reward his memory, dear to every muse, Who, with a courage of unshaken root, In honour's field advancing his firm foot, Plants it upon the line that Justice draws, And will prevail or perish in her cause. 'Tis to the virtues of such men man owes His portion in the good that Heaven bestows. And, when recording History displays Feats of renown, though wrought in ancient days, Tells of a few stout hearts, that fought and died, Where duty placed them, at their country's side; The man that is not moved with what he reads, That takes not fire at their heroic deeds, Unworthy of the blessings of the brave, Is base in kind, and born to be a slave. But let eternal infamy pursue The wretch to nought but his ambition true, Who, for the sake of filling with one blast The post-horns of all Europe, lays her waste. Think yourself stationed on a towering rock, To see a people scattered like a flock, Some royal mastiff panting at their heels, With all the savage thirst a tiger feels; Then view him self-proclaim'd in a gazette Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet. The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced, Those ensigns of dominion, how disgraced! The glass, that bids man mark the fleeting hour, And Death's own scythe, would better speak his power; Then grace the bony phantom in their stead With the king's shoulder-knot and gay cockade; Clothe the twin brethren in each other's dress, The same their occupation and success. A. 'Tis your belief the world was made for man; Kings do but reason on the self-same plan: Maintaining yours, you cannot theirs condemn, Who think, or seem to think, man made for them. B. Seldom, alas! the power of logic reigns With much sufficiency in royal brains; Such reasoning falls like an inverted cone, Wanting its proper base to stand upon. Man made for kings! those optics are but dim That tell you so—say, rather, they for him. That were indeed a king-ennobling thought, Could they, or would they, reason as they ought. The diadem, with mighty projects lined, To catch renown by ruining mankind, Is worth, with all its gold and glittering store, Just what the toy will sell for, and no more. Oh! bright occasions of dispensing good, How seldom used, how little understood! To pour in Virtue's lap her just reward; Keep Vice restrain'd behind a double guard; To quell the faction that affronts the throne By silent magnanimity alone; To nurse with tender care the thriving arts; Watch every beam Philosophy imparts; To give religion her unbridled scope, Nor judge by statute a believer's hope; With close fidelity and love unfeign'd To keep the matrimonial bond unstain'd; Covetous only of a virtuous praise; His life a lesson to the land he sways; To touch the sword with conscientious awe, Nor draw it but when duty bids him draw; To sheath it in the peace-restoring close With joy beyond what victory bestows— Blest country, where these kingly glories shine! Blest England, if this happiness be thine! A. Guard what you say: the patriotic tribe Will sneer, and charge you with a bribe.—B. A bribe? The worth of his three kingdoms I defy, To lure me to the baseness of a lie; And, of all lies, (be that one poet's boast,) The lie that flatters I abhor the most. Those arts be theirs who hate his gentle reign, But he that loves him has no need to feign. A. Your smooth eulogium, to one crown address'd, Seems to imply a censure on the rest. B. Quevedo, as he tells his sober tale, Ask'd, when in hell, to see the royal jail; Approv'd their method in all other things; But where, good sir, do you confine your kings? There—said his guide—the group is in full view. Indeed!—replied the don—there are but few. His black interpreter the charge disdain'd— Few, fellow?—there are all that ever reign'd. Wit, undistinguishing, is apt to strike The guilty and not guilty both alike: I grant the sarcasm is too severe, And we can readily refute it here; While Alfred's name, the father of his age, And the Sixth Edward's grace the historic page. A. Kings then at last have but the lot of all: By their own conduct they must stand or fall. B. True. While they live, the courtly laureate pays His quitrent ode, his peppercorn of praise, And many a dunce, whose fingers itch to write, Adds, as he can, his tributary mite: A subject's faults a subject may proclaim, A monarch's errors are forbidden game! Thus, free from censure, overawed by fear, And prais'd for virtues that they scorn to wear, The fleeting forms of majesty engage Respect, while stalking o'er life's narrow stage: Then leave their crimes for history to scan, And ask, with busy scorn, Was this the man? I pity kings, whom worship waits upon, Obsequious from the cradle to the throne; Before whose infant eyes the flatterer bows, And binds a wreath about their baby brows: Whom education stiffens into state, And death awakens from that dream too late. Oh! if servility with supple knees, Whose trade it is to smile, to crouch, to please; If smooth dissimulation, skill'd to grace A devil's purpose with an angel's face; If smiling peeresses and simpering peers, Encompassing his throne a few short years; If the gilt carriage and the pamper'd steed, That wants no driving, and disdains the lead: If guards, mechanically form'd in ranks, Playing, at beat of drum, their martial pranks, Shouldering and standing as if stuck to stone, While condescending majesty looks on— If monarchy consist in such base things, Sighing, I say again, I pity kings! To be suspected, thwarted, and withstood, E'en when he labours for his country's good; To see a band call'd patriot for no cause, But that they catch at popular applause, Careless of all the anxiety he feels, Hook disappointment on the public wheels; With all their flippant fluency of tongue, Most confident, when palpably most wrong— If this be kingly, then farewell for me All kingship, and may I be poor and free! To be the Table Talk of clubs up stairs, To which the unwash'd artificer repairs, To indulge his genius after long fatigue, By diving into cabinet intrigue; (For what kings deem a toil, as well they may, To him is relaxation, and mere play:) To win no praise when well wrought plans prevail, But to be rudely censur'd when they fail; To doubt the love his favourites may pretend, And in reality to find no friend; If he indulge a cultivated taste, His galleries with the works of art well graced, To hear it call'd extravagance and waste; If these attendants, and if such as these, Must follow royalty, then welcome ease; However humble and confined the sphere, Happy the state that has not these to fear! A. Thus men, whose thoughts contemplative have dwelt On situations that they never felt, Start up sagacious, cover'd with the dust Of dreaming study and pedantic rust, And prate and preach about what others prove, As if the world and they were hand and glove. Leave kingly backs to cope with kingly cares; They have their weight to carry, subjects theirs; Poets, of all men, ever least regret Increasing taxes and the nation's debt. Could you contrive the payment, and rehearse The mighty plan, oracular, in verse, No bard, howe'er majestic, old or new, Should claim my fix'd attention more than you. B. Not Brindley nor Bridgewater would essay To turn the course of Helicon that way: Nor would the Nine consent the sacred tide Should purl amidst the traffic of Cheapside, Or tinkle in 'Change Alley, to amuse The leathern ears of stockjobbers and Jews. A. Vouchsafe, at least, to pitch the key of rhyme, To themes more pertinent, if less sublime. When ministers and ministerial arts; Patriots, who love good places at their hearts; When admirals, extoll'd for standing still, Or doing nothing with a deal of skill; Generals, who will not conquer when they may, Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay; When Freedom, wounded almost to despair, Though discontent alone can find out where— When themes like these employ the poet's tongue, I hear as mute as if a syren sung. Or tell me, if you can, what power maintains A Briton's scorn of arbitrary chains? That were a theme might animate the dead, And move the lips of poets cast in lead. B. The cause, though worth the search, may yet elude Conjecture and remark, however shrewd. They take, perhaps, a well directed aim, Who seek it in his climate and his frame. Liberal in all things else, yet Nature here With stern severity deals out the year. Winter invades the spring, and often pours A chilling flood on summer's drooping flowers; Unwelcome vapours quench autumnal beams, Ungenial blasts attending curl the streams: The peasants urge their harvest, ply the fork With double toil, and shiver at their work; Thus with a rigour, for his good design'd, She rears her favourite man of all mankind, His form robust, and of elastic tone, Proportion'd well, half muscle and half bone, Supplies with warm activity and force A mind well lodged, and masculine of course. Hence Liberty, sweet Liberty inspires And keeps alive his fierce but noble fires. Patient of constitutional control, He bears it with meek manliness of soul; But, if authority grow wanton, woe To him that treads upon his free-born toe; One step beyond the boundary of the laws Fires him at once in Freedom's glorious cause. Thus proud Prerogative, not much rever'd, Is seldom felt, though sometimes seen and heard; And in his cage, like parrot fine and gay, Is kept to strut, look big, and talk away. Born in a climate softer far than ours, Not form'd like us, with such Herculean powers, The Frenchman, easy, debonair, and brisk, Give him his lass, his fiddle, and his frisk, Is always happy, reign whoever may, And laughs the sense of misery far away: He drinks his simple beverage with a gust; And, feasting on an onion and a crust, We never feel the alacrity and joy With which he shouts and carols, Vive le Roi! Filled with as much true merriment and glee As if he heard his king say—Slave, be free. Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose. Vigilant over all that he has made, Kind Providence attends with gracious aid; Bids equity throughout his works prevail, And weighs the nations in an even scale; He can encourage slavery to a smile, And fill with discontent a British isle. A. Freeman and slave then, if the case be such, Stand on a level; and you prove too much: If all men indiscriminately share His fostering power, and tutelary care, As well be yoked by Despotism's hand, As dwell at large in Britain's charter'd land. B. No. Freedom has a thousand charms to show, That slaves, howe'er contented, never know. The mind attains beneath her happy reign The growth that Nature meant she should attain; The varied fields of science, ever new, Opening and wider opening on her view, She ventures onward with a prosperous force, While no base fear impedes her in her course: Religion, richest favour of the skies, Stands most reveal'd before the freeman's eyes; No shades of superstition blot the day, Liberty chases all that gloom away. The soul, emancipated, unoppress'd, Free to prove all things and hold fast the best, Learns much; and to a thousand listening minds Communicates with joy the good she finds; Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show His manly forehead to the fiercest foe; Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace, His spirits rising as his toils increase, Guards well what arts and industry have won, And Freedom claims him for her firstborn son. Slaves fight for what were better cast away— The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway, But they that fight for freedom undertake The noblest cause mankind can have at stake: Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call A blessing—freedom is the pledge of all. O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream, The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme; Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse; Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse; Heroic song from thy free touch acquires Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires. Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air, And I will sing, if Liberty be there; And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet, In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat. A. Sing where you please; in such a cause I grant An English poet's privilege to rant; But is not Freedom—at least, is not ours Too apt to play the wanton with her powers, Grow freakish, and, o'erleaping every mound, Spread anarchy and terror all around? B. Agreed. But would you sell or slay your horse For bounding and curveting in his course? Or if, when ridden with a careless rein, He break away, and seek the distant plain? No. His high mettle, under good control, Gives him Olympic speed, and shoots him to the goal. Let Discipline employ her wholesome arts; Let magistrates alert perform their parts, Not skulk or put on a prudential mask, As if their duty were a desperate task; Let active laws apply the needful curb, To guard the peace that riot would disturb; And Liberty, preserved from wild excess, Shall raise no feuds for armies to suppress. When Tumult lately burst his prison door, And set plebeian thousands in a roar; When he usurp'd authority's just place, And dared to look his master in the face; When the rude rabble's watchword was—Destroy, And blazing London seem'd a second Troy; Liberty blush'd, and hung her drooping head, Beheld their progress with the deepest dread; Blush'd that effects like these she should produce, Worse than the deeds of galley-slaves broke loose. She loses in such storms her very name, And fierce licentiousness should bear the blame. Incomparable gem! thy worth untold; Cheap, though blood-bought, and thrown away when sold; May no foes ravish thee, and no false friend Betray thee, while professing to defend! Prize it, ye ministers; ye monarchs, spare; Ye patriots, guard it with a miser's care. A. Patriots, alas! the few that have been found, Where most they flourish, upon English ground, The country's need have scantily supplied, And the last left the scene when Chatham died. B. Not so—the virtue still adorns our age, Though the chief actor died upon the stage. In him Demosthenes was heard again; Liberty taught him her Athenian strain; She clothed him with authority and awe, Spoke from his lips, and in his looks gave law. His speech, his form, his action, full of grace, And all his country beaming in his face, He stood, as some inimitable hand Would strive to make a Paul or Tully stand. No sycophant or slave, that dared oppose Her sacred cause, but trembled when he rose; And every venal stickler for the yoke Felt himself crushed at the first word he spoke. Such men are raised to station and command, When Providence means mercy to a land. He speaks, and they appear; to him they owe Skill to direct, and strength to strike the blow; To manage with address, to seize with power The crisis of a dark decisive hour. So Gideon earned a victory not his own; Subserviency his praise, and that alone. Poor England! thou art a devoted deer, Beset with every ill but that of fear. The nations hunt; all mark thee for a prey; They swarm around thee, and thou stand'st at bay: Undaunted still, though wearied and perplex'd, Once Chatham saved thee; but who saves thee next? Alas! the tide of pleasure sweeps along All that should be the boast of British song. 'Tis not the wreath that once adorn'd thy brow, The prize of happier times, will serve thee now. Our ancestry, a gallant Christian race, Patterns of every virtue, every grace, Confess'd a God; they kneel'd before they fought, And praised him in the victories he wrought. Now from the dust of ancient days bring forth Their sober zeal, integrity, and worth; Courage, ungraced by these, affronts the skies, Is but the fire without the sacrifice. The stream that feeds the wellspring of the heart Not more invigorates life's noblest part, Than virtue quickens with a warmth divine The powers that sin has brought to a decline. A. The inestimable estimate of Brown Rose like a paper-kite, and charm'd the town; But measures, plann'd and executed well, Shifted the wind that raised it, and it fell. He trod the very selfsame ground you tread, And victory refuted all he said. B. And yet his judgment was not framed amiss; Its error, if it err'd, was merely this— He thought the dying hour already come, And a complete recovery struck him dumb. But that effeminacy, folly, lust, Enervate and enfeeble, and needs must; And that a nation shamefully debased Will be despised and trampled on at last, Unless sweet penitence her powers renew, Is truth, if history itself be true. There is a time, and justice marks the date, For long forbearing clemency to wait; That hour elapsed, the incurable revolt Is punish'd, and down comes the thunderbolt. If Mercy then put by the threatening blow, Must she perform the same kind office now? May she! and, if offended Heaven be still Accessible, and prayer prevail, she will. 'Tis not, however, insolence and noise, The tempest of tumultuary joys, Nor is it yet despondence and dismay Will win her visits or engage her stay; Prayer only, and the penitential tear, Can call her smiling down, and fix her here. But when a country (one that I could name) In prostitution sinks the sense of shame; When infamous venality, grown bold, Writes on his bosom, to be let or sold; When perjury, that Heaven-defying vice, Sells oaths by tale, and at the lowest price, Stamps God's own name upon a lie just made, To turn a penny in the way of trade; When avarice starves (and never hides his face) Two or three millions of the human race, And not a tongue inquires how, where, or when, Though conscience will have twinges now and then: When profanation of the sacred cause In all its parts, times, ministry, and laws, Bespeaks a land, once Christian, fallen and lost, In all that wars against that title most; What follows next let cities of great name, And regions long since desolate proclaim. Nineveh, Babylon, and ancient Rome Speak to the present times and times to come; They cry aloud in every careless ear, Stop, while ye may; suspend your mad career; O learn, from our example and our fate, Learn wisdom and repentance ere too late! Not only Vice disposes and prepares The mind that slumbers sweetly in her snares, To stoop to tyranny's usurped command, And bend her polish'd neck beneath his hand (A dire effect, by one of Nature's laws Unchangeably connected with its cause); But Providence himself will intervene, To throw his dark displeasure o'er the scene. All are his instruments; each form of war, What burns at home, or threatens from afar, Nature in arms, her elements at strife, The storms that overset the joys of life, Are but his rods to scourge a guilty land, And waste it at the bidding of his hand. He gives the word, and mutiny soon roars In all her gates, and shakes her distant shores; The standards of all nations are unfurl'd; She has one foe, and that one foe the world. And if he doom that people with a frown, And mark them with a seal of wrath press'd down, Obduracy takes place; callous and tough, The reprobated race grows judgment-proof: Earth shakes beneath them, and Heaven roars above; But nothing scares them from the course they love. To the lascivious pipe and wanton song, That charm down fear, they frolic it along, With mad rapidity and unconcern, Down to the gulf from which is no return. They trust in navies, and their navies fail— God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail! They trust in armies, and their courage dies; In wisdom, wealth, in fortune, and in lies; But all they trust in withers, as it must, When He commands in whom they place no trust. Vengeance at last pours down upon their coast A long despised, but now victorious, host; Tyranny sends the chain that must abridge The noble sweep of all their privilege; Gives liberty the last, the mortal, shock; Slips the slave's collar on, and snaps the lock. A. Such lofty strains embellish what you teach, Mean you to prophesy, or but to preach? B. I know the mind that feels indeed the fire The Muse imparts, and can command the lyre, Acts with a force, and kindles with a zeal, Whatever the theme, that others never feel. If human woes her soft attention claim, A tender sympathy pervades the frame, She pours a sensibility divine Along the nerve of every feeling line. But if a deed not tamely to be borne Fire indignation and a sense of scorn, The strings are swept with such a power, so loud, The storm of music shakes the astonish'd crowd. So, when remote futurity is brought Before the keen inquiry of her thought, A terrible sagacity informs The poet's heart; he looks to distant storms; He hears the thunder ere the tempest lowers! And, arm'd with strength surpassing human powers, Seizes events as yet unknown to man, And darts his soul into the dawning plan. Hence, in a Roman mouth, the graceful name Of prophet and of poet was the same; Hence British poets too the priesthood shared, And every hallowed druid was a bard. But no prophetic fires to me belong; I play with syllables, and sport in song. A. At Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and five, Where Discipline helps opening buds of sense And makes his pupils proud with silver pence, I was a poet too: but modern taste Is so refined, and delicate, and chaste, That verse, whatever fire the fancy warms, Without a creamy smoothness has no charms. Thus all success depending on an ear, And thinking I might purchase it too dear, If sentiment were sacrificed to sound, And truth cut short to make a period round, I judged a man of sense could scarce do worse Than caper in the morris-dance of verse. B. Thus reputation is a spur to wit, And some wits flag through fear of losing it, Give me the line that ploughs its stately course, Like a proud swan, conquering the stream by force; That, like some cottage beauty, strikes the heart, Quite unindebted to the tricks of art. When labour and when dullness, club in hand, Like the two figures at St. Dunstan's stand, Beating alternately, in measured time, The clockwork tintinnabulum of rhyme, Exact and regular the sounds will be; But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me. From him who rears a poem lank and long, To him who strains his all into a song; Perhaps some bonny Caledonian air, All birks and braes, though he was never there; Or, having whelp'd a prologue with great pains, Feels himself spent, and fumbles for his brains; A prologue interdash'd with many a stroke— An art contriv'd to advertise a joke, So that the jest is clearly to be seen, Not in the words—but in the gap between; Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, The substitute for genius, sense, and wit. To dally much with subjects mean and low Proves that the mind is weak, or makes it so. Neglected talents rust into decay, And every effort ends in pushpin play The man that means success should soar above A soldier's feather, or a lady's glove; Else, summoning the muse to such a theme, The fruit of all her labour is whipp'd cream. As if an eagle flew aloft, and then— Stoop'd from its highest pitch to pounce a wren. As if the poet, purposing to wed, Should carve himself a wife in gingerbread. Ages elaps'd ere Homer's lamp appear'd, And ages ere the Mantuan swan was heard; To carry nature lengths unknown before, To give a Milton birth, ask'd ages more. Thus genius rose and set at order'd times, And shot a day-spring into distant climes, Ennobling every region that he chose; He sunk in Greece, in Italy he rose; And, tedious years of Gothic darkness pass'd, Emerged all splendour in our isle at last. Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, Then show far off their shining plumes again. A. Is genius only found in epic lays? Prove this, and forfeit all pretence to praise. Make their heroic powers your own at once, Or candidly confess yourself a dunce. B. These were the chief; each interval of night Was graced with many an undulating light. In less illustrious bards his beauty shone A meteor, or a star; in these, the sun. The nightingale may claim the topmost bough, While the poor grasshopper must chirp below. Like him unnoticed, I, and such as I, Spread little wings, and rather skip than fly; Perch'd on the meagre produce of the land, An ell or two of prospect we command; But never peep beyond the thorny bound, Or oaken fence, that hems the paddock round. In Eden, ere yet innocence of heart Had faded, poetry was not an art; Language, above all teaching, or if taught, Only by gratitude and glowing thought, Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstacy, unmanacled by form, Not prompted, as in our degenerate days, By low ambition and the thirst of praise, Was natural as is the flowing stream, And yet magnificent—a God the theme! That theme on earth exhausted, though above 'Tis found as everlasting as his love, Man lavish'd all his thoughts on human things— The feats of heroes and the wrath of kings; But still, while virtue kindled his delight, The song was moral, and so far was right. 'Twas thus till luxury seduced the mind To joys less innocent, as less refined; Then Genius danced a bacchanal; he crown'd The brimming goblet, seized the thyrsus, bound His brows with ivy, rush'd into the field Of wild imagination, and there reel'd, The victim of his own lascivious fires, And, dizzy with delight, profaned the sacred wires: Anacreon, Horace, play'd in Greece and Rome This bedlam part; and others nearer home. When Cromwell fought for power, and while he reign'd The proud protector of the power he gain'd, Religion, harsh, intolerant, austere, Parent of manners like herself severe, Drew a rough copy of the Christian face, Without the smile, the sweetness, or the grace; The dark and sullen humour of the time Judged every effort of the muse a crime; Verse, in the finest mould of fancy cast, Was lumber in an age so void of taste. But when the second Charles assumed the sway, And arts revived beneath a softer day, Then, like a bow long forced into a curve, The mind, released from too constrain'd a nerve, Flew to its first position with a spring, That made the vaulted roofs of pleasure ring. His court, the dissolute and hateful school Of wantonness, where vice was taught by rule, Swarm'd with a scribbling herd, as deep inlaid With brutal lust as ever Circe made. From these a long succession, in the rage Of rank obscenity, debauch'd their age: Nor ceased till, ever anxious to redress The abuses of her sacred charge, the press, The Muse instructed a well nurtured train Of abler votaries to cleanse the stain, And claim the palm for purity of song, That lewdness had usurp'd and worn so long. Then decent pleasantry and sterling sense, That neither gave nor would endure offence, Whipp'd out of sight, with satire just and keen, The puppy pack that had defiled the scene. In front of these came Addison. In him Humour in holiday and sightly trim, Sublimity and Attic taste combined, To polish, furnish, and delight the mind. Then Pope, as harmony itself exact, In verse well disciplined, complete, compact, Gave virtue and morality a grace, That, quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face, Levied a tax of wonder and applause, E'en on the fools that trampled on their laws. But he (his musical finesse was such, So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) Made poetry a mere mechanic art; And every warbler has his tune by heart. Nature imparting her satiric gift, Her serious mirth, to Arbuthnot and Swift, With droll sobriety they raised a smile At folly's cost, themselves unmov'd the while That constellation set, the world in vain Must hope to look upon their like again. A. Are we then left?—B. Not wholly in the dark; Wit now and then, struck smartly, shows a spark, Sufficient to redeem the modern race From total night and absolute disgrace. While servile trick and imitative knack Confine the million in the beaten track, Perhaps some courser, who disdains the road, Snuffs up the wind, and flings himself abroad. Contemporaries all surpass'd, see one; Short his career indeed, but ably run; Churchill, himself unconscious of his powers, In penury consumed his idle hours; And, like a scatter'd seed at random sown, Was left to spring by vigour of his own. Lifted at length, by dignity of thought And dint of genius, to an affluent lot, He laid his head in luxury's soft lap, And took, too often, there his easy nap. If brighter beams than all he threw not forth, 'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth. Surly and slovenly, and bold and coarse, Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force, Spendthrift alike of money and of wit, Always at speed, and never drawing bit, He struck the lyre in such a careless mood, And so disdain'd the rules he understood, The laurel seem'd to wait on his command; He snatch'd it rudely from the muses' hand. Nature, exerting an unwearied power, Forms, opens, and gives scent to every flower; Spreads the fresh verdure of the field, and leads The dancing Naiads through 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 expense) Vouchsafes to man a poet's just pretence— Fervency, freedom, fluency of thought, Harmony, strength, words exquisitely sought; Fancy, that from the bow that spans the sky Brings colours, dipp'd 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 dress'd, Looks to the westward from the dappled east, 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 verse begin to roll, Like his to shed illuminating rays On every scene and subject it surveys: Thus graced, the man asserts a poet's name, And the world cheerfully admits the claim. Pity Religion has so seldom found A skilful guide into poetic ground! The flowers would spring where'er she deign'd to stray, And every muse attend her in her way. Virtue indeed meets many a rhyming friend, And many a compliment politely penn'd; But, unattired in that becoming vest Religion weaves for her, and half undress'd, Stands in the desert shivering and forlorn, A wintry figure, like a wither'd thorn. The shelves are full, all other themes are sped; Hackney'd and worn to the last flimsy thread, Satire has long since done his best; and curst And loathsome ribaldry has done his worst; Fancy has sported all her powers away In tales, in trifles, and in children's play; And 'tis the sad complaint, and almost true, Whate'er we write, we bring forth nothing new. 'Twere new indeed to see a bard all fire, Touch'd with a coal from heaven, assume the lyre. And tell the world, still kindling as he sung, With more than mortal music on his tongue, That He, who died below, and reigns above, Inspires the song, and that his name is Love. For, after all, if merely to beguile, By flowing numbers and a flowery style, The tedium that the lazy rich endure, Which now and then sweet poetry may cure; Or, if to see the name of idol self, Stamp'd on the well-bound quarto, grace the shelf, To float a bubble on the breath of fame, Prompt his endeavour and engage his aim, Debased to servile purposes of pride, How are the powers of genius misapplied! The gift, whose office is the Giver's praise, To trace him in his word, his works, his ways! Then spread the rich discovery, and invite Mankind to share in the divine delight: Distorted from its use and just design, To make the pitiful possessor shine, To purchase at the fool-frequented fair Of vanity a wreath for self to wear, Is profanation of the basest kind— Proof of a trifling and a worthless mind. A. Hail, Sternhold, then! and, Hopkins, hail!—B. Amen. If flattery, folly, lust, employ the pen; If acrimony, slander, and abuse, Give it a charge to blacken and traduce; Though Butler's wit, Pope's numbers, Prior's ease, With all that fancy can invent to please, Adorn the polish'd periods as they fall, One madrigal of theirs is worth them all. A. 'Twould thin the ranks of the poetic tribe, To dash the pen through all that you proscribe B. No matter—we could shift when they were not; And should, no doubt, if they were all forgot. THE PROGRESS OF ERROR. Si quid loquar audiendum. Hor. lib. iv. Od. 2. THE ARGUMENT. Origin of error—Man endowed with freedom of will—Motives for action—Attractions of music—The chase—Those amusements not suited to the Clergy—Case of Occiduus—Force of example—Due observance of the Sabbath—Cards and dancing—The drunkard and the coxcomb—Folly and innocence—Hurtful pleasures—Virtuous pleasures—Effects of the inordinate indulgence of pleasure—Dangerous tendency of many works of imagination—Apostrophe to Lord Chesterfield—Our earliest years the most important—Fashionable education—The grand tour—Accomplishments have taken the place of virtue—Qualities requisite in a critic of the Bible—Power of the press—Solicitude of enthusiasm to make proselytes—Fondness of authors for their literary progeny—The blunderer impatient of contradiction—Moral faults and errors of the understanding reciprocally produce one another—The cup of pleasure to be tasted with caution—Force of habit—The wanderer from the right path directed to the Cross. Sing, muse (if such a theme, so dark, so long, May find a muse to grace it with a song), By what unseen and unsuspected arts The serpent Error twines round human hearts; Tell where she lurks, beneath what flowery shades, That not a glimpse of genuine light pervades, The poisonous, black, insinuating worm Successfully conceals her loathsome form. Take, if ye can, ye careless and supine, Counsel and caution from a voice like mine! Truths, that the theorist could never reach, And observation taught me, I would teach. Not all, whose eloquence the fancy fills, Musical as the chime of tinkling rills, Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend, Can trace her mazy windings to their end; Discern the fraud beneath the specious lure, Prevent the danger, or prescribe the cure. The clear harangue, and cold as it is clear, Falls soporific on the listless ear; Like quicksilver, the rhetoric they display Shines as it runs, but, grasp'd at, slips away. Placed for his trial on this bustling stage, From thoughtless youth to ruminating age, Free in his will to choose or to refuse, Man may improve the crisis, or abuse; Else, on the fatalist's unrighteous plan, Say, to what bar amenable were man? With nought in charge he could betray no trust: And, if he fell, would fall because he must; If love reward him, or if vengeance strike, His recompence in both unjust alike. Divine authority within his breast Brings every thought, word, action, to the test; Warns him or prompts, approves him or restrains, As reason, or as passion, takes the reins. Heaven from above, and conscience from within, Cries in his startled ear—Abstain from sin! The world around solicits his desire, And kindles in his soul a treacherous fire; While, all his purposes and steps to guard, Peace follows virtue as its sure reward; And pleasure brings as surely in her train Remorse, and sorrow, and vindictive pain. Man, thus endued with an elective voice, Must be supplied with objects of his choice, Where'er he turns, enjoyment and delight, Or present or in prospect, meet his sight: Those open on the spot their honeyed store; These call him loudly to pursuit of more. His unexhausted mine the sordid vice Avarice shows, and virtue is the price. Here various motives his ambition raise— Power, pomp, and splendour, and the thirst of praise; There beauty wooes him with expanded arms; E'en bacchanalian madness has its charms. Nor these alone, whose pleasures less refined Might well alarm the most unguarded mind, Seek to supplant his inexperienced youth, Or lead him devious from the path of truth; Hourly allurements on his passions press, Safe in themselves, but dangerous in the excess. Hark! how it floats upon the dewy air! O what a dying, dying close was there! 'Tis harmony, from yon sequester'd bower. Sweet harmony, that soothes the midnight hour! Long ere the charioteer of day had run His morning course the enchantment was begun; And he shall gild yon mountain's height again, Ere yet the pleasing toil becomes a pain. Is this the rugged path, the steep ascent, That virtue points to? Can a life thus spent Lead to the bliss she promises the wise, Detach the soul from earth, and speed her to the skies? Ye devotees to your adored employ, Enthusiasts, drunk with an unreal joy, Love makes the music of the blest above, Heaven's harmony is universal love; And earthly sounds, though sweet and well combined, And lenient as soft opiates to the mind, Leave vice and folly unsubdued behind. Grey dawn appears; the sportsman and his train Speckle the bosom of the distant plain; 'Tis he, the Nimrod of the neighbouring lairs; Save that his scent is less acute than theirs, For persevering chase, and headlong leaps, True beagle as the stanchest hound he keeps. Charged with the folly of his life's mad scene, He takes offence, and wonders what you mean; The joy the danger and the toil o'erpays— 'Tis exercise, and health, and length of days. Again impetuous to the field he flies; Leaps every fence but one, there falls and dies; Like a slain deer, the tumbrel brings him home, Unmiss'd but by his dogs and by his groom. Ye clergy, while your orbit is your place, Lights of the world and stars of human race; But, if eccentric ye forsake your sphere, Prodigies ominous and view'd with fear: The comet's baneful influence is a dream; Yours real, and pernicious in the extreme. What then! are appetites and lusts laid down With the same ease that man puts on his gown? Will avarice and concupiscence give place, Charm'd by the sounds—Your Reverence, or your Grace? No. But his own engagement binds him fast; Or, if it does not, brands him to the last What atheists call him—a designing knave, A mere church juggler, hypocrite and slave. Oh, laugh or mourn with me the rueful jest, A cassock'd huntsman and a fiddling priest! He from Italian songsters takes his cue: Set Paul to music, he shall quote him too. He takes the field. The master of the pack Cries—Well done, saint! and claps him on the back. Is this the path of sanctity? Is this To stand a waymark on the road to bliss? Himself a wanderer from the narrow way, His silly sheep, what wonder if they stray? Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet, Send your dishonour'd gown to Monmouth-street! The sacred function in your hands is made— Sad sacrilege—no function, but a trade! Occiduus is a pastor of renown, When he has pray'd and preach'd the sabbath down, With wire and catgut he concludes the day, Quavering and semiquavering care away. The full concerto swells upon your ear; All elbows shake. Look in, and you would swear The Babylonian tyrant with a nod Had summon'd them to serve his golden god. So well that thought the employment seems to suit, Psaltery and sackbut, dulcimer and flute. O fie! 'tis evangelical and pure: Observe each face, how sober and demure! Ecstacy sets her stamp on every mien; Chins fallen, and not an eyeball to be seen. Still I insist, though music heretofore Has charm'd me much (not e'en Occiduus more), Love, joy, and peace make harmony more meet For sabbath evenings, and perhaps as sweet. Will not the sickliest sheep of every flock Resort to this example as a rock; There stand, and justify the foul abuse Of sabbath hours with plausible excuse; If apostolic gravity be free To play the fool on Sundays, why not we? If he the tinkling harpsichord regards As inoffensive, what offence in cards? Strike up the fiddles, let us all be gay! Laymen have leave to dance, if parsons play. O Italy!—Thy sabbaths will be soon Our sabbaths, closed with mummery and buffoon. Preaching and pranks will share the motley scene, Ours parcelled out, as thine have ever been, God's worship and the mountebank between. What says the prophet? Let that day be blest With holiness and consecrated rest. Pastime and business, both it should exclude, And bar the door the moment they intrude; Nobly distinguished above all the six By deeds in which the world must never mix. Hear him again. He calls it a delight, A day of luxury observed aright, When the glad soul is made Heaven's welcome guest, Sits banqueting, and God provides the feast. But triflers are engaged and cannot come; Their answer to the call is—Not at home. O the dear pleasures of the velvet plain, The painted tablets, dealt and dealt again! Cards, with what rapture, and the polish'd die, The yawning chasm of indolence supply! Then to the dance, and make the sober moon Witness of joys that shun the sight of noon. Blame, cynic, if you can, quadrille or ball, The snug close party, or the splendid hall, Where Night, down stooping from her ebon throne, Views constellations brighter than her own. 'Tis innocent, and harmless, and refined, The balm of care, Elysium of the mind. Innocent! Oh, if venerable Time Slain at the foot of Pleasure be no crime, Then, with his silver beard and magic wand, Let Comus rise archbishop of the land; Let him your rubric and your feasts prescribe, Grand metropolitan of all the tribe. Of manners rough, and coarse athletic cast, The rank debauch suits Clodio's filthy taste. Rufillus, exquisitely form'd by rule, Not of the moral but the dancing school, Wonders at Clodio's follies, in a tone As tragical as others at his own. He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score, Then kill a constable, and drink five more; But he can draw a pattern, make a tart, And has the ladies' etiquette by heart. Go, fool; and, arm in arm with Clodio, plead Your cause before a bar you little dread; But know, the law that bids the drunkard die Is far too just to pass the trifler by. Both baby-featured, and of infant size, View'd from a distance, and with heedless eyes, Folly and innocence are so alike, The difference, though essential, fails to strike. Yet Folly ever has a vacant stare, A simpering countenance, and a trifling air; But Innocence, sedate, serene, erect, Delights us, by engaging our respect. Man, Nature's guest by invitation sweet, Receives from her both appetite and treat; But, if he play the glutton and exceed, His benefactress blushes at the deed. For Nature, nice, as liberal to dispense, Made nothing but a brute the slave of sense. Daniel ate pulse by choice—example rare! Heaven bless'd the youth, and made him fresh and fair. Gorgonius sits, abdominous and wan, Like a fat squab upon a Chinese fan: He snuffs far off the anticipated joy; Turtle and venison all his thoughts employ; Prepares for meals as jockeys take a sweat, Oh, nauseous!—an emetic for a whet! Will Providence o'erlook the wasted good? Temperance were no virtue if he could. That pleasures, therefore, or what such we call, Are hurtful, is a truth confess'd by all. And some, that seem to threaten virtue less Still hurtful in the abuse, or by the excess. Is man then only for his torment placed The centre of delights he may not taste? Like fabled Tantalus, condemn'd to hear The precious stream still purling in his ear, Lip-deep in what he longs for, and yet curst With prohibition and perpetual thirst? No, wrangler—destitute of shame and sense, The precept, that enjoins him abstinence, Forbids him none but the licentious joy, Whose fruit, though fair, tempts only to destroy. Remorse, the fatal egg by Pleasure laid In every bosom where her nest is made, Hatch'd by the beams of truth, denies him rest, And proves a raging scorpion in his breast. No pleasure? Are domestic comforts dead? Are all the nameless sweets of friendship fled? Has time worn out, or fashion put to shame, Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame? All these belong to virtue, and all prove That virtue has a title to your love. Have you no touch of pity, that the poor Stand starved at your inhospitable door? Or if yourself, too scantily supplied, Need help, let honest industry provide. Earn, if you want; if you abound, impart: These both are pleasures to the feeling heart. No pleasure? Has some sickly eastern waste Sent us a wind to parch us at a blast? Can British Paradise no scenes afford To please her sated and indifferent lord? Are sweet philosophy's enjoyments run Quite to the lees? And has religion none? Brutes capable would tell you 'tis a lie, And judge you from the kennel and the stye. Delights like these, ye sensual and profane, Ye are bid, begg'd, besought, to entertain; Call'd to these crystal streams, do ye turn off Obscene to swill and swallow at a trough? Envy the beast, then, on whom Heaven bestows Your pleasures, with no curses at the close. Pleasure admitted in undue degree Enslaves the will, nor leaves the judgment free. 'Tis not alone the grape's enticing juice Unnerves the moral powers, and mars their use; Ambition, avarice, and the lust of fame, And woman, lovely woman, does the same. The heart, surrender'd to the ruling power Of some ungovern'd passion every hour, Finds by degrees the truths that once bore sway, And all their deep impressions, wear away; So coin grows smooth, in traffic current pass'd, Till Cæsar's image is effaced at last. The breach, though small at first, soon opening wide, In rushes folly with a full-moon tide, Then welcome errors, of whatever size, To justify it by a thousand lies. As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone, And hides the ruin that it feeds upon; So sophistry cleaves close to and protects Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects. Mortals, whose pleasures are their only care, First wish to be imposed on, and then are. And lest the fulsome artifice should fail, Themselves will hide its coarseness with a veil. Not more industrious are the just and true To give to Virtue what is Virtue's due— The praise of wisdom, comeliness, and worth, And call her charms to public notice forth— Than Vice's mean and disingenuous race To hide the shocking features of her face. Her form with dress and lotion they repair; Then kiss their idol, and pronounce her fair. The sacred implement I now employ Might prove a mischief, or at best a toy; A trifle, if it move but to amuse; But, if to wrong the judgment and abuse, Worse than a poniard in the basest hand, It stabs at once the morals of a land. Ye writers of what none with safety reads, Footing it in the dance that Fancy leads; Ye novelists, who mar what ye would mend, Snivelling and drivelling folly without end; Whose corresponding misses fill the ream With sentimental frippery and dream, Caught in a delicate soft silken net By some lewd earl, or rake-hell baronet: Ye pimps, who, under virtue's fair pretence, Steal to the closet of young innocence, And teach her, inexperienced yet and green, To scribble as you scribbled at fifteen; Who, kindling a combustion of desire, With some cold moral think to quench the fire; Though all your engineering proves in vain The dribbling stream ne'er puts it out again: Oh that a verse had power, and could command Far, far away, these flesh-flies of the land, Who fasten without mercy on the fair, And suck, and leave a craving maggot there! Howe'er disguised the inflammatory tale, And cover'd with a fine-spun specious veil; Such writers, and such readers, owe the gust And relish of their pleasure all to lust. But the muse, eagle-pinion'd, has in view A quarry more important still than you; Down, down the wind she swims, and sails away, Now stoops upon it, and now grasps the prey. Petronius! all the muses weep for thee; But every tear shall scald thy memory: The graces too, while Virtue at their shrine Lay bleeding under that soft hand of thine, Felt each a mortal stab in her own breast, Abhorr'd the sacrifice, and cursed the priest. Thou polish'd and high-finish'd foe to truth, Graybeard corrupter of our listening youth, To purge and skim away the filth of vice, That so refined it might the more entice, Then pour it on the morals of thy son, To taint his heart, was worthy of thine own! Now, while the poison all high life pervades, Write, if thou canst, one letter from the shades, One, and one only, charged with deep regret, That thy worst part, thy principles, live yet; One sad epistle thence may cure mankind Of the plague spread by bundles left behind. 'Tis granted, and no plainer truth appears, Our most important are our earliest years; The mind, impressible and soft, with ease Imbibes and copies what she hears and sees, And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue That Education gives her, false or true. Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong; Man's coltish disposition asks the thong; And without discipline the favourite child, Like a neglected forester, runs wild. But we, as if good qualities would grow Spontaneous, take but little pains to sow: We give some Latin and a smatch of Greek; Teach him to fence and figure twice a week; And having done, we think, the best we can, Praise his proficiency, and dub him man. From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home; And thence with all convenient speed to Rome, With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay, To tease for cash, and quarrel with all day; With memorandum book for every town, And every post, and where the chaise broke down; His stock, a few French phrases got by heart, With much to learn, but nothing to impart; The youth, obedient to his sire's commands, Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands. Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair, With awkward gait, stretch'd neck, and silly stare, Discover huge cathedrals built with stone, And steeples towering high, much like our own; But show peculiar light by many a grin At popish practices observed within. Ere long some bowing, smirking, smart abbé Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way; And, being always primed with politesse For men of their appearance and address, With much compassion undertakes the task To tell them more than they have wit to ask; Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread, Such as, when legible, were never read, But being canker'd now and half worn out, Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt; Some headless hero, or some Cæsar shows— Defective only in his Roman nose; Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans, Models of Herculanum pots and pans; And sells them medals, which, if neither rare Nor ancient, will be so, preserved with care. Strange the recital! from whatever cause His great improvement and new lights he draws, The squire, once bashful, is shamefaced no more, But teems with powers he never felt before; Whether increased momentum, and the force With which from clime to clime he sped his course, (As axles sometimes kindle as they go,) Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow; Or whether clearer skies and softer air, That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair, Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran, Unfolded genially, and spread the man; Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace, By shrugs and strange contortions of his face, How much a dunce, that has been sent to roam, Excels a dunce that has been kept at home. Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, And wisdom falls before exterior grace: We slight the precious kernel of the stone, And toil to polish its rough coat alone. A just deportment, manners graced with ease, Elegant phrase, and figure form'd to please, Are qualities that seem to comprehend Whatever parents, guardians, schools, intend; Hence an unfurnish'd and a listless mind, Though busy, trifling; empty, though refined; Hence all that interferes, and dares to clash With indolence and luxury, is trash; While learning, once the man's exclusive pride, Seems verging fast towards the female side. Learning itself, received into a mind By nature weak, or viciously inclined, Serves but to lead philosophers astray, Where children would with ease discern the way. And of all arts sagacious dupes invent, To cheat themselves and gain the world's assent, The worst is—Scripture warp'd from its intent. The carriage bowls along, and all are pleased If Tom be sober, and the wheels well greased; But if the rogue be gone a cup too far, Left out his linchpin, or forgot his tar, It suffers interruption and delay, And meets with hindrance in the smoothest way. When some hypothesis absurd and vain Has fill'd with all its fumes a critic's brain, The text that sorts not with his darling whim, Though plain to others, is obscure to him. The will made subject to a lawless force, All is irregular, and out of course; And Judgment drunk, and bribed to lose his way, Winks hard, and talks of darkness at noonday. A critic on the sacred book should be Candid and learn'd, dispassionate and free; Free from the wayward bias bigots feel, From fancy's influence, and intemperate zeal; But above all, (or let the wretch refrain, Nor touch the page he cannot but profane,) Free from the domineering power of lust; A lewd interpreter is never just. How shall I speak thee, or thy power address, Thou god of our idolatry, the Press? By thee religion, liberty, and laws, Exert their influence and advance their cause: By thee worse plagues than Pharaoh's land befell, Diffused, make Earth the vestibule of Hell; Thou fountain, at which drink the good and wise, Thou ever-bubbling spring of endless lies; Like Eden's dread probationary tree, Knowledge of good and evil is from thee! No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest Till half mankind were like himself possess'd. Philosophers, who darken and put out Eternal truth by everlasting doubt; Church quacks, with passions under no command, Who fill the world with doctrines contraband, Discoverers of they know not what, confined Within no bounds—the blind that lead the blind; To streams of popular opinion drawn, Deposit in those shallows all their spawn. The wriggling fry soon fill the creeks around, Poisoning the waters where their swarms abound. Scorn'd by the nobler tenants of the flood, Minnows and gudgeons gorge the unwholesome food. The propagated myriads spread so fast, E'en Leuwenhoeck himself would stand aghast, Employ'd to calculate the enormous sum, And own his crab-computing powers o'ercome. Is this hyperbole? The world well known, Your sober thoughts will hardly find it one. Fresh confidence the speculatist takes From every hair-brain'd proselyte he makes; And therefore prints: himself but half deceived, Till others have the soothing tale believed. Hence comment after comment, spun as fine As bloated spiders draw the flimsy line. Hence the same word that bids our lusts obey Is misapplied to sanctify their sway. If stubborn Greek refuse to be his friend, Hebrew or Syriac shall be forced to bend; If languages and copies all cry, No— Somebody proved it centuries ago. Like trout pursued, the critic in despair Darts to the mud, and finds his safety there: Women, whom custom has forbid to fly The scholar's pitch, (the scholar best knows why,) With all the simple and unletter'd poor, Admire his learning, and almost adore. Whoever errs, the priest can ne'er be wrong, With such fine words familiar to his tongue. Ye ladies! (for, indifferent in your cause, I should deserve to forfeit all applause) Whatever shocks or gives the least offence To virtue, delicacy, truth, or sense, (Try the criterion, 'tis a faithful guide,) Nor has, nor can have, Scripture on its side. None but an author knows an author's cares, Or Fancy's fondness for the child she bears. Committed once into the public arms, The baby seems to smile with added charms. Like something precious ventured far from shore, 'Tis valued for the danger's sake the more. He views it with complacency supreme, Solicits kind attention to his dream; And daily, more enamour'd of the cheat, Kneels, and asks Heaven to bless the dear deceit. So one, whose story serves at least to show Men loved their own productions long ago, Wooed an unfeeling statue for his wife, Nor rested till the gods had given it life. If some mere driveller suck the sugar'd fib, One that still needs his leading string and bib, And praise his genius, he is soon repaid In praise applied to the same part—his head; For 'tis a rule that holds for ever true, Grant me discernment, and I grant it you. Patient of contradiction as a child, Affable, humble, diffident, and mild; Such was Sir Isaac, and such Boyle and Locke; Your blunderer is as sturdy as a rock. The creature is so sure to kick and bite, A muleteer's the man to set him right. First Appetite enlists him Truth's sworn foe, Then obstinate Self-will confirms him so. Tell him he wanders; that his error leads To fatal ills; that, though the path he treads Be flowery, and he see no cause of fear, Death and the pains of hell attend him there: In vain; the slave of arrogance and pride, He has no hearing on the prudent side. His still refuted quirks he still repeats; New raised objections with new quibbles meets; Till, sinking in the quicksand he defends, He dies disputing, and the contest ends— But not the mischiefs; they, still left behind, Like thistle-seeds, are sown by every wind. Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill; Bend the straight rule to their own crooked will; And, with a clear and shining lamp supplied, First put it out, then take it for a guide. Halting on crutches of unequal size, One leg by truth supported, one by lies, They sidle to the goal with awkward pace, Secure of nothing—but to lose the race. Faults in the life breed errors in the brain, And these reciprocally those again. The mind and conduct mutually imprint And stamp their image in each other's mint; Each, sire and dam of an infernal race, Begetting and conceiving all that's base. None sends his arrow to the mark in view, Whose hand is feeble, or his aim untrue. For though, ere yet the shaft is on the wing, Or when it first forsakes the elastic string, It err but little from the intended line, It falls at last far wide of his design; So he who seeks a mansion in the sky, Must watch his purpose with a stedfast eye; That prize belongs to none but the sincere, The least obliquity is fatal here. With caution taste the sweet Circean cup; He that sips often, at last drinks it up. Habits are soon assumed; but when we strive To strip them off, 'tis being flay'd alive. Call'd to the temple of impure delight, He that abstains, and he alone, does right. If a wish wander that way, call it home; He cannot long be safe whose wishes roam. But if you pass the threshold, you are caught; Die then, if power Almighty save you not. There hardening by degrees, till double steel'd, Take leave of nature's God, and God reveal'd; Then laugh at all you trembled at before; And, joining the freethinkers' brutal roar, Swallow the two grand nostrums they dispense— That Scripture lies, and blasphemy is sense. If clemency revolted by abuse Be damnable, then damn'd without excuse. Some dream that they can silence, when they will, The storm of passion, and say, Peace, be still: But "Thus far and no farther," when address'd To the wild wave, or wilder human breast, Implies authority that never can, That never ought to be the lot of man. But, muse, forbear; long flights forebode a fall; Strike on the deep-toned chord the sum of all. Hear the just law—the judgment of the skies! He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies; And he that will be cheated to the last, Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast. But if the wanderer his mistake discern, Judge his own ways, and sigh for a return, Bewilder'd once, must he bewail his loss For ever and for ever? No—the cross! There and there only (though the deist rave, And atheist, if Earth bear so base a slave); There and there only is the power to save. There no delusive hope invites despair; No mockery meets you, no deception there. The spells and charms, that blinded you before, All vanish there, and fascinate no more. I am no preacher, let this hint suffice— The cross once seen is death to every vice; Else He that hung there suffer'd all his pain, Bled, groan'd, and agonized, and died, in vain. TRUTH. Pensantur trutinâ. Hor. lib. ii. Ep. 1. THE ARGUMENT. The pursuit of error leads to destruction—Grace leads the right way—Its direction despised—The self-sufficient Pharisee compared with the peacock—The pheasant compared with the Christian—Heaven abhors affected sanctity—The hermit and his penances—The self-torturing Bramin—Pride the ruling principle of both—Picture of a sanctimonious prude—Picture of a saint—Freedom of a Christian—Importance of motives, illustrated by the conduct of two servants—The traveller overtaken by a storm likened to the sinner dreading the vengeance of the Almighty—Dangerous state of those who are just in their own conceit—The last moments of the infidel—Content of the ignorant but believing cottager—The rich, the wise, and the great, neglect the means of winning heaven—Poverty the best soil for religion—What man really is, and what in his own esteem—Unbelief often terminates in suicide—Scripture the only cure of woe—Pride the passion most hostile to truth—Danger of slighting the mercy offered by the Gospel—Plea for the virtuous heathen—Commands given by God on Sinai—The judgment-day—Plea of the believer. Man, on the dubious waves of error toss'd, His ship half founder'd, and his compass lost, Sees, far as human optics may command, A sleeping fog, and fancies it dry land; Spreads all his canvas, every sinew plies; Pants for it, aims at it, enters it, and dies! Then farewell all self-satisfying schemes, His well-built systems, philosophic dreams; Deceitful views of future bliss, farewell! He reads his sentence at the flames of hell. Hard lot of man—to toil for the reward Of virtue, and yet lose it! Wherefore hard?— He that would win the race must guide his horse Obedient to the customs of the course; Else, though unequall'd to the goal he flies, A meaner than himself shall gain the prize. Grace leads the right way: if you choose the wrong, Take it and perish; but restrain your tongue; Charge not, with light sufficient and left free, Your wilful suicide on God's decree. Oh how unlike the complex works of man, Heav'n's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan! No meretricious graces to beguile, No clustering ornaments to clog the pile; From ostentation, as from weakness, free, It stands like the cerulian arch we see, Majestic in its own simplicity. Inscribed above the portal, from afar Conspicuous as the brightness of a star, Legible only by the light they give, Stand the soul-quickening words—BELIEVE, AND LIVE. Too many, shock'd at what should charm them most, Despise the plain direction, and are lost. Heaven on such terms! (they cry with proud disdain) Incredible, impossible, and vain!— Rebel, because 'tis easy to obey; And scorn, for its own sake, the gracious way. These are the sober, in whose cooler brains Some thought of immortality remains; The rest too busy or too gay to wait On the sad theme, their everlasting state, Sport for a day, and perish in a night; The foam upon the waters not so light. Who judged the Pharisee! What odious cause Exposed him to the vengeance of the laws? Had he seduced a virgin, wrong'd a friend, Or stabb'd a man to serve some private end? Was blasphemy his sin? Or did he stray From the strict duties of the sacred day? Sit long and late at the carousing board? (Such were the sins with which he charged his Lord.) No—the man's morals were exact. What then? 'Twas his ambition to be seen of men; His virtues were his pride; and that one vice Made all his virtues gewgaws of no price; He wore them as fine trappings for a show, A praying, synagogue-frequenting beau. The self-applauding bird, the peacock, see— Mark what a sumptuous pharisee is he! Meridian sunbeams tempt him to unfold His radiant glories, azure, green, and gold: He treads as if, some solemn music near, His measured step were govern'd by his ear; And seems to say—Ye meaner fowl give place; I am all splendour, dignity, and grace! Not so the pheasant on his charms presumes, Though he, too, has a glory in his plumes. He, Christian-like, retreats with modest mien To the close copse or far sequester'd green, And shines without desiring to be seen. The plea of works, as arrogant and vain, Heaven turns from with abhorrence and disdain; Not more affronted by avowed neglect, Than by the mere dissembler's feign'd respect. What is all righteousness that men devise? What—but a sordid bargain for the skies? But Christ as soon would abdicate his own, As stoop from heaven to sell the proud a throne. His dwelling a recess in some rude rock; Book, beads, and maple dish, his meagre stock; In shirt of hair and weeds of canvas dress'd, Girt with a bell-rope that the pope has bless'd; Adust with stripes told out for every crime, And sore tormented, long before his time; His prayer preferr'd to saints that cannot aid, His praise postponed, and never to be paid; See the sage hermit, by mankind admired, With all that bigotry adopts inspired, Wearing out life in his religious whim, Till his religious whimsy wears out him. His works, his abstinence, his zeal allow'd, You think him humble—God accounts him proud. High in demand, though lowly in pretence, Of all his conduct this the genuine sense— My penitential stripes, my streaming blood, Have purchased heaven, and proved my title good. Turn eastward now, and fancy shall apply To your weak sight her telescopic eye. The bramin kindles on his own bare head The sacred fire, self-torturing his trade! His voluntary pains, severe and long, Would give a barbarous air to British song; No grand inquisitor could worse invent, Than he contrives to suffer well content. Which is the saintlier worthy of the two? Past all dispute, yon anchorite, say you. Your sentence and mine differ. What's a name? I say the bramin has the fairer claim. If sufferings scripture nowhere recommends, Devised by self, to answer selfish ends, Give saintship, then all Europe must agree Ten starveling hermits suffer less than he. The truth is (if the truth may suit your ear, And prejudice have left a passage clear) Pride has attained a most luxuriant growth, And poison'd every virtue in them both. Pride may be pamper'd while the flesh grows lean; Humility may clothe an English dean; That grace was Cowper's—his, confess'd by all— Though placed in golden Durham's second stall. Not all the plenty of a bishop's board, His palace, and his lacqueys, and "My Lord," More nourish pride, that condescending vice, Than abstinence, and beggary, and lice; It thrives in misery, and abundant grows: In misery fools upon themselves impose. But why before us protestants produce An Indian mystic or a French recluse? Their sin is plain; but what have we to fear, Reform'd and well-instructed? You shall hear. Yon ancient prude, whose wither'd features show She might be young some forty years ago, Her elbows pinioned close upon her hips, Her head erect, her fan upon her lips, Her eyebrows arched, her eyes both gone astray To watch yon amorous couple in their play, With bony and unkerchief'd neck defies The rude inclemency of wintry skies, And sails with lappet head and mincing airs Duly at clink of bell to morning prayers. To thrift and parsimony much inclined, She yet allows herself that boy behind; The shivering urchin, bending as he goes, With slipshod heels and dewdrop at his nose, His predecessor's coat advanced to wear, Which future pages yet are doom'd to share, Carries her Bible tuck'd beneath his arm, And hides his hands to keep his fingers warm. She, half an angel in her own account, Doubts not hereafter with the saints to mount, Though not a grace appears on strictest search, But that she fasts, and item, goes to church. Conscious of age, she recollects her youth, And tells, not always with an eye to truth, Who spann'd her waist, and who, where'er he came, Scrawl'd upon glass Miss Bridget's lovely name; Who stole her slipper, fill'd it with tokay, And drank the little bumper every day. Of temper as envenom'd as an asp, Censorious, and her every word a wasp; In faithful memory she records the crimes Or real, or fictitious, of the times; Laughs at the reputations she has torn, And holds them dangling at arm's length in scorn. Such are the fruits of sanctimonious pride, Of malice fed while flesh is mortified: Take, madam, the reward of all your prayers, Where hermits and where bramins meet with theirs; Your portion is with them.—Nay, never frown, But, if you please, some fathoms lower down. Artist, attend—your brushes and your paint— Produce them—take a chair—now draw a saint. Oh sorrowful and sad! the streaming tears Channel her cheeks—a Niobe appears! Is this a saint? Throw tints and all away— True piety is cheerful as the day, Will weep indeed and heave a pitying groan For others' woes, but smiles upon her own. What purpose has the King of saints in view? Why falls the gospel like a gracious dew? To call up plenty from the teeming earth, Or curse the desert with a tenfold dearth? Is it that Adam's offspring may be saved From servile fear, or be the more enslaved? To loose the links that gall'd mankind before, Or bind them faster on, and add still more? The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove, Or, if a chain, the golden one of love: No fear attends to quench his glowing fires, What fear he feels his gratitude inspires. Shall he, for such deliverance freely wrought, Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought. His Master's interest and his own combined Prompt every movement of his heart and mind: Thought, word, and deed, his liberty evince, His freedom is the freedom of a prince. Man's obligations infinite, of course His life should prove that he perceives their force; His utmost he can render is but small— The principle and motive all in all. You have two servants—Tom, an arch, sly rogue, From top to toe the Geta now in vogue, Genteel in figure, easy in address, Moves without noise, and swift as an express, Reports a message with a pleasing grace, Expert in all the duties of his place; Say, on what hinge does his obedience move? Has he a world of gratitude and love? No, not a spark—'tis all mere sharper's play; He likes your house, your housemaid, and your pay; Reduce his wages, or get rid of her, Tom quits you, with—Your most obedient, sir. The dinner served, Charles takes his usual stand, Watches your eye, anticipates command; Sighs, if perhaps your appetite should fail; And, if he but suspects a frown, turns pale; Consults all day your interest and your ease, Richly rewarded if he can but please; And, proud to make his firm attachment known, To save your life would nobly risk his own. Now which stands highest in your serious thought? Charles, without doubt, say you—and so he ought; One act, that from a thankful heart proceeds, Excels ten thousand mercenary deeds. Thus Heaven approves as honest and sincere The work of generous love and filial fear; But with averted eyes the omniscient Judge Scorns the base hireling and the slavish drudge. Where dwell these matchless saints? old Curio cries. E'en at your side, sir, and before your eyes, The favour'd few—the enthusiasts you despise. And, pleased at heart because on holy ground, Sometimes a canting hypocrite is found, Reproach a people with his single fall, And cast his filthy raiment at them all. Attend! an apt similitude shall show Whence springs the conduct that offends you so. See where it smokes along the sounding plain, Blown all aslant, a driving, dashing rain, Peal upon peal redoubling all around, Shakes it again and faster to the ground; Now flashing wide, now glancing as in play, Swift beyond thought the lightnings dart away. Ere yet it came the traveller urged his steed, And hurried, but with unsuccessful speed; Now drench'd throughout, and hopeless of his case, He drops the rein, and leaves him to his pace. Suppose, unlook'd for in a scene so rude, Long hid by interposing hill or wood, Some mansion, neat and elegantly dress'd, By some kind hospitable heart possess'd, Offer him warmth, security, and rest; Think with what pleasure, safe, and at his ease, He hears the tempest howling in the trees; What glowing thanks his lips and heart employ, While danger past is turn'd to present joy. So fares it with the sinner, when he feels A growing dread of vengeance at his heels: His conscience like a glassy lake before, Lash'd into foaming waves, begins to roar; The law, grown clamorous, though silent long, Arraigns him, charges him with every wrong— Asserts the right of his offended Lord, And death, or restitution, is the word: The last impossible, he fears the first, And, having well deserved, expects the worst. Then welcome refuge and a peaceful home; Oh for a shelter from the wrath to come! Crush me, ye rocks; ye falling mountains, hide, Or bury me in ocean's angry tide!— The scrutiny of those all-seeing eyes I dare not—And you need not, God replies; The remedy you want I freely give; The book shall teach you—read, believe, and live! 'Tis done—the raging storm is heard no more, Mercy receives him on her peaceful shore: And Justice, guardian of the dread command, Drops the red vengeance from his willing hand. A soul redeem'd demands a life of praise; Hence the complexion of his future days, Hence a demeanour holy and unspeck'd, And the world's hatred, as its sure effect. Some lead a life unblameable and just, Their own dear virtue their unshaken trust: They never sin—or if (as all offend) Some trivial slips their daily walk attend, The poor are near at hand, the charge is small, A slight gratuity atones for all. For though the pope has lost his interest here, And pardons are not sold as once they were, No papist more desirous to compound, Than some grave sinners upon English ground. That plea refuted, other quirks they seek— Mercy is infinite, and man is weak; The future shall obliterate the past, And heaven, no doubt, shall be their home at last. Come, then—a still, small whisper in your ear— He has no hope who never had a fear; And he that never doubted of his state, He may perhaps—perhaps he may—too late. The path to bliss abounds with many a snare; Learning is one, and wit, however rare. The Frenchman, first in literary fame, (Mention him, if you please. Voltaire?—The same) With spirit, genius, eloquence, supplied, Lived long, wrote much, laugh'd heartily, and died; The Scripture was his jest book, whence he drew Bon-mots to gall the Christian and the Jew; An infidel in health, but what when sick? Oh—then a text would touch him at the quick; View him at Paris in his last career, Surrounding throngs the demi-god revere; Exalted on his pedestal of pride, And fumed with frankincense on every side, He begs their flattery with his latest breath, And, smother'd in't at last, is praised to death! Yon cottager, who weaves at her own door, Pillow and bobbins all her little store; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the live-long day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at night Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light; She, for her humble sphere by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit, Receives no praise; but though her lot be such, (Toilsome and indigent,) she renders much; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bible true— A truth the brilliant Frenchman never knew; And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes, Her title to a treasure in the skies. Oh, happy peasant! Oh, unhappy bard! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward; He praised perhaps for ages yet to come, She never heard of half a mile from home: He, lost in errors, his vain heart prefers, She, safe in the simplicity of hers. Not many wise, rich, noble, or profound In science win one inch of heavenly ground. And is it not a mortifying thought The poor should gain it, and the rich should not? No—the voluptuaries, who ne'er forget One pleasure lost, lose heaven without regret; Regret would rouse them, and give birth to prayer, Prayer would add faith, and faith would fix them there. Not that the Former of us all in this, Or aught he does, is govern'd by caprice; The supposition is replete with sin, And bears the brand of blasphemy burnt in. Not so—the silver trumpet's heavenly call Sounds for the poor, but sounds alike for all: Kings are invited, and would kings obey, No slaves on earth more welcome were than they; But royalty, nobility, and state, Are such a dead preponderating weight, That endless bliss, (how strange soe'er it seem,) In counterpoise, flies up and kicks the beam. 'Tis open, and ye cannot enter—why? Because ye will not, Conyers would reply— And he says much that many may dispute And cavil at with ease, but none refute. Oh, bless'd effect of penury and want, The seed sown there, how vigorous is the plant! No soil like poverty for growth divine, As leanest land supplies the richest wine. Earth gives too little, giving only bread, To nourish pride, or turn the weakest head: To them the sounding jargon of the schools Seems what it is—a cap and bells for fools: The light they walk by, kindled from above, Shows them the shortest way to life and love: They, strangers to the controversial field, Where deists, always foil'd, yet scorn to yield, And never check'd by what impedes the wise, Believe, rush forward, and possess the prize. Envy, ye great, the dull unletter'd small: Ye have much cause for envy—but not all. We boast some rich ones whom the Gospel sways, And one who wears a coronet and prays; Like gleanings of an olive tree, they show Here and there one upon the topmost bough. How readily, upon the Gospel plan, That question has its answer—What is man? Sinful and weak, in every sense a wretch; An instrument, whose chords, upon the stretch, And strain'd to the last screw that he can bear, Yield only discord in his Maker's ear: Once the blest residence of truth divine, Glorious as Solyma's interior shrine, Where, in his own oracular abode, Dwelt visibly the light-creating God; But made long since, like Babylon of old, A den of mischiefs never to be told: And she, once mistress of the realms around, Now scattered wide and no where to be found, As soon shall rise and re-ascend the throne, By native power and energy her own, As nature, at her own peculiar cost, Restore to man the glories he has lost. Go—bid the winter cease to chill the year, Replace the wandering comet in his sphere, Then boast (but wait for that unhoped for hour) The self-restoring arm of human power. But what is man in his own proud esteem? Hear him—himself the poet and the theme: A monarch clothed with majesty and awe, His mind his kingdom, and his will his law; Grace in his mien, and glory in his eyes, Supreme on earth, and worthy of the skies, Strength in his heart, dominion in his nod, And, thunderbolts excepted, quite a God! So sings he, charm'd with his own mind and form, The song magnificent—the theme a worm! Himself so much the source of his delight, His Maker has no beauty in his sight. See where he sits, contemplative and fix'd, Pleasure and wonder in his features mix'd, His passions tamed and all at his control, How perfect the composure of his soul! Complacency has breathed a gentle gale O'er all his thoughts, and swell'd his easy sail: His books well trimm'd, and in the gayest style, Like regimental coxcombs, rank and file, Adorn his intellects as well as shelves, And teach him notions splendid as themselves: The Bible only stands neglected there, Though that of all most worthy of his care; And, like an infant troublesome awake, Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake. What shall the man deserve of human kind, Whose happy skill and industry combined Shall prove (what argument could never yet) The Bible an imposture and a cheat? The praises of the libertine profess'd, The worst of men, and curses of the best. Where should the living, weeping o'er his woes; The dying, trembling at the awful close; Where the betray'd, forsaken, and oppress'd; The thousands whom the world forbids to rest; Where should they find, (those comforts at an end, The Scripture yields,) or hope to find, a friend? Sorrow might muse herself to madness then, And, seeking exile from the sight of men, Bury herself in solitude profound, Grow frantic with her pangs, and bite the ground. Thus often Unbelief, grown sick of life, Flies to the tempting pool, or felon knife. The jury meet, the coroner is short, And lunacy the verdict of the court. Reverse the sentence, let the truth be known, Such lunacy is ignorance alone; They knew not, what some bishops may not know, That Scripture is the only cure of woe. That field of promise how it flings abroad Its odour o'er the Christian's thorny road! The soul, reposing on assured relief, Feels herself happy amidst all her grief, Forgets her labour as she toils along, Weeps tears of joy, and bursts into a song. But the same word, that, like the polish'd share, Ploughs up the roots of a believer's care, Kills too the flowery weeds, where'er they grow, That bind the sinner's Bacchanalian brow. Oh, that unwelcome voice of heavenly love, Sad messenger of mercy from above! How does it grate upon his thankless ear, Crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear! His will and judgment at continual strife, That civil war embitters all his life; In vain he points his powers against the skies, In vain he closes or averts his eyes, Truth will intrude—she bids him yet beware; And shakes the sceptic in the scorner's chair. Though various foes against the Truth combine, Pride above all opposes her design; Pride, of a growth superior to the rest, The subtlest serpent with the loftiest crest, Swells at the thought, and, kindling into rage, Would hiss the cherub Mercy from the stage. And is the soul indeed so lost?—she cries, Fallen from her glory, and too weak to rise? Torpid and dull, beneath a frozen zone, Has she no spark that may be deem'd her own? Grant her indebted to what zealots call Grace undeserved, yet surely not for all! Some beams of rectitude she yet displays, Some love of virtue, and some power to praise; Can lift herself above corporeal things, And, soaring on her own unborrow'd wings, Possess herself of all that's good or true, Assert the skies, and vindicate her due. Past indiscretion is a venial crime; And if the youth, unmellowed yet by time, Bore on his branch, luxuriant then and rude, Fruits of a blighted size, austere and crude, Maturer years shall happier stores produce, And meliorate the well-concocted juice. Then, conscious of her meritorious zeal, To Justice she may make her bold appeal; And leave to Mercy, with a tranquil mind, The worthless and unfruitful of mankind. Hear then how Mercy, slighted and defied, Retorts the affront against the crown of pride. Perish the virtue, as it ought, abhorr'd, And the fool with it, who insults his Lord. The atonement a Redeemer's love has wrought Is not for you—the righteous need it not. Seest thou yon harlot, wooing all she meets, The worn-out nuisance of the public streets, Herself from morn to night, from night to morn, Her own abhorrence, and as much your scorn? The gracious shower, unlimited and free, Shall fall on her, when Heaven denies it thee. Of all that wisdom dictates, this the drift— That man is dead in sin, and life a gift. Is virtue, then, unless of Christian growth, Mere fallacy, or foolishness, or both? Ten thousand sages lost in endless woe, For ignorance of what they could not know?— That speech betrays at once a bigot's tongue, Charge not a God with such outrageous wrong! Truly, not I—the partial light men have, My creed persuades me, well employ'd, may save; While he that scorns the noon-day beam, perverse, Shall find the blessing, unimproved, a curse. Let heathen worthies, whose exalted mind Left sensuality and dross behind, Possess, for me, their undisputed lot, And take, unenvied, the reward they sought. But still in virtue of a Saviour's plea, Not blind by choice, but destined not to see. Their fortitude and wisdom were a flame Celestial, though they knew not whence it came, Derived from the same source of light and grace, That guides the Christian in his swifter race; Their judge was conscience, and her rule their law: That rule, pursued with reverence and with awe, Led them, however faltering, faint, and slow, From what they knew to what they wish'd to know. But let not him that shares a brighter day Traduce the splendour of a noontide ray, Prefer the twilight of a darker time, And deem his base stupidity no crime; The wretch, who slights the bounty of the skies, And sinks, while favour'd with the means to rise, Shall find them rated at their full amount, The good he scorn'd all carried to account. Marshalling all his terrors as he came, Thunder, and earthquake, and devouring flame, From Sinai's top Jehovah gave the law— Life for obedience—death for every flaw. When the great Sovereign would his will express, He gives a perfect rule, what can he less? And guards it with a sanction as severe As vengeance can inflict, or sinners fear: Else his own glorious rights he would disclaim, And man might safely trifle with his name. He bids him glow with unremitting love To all on earth, and to himself above; Condemns the injurious deed, the slanderous tongue, The thought that meditates a brother's wrong: Brings not alone the more conspicuous part, His conduct, to the test, but tries his heart. Hark! universal nature shook and groan'd, 'Twas the last trumpet—see the Judge enthroned: Rouse all your courage at your utmost need, Now summon every virtue, stand and plead. What! silent? Is your boasting heard no more? That self-renouncing wisdom, learn'd before, Had shed immortal glories on your brow, That all your virtues cannot purchase now. All joy to the believer! He can speak— Trembling yet happy, confident yet meek. Since the dear hour that brought me to thy foot And cut up all my follies by the root, I never trusted in an arm but thine, Nor hoped, but in thy righteousness divine: My prayers and alms, imperfect and defiled, Were but the feeble efforts of a child; Howe'er performed, it was their brightest part, That they proceeded from a grateful heart: Cleansed in thine own all-purifying blood, Forgive their evil and accept their good: I cast them at thy feet—my only plea Is what it was, dependence upon thee: While struggling in the vale of tears below, That never fail'd, nor shall it fail me now. Angelic gratulations rend the skies, Pride falls unpitied, never more to rise, Humility is crown'd, and Faith receives the prize. J. Gilbert Fecit. W. Greatbach sculp. EXPOSTULATION. "CALL'D THEE AWAY FROM PEACEABLE EMPLOY DOMESTIC HAPPINESS AND RURAL JOY TO WASTE THY LIFE IN ARMS."