Robert Cowper

“ The Miss Gunnings, the daughters of Sir Robert Gunning, Bart.
[451] Private correspondence.
[452] A book full of blunders and scandal, and destitute both of information and interest.
[453] The celebrated seat of Lord Orford, near Richmond, where Lady Hesketh was then visiting.
[454] The well-known translator of Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History.
[455] Cowper's strictures on Lavater are rather severe; in a subsequent letter we shall find that he expresses himself almost in the language of a disciple. ”

“ In a very special sense this truth was exemplified in the life of the poet William Cowper. If God ever made use of a frail instrument through which to glorify Himself, He did it in this man. Feeble in health from childhood, with a sensitive, high-strung mind that ever was on the point of breaking, he still worked and wrought in such a way that his sad and feverish life certainly was not lived in vain.
Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, England, in 1731. His father was an English clergyman. His mother died when the child was only six years old. ”

“ In October 1798, the pressure of his melancholy seemed to be mitigated in some little degree, for he exerted himself so far as to write the following letter, without solicitation, to Lady Hesketh.
Dear Cousin,—You describe delightful scenes, but you describe them to one, who, if he even saw them, could receive no delight from them: who has a faint recollection, and so faint, as to be like an almost forgotten dream, that once he was susceptible of pleasure from such causes. The country that you have had in prospect has been always famed for its beauties ”

“ But the industrious mother of helpless and depending children, far from the reach of human charity, has none of these to console her. And such a one was the widow of the Pine Cottage; but as she bent over [93] the fire, and took up the last scanty remnant of food, to spread before her children, her spirits seemed to brighten up, as by some sudden and mysterious impulse, and Cowper’s beautiful lines came uncalled across her mind:
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning Providence
He hides a smiling face. ”

“ There, now, thou art on safe ground. Ride boldly up the hill. At the summit thou wilt see the beacon light. Fare-thee-well."
"But, damsel, wilt thou not tell me thy name? Who are those caitiffs who wrought me such wrong? Where dwellest thou? How camest thou here?"
"And then men call us poor women curious and prying," laughed the girl. "Good-night, gentle sir, mayest thou prosper, and have a pleasant journey;" and before Ralph realised she was gone, she had disappeared down the head of the gully.
"Well, 'tis little use following her," thought Ralph; "my business is up there. ”

“ If thou wantest to fight, fight the old man there, and then, after he has thrashed thee, thou canst come and fight us. We shan't be afraid of thee then, but thou'rt too strong a man now, and aimest too straight."
"What is all this about, boys?" said the older man, who had been comfortably stretched on his back with Ceolwulf and Wulfstan on each side of him, placidly enjoying the pleasant reminiscences of that estimable boar. "What's all this about? Why can't ye enjoy the blessings the gods give ye without wanting to make a disturbance?" ”

“ The taller of the new comers carried a lantern.
Dim and ghostly the figures looked in their peaked hoods and long mantles, entirely concealing face and form.
"Ah! we have come in time: no, no, too late!" and the slighter figure uttered a shrill and bitter cry of pain, as it bent over the lifeless mass of armour which held the unknown knight.
"Look to my lord first," said Ralph shortly.
"My son, 'tis the young child's father; my lord will wait," answered the elder stranger mildly, as he went to help his childish companion. ”

“ He confines his labors to the daytime, eschewing evening work. In a letter to a friend, some years ago, he wrote: "I hope you will not continue to give up your nights to literary undertakings. Believe me (who have suffered bitterly for this imprudence) that nothing in the world of letters is worth the sacrifice of health and strength and animal spirits which will certainly follow this excess of labor."
Cowper, at the age of fifty-three, and at a busy period of his life, says: "The morning is my writing time, and [Pg 579] in the morning I have no spirits. ”

“ Thou art growing a stout lad, and 'tis time to be thinking of thy after life. I would fain have ye all started in the world, before God sees fit to call me to him; and methinks 'twill not be long now."
"Why, father, what ails thee, that thou talkest thus dolefully?" said Ralph, his ardour damped by the tone of his father's remarks.
"Nay, child," said his mother, stroking the glossy, waving hair of her son, who had doffed his cap the moment he entered his parents' presence, "nay, child, 'tis naught but the old wound thy father hath gotten at Barnet grieveth him to-night." ”

“ A poet, born at Berkhampstead, whose writings are full of the best and highest teaching. He is best known by The Task, The Castaway, and Table Talk; but his smaller poems, On My Mother’s Picture, The Three Hares, John Gilpin, etc., more fully show his sensibility, general kindness, and playful wit. He also translated the Iliad. Cowper’s blameless and useful life was darkened by fits of despondency and depression, which in the end nearly destroyed his mind; but the light of religion never failed him. ”

“ He thought of his mother and father, of Thruxton Manor away over the sea, and then of his cousin Yolande and his promise.
But the trumpets sounding the réveille interrupted all softer thoughts. The reality of life had begun.
"Well, Ralph, my boy," said the cheerful voice of Dicky Cheke, "'tis a fine morning for our sport. Marry, I trust you and I will win our spurs to-day. But come to breakfast. There's a right pleasant smell of fried eggs and bacon over yonder, and thy man Humphrey hath gotten a rare fat capon out of some farm hard by. ”

“ They show the man at his best—almost jovial in a delicate fashion, keenly observant, and with a genuine gift for narrative. The style is so clear that the disposition of the writer shines through it with unruffled benignity.
Though Cowper comes late among the transition poets, he does not travel very far on the road to novelty. His mind is over-timorous, and he lacks robustness of temper. But in his feeling for nature, in the ease and versatility of his poetical work, in his undoubted lyrical gift (rarely expressed) , his work marks an advance far beyond that of the classicists. ”

“ Cowper stands almost alone in having nothing to do with the passion of love, which has always figured at such a rate in all sorts of novels, dramas, and poems. It was not because he was destitute of sensibility. His life was a tender sentiment, his heart was formed for friendship; he was even an admirer of the female sex, and he entrusted the happiness of his life to the care and sympathy of female friends; but the romance of the tender passion was beneath the dignity of his Muse, while for real purity of affection, as well as of imagination, no poet has been more distinguished. ”

“ But of the lyrical depth and passion of the great Revolution poets Cowper is wholly devoid. His soul was stirred by no movement so mighty, if it were even capable of the impulse. Tenderness he has, and pathos as well as playfulness; he has unfailing grace and ease; he has clearness like that of a trout-stream. Fashions, even our fashions, change. The more metaphysical poetry of our time has indeed too much in it, besides the metaphysics, to be in any danger of being ever laid on the shelf with the once admired conceits of Cowley ”

“ Was ever a man, before or since, who would commit suicide to avoid lucrative office? William Cowper, with only an ordinary share of average common sense, and unhampered by the trappings of genius that belonged to him, would have "gone on" for this place; secured it; {242} made his easy fortune; lived a good humdrum life; died lamented, and never heard of. The poet's fine brain, however—which had been exercised already in musical verse—built up mountains of difficulty ”

“ Cowper's poetry.
Critics are agreed that we shall not rank him among the great poets; but he comes nearer to their rank than anybody in his day believed possible. He is so true; he is so tender; he is so natural. If in his longer poems there is sometimes a lack of last finish, and an overplus of language—there is a frankness of utterance and a billowy undulation of movement that have compensating charms. He loves Nature as a boy loves his play ”

“ But while he never loses sight of his grand object, Cowper's poems are not mere sermons in verse. He not only passes without an effort 'from grave to gay, from lively to severe,' but he blends them together with most happy effect. Gifted with a rare sense of humour, with exquisite taste, and with a true appreciation of the beautiful both in nature and art, he enlists all these in the service of religion. ”

“ Cowper was not at all a strong man, and suffered terribly from fits of low spirits, and at these times he could not read, and disliked the company of people, who teased him by giving him advice or asking him questions. It was during one of these seasons of solitude and melancholy that he noticed a poor little hare belonging to the children of one of his neighbours, who, without meaning really to be unkind, had worried the little thing almost to death. ”

“ The time of Cowper, in his new situation, seems to have been chiefly devoted to religious contemplation, to social prayer, and to active charity. To this first of Christian virtues, his heart was eminently inclined, and Providence very graciously enabled him to exercise and enjoy it to an extent far superior to what his own scanty fortune allowed means. The death of his father, 1756, failed to place him in a state of independence, and the singular cast of his own mind was such, that nature seemed to have rendered it impossible for him either to covet or to acquire riches. ”

“ Meanwhile Ralph and his brother had tried the qualities of his new hawk.
"Thou well knowest, brother Ralph," said Jasper to him, as they rode along on their small ponies towards Chute Forest, "my peregrine will fly faster than thy gerfalcon."
"Marry, will it? that we shall see, I trow. See there's a bird yonder; 'tis a heron, now fly our birds at her."
No sooner said than done; off went the jesses, away went the hoods, and with a swing of the arm and wrist, the noble birds were cast off the fist. Up they sprang high in air. The gerfalcon mounted quicker, but the peregrine went straighter. ”

“ It is hardly necessary, for instance, to insist on the obvious narrowness of Cowper's religion. That the book is too short is a failing on the right side, and chargeable to the plan of the series rather than the writer, whose terse style and excellent arrangement make it full of interest. Cowper's life and poetry are bound together in a singularly close union. He belongs by circumstances rather than by genius to those unfortunate minds which, thrown off the proper balance, have gained a deeper insight and a stronger hold upon others through their very weakness. ”

“ He never could have been vulgar; there is not in the whole range of English literature quite such a gentleman in his own way as Cowper. But he has escaped almost entirely from the genteel style—from the notion of things as below the dignity of literature.
His prose in this respect is at least equal to his verse, though, as it was known much later, it has greater tendency than influence. All good critics have agreed that his letters are not surpassed, perhaps not surpassable. He has more freedom than Gray; he has none of the coxcombry of Walpole and Byron ”

“ It was on the 23rd of April, 1794, in one of those melancholy mornings, when his kind and affectionate relation, Lady Hesketh, and Hayley, were watching together over this dejected sufferer, that a letter from Lord Spencer arrived at Weston, to announce the intended grant of a pension from his Majesty to Cowper, of 300l. per annum, rendered payable to his friend Mr. Rose, as the trustee of Cowper. This intelligence produced in the friends of the poet very lively emotions of delight, yet blended with pain almost as powerful ”

“ The dusty road was covered with piles of dead and dying men. Broken pikes, splintered lances, pools of blood lay all around. Here and there fainting men, sore stricken, leant upon the end of their halberds, or sank swooning to the ground. A weary group of English still held together, and repelled the relentless onslaught of the French; but they had no hope, and had nowhere to go. No quarter was offered or asked, and their only object was to sell their lives as dearly as possible.
Ralph looked wearily round. Dicky Cheke had gone. Maurice, poor lad, could scarcely sit his horse. ”

“ An engraving of the last by Blake is in Hayley's ‘Life of Cowper.’
Cowper pronounced his name as Cooper (see Notes and Queries, i. 272) .
Perhaps the best criticism of Cowper's poetry is in Ste.-Beuve's ‘Causeries du Lundi,’ 1868 (xi. 139–97) . The ‘Task’ may have owed some popularity to its religious tone; but its tenderness, playfulness, and love of nature are admirably appreciated by the French critic, who was certainly not prejudiced by religious sympathy. The pathos of some minor poems is unsurpassable. Cowper is attractive whenever he shows his genuine self. ”

“ The moon, blurred by a flitting mist, which flickered over its face, shone down on the ghostly figures of the gleaming horsemen. The two esquires, encased, like their lords, in complete harness, sat motionless on their horses a little behind the chief actors in the coming duel. The dark forms of the two foot men were dimly to be seen to the left of the horsemen; while beyond the silent group, the grey sea stretched away and away until it seemed to rise to the leaden clouds which hung like a livid pall beneath the silvery moon. ”