Whom flowers alone I knew would little please,
Let fall the unfinish’d wreath, and roved for fruit;
Roved far and gather’d much: some harsh, ’tis true,
Pick’d from the thorns and briers of reproof,
But wholesome, well digested, grateful some
To palates that can taste immortal truth;
Insipid else, and sure to be despised.
“The Task” was accompanied by a shorter poem, entitled “Tirocinium,” written expressly in dispraise of the existing system of public schools in England; and prompted by Cowper’s bitter recollection of his sufferings at Westminster. The volume was published in 1785.
As soon as this was completed, Cowper engaged in another more laborious undertaking, the translation of Homer. This also was suggested by Lady Austen; and it had a most beneficial effect in furnishing the poet with constant employment from this time forward to the end of his life, with the exception of those periods in which the pressure of disease was too severe to admit of any exertion. He spared no pains in the execution of this great work; and after his version was made, subjected it to a most careful revision, amounting nearly to a re-translation. It was published in 1791, and was preceded by a list of subscribers, whose number and individual eminence bear testimony to the high esteem in which Cowper was then held. His translation, however, has never been popular: he has avoided Pope’s errors, but he has failed in giving life and interest, and in catching the vital spirit of his author.
During the long period which the literary labours above-mentioned occupied, Cowper’s domestic history is characterized by the same general depression and the same seclusion as we have above described. In 1784 his friendship with Lady Austen was interrupted by a disagreement between her and Mrs. Unwin, who seems to have feared that the former might obtain an influence over the poet paramount to her own; and to have been justly hurt at the prospect of becoming second in the affections of him, to whom, for so many years, she had devoted herself with a zeal which merited the utmost return. Cowper felt this, and he himself broke off his intercourse with Lady Austen, in a way which was admitted by herself to do credit to his delicacy and judgment, no less than to his generosity. In about a year after the termination of this valuable friendship, he received the best amends that could be made, in the renewal of intercourse, after it had been interrupted for twenty-three years, with his cousin Lady Hesketh, to whom from childhood he had been strongly attached. She visited Olney in June, 1786; and from that time forwards her purse and her personal exertions were unsparingly bestowed to promote the comfort of her beloved cousin. At her instance his confined and ruinous abode at Olney was exchanged in November, 1786, for a commodious house in the pretty neighbouring village of Weston, which was especially recommended to Cowper as being the residence of his esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton. Here Lady Hesketh commonly spent part of the year. The state of Cowper’s spirits during his residence at Weston was variable; but he made a few new acquaintance, and among them his correspondent, Mr. Rose, and his biographer, Mr. Hayley. He also enjoyed a vivid pleasure in the renewal of intercourse with his maternal relations, among whom his young cousin Johnson, who afterwards became his tender and devoted guardian, obtained an especial place in his affections. Still, however, his mental malady continued unabated; and a new cause of uneasiness beset him in the growing infirmities of Mrs. Unwin. In March, 1792, the disease which had been for some time sapping her strength, manifested itself in a paralytic attack, from which she never entirely recovered. From thenceforward Cowper’s time and attention were devoted, as his primary object, to contributing to her comfort and amusement. In her company he quitted his home, the first time for twenty-seven years, to visit Mr. Hayley’s seat at Eartham, in Sussex. Two important works had engaged his attention: one a poem on the four ages of man’s life, the other an edition of Milton. These, however, were successively laid aside; and such time as his weak spirits and melancholy occupation allowed him, be employed in revising his Homer for a second edition. But Mrs. Unwin became more and more enfeebled in mind and body; and in the beginning of 1794 Cowper relapsed into a gloom as deep as that which he had endured at the commencement of his malady. To watch over him in this melancholy Lady Hesketh made Weston her constant, instead of her occasional abode, until the middle of the following year, when her health gave way under the constant pressure of anxiety. Mr. Johnson, who had taken orders, and resided at East Dereham in Norfolk, then undertook the charge of his unhappy relation; removed him and Mrs. Unwin into his own neighbourhood, and watched over their decline with the most unwearied and judicious tenderness. But little could now be done to give Cowper pleasure. The pathetic poem, “To Mary,” is supposed by Mr. Hayley to have been the last thing written by him before quitting Weston; and the only original verses which he composed afterwards were some Latin lines, which he translated into English, on the appearance of some ice islands in the German Sea, and the touching poem called the “Cast-away,” founded on the loss of a man overboard in Anson’s voyage, and alluding in an affecting strain to his own unfortunate condition. After his departure from Weston, he who had been so diligent a correspondent only wrote three or four letters; nor could he be excited to converse by the visits even of his most intimate friends, as Mr. Rose and Sir John Throckmorton. In January, 1800, his final illness, which was dropsy, commenced. He died April 25th in the same year; nor to the last did one gleam of hope break through the darkness which had surrounded him for twenty-seven years.