Let fall the curtains, draw the sofa round’!
We feel, as we read, a glow of comfort and snugness, and would gladly make a fourth beside the table, on which stand the cups that cheer without inebriating.
The success of ‘The Task’ was immediate and complete; the author suddenly found himself famous and popular. The postmaster at the little office at Olney had double work: acquaintances who had neglected him for years now boasted of their intimacy with the lion of the day; visitors arrived at Olney to stare at him; anonymous letters and presents poured in on all sides. An amusing incident occurred one day, when the clerk of All Saints’ Church, Northampton, was ushered into Cowper’s presence. He had come, he said, with a petition to the new poet: Would he consent to contribute the mortuary verses, annually appended to the bills of mortality, in the capital of England’s most midland county?
Cowper advised the messenger to apply to Mr. Cox, a statuary in the town, who wrote verses. ‘Alas!’ replied the clerk, ‘I have already got help from him; but he is a gentleman of so much reading that our townspeople cannot understand him.’ The very doubtful compliment thus implied amused our poet into compliance, and he became a contributor to the lugubrious periodical.
It was characteristic of William Cowper that, a few years later, he forbade Lady Hesketh to apply in his behalf for the office of Poet-Laureate to the Court, yet he willingly accepted the office thus proposed to him by the clerk of Northampton!
We are now approaching one of the many sad episodes in Cowper’s sad life; we allude to his estrangement from Lady Austen,—she who had been for some time a vision of delight to his eye, and heart. Not long before he had written some most unprophetic lines to his ‘dear Anna.’ We do not quote them from any admiration for the verses, but because they bear painfully on the subject:—
‘Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds that never met before
Shall meet, unite, and part no more.’