Mr. Bull had urged Cowper once more to employ the powers of his pen, in what he so eminently excelled, the composition of hymns expressive of resignation to the will of God. It is much to be lamented that he here declines what would so essentially have promoted the interests of true religion.
TO THE REV. WILLIAM BULL.[435]
Weston, May 25, 1788.
My dear Friend,—Ask possibilities and they shall be performed; but ask not hymns from a man suffering by despair as I do. I could not sing the Lord's song were it to save my life, banished as I am, not to a strange land, but to a remoteness from his presence, in comparison with which the distance from east to west is no distance, is vicinity and cohesion. I dare not, either in prose or verse, allow myself to express a frame of mind which I am conscious does not belong to me; least of all can I venture to use the language of absolute resignation, lest, only counterfeiting, I should for that very reason be taken strictly at my word, and lose all my remaining comfort. Can there not be found among those translations of Madame Guion somewhat that might serve the purpose? I should think there might. Submission to the will of Christ, my memory tells me, is a theme that pervades them all. If so, your request is performed already; and if any alteration in them should be necessary, I will with all my heart make it. I have no objection to giving the graces of the foreigner an English dress, but insuperable ones to all false pretences and affected exhibitions of what I do not feel.
Hoping that you will have the grace to be resigned most perfectly to this disappointment, which you should not have suffered had it been in my power to prevent it, I remain, with our best remembrances to Mr. Thornton,
Ever affectionately yours,
W. C.
TO LADY HESKETH.
The Lodge, May 27, 1788.
My dear Coz.—The General, in a letter which came yesterday, sent me inclosed a copy of my sonnet; thus introducing it.