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.