But after all, perhaps, the peculiarity in the mind of Cowper, which gives the chief charm to his poetry, is the depth and ardour of his piety.
It is impossible not to be aware of the severance which critics have laboured to effect between religion and poetry,—between the character of the prophet and the poet: and that Johnson's decision is thought by some to be final on the subject. Cowper himself admits that the connexion has been rare between the two characters—as witness the following lines—
"Pity religion has so seldom found
A skilful guide into poetic ground!
For flow'rs would spring where'er she deigned to stray,
And ev'ry muse attend her in her way.
Virtue indeed meets many a rhyming friend,
And many a compliment politely penn'd;
But, unattir'd in that becoming vest
Religion weaves for her, and half undrest,
Stands in the desert, shiv'ring and forlorn,
A wintry figure like a wither'd thorn."
But he does not despair of seeing some
"Bard all fire,
Touch'd with a coal from heaven, assume the lyre,
And tell the world, still kindling as he sung,
With more than mortal music on his tongue,
That He who died below, and reigns above,
Inspires the song, and that his name is 'Love.'"
Indeed no theory can have less foundation either in philosophy or in fact, than that poetry and religion have too little in common, for either to gain by an attempt to unite them. They seem to us born for each other. And, so important is this topic, that, although at the risk of repeating what has been said elsewhere, it may be well for a moment, to dwell upon it.
The theory which endeavours to secure a perpetual divorce between religion and poetry has not the authority of the great critics of antiquity. Longinus maintains, in one place, that "he who aims at the reputation of a sublime writer must spare no labour to educate his soul to grandeur, and to impregnate it with great and generous ideas." And he affirms, in another, that "the faculties of the soul will grow stupid, the spirit be lost, and good sense and genius lie in ruins, when the care and study of man is engaged about the mortal and worthless part of himself, and he has ceased to cultivate virtue, and polish up the nobler part, his soul." Quintilian has a whole chapter to prove that a great writer must be a good man. And the greatest modern critics hold the same language. But, perhaps, in no passage is the truth upon this subject more nobly expressed, and a difficulty connected with it more ably explained, than in the following verses of a poem now difficult of access:
"But, of our souls, the high-born loftier part,
Th' ethereal energies that touch the heart;
Conceptions ardent, labouring thought intense,
Creative fancy's wild magnificence;
And all the dread sublimities of song
—These, Virtue, these to thee alone belong.
Chill'd by the breath of Vice, their radiance dies,
And brightest burns, when lighted at the skies;
Like vestal lamps, to purest bosoms giv'n,
And kindled only by a ray from heav'n."[797]
Nor does this sentiment stand on the mere authority of critics; but appears to be founded on just views of the constitution of our nature. Lighter themes can be expected to awaken only light and transient feelings in the bosom. The profounder topics of religion sink deeper; touch all the hidden springs of thought and action; and awaken emotions, which have all the force and permanence of the great principles and interests in which they originate.
To us, no assertion would seem to have less warrant, than that taste suffers by its alliance with religion. The proper objects of taste are beauty and sublimity; and if (as a modern critic seems to us to have incontrovertibly established) beauty and sublimity do not reside in the mere forms and colours of the objects we contemplate, but in the associations which they suggest to the mind, it cannot be questioned that the associations suggested to a man of piety, exceed both in beauty and sublimity those of every other class. God, as a Father, is the most lovely of all objects—God, as an avenger, is the most terrible; and it is to the religious man exclusively, that this at once most tender and most terrible Being is disclosed, in all the beauty and majesty of holiness, by every object which he contemplates—