It is next to be noticed, as to the style of Cowper, that it is as nervous as it is clear and unpretending. It is impossible to compare the works of Addison, and others of the simple class of writers, with Johnson, and those of the opposite class, without feeling that what they gain in simplicity they often lose in strength and power. But the language of Cowper is often to the full as vigorous and masculine as that of Shakspeare. Bring a tyrant or a slave-driver before him for judgment; and the axe of the one and the scourge of the other are not keener weapons than the words of the poet.
It would be difficult to find in any writer a more striking example of nervous phraseology than we have in the well-known lines:
"But hark—the doctor's voice!—fast wedged between
Two empirics he stands, and with swoll'n cheeks
Inspires the news, his trumpet. Keener far
Than all invective, is his bold harangue,
While through that public organ of report
He hails the clergy; and defying shame,
Announces to the world his own and theirs!
He teaches those to read, whom schools dismissed
And colleges, untaught; sells accent, tone,
And emphasis in score, and gives to pray'r
Th' adagio and andante it demands.
He grinds divinity of other days
Down into modern use; transforms old print
To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes
Of gall'ry critics by a thousand arts.
Are there who purchase of the doctor's ware?
O name it not in Gath!—It cannot be,
That grave and learned clerks should need such aid.
He doubtless is in sport, and does but droll;
Assuming thus a rank unknown before—
Grand caterer and dry-nurse of the church!"
In the next place, it will not be questioned, we think, by any reader of the preceding letters, that Cowper was a wit of the very highest order—and this quality is by no means confined to his prose, but enters largely into everything that he writes. No author surprises us more frequently with rapid turns and unexpected coincidences. The mock sublime is one of his favourite implements; and he employs it with almost unrivalled success. There is also a delicacy of touch in his witticisms which is more easily felt than described. And his wit has this noble singularity, that it is never derived from wrong sources, or directed to wrong ends. It never wounds a feeling heart, or deepens the blush upon a modest cheek. Other wits are apt to dip their vessels in any stream which presents itself; Cowper draws only from the purest fountains. It has been said of Sterne, that he hides his pearls in a ditch, and forces his readers to dive for them; but the witticisms of Cowper are as well calculated to instruct as to delight.
This last topic is intimately connected with another, which, in touching on the excellences of Cowper as a poet, cannot be passed over,—we mean, the astonishing fertility of his imagination. It was observed to the writer of these pages by the late Sir James Mackintosh, of the friend and ornament of his species, William Wilberforce, that "he was perhaps the finest of all orators of his own particular order—that the wealth of his imagination was such, that no idea seemed to present itself to his mind without its accompanying image or ghost, which he could produce at his pleasure, and which it was a matter of self-denial if he did not produce." And the latter part of this criticism might seem to be made for Cowper. His mind appears never to wait for an image, but to be overrun by them. In argument or description—in hurling the thunders of rebuke, or whispering the messages of mercy—he does but wave his wand, and a host of spiritual essences descend to darken or brighten the scenes at his bidding; to supply new weapons of rebuke, or new visions of love and joy. Some of his personifications are among the finest specimens in any language. What, for example, has more of the genuine spirit of poetry, than the personification of Famine, in the following lines?—
"He calls for Famine......
......and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips
And taints the golden ear."
What is more lively or forcible than his description of Time?—
"Time, as he passes us, has a dove's wing,
Unsoiled and swift, and of a silken sound;
But the world's Time is Time in masquerade!
Theirs, should I paint him, has his pinions fledged
With motley plumes; and where the peacock shows
His azure eyes, is tinctured black and red
With spots quadrangular of diamond form,
Ensanguined hearts, clubs typical of strife,
And spades, the emblems of untimely graves.
What should be and what was an hour-glass once,
Become a dice-box, and a billiard mace
Well does the work of his destructive scythe."
What, again, is superior in this way to his address to Winter?—
"O Winter! ruler of the inverted year!
Thy scattered hair with sleet-like ashes filled,
Thy breath congealed upon thy lips, thy cheeks
Fringed with a beard made white with other snows
Than those of age, thy forehead wrapped in clouds,
A lifeless branch thy sceptre, and thy throne
A sliding car, indebted to no wheels,
But urged by storms along its slippery way."