The Hymns are almost uniformly of the same character. Drawn from the deep recesses of a broken heart, they find a short and certain way to the bosom of others.
And this leads to the notice of another peculiarity in his writings. It is said to have been a favourite maxim with Lord Byron, "that every writer is interesting to others in proportion as he is able and willing to seize and to display to them the hidden workings of his own soul." The noble critic is himself a strong exemplification of the truth of his own rule. Not merely his heroes and his heroines, but his rocks, mountains, and rivers, are a sort of fac simile of himself. The blue lake reposing among the mountains is the bard in a state of repose. The thunder leaping from rock to rock is the same mind under the strong excitement of passion. But perhaps of all writers Cowper is the most habitually what may be termed an experimentalist in poetry. He sought in "the man within," the secret machinery by which to touch and to control the world without. He felt deeply; and caught the feeling as it arose, and transferred it, warm from the heart to his own paper. Hence one great attraction of his writings. "As face answereth to face in water, so the heart of man to man." The sensations of other men are to a great degree our own; and the poetical exhibition of these sensations is the presenting to us a sort of illuminated mirror, in which we see ourselves, and are, according to the view, moved to sorrow or to joy. Preachers as well as poets will do well to remember this law of our nature, and will endeavour to analyze and to delineate their own feelings, if they mean to reach those of others. Unhappily, the noble author of this canon in philosophy and literature had no very profitable picture of this kind to display to his fellow men. He speaks, however, of "unmasking the hell that dwelt within." And he has taught no unimportant lesson to his species, if he has instructed us in the utter wretchedness of those who, gifted with the noblest powers, refuse to consecrate them to the glorious Giver. But, however unprofitable his own application of the rule, the rule itself is valuable; and, in the case of Cowper, we have the application of it, both on the largest scale and to the best possible purpose.
There is one other feature in the mind of Cowper on which, before quitting the subject of this examination, we must be permitted to say a few words. It has been the habit with many, while freely conceding to our poet most of the humbler claims to reputation for which we have contended, to assign him only a second or third place in the scale of poets, on the ground that he is, according to their estimate, altogether "incapable of the true sublime." Now it must be admitted that, if the only true sublimity in writing be to write like Milton, Cowper cannot be ranked in the same class as a poet. Of Milton it may be said, in the words of a poet as great as himself—
"He doth bestride the world
Like a Colossus: and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs."
Nothing can be more astonishing than the composure and dignity with which, like his own Satan, he climbs the "empyreal height"—sails between worlds and worlds—and moves among thrones and principalities, as if in his natural element. "The genius of Cowper," as it has been justly said, "did not lead him to emulate the songs of the seraphim:" but though, in one respect, he moves in a lower region than his great master, in what may be termed the "moral sublime," he is by no means inferior to him. Scarcely any poetry awakens in the mind more of those deep emotions of "pity and terror," which the great critic of antiquity describes as the main sources of the sublime; and by which poetry is said to "purge the mind of her votaries." In this view of the sublime we know of few passages which surpass the description of "liberty of soul," in the conclusion of the 5th book of "The Task."
"Then liberty, like day,
Breaks on the soul; and, by a flash from heav'n,
Fires all the faculties with glorious joy.
A voice is heard that mortal ears hear not,
Till Thou hast touch'd them; 'tis the voice of song,
A loud hosanna sent from all thy works;
Which he that hears it with a shout repeats,
And adds his rapture to the gen'ral praise.
In that blest moment, Nature, throwing wide
Her veil opaque, discloses with a smile
The Author of her beauties; who, retir'd
Behind His own creation, works unseen
By the impure, and hears his pow'r denied.
Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, eternal Word!
From Thee departing, they are lost, and rove
At random, without honour, hope, or peace.
From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,
His high endeavour, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.
But, O Thou bounteous Giver of all good,
Thou art of all thy gifts thyself the crown!
Give what thou canst, without thee we are poor;
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away!"
In like manner the Millennium of Cowper is at least not inferior to the Messiah of Pope. The corresponding passage in the latter writer is greatly inferior to that in which our poet says,—
"... No foe to man
Lurks in the serpent now—the mother sees,
And smiles to see, her infant's hand
Stretch'd forth to dally with the crested worm,
To stroke his azure neck, and to receive
The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue."
And few passages in any poem have more of the true sublime than that which follows soon after the last extract:—
"One song employs all nations, and all cry
'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!'
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy:
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,
Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round."