wanting. The best didactic poems, when compared with the Task, are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery. "One of his intimate friends," says Hayley, "had written in the first volume of his poems the following passage from the younger Pliny, as descriptive of the book:

Multa tenuiter, multa sublimiter, multa venusté, multa teneré, multa dulciter, multa cum bile.' Many passages are delicate, many sublime, many beautiful, many tender, many sweet, many acrimonious. Cowper was pleased with the application, and candidly said, 'The latter part is very true indeed! Yes, yes, there are multa cum bile.'"' 73 He was in a happier state of mind, and in more cheerful circumstances, when he began the Task: it was therefore less acrimonious. Its satire is altogether free from personality; it is the satire not of a sour and discontented spirit, but of a benevolent though melancholy mind; and the melancholy was not of a kind to affect artificial gloom and midnight musings, but rather to seek and find relief in sunshine, in the beauties of nature, in books and leisure, in solitary or social walks, and in the comforts of a quiet fireside.

"What there is of a religious cast," says Cowper, "I have thrown towards the end of it, for two reasons; first, that I might not revolt the reader at his entrance; and secondly, that my best impressions might be made last. Were I to write as many poems as Lope de Vega or Voltaire, not one of them would be without this tincture. If the world like it not, so much the worse for them. I make all the concessions I can, that I may please them, but I will not please them at the expense of conscience. My descriptions are all from nature; not one of them second-handed. My delineations of the heart are from my own experience; not one of them borrowed from books, or in the least degree conjectural. In my numbers, which I varied as much as I could, (for blank verse without variety of numbers is no better than bladder and string,) I have imitated nobody, though sometimes perhaps there may be an apparent resemblance; because at the same time that I would not imitate, I have not affectedly differed. If the work cannot boast a regular plan, (in which respect, however, I do not think

it altogether indefensible,) it may yet boast that the reflec tions are naturally suggested always by the preceding passage; and that, except the fifth book, which is rather of a political aspect, the whole has one tendency, to discountenance the modern enthusiasm after a London life, and to recommend rural ease and leisure as friendly to the cause of piety and virtue.” 74

If the world had not liked his poem, the world must have been worse than it is. But Cowper himself, perhaps, was not aware of what it was that supplied the place of plan, and with happier effect than the most skilful plan could have produced. There are no passages in a poet's works which are more carped at while he lives, than those wherein he speaks of himself; and if he has any readers after his death, there are none then which are perused with greater interest. In the Task there is nothing which could be carped at on that score, even by a supercilious critic, and yet the reader feels that the poet is continually present; he becomes intimately acquainted with him, and this it is which gives to this delightful poem its unity and its peculiar charm.

CHAPTER XIII.

TRANSLATION OF HOMER. LADY HESKETH COMES TO OLNEY. REMOVAL TO THE VILLAGE OF WESTON.

In a letter to Lady Hesketh, written soon after the renewal of their correspondence, Cowper says, "Now, my dear, I am going to tell you a secret: it is a great secret, that you must not whisper even to your cat. No creature is at this moment apprized of it, but Mrs. Unwin and her son. I am making a new translation of Homer, and am on the point of finishing the twenty-first book of the Iliad. The reasons upon which I undertake this Herculean labor, and by which I justify an enterprise in which I seem so effectually an

74 To Mr. Unwin, Oct. 10, 1784.

ticipated by Pope, (although, in fact, he has not anticipated me at all,) I may possibly give you, if you wish for them, when I can find nothing more interesting to say."

case.

It appears from the same letter, that he began this translation on the 12th of November, 1784, which was as soon as he had completed his labors for the second volume of his Poems, by finishing the piece entitled Tirocinium. So much as a week could not have elapsed between the completion of one undertaking, and the commencement of this most laborious of his works. But he had now learned the art of self-management, and was able steadily to practise it; he knew how necessary it was to have some regular employment which should occupy his mind, without exciting it. Some pleasure he took in surprising his friends with his productions, but he had further motives for reticence in this "Till I had made," he says, "such a progress in my present undertaking as to put it out of all doubt, that, if I lived, I should proceed in and finish it, I kept the matter to myself. It would have done me little honor to have told my friends that I had an arduous enterprise in hand, if afterwards I must have told them that I had dropped it." 2 Few men, however, would have been better warranted by experience in relying upon their own perseverance. "Tully's rule, "Nulla dies sine lineâ,'" said he, "will make a volume in less time than one would suppose. I adhered to it so rigidly, (in composing the Task,) that though more than once I found three lines as many as I had time to compass, still I wrote; and finding occasionally, and as it might happen, a more fluent vein, the abundance of one day made me amends for the barrenness of another." 3 He had worked at it sometimes an hour a day, sometimes half a one, and sometimes two hours.4 But his translation was performed by piecework; he set himself forty lines 5 for his daily task, and

To Mr. Hill, Dec. 24, 1785. 4 Oct. 30, 1784.

3 To Mr. Newton, Nov. 27, 1784. 5 Twice the length of an ordinary imposition at Westminster, with the additional difference of translating into blank verse instead of literal prose. Some of my readers will call to mind, as I do, the look, and the tone of voice, and the movement of the head, with which Dr. Vincent used to pronounce his ordinary morning sentence of" twenty lines of Homer, and not go to breakfast.”

66

never excused himself from that task when it was possible to perform it. Equally sedulous," said he, "I am in the matter of transcribing, so that between both, my morning and evening are most part completely engaged."

7

Of all books which are used in schools, the Iliad and Odyssey are those which are read with most pleasure, and consequently make the deepest impression upon a boy's imagination; and this is less because the boy does not begin to read them consecutively till they have become easy to him, and he is of an age to enter into their spirit, than because of their intrinsic interest, the perfect beauty of their style, and the charm of truth and nature in which they incomparably excel all other poems of their kind. "John," says Cowper, in a playful message to one of his friend Unwin's sons," John, once the Little, but now almost the Great, and promising to be altogether such in time, make yourself master of the Iliad and of the Odyssey as soon as you can; and then you will be master of the two finest poems that ever were composed by man, and composed in the finest language that ever man uttered. All languages of which I know any thing, are gibberish compared with Greek." It has already been mentioned that Cowper went through both the Homeric Poems at Westminster, with a chosen companion, who was as capable as himself of enjoying them; and that he had read them critically in the Temple, comparing them with Pope's translation as he proceeded. His love and admiration of the original had increased in proportion to his distaste of a version which so thoroughly disguises it; and it was the vivid remembrance of those feelings, quickened by the continual pleasure which he found in perusing the Iliad, that induced him to undertake the arduous task of translating it himself. The distrust which he felt at first of his own perseverance, gave way when he approached the end of the Iliad. "I shall assuredly proceed," said he, “because the farther I go, the more I find myself justified in the undertaking; and in due time, if I live, I shall assuredly publish. In the whole I shall have composed above forty thousand verses, about which forty thousand verses I shall

8

• To Mr. Unwin, Oct. 22, 1785.

7 June 12, 1785.

8 Vol. i. p. 79.

have taken great pains, on no occasion suffering a slovenly line to escape me. I leave you to guess, therefore, whether, such a labor once achieved, I shall not determine to turn it to some account, and to give myself profit if I can, if not at least some credit, for my reward." 9 Accordingly he took measures for making his intention known among his friends, and preparing the public for it.

This resolution he announced to Lady Hesketh. “Although," said he, "I do not suspect that a secret to you, my cousin, is any burden, yet having maturely considered that point since I wrote my last, I feel myself altogether disposed to release you from the injunction, to that effect, under which I laid you. I have now made such a progress in my translation, that I need neither fear I shall stop short of the end, nor that any other rider of Pegasus should overtake me. Therefore, if at any time it should fall fairly in your way, or you should feel yourself invited to say I am so occupied, you have my poetship's free permission." 10 He did not like the booksellers well enough, he said, to make them a present of such a labor, and he intended to publish by subscription. His cousin had offered him pecuniary assistance for his next publication, whatever it might be; he asked her on this occasion for her vote and interest, if she pleased, but nothing more.

In communicating his purpose to Mr. Newton,11 he related in what manner he had imperceptibly, as it were, engaged in so arduous an undertaking. "Employment, and with the pen," said he, "is, through habit, become essential to my well-being; and to produce always original poems, especially of considerable length, is not so easy. For some weeks after I had finished the Task, and sent away the last sheet corrected, I was through necessity idle, and suffered not a little in my spirits for being so. day, being in such distress of mind as was hardly supportable, I took up the Iliad; and merely to divert attention, and with no more preconception 12 of what I was then enter

9 To Mr. Unwin, Oct. 22, 1785.

10 Hayley, vol. ii. p. 143. The letter is without a date.

11 Dec. 3, 1785.

One

12 This shows, what indeed might be inferred from other circum