The concluding lines may be considered as an omen of that celebrity which such a writer, in the process of time, could not fail to obtain. How just a subject of surprise and admiration is it, to behold an author starting under such a load of disadvantages, and displaying on the sudden such a variety of excellence! For, neglected as it was for a few years, the first volume of Cowper exhibits such a diversity of poetical powers as have very rarely indeed been known to be united in the same individual. He is not only great in passages of pathos and sublimity, but he is equally admirable in wit and humor. After descanting most copiously on sacred subjects, with the animation of a prophet and the simplicity of an apostle, he paints the ludicrous characters of common life with the comic force of a Moliere, particularly in his poem on Conversation, and his exquisite portrait of a fretful temper; a piece of moral painting so highly finished and so happily calculated to promote good humor, that a tran script of the verses cannot but interest the reader. Some fretful tempers wince at every touch; wish. He takes what he at first profess'd to loath; PART THE SECOND. If reading verse be your delight, • Private correspondence. So seldom sought with invocation, T' accelerate a creeping pen, Et morbo jam caliginoso! O Nymph of Transatlantic fame, 'Tis thine to cherish and to feed So may no blight infest thy plains, And so may smiling Peace once more And thou, secure from all alarms Thy wide-expanded leaves have made; W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. that, when a great empire is falling, and he has pronounced a sentence of ruin against it, the inhabitants, be they weak or strong, wise or foolish, must fall with it. I am rather confirmed in this persuasion by observing that these luminaries of the state had no sooner fixed themselves in the political heaven, than the fall of the brightest of them shook all the rest. The arch of their power was no sooner struck than the key-stone slipped out of its place, those that were closest in connexion with it followed, and the whole building, new as it is, seems to be already a ruin. If a man should hold this language, who could convict him of absurdity? The Marquis of Rockingham is minister-all the world rejoices, anticipating success in war and a glorious peace. The Marquis of Rockingham is dead-all the world is afflicted, and My dear Friend,-Though some people relapses into its former despondence. What pretend to be clever in the way of propheti- does this prove, but that the Marquis was cal forecast, and to have a peculiar talent of their Almighty, and that, now he is gone, they sagacity, by which they can divine the meaning know no other? But let us wait a little, of a providential dispensation while its conse- they will find another. Perhaps the Duke of quences are yet in embryo, I do not. There Portland, or perhaps the unpopular is at this time to be found, I suppose, in the whom they now represent as a devil, may obcabinet, and in both houses, a greater assem-tain that honor. Thus God is forgot, and blage of able men, both as speakers and when he is, his judgments are generally his counsellors, than ever were contemporary in remembrancers. the same land. A man not accustomed to trace the workings of Providence, as recorded in Scripture, and that has given no attention to this particular subject, while employed in the study of profane history, would assert boldly, that it is a token for good, that much may be expected from them, and that the country, though heavily afflicted, is not yet to be despaired of, distinguished as she is by so many characters of the highest class. Thus he would say, and I do not deny that the event might justify his skill in prognostics. God works by means: and, in a case of great national perplexity and distress, wisdom and political ability seem to be the only natural means of deliverance. But a mind more religiously inclined, and perhaps a little tinctured with melancholy, might with equal probability of success hazard a conjecture directly opposite. Alas! what is the wisdom of man, especially when he trusts in it as the only god of his confidence? When I consider the general contempt that is poured upon all things sacred, the profusion, the dissipation, the knavish cunning, of some, the rapacity of others, and the impenitence of all, I am rather inclined to fear that God, who honors himself by bringing human glory to shame, and by disappointing the expectations of those whose trust is in creatures, has signalized the present day as a day of much human sufficiency and strength, has brought together from all quarters of the land the most illustrious men to be found in it, only that he may prove the vanity of idols, and How shall I comfort you upon the subject of your present distress? Pardon me that I find myself obliged to smile at it, because, who but yourself would be distressed upon such an occasion? You have behaved politely, and, like a gentleman, you have hospitably offered your house to a stranger, who could not, in your neighborhood at least, have been comfortably accommodated anywhere else. He, by neither refusing nor accepting an offer that did him too much honor, has disgraced himself, but not you. I think for the future you must be more cautious of laying yourself open to a stranger, and never again expose yourself to incivilities from an archdeacon you are not acquainted with. Though I did not mention it, I felt with you what you suffered by the loss of Miss ; I was only silent because I could minister no consolation to you on such a subject, but what I knew your mind to be already stored with. Indeed, the application of comfort in such cases is a nice business, and perhaps when best managed might as well be let alone. I remember reading many years ago a long treatise on the subject of consolation, written in French, the author's name I forgot, but I wrote these words in the margin. Special consolation! at least for a Frenchman, who is a creature the most easily comforted of any in the world! We are as happy in Lady Austen, and she in us, as ever-having a lively imagination, and being passionately desirous of consolidating all into one family (for she has taken her leave of London), she has just sprung a project which serves at least to amuse us and to make us laugh; it is to hire Mr. Small's house, on the top of Clifton-hill, which is large, commodious, and handsome, will hold us conveniently, and any friends who may occasionally favor us with a visit; the house is furnished, but, if it can be hired without the furniture, will let for a trifle-your sentiments if you please upon this demarche! I send you my last frank-our best love attends you individually and all together. I give you joy of a happy change in the season, and myself also. I have filled four sides in less time than two would have cost me a week ago; such is the effect of sunshine upon such a butterfly as I am. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. My dear Friend,-Entertaining some hope that Mr. Newton's next letter would furnish me with the means of satisfying your inquiry on the subject of Dr. Johnson's opinion, I have till now delayed my answer to your last; but the information is not yet come, Mr. Newton having intermitted a week more than usual, since his last writing. When I receive it, favorable or not, it shall be communicated to you; but I am not over-sanguine in my expectations from that quarter. Very learned and very critical heads are hard to please. He may perhaps treat me with lenity for the sake of the subject and design, but the composition, I think, will hardly escape his censure. But though all doctors may not be of the same mind, there is one doctor at least, whom I have lately discovered, my professed admirer. He too, like Johnson, was with difficulty persuaded to read, having an aversion to all poetry, except the "Night Thoughts," which, on a certain occasion, when being confined on board a ship he had no other employment, he got by heart. He was however prevailed upon, and read me several times over, so that if my volume had sailed with him instead of Dr. Young's, I perhaps might have occupied that shelf in his memory which he then allotted to the Doctor. It is a sort of paradox, but it is true: we are never more in danger than when we think ourselves most secure, nor in reality more secure than when we seem to be most in danger. Both sides of this apparent contradiction were lately verified in my experience: passing from the greenhouse to the barn, I saw three kittens (for we have so many in our retinue) looking with fixed attention on something which lay on the threshold of a door nailed up. I took but little notice of Dr. Franklin. them at first, but a loud hiss engaged me to attend more closely, when behold-a viper! the largest that I remember to have seen, rearing itself, darting its forked tongue, and ejaculating the aforesaid hiss at the nose of a kitten, almost in contact with his lips. I ran into the hall for a hoe with a long handle, with which I intended to assail him, and returning in a few seconds, missed him: he was gone, and I feared had escaped me. Still, however, the kitten sat watching immoveably on the same spot. I concluded, therefore, that sliding between the door and the threshold, he had found his way out of the garden into the yard. I went round immediately, and there found him in close conversation with the old cat, whose curiosity being excited by so novel an appearance, inclined her to pat his head repeatedly with her fore foot, with her claws however sheathed, and not in anger, but in the way of philosophie inquiry and examination. To prevent her falling a victim to so laudable an exercise of her talents, I interposed in a moment with the hoe, and performed upon him an act of decapitation, which, though not immediately mortal, proved so in the end. Had he slid into the passages, where it is dark, or had he, when in the yard, met with no interruption from the cat, and secreted himself in any of the out-houses, it is hardly possible but that some of the family must have been bitten; he might have been trodden upon without being perceived, and have slipped away before the sufferer could have distinguished what foe had wounded him. Three years ago we discovered one in the same place, which the barber slew with a trowel. Our proposed removal to Mr. Small's was, as you may suppose, a jest, or rather a jocoserious matter." We never looked upon it as entirely feasible, yet we saw in it something so like practicability that we did not esteem it altogether unworthy of our attention. It was one of those projects which people of lively imaginations play with and admire for a few days, and then break in pieces. Lady Austen returned on Thursday from London, where she spent the last fortnight, and whither she was called by an unexpected opportunity to dispose of the remainder of her lease. She has therefore no longer any connexion with the great city, and no house but at Olney. Her abode is to be at the vicarage, where she has hired as much room as she wants, which she will embellish with her own furniture, and which she will occupy as soon as the minister's wife has produced another child, which is expected to make its entry in October. Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport, a learned, ingenious, good-natured, pious friend of ours, who sometimes visits us, and whom we visited last week, put into my com hands three volumes of French poetry, posed by Madame Guion-a quietist, say you, and a fanatic, I will have nothing to do with her.-Tis very well, you are welcome to have nothing to do with her, but, in the meantime, her verse is the only French verse I ever read that I found agreeable; there is a neatness in it equal to that which we applaud, with so much reason, in the compositions of Prior. I have translated several of them, and shall proceed in my translations till I have filled a Lilliputian paper-book I happen to have by me, which, when filled, I shall present to Mr. Bull. He is her passionate admirer; rode twenty miles to see her picture in the house of a stranger, which stranger politely insisted on his acceptance of it, and it now hangs over his chimney. It is a striking portrait, too characteristic not to be a strong resemblance, and, were it encompassed with a glory, instead of being dressed in a nun's hood, might pass for the face of an angel. Close by the threshold of a door nail'd fast, Three kittens sat; each kitten look'd aghast. I passing swift and inattentive by, [you?" At the three kittens cast a careless eye; [there, And rob our household of our only cat, Lady Austen became a tenant of the vicarage at Olney. When Mr. Newton occupied that parsonage, he had opened a door in the garden-wall, which admitted him in the most commodious manner to visit the sequestered poet, who resided in the next house. Lady Austen had the advantage of her society, both to Cowper and to Mrs. this easy intercourse; and so captivating was Unwin, that these intimate neighbors might be almost said to make one family, as it became their custom to dine always together, alternately in the houses of the two ladies. The musical talents of Lady Austen inliar sweetness and pathos, to suit particular duced Cowper to write a few songs of pecuairs that she was accustomed to play on the harpsichord. We insert three of these, as proofs that, even in his hours of social amusement, the poet loved to dwell on ideas of tender devotion and pathetic solemnity. SONG WRITTEN IN THE SUMMER Of 1783, at the REQUEST OF LADY AUSTEN. AIR-"My fond shepherds of late," &c. I have sought thee in splendor and dress, The voice of true wisdom inspires! That seeks it in meekness and love; SONG. AIR-" The lass of Pattie's mill." When all within is peace, How nature seems to smile! With open hand she showers And soothe the silent hours. It is content of heart Gives Nature power to please; Seem bright as smiling May, The following song, adapted to the march in Scipio, obtained too great a celebrity not to merit insertion in this place. It relates to the loss of the Royal George, the flag-ship of Admiral Kempenfelt, which went down with nine hundred persons on board, (among whom was Rear-Admiral Kempenfelt,) at Spithead, August 29, 1782. The song was a favorite production of the poet's; so much so, that he amused himself by translating it into Latin verse. We take the version from one of his subsequent letters, for the sake of annexing it to the original. SONG, ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. Toll for the brave! The brave that are no more! All sunk beneath the wave, Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel, And laid her on her side. A land-breeze shook the shrouds, Toll for the brave! Brave Kempenfelt is gone; It was not in the battle; His sword was in its sheath; Weigh the vessel up, Once dreaded by our foes! And mingle with our cup The tear that England owes. Her timbers yet are sound, And she may float again. Full-charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main.* IN SUBMERSIONEM NAVIGII, CUI GEORGIUS, REGALE NOMEN, INDITUM. Plangimus fortes. Periere fortes, Navis, innitens lateri, jacebat, Plangimus fortes. Nimis, heu, caducam Magne, qui nomen, licèt incanorum, Non hyems illos furibunda mersit, Navitæ sed tum nimium jocosi Et quiescebat, calamoque dextram im- Vos, quibus cordi est grave opus piumque, Hi quidem (sic diis placuit) fuere : Let the reader, who wishes to impress on his mind a just idea of the variety and extent of Cowper's poetical powers, contrast this heroic ballad of exquisite pathos with his diverting history of John Gilpin! That admirable and highly popular piece of pleasantry was composed at the period of which we are now speaking. An elegant and judicious writer, who has favored the public with three interesting volumes relating to the early poets of our country,* conjectures, that a poem, written by the celebrated Sir Thomas More in his youth, (the merry jest of the Serjeant and Frere) may have suggested to Cowper his tale of John Gilpin; but this singularly amusing ballad had a different origin; and it is a very remarkable fact, that, full of gayety and humor as this favorite of the public has abundantly proved itself to be, it was really composed at a time when the spirit of the poet was very deeply tinged with his depressive malady. It happened one afternoon, in those years when his accomplished friend, Lady Austen, made a part of his little evening circle, that she observed him sinking into increasing dejection. * See Ellis's "Specimens of the early English Poets, with an historical sketch of the rise and progress of English poetry and language." |