Into all lands. From every clime they come By this devotional strain of poetry, so adapted to the spirit of the present age, Cowper is rapidly accomplishing a revolution in the public taste, and creating a new race of readers. He is purifying the literary atmosphere from its noxious vapors. The muse has too long taken her flight downwards; Cowper leads her to hold communion with the skies. He has taught us that literary celebrity, acquired at the cost of public morals, is but an inglorious triumph, and merits no better title than that of splendid infamy. His page has fully proved that the varied field of nature, the scenes of domestic life, and the rich domain of moral and religious truth, are sufficiently ample for the exercise of poetic taste and fancy; while they never fail to tranquillize the mind, to invigorate the principles, and to enlarge the bounds of virtuous pleasure. The writings of Cowper have also been highly beneficial to the church of England. If he has been a severe, he has also been a faithful monitor. We allude to such passages as the following— There stands the messenger of truth: there stands The legate of the skies!-His theme divine, I venerate the man, whose heart is warm, [were! Go, cast your orders at your bishop's feet, The danger of popular applause: These rebukes, pungent as they are, were needed. The works of Mrs. Hannah More bear unquestionable testimony to this fact. But we may now record with gratitude a very perceptible change, and appeal to the evidences of reviving piety among all classes of the clergy. Though the singular and mysterious malady of Cowper has been the occasion of repeated remark, yet we cannot dismiss the subject without a few concluding reflections. In contrasting with his other letters the correspondence with Newton, the chosen depositary of all his secret woe, it is difficult to recognise in the writer the same identity of character. His mind appears to have undergone some transforming process, and the gay and lively tints of his sportive imagination to be suddenly shrouded in the gloom of a mysterious and appalling darkness. We seem to enter into the regions of sorrow and despair, and to trace the terrific inscription so finely drawn by the poet, in his celebrated "Inferno;" "Voi ch' entrate lasciate ogni speranza."* Ye who enter here leave all hope behind. In contemplating this afflicting dispensation, and referring every event, as we must, Whose hands are pure, whose doctrine and to the appointment or permissive providence whose life, Coincident, exhibit lucid proof That he is honest in the sacred cause. To such I render more than mere respect, Extreme From such apostles, O ye mitred heads, of God, we feel constrained to exclaim with the patriarch," The thunder of his power who can understand?" But life, as Bishop Hall observes, is made up of perturbations; and those seem most subject to their occurrence who are distinguished by the gifts of rank, fortune, or genius. Such is the discipline which the moral Governor of the world sees Preserve the church! and lay not careless hands fit to employ for the purification of their pos On skulls that cannot teach and will not learn. There was a period when the chase was not considered to be incompatible with the functions of the sacred office. On this subject Cowper exclaims, with just and indignant feeling Is this the path of sanctity? Is this sessors! In recording the lot of genius, Milton, it is known, was blind, Pope was afflicted with sickness, and Tasso, Swift, Smart, and Collins, were exposed to the aberrations of reason. "Moralists," says Dr. Johnson, talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and of * See the "Inferno" of Dante, where this motto is in scribed over the entrance into the abodes of woe. † Job xxvi. 14. the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change-that | understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire." It seems as if the mind were too ethereal to be confined within the bounds of its earthly prison, or that the too frequent and intense exercise of thought disturbs the digestive organs, and lays the foundation of hypochondrical feelings, which cloud the serenity of the soul. It is painful to reflect how much our sensations of comfort and happiness depend on the even flow and circulation of the blood. But the connexion of physical and moral causes has been the subject of philosophical remark in all ages. The somewhat analogous case of the celebrated Dr. Johnson seems to have been overlooked by the preceding biographers of Cowper. The morbid melancholy," observes Boswell," which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those peculiarities, and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation, in 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labors, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence." Before we conclude the life of Cowper, there are some important reflections, arising from his unhappy malady, which we beg to impress on the attention of the reader. The fruitful source of all his misery was the indulgence of an over-excited state of feeling. His mind was never quiescent. Oe currences, which an ordinary degree of selfpossession would have met with calmness, or passive indifference, were to him the subject of mental agony and distress. His imagination gave magnitude to trifles, till what was at first ideal, at length assumed the character of a terrible reality. He was always anticipating evil; and so powerful is the influence of fancy, that what we dread, we seldom fail to realize. Thus Swift lived in the constant fear of mental imbecility, and at length incurred the calamity. We scarcely know a spectacle more pitiable, and yet more reprehensible. For what is the use of reason, if we reject its dictates? or the promise of the Spirit to help our infirmities, if we nevertheless yield to their sway? How important in the education of youth to repress the first symptoms of nervous irritability, to invigo rate the principles, and to train the mind to habits of self-discipline, and firm reliance upon God! The far greater proportion of human trials originate not in the appointment of Providence, but may be traced to the want of a well-ordered and duly regulated mind; to the ascendency of passion, and to the absence of mental and moral energy. It is possible to indulge in a state of mind that shall rob every blessing of half its enjoyment, and give to every trial a double portion of We turn with delight to a more edifying feature in his character Let those to whom Providence has assigned a humbler path, learn the duty of content-bitterness. ment, and be thankful that if they are denied the honors attendant on rank and genius, they are at least exempted from its trials. For where there are heights, there are depths; and he who occupies the summit is often seen de-in moments of exultation and joy; but the scending into the valley of humiliation. That a similar morbid temperament may be traced in the case of Cowper is indisputable; nor can a more conclusive evidence be adduced than the words of his own memoir:"I was struck, not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair."* In his subsequent attack, religion became an adjunct, not a cause, for he describes himself at that period as having lived without religion. The impression under which he labored was therefore manifestly not suggested by a theological creed, but was the delusion of a distempered fancy. Every other view is founded on misconception, and must inevitably tend to mislead the public. * See page 469. His submission under this dark dispensation. vivid energy of true faith is never more That the mind should still indulge its sorrows, in moments of awakened feeling, is natural. On this subject we know nothing more touching than the manner in which Cowper parodies and appropriates to himself *Letter to Newton, May 20, 1786. Milton's affecting lamentation over his own pression of that surprise and joy, when, as blindness:* Seasons return, but not to me returns God, or the sweet approach of heavenly day, To this quotation we might add the affecting conclusion of the poem of "The Castaway." We perish'd each alone; And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.† The overruling Providence of God is no less discernible in this event. The severest trials are not without their alleviation, nor the accompaniment of some gracious purpose. Had it not been for Cowper's visitation, the world might never have been presented with The Task, nor the Church of Christ been edified with the Olney Hymns. He was constrained to write, in order to divert his melancholy. "Despair," he observes, "made amusement necessary, and I found poetry the most agreeable amusement." "In such a situation of mind, encompassed by the midnight of absolute despair, and a thousand times filled with unspeakable horror, I first commenced an author. Distress drove me to it; and the impossibility of subsisting without some employment, still recommends it." How wonderful are the ways of God, and what a powerful commentary on Cowper's own celebrated hymn God moves in a mysterious way, &c. It will probably be found, at the last great day, that the darkest dispensations were the most essential links in the chain of providential dealings; and that what we least understood, and often contemplated with solemn awe on earth, will form the subject of neverceasing praise in eternity. Whatever were the trials of Cowper, they are now terminated. It will be remembered that his kinsman saw, or thought he saw, in the features of his deceased friend, "an expression of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise." We would not attach too much importance to a look, but rather rest our hopes of Cowper's happiness on the covenanted mercy and faithfulness of God. Still the supposition is natural and soothing; and we by no means think it improbable that the disembodied spirit might communicate to the earthly lineaments, in the moment of departure, the impression of its own heavenly joy. And O! what must have been the ex his immortal spirit ascended to him that gave it, instead of beholding the averted eye of an offended God, he recognized the radiant smiles of his reconciled countenance, and the caresses of his tenderness and love-when all heaven burst upon his astonished view; and when, amid angels, and archangels, and the spirits of just men made perfect, he was invited to bear his part in the glorious song of the redeemed, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power; for thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood, and hast made us unto our God kings and priests forever and ever. But it is time to close our remarks on the Life and Writings of Cowper. It is a name that has long entwined itself around the affections of our heart, and appealed, from early days, both to conscience and feeling. We lament our inadequacy to fulfil all the duties of the present important undertaking, but the motives which have powerfully urged us to engaged in it are founded on a wish to exhibit Cowper in accordance with his own Christian character and principles; to vindicate him from prevailing misconceptions; and in imputing the gloom of depression, under which he labored, to its true causes, so to treat this delicate subject as to make it the occasion of sympathizing interest, and not of revolting and agonized feelings. The private correspondence, in this respect, is invaluable, and absolutely essential to the clear elucida tion of his case. Other documents have also been inserted that never appeared in any previous biography of Cowper; and private sources of information have been explored, not easily accessible to other inquirers. We trust this object has been attained, and the hope of so important a result is a source of cheering consolation. The history of Cowper is fruitful in the pathetic, the sublime, and the terrible, so as to produce an effect that seems almost to realize the fictions of romance. A life composed of such materials cannot fail to command attention. It possesses all the bolder lineaments of character, relieved by the familiar, the tender, the sportive, and the gay. Emotions are thus excited in which the heart loves to indulge; for who does not delight alternately in the calmness of repose, and in the excitement of awakened feeling? But, independently of the interest created by the events of Cowper's life, there is something singularly impressive in the mechanism of his mind. It is so curiously wrought, and wonderfully made, as to form a subject for contemplation to the philosopher, the Christian, and the medical observer. The union of these several qualifications seems necessary to analyze the interior springs of thought and action, to mark the character of God's providential dealings, and to trace the influence of morbid temperament on the powers of the intellect and the passions of the soul. His mind presents the most wonderful combinations of the grave and the gay, the social and the retired, ministering to the spiritual joy of others, yet enveloped in the gloom of darkness, enchained with fetters, yet vigorous and free, soaring to the heights of Zion, yet precipitated to the depths below. It resembles a beautiful landscape, overshadowed by a dark and impending cloud. Every moment we expect the cloud to burst on the head of the devoted sufferer; and the awful anticipation would be fulfilled, were it not that a divine hand, which guides every event, and without which not even a sparrow falls to the ground, interposes and arrests the shock. Upwards of twenty years expired, during which he was thus graciously upheld. He then began to sink under his accumulated sorrows. But it is worthy of observation, that during this period his mind never suffered a total alienation. It was a partial eclipse, not night, nor yet day. He lived long enough, both for himself and others, sufficient to discharge all the claims of an affectionate friendship, and to raise to himself an imperishable name on the noble foundation of moral virtue. At length, when he stood alone, as it were, like a column in the melancholy waste; when he was his own world, and the solitary agent, around which clung the sensations of a heart always full, and the reflections of a mind unconscious of a pause he died. But his last days and moments were soothed by the offices of Christian kindness and the most disinterested regard. His beloved kinsman never left him till he had closed his eyes in death, and till the disembodied spirit, at length, found the rest in heaven, which forever obliterated all its earthly sorrows. And there shall be no more curse, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him. And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light; and they shall reign forever and ever.— Rev. xxii. 3—5. ON THE GENIUS AND POETRY OF COWPER. BY THE REV. J. W. CUNNINGHAM, A.M., VICAR OF HARROW. IN presenting to the public the first Complete Edition of the Works of Cowper, it is thought desirable to prefix to the Poems a short dissertation on his Genius and Poetry. It is true that criticisms abound which have nearly the same object. It is true also that some of these criticisms are of a very high order of excellence. But perhaps their very number and merit supply a reason for adding at least one to the catalogue. The observations of the different Reviewers are scattered over so large a number of volumes, and these volumes are, many of them, either of so expensive or so ephemeral a character, that an essay which endeavors to collect these criticisms into a focus, and present them at once to the eye of the reader, is far from superfluous. And the present critique pretends to little more than the accomplishment of this object. The writer is not ashamed to profit from the labor and genius of his predecessors in the same course, and to let them say for him, what he could not say so well for himself. With this apology for what might otherwise be deemed a work of supererogation, we enter upon the proposed undertaking. "This ponderous heel of perforated hide, A few light and agreeable poems, two hymns written at Huntingdon, with about sixty others composed at Olney, are almost the only known poetical productions of his pen between the years 1749 and 1782, at which last period he committed his volume of poems in rhyme to the press. There are examples in the physical world, of mountains reposing in coldness and quietness for ages; and, at length, without any apparently new stimulus, awaking from their slumber, and deluging the surrounding vineyards with streams of fire. But it is, we believe, an unAnd here we must begin by observing that heard-of poetical phenomenon, for a mind it is impossible not to be struck with certain teeming with such tendencies and capabilities peculiarities in the history of Cowper, as con- as that of Cowper, to sleep through so long nected with his poetical productions. Al- a period, and, at length, suddenly to awake, though, as it has been truly said of him- when illness and age might seem to have laid "born a poet, if ever there was one,"-think- their palsying hand upon its energies, and ing and feeling upon all occasions as none at once to erect itself into poetical life and but a poet could, expressing himself in verse supremacy. In general, the poet either 'lisps with almost incredible facility, it does not ap- in numbers,' or begins to put forth his hidden pear that Cowper, between the ages of four-powers under the exciting influence of some teen and thirty-three, produced anything beyond the most trifling specimens of his art. The only lines characteristic of his genius and peculiarities as a poet, and which, though composed at a distance of more than thirty years from the publication of "The Task," have so intimate a resemblance to it as to seem to be a page out of the same volume, are those written at the age of eighteen, on finding the heel of an old shoe. new passion or emotion-such as love, fear, hope, or disappointment. But how wide of this was the history of Cowper! In his case, the muse had no infancy, but sprang full armed from the brain of the poet. But, if the tardy development of the poetical powers of our author was one peculiarity in his case, the suddenness and completeness of the development, when it did take place, was, under his circumstances, |