Cowper is eminently the David of English poetry, pouring forth, like the great Hebrew bard, his own deep and warm feelings in behalf of moral and religious truth. "His language," says Campbell, "has such a masculine, idiomatic strength, and his manner, whether he rises into grace or falls into negligence, has so much plain and familiar freedom, that we read no poetry with a deeper conviction of its sentiments having come from the author's heart; and of the enthusiasm, in whatever he describes, having been unfeigned and unexaggerated. He impresses us with the idea of a being, whose fine spirit had been long enough in the mixed society of the world to be polished by its intercourse, and yet withdrawn so soon as to retain an unworldly degree of purity and simplicity." And a writer in the Retrospective Review remarks, that "the delightful freedom of his manner, so acceptable to those who had long been accustomed to a poetical school, of which the radical fault was constraint; his noble and tender morality; his fervent piety; his glowing and well-expressed patriotism; his descriptions, unparalleled in vividness and accuracy since Thomson; his playful humor and his powerful satire; the skilful construction of his verse, at least in the Task,' and the refreshing variety of that fascinating poem,-all together conspired to render him highly popular, both among the multitude of common readers, and among those who, possessed of poetical powers themselves, were capable of intimately appreciating those of a real poet." We might thus fill many pages with encomiastic remarks upon the poetry of Cowper, but the reader would rather taste of the original for himself.1 THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD IN ALL THINGS. Happy the man, who sees a God employ'd The least of our concerns; (since from the least 1 Read-Hayley's Life, a most interesting piece of biography-Grimshaw's Life, prefixed to his edition in 8 vols., and Southey's Life, prefixed to his edition in 15 vols. The latter is the best edition of the poet. Read, also, articles in the Edinburgh Review, ii. 64, and iv. 273, and in the Quarterly, xvi. 116, and xxx. 185. Also, an article in Jeffrey's Miscellanies. An admirable dissertation on the progress of English poetry, from Chaucer to Cowper, will be found in vol. ii. chap. 12, of Southey's edition of the poet. Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin, And putrefy the breath of blooming Health. Blows mildew from between his shrivell'd lips, Forth steps the spruce Philosopher, and tells Of action and reaction: he has found The source of the disease that nature feels, Still wrought by means since first he made the world? Than a capacious reservoir of means, Form'd for his use, and ready at his will? Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of Him, And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all. THE WOUNDED SPIRIT HEALED. Task, ii. 161. I was a stricken deer, that left the herd He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live. TRUE PHILOSOPHY. Philosophy, baptized In the pure fountain of eternal love, Has eyes indeed; and viewing all she sees Task, iii. 108. Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own. Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer Task, iii. 243. THE GEOLOGIST AND COSMOLOGIST.1 Some drill and bore The solid earth, and from the strata there To the sharp peak of her sublimest height, SLAVERY.2 There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart; He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not color'd like his own; and having power Abhor each other. Mountains interposed Task, iii. 150. 1 In the early history of geology many good and pious people were concerned, lest such discoveries should be made as would invalidate the Mosaic account of the creation. But how groundless have all their fears proved! Truth is one, and God's works can never be in conflict with his Word. Of the whole race of "spruce philosophers," as Cowper calls them, even the infidel Voltaire could thus write: "Philosophers put themselves, without ceremony, in the place of God, and destroy and renew the world after their own fashion." "From the time of Buffon," says Dr. Wiseman, in his learned Lectures on Science and Revealed Religion, "system rose beside system, like the moving pillars of the desert, advancing in threatening array; but like them they were fabrics of sand; and though in 1806 the French Institute counted more than EIGHTY such theories of geology hostile to Scripture history, not one of them has stood till now, or deserves to be recorded." And Turner, in his learned work on Chemistry, says, "Of all the wonders of geology, none is so wonderful as the confidence of the several theorists." 2 Upon this and other pieces of Cowper, in behalf of the poor slave, the poet Campbell thus truthfully as well as feelingly remarks: "Poetical expositions of the horrors of slavery may, indeed, seem very unlikely agents in contributing to destroy it; and it is possible that the most refined planter in the West Indies, may look with neither shame nor compunction on his own image, exposed in the pages of Cowper, as a being degraded by giving stripes and tasks to his fellow creatures. But such appeals to the heart of the community are not lost. They fix themselves silently in the popular memory, and they become, at last, a part of that public opinion, which must, sooner or later, wrench the lash from the hand of the oppressor."-Specimens, vii. 364. As human nature's broadest, foulest blot, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.1 Task, ii. 8. KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM. Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, The mere materials with which Wisdom builds, Task. vi. 88. MERCY TO ANIMALS. I would not enter on my list of friends, (Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense, 1 When Cowper wrote these lines, nearly a million of African slaves toiled in the British colonies But the English abolitionists, led on by Sharpe, and Clarkson, and Wilberforce, so earnestly por trayed their wrongs and plead their cause, that the great heart of the nation became at length fully aroused to the subject, and they were declared absolutely and unconditionally free on the 1st of August, 1838. It was predicted that theft, and plunder, and murder, would be the consequence, and the 1st of August was anticipated by all with the most intense interest. It came and passed with all the solemnity of a Sabbath-day. The houses of worship were thronged the preceding evening, to wercome the advent of Liberty, and as the clock tolled out the hour of midnight, the assembled populace bowed the knee in prayer and praise to the God who had bestowed it. Not a blow was struck in revenge-not an arm upraised in riot. Ten years have now elapsed, and they have borne witness to the constant and rapid improvement of the freedmen. Their food, clothing, and furniture are much better: nearly every family has a horse or a mule, and very many have several. They are willing to work steadily for moderate wages, and most of them remain on the estates of their former masters. Many have purchased land, and it is estimated that there are now 20,000 freeholders among the emancipated peasantry of Jamaica alone. Marriage is now "honorable" among them; the parental relation is better understood, and its duties better performed; education is appreciated; and churches have multiplied. The freedmen contribute liberally towards sustaining the ministration of the gospel among themselves, and are already beginning to stretch out their hands, and to send forth their missionaries to their benighted fatherland. For these condensed facts I am indebted to Rev. C. S. Renshaw, for many years a devoted missionary among the freedmen in Jamaica. Yet wanting sensibility,) the man The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, A visitor unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, A necessary act incurs no blame. Not so when, held within their proper bounds, As God was free to form them at the first, Task, vi. 560. WAR. Some seek diversion in the tented field, And make the sorrows of mankind their sport. Task, v. 185. LIBERTY. 'Tis liberty alone that gives the flower Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume; And we are weeds without it. All constraint, Is evil; hurts the faculties, impedes Their progress in the road of science; blinds Bestial, a meagre intellect, unfit To be the tenant of man's noble form. Task, v. 446. |