The re

If Mr. Unwin consented, he kept his own secret. viewal, when it appeared, was so judicious, that it might be suspected to be his, if it were not likely that he would have enlarged more upon the merits of a friend whom he loved so dearly. The little that was said was singularly appropriate. "What Pope," it begins, "has remarked of women, may, by a very applicable parody, be said of the general run of modern poets :

Most poets have no character at all;

being, for the chief part, only echoes of those who have sung before them. For while not only their sentiments and diction are borrowed, but their very modes of thinking as well as versification are copied from the said models, discrimination of character must of course be scarcely perceptible. Confining themselves like packhorses to the same beaten track and uniformity of pace, and like them, too, having their bells from the same shop, they go jingling along in uninterrupted unison with each other. This, however, is not the case with Mr. Cowper; he is a poet sui generis; for as his notes are peculiar to himself, he classes not with any known species of bards that have preceded him; his style of composition, as well as his modes of thinking, are entirely his own. The ideas with which his mind seems to have been either endowed by nature, or to have been enriched by learning and reflection, as they lie in no regular order, so are they promiscuously brought forth as they accidentally present themselves. Mr. Cowper's predominant turn of mind, though serious and devotional, is at the same time drily humorous and sarcastic. Hence, his very religion has a smile that is arch, and his sallies of humour an air that is religious; and yet, motley as is the mixture, it is so contrived as to be neither ridiculous nor disgusting. His versification is almost as singular as the materials upon which it is employed. Anxious only to give each image its due prominence and relief, he has wasted no unnecessary attention on grace or embellishment; his language, therefore, though neither strikingly humourous nor elegant, is plain, forcible, and expressive.'

A fair extract from "Retirement was then produced as "a specimen of this singular writer's manner;" and this was followed by the passage from "Hope" concerning the Green

land Missionaries, as not only marking, it was said, the bias of the writer's mind, but showing also that he can, when he chooses, be elegant and poetical." This was all.

This was fair and discriminating praise, but it was scanty. It saved the author's credit with his neighbours, but was not the sort of commendation by which the sale of the book was likely to be promoted. Cowper said the Monthly Reviewer had satisfied him well enough; and as this was said to Mr. Unwin, it would be proof enough that he was not the critic, even if the meagreness of the article had not shown that it came from one who took no interest in the success of the volume. In a letter written about this time to the same friend, he says, "You tell me you have been asked if I am intent upon another volume? I reply: Not at present; not being convinced that I have met with sufficient encouragement. I account myself happy in having pleased a few, but am not rich enough to despise the many. I do not know what sort of a market my commodity has found: but if a slack one, I must beware how I make a second attempt. My bookseller will not be willing to incur a certain loss; and I can as little afford it 32"

Month after month elapsed; his friends praised his poems to him, and reported the praise of others, but there came no tidings of the sale. "My dear William," he says to Unwin, "I feel myself sensibly obliged by the interest you take in the success of my productions. Your feelings upon the subject are such as I should have myself, had I an opportunity of calling Johnson aside to make the inquiry you propose. But I am pretty well prepared for the worst, and so long as I have the opinion of a few capable judges in my favour, and am thereby convinced that I have neither disgraced myself nor my subject, shall not feel myself disposed to any extreme anxiety about the sale. To aim with success at the spiritual good of mankind, and to become popular by writing upon scriptural subjects were an unreasonable ambition, even for a poet, to entertain in days like these. Verse may have many charms, but has none powerful enough to conquer the aversion of a

31 The selection of this passage leads me to suppose that it may have been written by Mr. Latrobe; he was known both to Mr. Newton and Dr. Johnson, and is likely to have been the person to whom the publisher "recommended the book and the business." 32 Nov. 18, 1781.

dissipated age to such instruction. Ask the question, therefore, boldly, and be not mortified even though he should shake his head and drop his chin; for it is no more than we have reason to expect. We will lay the fault upon the vice of the times, and we will acquit the poet 33.

But it had become necessary for him to employ himself in composition. In a letter written three years after this time, he says, "When I was writing my first volume, and was but just beginning to emerge from a state of melancholy that had continued some years (from which, by the way, I do not account myself even now delivered), Mrs. Unwin insisted on my relinquishing the pen, apprehending consequences injurious to my health. When ladies insist, you know there is an end of the business; obedience on our part becomes necessary; I accordingly obeyed; but having lost my fiddle, I became pensive and unhappy; she therefore restored it to me, convinced of its utility; and from that day to this, I have never ceased to scrape 34. It had thus been proved by experience, that exercise of mind as well as body was indispensably requisite for his well-being; and experience had also shown how important it was that the subjects upon which he employed himself should not produce in him any degree of passionate excite

ment.

34

When Mr. Unwin wrote to Cowper that his wife had been moved both to smiles and tears by his poetry, Cowper replied, "I should do myself much wrong were I to omit mentioning the great complacency with which I read this account. If she had Aristotle by heart, I should not esteem her judgement so highly, were she defective in point of feeling, as I do, and must esteem it, knowing her to have such feelings as Aristotle could not communicate, and as half the readers in the world are destitute of. This it is that makes me set so high a price upon your mother's opinion. She is a critic by nature and not by rule, and has a perception of what is good or bad in composition, that I never knew deceive her; insomuch that when two sorts of expression have pleaded equally for the precedence in my own esteem, and I have referred, as in such cases I always did, the decision of the point to her, I never knew her at a loss for a just one 35.2

33 Aug. 4. 1783.

S. c.-1.

34 To Lady Hesketh, Dec. 15, 1785. 35 March 18, 1782.

R

But

Were I to say that a poet finds his best advisers among his female friends, it would be speaking from my own experience, and the greatest poet of the age would confirm it by his. never was any poet more indebted to such friends than Cowper. Had it not been for Mrs. Unwin, he would probably never have appeared in his own person as an author; had it not been for Lady Austen, he would never have been a popular one. The most fortunate incident in his literary life was that which introduced him to this lady. She had now disposed of the lease of her house in London, and had taken up her abode in the vicarage. The door which Mr. Newton had opened from his garden into his friend's again became in use; *" and so captivating," says Hayley, "was her society both to Cowper and to Mrs. Unwin, that these intimate neighbours 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."

His letters were now not only expressive of content, but of enjoyment: "I am glad," he says to Mr. Hill, "your health is such that you have nothing more to complain of than may be expected on the down-hill side of life. If mine is better than yours, it is to be attributed, I suppose, principally, to the constant enjoyment of country air and retirement,—the most perfect regularity in matters of eating, drinking, and sleeping,— and a happy emancipation from every thing that wears the face of business. I lead the life I always wished for; and the single circumstance of dependence excepted (which, between ourselves, is very contrary to my predominant humour and disposition), have no want left broad enough for another wish to stand upon 36 Another letter describes the way in which his evenings were spent at this time.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.

Dec. 7, 1782.

At seven o'clock this evening, being the seventh of December, I imagine I see you in your box at the coffee-house. No doubt the waiter, as ingenious and adroit as his predecessors were before him, raises the tea-pot to the ceiling with his right hand, while in his left the tea cup descending almost to the floor, receives a limpid stream,-limpid in its descent, but no

36 Nov. 11.

sooner has it reached its destination, than frothing and foaming to the view, it becomes a roaring syllabub. This is the nineteenth winter since I saw you in this situation; and if nineteen more pass over me before I die, I shall still remember a circumstance we have often laughed at.

How different is the complexion of your evenings and mine! yours, spent amid the ceaseless hum that proceeds from the inside of fifty noisy and busy periwigs; mine, by a domestic fireside, in a retreat as silent as retirement can make it; where no noise is made but what we make for our own amusement. For instance, here are two rustics, and your humble servant in company. One of the ladies has been playing on the harpsichord, while I, with the other, have been playing at battledore and shuttlecock. A little dog, in the mean time, howling under the chair of the former, performed, in the vocal way, to admiration. This entertainment over, I began my letter, and having nothing more important to communicate, have given you an account of it. I know you love dearly to be idle, when you can find an opportunity to be so; but as such opportunities are rare with you, I thought it possible that a short description of the idleness I enjoy might give you pleasure. The happiness we cannot call our own, we yet seem to possess, while we sympathize with our friends who can.

"From a scene of the most uninterrupted retirement," he says to Mr. Unwin, "we have passed at once into a state of constant engagement. Not that our society is much multiplied; the addition of an individual has made all this difference. Lady Austen and we pass our days alternately at each other's chateau. In the morning I walk with one or other of the ladies, and in the afternoon wind thread. Thus did Hercules, and thus probably did Samson, and thus do I; and were both those heroes living, I should not fear to challenge them to a trial of skill in that business, or doubt to beat them both. As to killing lions and other amusements of that kind, with which they were so delighted, I should be their humble servant and beg to be excused3 "

For a while Lady Austen's conversation had as happy an effect upon the melancholy spirit of Cowper as the harp of David upon Saul. Whenever the cloud seemed to be coming

37 Jan. 19, 1783.