Alexander Pope to Richard Steele-The Uses of Sickness. near another Sabbath is; but, oh! how much more pleasant to think how near eternity is, and how short the journey through this wilderness, and that it is but a step from earth to heaven! I cannot forbear, in these circumstances, pausing a little, and considering whence this happy scene just at this time arises, and whither it tends. Whether God is about to bring upon me any peculiar trial, for which this is to prepare me; whether He is shortly about to remove me from earth, and so is giving me more sensible prelibations of heaven, to prepare me for it; or whether He intends to do some peculiar services by me just at this time, which many other circumstances leads me sometimes to hope; or whether it be that, in answer to your prayers, and in compassion to that distress which I must otherwise have felt in the absence and illness of her who has been so exceedingly dear to me, and never was more sensibly dear to me than now, He is pleased to favor me with this teaching experience, in consequence of which I freely own I am less afraid than ever of any event which can possibly arise, consistent with His nearness to my heart, and the tokens of His paternal and covenant love. I will muse no further on the cause. It is enough, the effect is so blessed. III. THE USES OF SICKNESS. Alexander Pope to Richard Steele. July 15, 1742. DEAR SIR: You formerly observed to me, that nothing makes a more ridiculous figure in a man's life than the disparity we often find in him sick and well; thus one of an unfortunate constitution is perpetually exhibiting a miserable example of the alternate weakness of his mind and of his body. I have had Alexander Pope to Richard Steele-The Uses of Sickness. frequent opportunities of late to consider myself in these different views, and I hope I have received some advantage by it. If what Waller says be true, that "The soul's dark cottage, batter'd and decay'd, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made” -- then surely sickness, contributing not less than old age to shake down this scaffolding of the body, may discover the inward structure more plainly. Sickness is a sort of early old age. It teaches us a diffidence in our earthly state, and inspires us with the thoughts of a future, better than a thousand volumes of philosophers and divines. It gives so warning a concussion to those props of our vanity, our strength and youth, that we think of fortifying ourselves within, when there is so little dependence upon our outworks. Youth, at the very best, is but a betrayer of human life, in a gentler and smoother manner than age. It is like a stream that nourishes a plant upon its bank, and causes it to flourish and blossom to the sight, but at the same time is undermining it at the root in secret. My youth has dealt more fairly and openly with me. It has afforded several prospects of my danger, and given me an advantage not very common to young men, that the attractions of the world have not dazzled me very much; and I begin, where most people end, with a full conviction of the emptiness of all sorts of ambition, and the unsatisfactory nature of all human pleasures. When a smart fit of sickness tells me that this poor tenement of my body will fall in a little time, I am even as unconcerned as was that honest Hibernian, who, being in bed in the great storm some years ago, and told the house would tumble over his head, made answer: "What care I for the house? I am only a lodger." I fancy it is the best time to die when one is in the 8 William Cowper to Rev. John Newton-Gratitude for the Music of Nature. best humor; and so excessively weak as I now am, I may say with conscience that I am not at all uneasy at the thought that many men, whom I never had any esteem for, are likely to enjoy this world after me. When I reflect what an inconsiderable little atom every single man is, with respect to the whole creation, I think it is a shame to be concerned at the removal of so trivial an animal as I am. The morning after my exit the sun will rise as bright as ever, the flowers smell as sweet, the plants spring as green; the world will proceed in its old course; people will laugh as heartily, and marry as fast, as they were used to do. "The memory of man" (as it is elegantly expressed in the book of wisdom) "passeth away as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but one day." enough, in the fourth chapter of the same There are reasons book, to make a "For honor young man contented with the prospect of death. able age is not that which standeth in length of time, or is measured by number of years. But wisdom is the gray hair to men; and an unspotted life is old age. He was taken away speedily, lest wickedness should alter his understanding, or deceit beguile his soul." I am your, etc., ALEXANDER POPE. IV. GRATITUDE FOR THE MUSIC OF NATURE. William Cowper to Rev. John Newton. September 18th, 1784. Following your good example, I lay before me a sheet of my largest paper. It was this moment fair and unblemished, but I have begun to blot it, and having begun, am not likely to cease till I have spoiled it. I have sent you many a sheet that, in my William Couper to Rev. John Newton-Gratitude for the Music of Nature. judgment of it, has been very unworthy of your acceptance; but my conscience was in some measure satisfied by reflecting that, if it were good for nothing, at the same time it cost you nothing but the trouble of reading it. But the case is altered now. You must pay a solid price for frothy matter; and though I do not absolutely pick your pocket, yet you lose your money, and as the saying is, are never the wiser-a saying literally fulfilled to the reader of my epistles. My greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of being burned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns, and the calmness of this latter season, make it a much more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in summer, when, the winds being generally brisk, we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air, without being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees; but if I lived in a hive, we should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighborhood resort to a bed of mignonette opposite to the window, and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets. All the sounds that Nature utters are delightful—at least in this country. I should not, perhaps, find the roaring of lions in Africa, or of bears in Russia, very pleasing; but I know no beast in England whose voice I do not account musical, save and except always the braying of an ass. The notes of all our birds and fowls please me without one exception. I should not, indeed, think of keeping a goose in a cage, that I might hang him up in the parlor for the sake of his melody; but a goose upon William Cowper to Rev. John Newton-Gratitude for the Music of Nature. a common, or in a farm-yard, is no bad performer; and as to insects, if the black beetle, and beetles indeed of all hues, will keep out of my way, I have no objection to any of the rest; on the contrary, in whatever key they sing, from the gnat's fine treble to the bass of the humble-bee, I admire them all. Seriously, however, it strikes me as a very observable instance of Providential kindness to man that such an exact accord has been contrived between his ear and the sounds with which, at least in a rural situation, it is almost every moment visited. All the world is sensible of the uncomfortable effect that certain sounds have upon the nerves, and consequently upon the spirits; and if a sinful world had been filled with such as would have curdled the blood, and have made the sense of hearing a perpetual inconvenience, I do not know that we should have had a right to complain. But now the fields, the woods, the gardens, have each their concerts, and the ear of man is forever regaled by creatures who seem only to please themselves. Even the ears that are deaf to the Gospel, are continually entertained, though without knowing it, by sounds for which they are solely indebted to its Author. There is, somewhere within infinite space, a world that does not roll within the precincts of mercy, and, as it is reasonable, and even scriptural, to suppose that there is music in heaven, in those dismal regions perhaps the reverse of it is found; tones so dismal as to make woe itself more insupportable, and to acuminate even despair. But my paper admonishes me in good time to draw the reins, and to check the descent of my family into deeps with which she is but too familiar. Our best love attends you both, with yours, Sum ut semper, tui studiosissimus. W. C. |