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THE

LADIES REPOSITORY.

JULY, 1852.

THE POET COWPER.

-

BY ERWIN HOUSH.

THE life of Cowper is one of sad and singular interest. He seemed in society one of the liveliest of beings; but as soon as he relapsed into solitude a shade of the deepest melancholy came over him. Timid in his habits, he was the antipode of this in his writings; dejected in the tone of his mind, he was replete with mirth and playfulness in all his correspondence; wretched in an extraordinary degree, so far as personal feeling was concerned, he yet convulsed the whole nation with his John Gilpin

"A citizen

Of credit and renown,"

whose feats of horsemanship transcended the grandest efforts ever made in that line in all England, and whose horse flew along turnpike-roads and through turnpike-gates as if a hundred lions were at his heels. It is reported of Cowper, that after having spent an evening in social conversation with some of his friends, he would retire to his room, and give vent to his pent-up grief in a flood of tears. He thought that happiness was the boon of others, but that nothing except misery was reserved for him. Despairing oftentimes of the mercy of God ever reaching his case, he spoke in almost rapturous terms of its being given to all others. To gain an accurate view of his character, it will be necessary to go somewhat into detail respecting his life, his habits of thought, and his style of writing.

But one other person of the family survived the death of the father and mother, and that was John, a younger brother to William. Previous to the death of his mother, Cowper was sent for instruction to a day school kept in his native village. An allusion is made to this circumstance in one of his poems:

"The gard❜ner, Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap." Subsequent to the death of his beloved parent, whom he cherished with the tenderest affection, he was taken from the village school and put under the care of Dr. Pitman, an excellent teacher and disciplinarian, who lived a few miles from his father's. Here he remained for nearly two years, till some alarming disease of his eyes rendered it necessary to send him to an oculist's in London. Remaining here for two years longer, without any special benefit being rendered him, he exchanged his situation with the oculist for a residence at Westminster School, where he quite unexpectedly found a remedy for his eyes in an attack of the small-pox, which the young student thought "the better oculist of the two." It is impossible to speak with any definiteness respecting the proficiency of Cowper while at school, though his biographers usually credit him with an honorable discharge. Some anecdotes are related of him while at Westminster which go clearly to prove his extreme sensitiveness of character, and his indisposition to mingle with the common herd of boys in their sports. Whenever he passed through the William Cowper was born in Hertfordshire, Eng- playground he was pretty sure to receive a salute land, on the 15th of November, 1731. His father, from some mischievous fellow after the following the Rev. John Cowper, D. D., was rector of Great sort: "Halloo, Bill! you ninny chicken-heart, come Berkhamstead, in the county of Hertfordshire, just this way and show yourself a man, and not be mentioned, and was likewise one of the chaplains sneaking along there as though the ground were to King George the Second. His mother, who was too good for you to walk on." Such salutations, daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., of Norfolk, was of no matter how thoughtlessly or innocently made, an extremely delicate constitution, and died in the cut like a dagger at Cowper's heart. Nor could he year 1737, when William was but six years old. ever find it in his heart to retaliate. He only hurHis father died of a stroke of paralysis in 1756, ried from his companions, and, shutting himself nineteen years after the death of his wife, and up in some solitary place, indulged a train of the when his son William was in his twenty-fifth year. most foreboding and terrible reflections, or wished

VOL. XII.-19

himself out of the world, and forever free from the port of another. He relapsed, consequently, into a gibes and sneers of his fellows.

state of melancholy, and commenced picturing to himself the forlorn prospect before him. His father and mother, his brothers and sisters, all save a brother, were asleep in the grave, and he oftentimes more than half wished himself asleep there, too. Thus cast down he made no effort to rise. His friends-for notwithstanding his apprehensions he still had some true friends-seeing his condition, and supposing that he wished to get married, or, at any rate, to get along in life, resolved to procure a situation for him as reading clerk and clerk of the private committee of the house of lords.

Besides being incompetent to the discharge of the duties assigned to either of these offices, his extreme tenderness of spirit seemed for awhile to deter him from accepting the kind offer of his friends. Any exhibition of himself in public, under any circumstances, was, in his own emphatic language, "mortal poison to his soul.". He could not endure it. Having debated the question in his mind for over a week, he finally concluded to exchange the clerkship of the private committee for the clerkship of the journals in the house of lordsa far less difficult position, but one that yielded a less pecuniary reward. Here Cowper began to be composed, and half dreamed that he might yet be able to get married and be happy. But his dream was of short duration. A debate arose in Parliament respecting his fitness for the appointment just taken, and he was summoned to appear at the bar of the house of lords, to answer for his competency in discharge of the duties of the clerkship. The summons to him was terrible in the extreme. He felt his incompetency, and he felt, too, his inability to prepare for the examination awaiting him. By the time the ceremony was to take place, so utterly confused and lost was he, that his intellectual faculties gave way. He was no longer himself. In this distressing state he was taken to St. Albans, and put under medical treatment with Dr. Cotton, with whom he remained for nearly two

Upon leaving Westminster, Cowper was articled for three years to a solicitor by the name of Chapman, in London. His apprenticeship to the law, however, was about like some other apprenticeships, in which the apprentice gets a knowledge of every thing, or rather any thing, except his trade. He whiled away his time he hardly knew how; and when his three years were up, he did not appear at all ambitious of obtaining any office, from that of Lord High Chancellor of England down to that of petty constable of some ward in London. He appeared to have no affection particularly for Mr. Chapman or his profession, as the following passage from a letter, written thirty years after, to an intimate friend will show: "I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor-that is to say, I slept three years in his house; but I lived that is to say, I spent my days in Southampton row, as you very well remember. There was I and the future Lord Chancellor constantly employed from morning till night in giggling and make giggle, instead of studying the law." This passage, insignificant as it may appear, is evidence enough that Cowper cared nothing about the legal profession, and that he was simply wasting his time rather than doing any thing else. Quitting Chapman, Cowper entered the Inner Temple, London, thinking that probably the higher departments of law might find something to interest his mind, though the elementary principles had proved dry as ashes to him. Here he had Thurlow, subsequently Lord Chancellor-the person alluded to in the letter just quoted-together with Bonnel Thornton, as his associates. He tried very hard, it seems, to make some progress in study, and had his hours for thinking, and reading, and reviewing; but it was all to no purpose. The law and Cowper were two different things, and would not go together, spite of study or entreaty. Literature and poetry engaged his attention and absorbed most of his time. There was a periodical in existence just then known as The Connoisseur, published by His notions of marriage being thus frustrated a his friends Colman and Thornton, to which he second time, he never thought of it again. Some made frequent contributions. He received in re- persons, and we regret to say that they pervert turn for his efforts nothing but the simple gratula- known facts, attribute this misfortune of Cowper tions of his publishers, which certainly was ex- to religion, and its alleged distracting influence ceedingly slim pay. It is admitted on all hands, on his mind. But religion had no more connection that of the twelve years spent at the Temple not with his mental calamity in the present instance twelve months were given by Cowper to any thing than religion had in the production of the knightexcept purely poetical and classical pursuits. At errantry of Don Quixote. He had seldom thought the expiration of this period, being over thirty or conversed on the subject of personal piety. But years of age, he began quite naturally to think of it is a matter of rejoicing, that soon after the restoassociating with himself for life some one who ration of his reason and his health he began seriwould love him and sympathize with him in all ously to think upon his soul's salvation. A change his successes, his joys, his griefs, and his disap- was about to come over him, and his captivity was pointments. But the thought of marriage was to cease. His prison doors were unfolded, and he immediately and forever silenced in his mind by experienced a clear escape from sin and a "full the fact, that he had idled away the better part of immunity from penal woe." His brother John, his life, and that his slender finances were scarcely Fellow of Bennett's College, Cambridge, visited adequate to his own support, letting alone the sup-him about this time, and aided quite materially in

years.

THE POET COWPER.

restoring equanimity to his mind. He furnished him some remarks on Christian experience of decided value, and recommended the frequent reading of the Bible as being an antidote to the melancholy that was ever feeding on his mind. In a measure the advice was followed; but immediately upon the return of his brother to Cambridge, he began to feel himself a stranger among strangers, with a sinking of spirits and a sense of desolation stealing over him.

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stance, too, may give a fuller explanation. "I was doubtful," says Cowper, in a letter to a friend, "whether I should ever bring it to a conclusion, working often in such distress of mind, as while it spurred me to the work, at the same time threatened to disqualify me for it." In 1787 he was attacked with a nervous fever, which compelled him to relinquish his poetical efforts some nine months. In December, 1796, his dear friend, Mrs. Unwin, died, which carried a shock to his heart from which he never recovered.

Early in the year 1800 he was attacked with a general weakness of his system, which terminated in dropsy, and this ultimately in death. There appears to have been no real change in his mind up to the last moments of his existence. To a friend who visited him a few days before he died, Cowper ventured to speak of his approaching dissolution as a signal of his deliverance from all his earthly sorrows. After a pause of a few moments, his friend proceeded to say, that in the world to which he was hastening the merciful Redeemer had prepared unspeakable happiness for all his children, and consequently for him. When the latter clause of this sentence was uttered, a shade of desolation passed over the face of Cowper, which seemed to say that mercy and happiness could hardly be for him. On the last day of his life he was unusually calm and silent, and for some hours before his spirit took its flight a deadly paleness rested upon his countenance. At five minutes before five o'clock, on the afternoon of Friday, the 25th day of April, 1800, he ceased to breathe; and so gently did he sink away, that though there were several persons in the room at the time intently fixed in looking upon his face, not one could determine the precise hour of his departure.

In the summer of 1765 he left St. Albans, and took private lodgings in the town of Huntington. Here, as by a direct act of Providence, he was brought in contact with Rev. Mr. Unwin and his excellent family. Cowper had been in the habit of attending Church on the Sabbath during his short stay in Huntington, and William Cawthorne Unwin, son of the above, frequently observing him, at last introduced himself to Cowper, and asked him home to tea. To this the latter consented, though not without some hesitation. His acquaintance with this family, however, was the making of him. They were people after his own heart pious, intelligent, benevolent, and affectionate. He entered immediately into the most endearing intimacy with them. But he was not long permitted to enjoy the society of his friend, Mr. Unwin, who was suddenly killed by a fall from his horse, one Sabbath morning on his way to Church. After this sad calamity the family, at the invitation of Rev. John Newton, removed to Olney in Buckinghamshire. During the first five years of Cowper's residence here there was no material interruption of either his health or religious comfort. The death of his brother John, at Cambridge, on the 20th of March, 1770, no doubt had a mournfully desolating influence on his mind. He seemed for a year overwhelmed with grief, and was visited again with a return of hypochondriasis, which continued with more or less violence to the close of his life. Mrs. Unwin, whom he always respected and loved as a mother, nursed him with the tenderest regard. Mr. Newton likewise, next to the duties of the ministry, made it the business of his life to attend the sufferer under his grievous affliction. Partially recovering from his disorder, Cowper commenced turning his attention to literary matters-letter-writing and poetry, in both of which arts it is well known he excelled. The Nightingale and the Glow-Worm, a beautiful fable, was one of his first amusements. After this followed Table Talk, The Progress of Error, Truth, and Expostulation. In March, 1782, his first volume was issued from the press, which was received with considerable favor. Early in the following year, at the suggestion of Lady Austen, one of his most intimate friends, he commenced The Task. He was engaged on this poem nearly eighteen months. This long time of composition arose from the fact that he spent a large portion of his leisure in reading, and conversing with Mrs. Unwin, Even a metaphysician or an adept in the art of Lady Austen, and other friends. Another circum-logomachy would find it difficult to interpret these

Dr. Johnson awards the praise to Thomson that
"he wrote no line which, dying, he wished to blot."
He might have made the same remark in reference
to Cowper had he lived in his day and been con-
versant with his poetry. There is less imperfec-
tion in the poems of Cowper than in those of
Thomson, and their moral tone is above criticism.
Thomson is frequently pedantic and ostentatious
in his style. He seldom has a good line but he
makes up for it by a bad one. He takes no pains,
uses no self-correction, and cares nothing about
labor of any kind. Labor is, in truth, a thing
which he despises. Hence, though capable of
writing the most delightful, heart-felt descriptions
of natural scenery, he is often guilty of penning
pieces of the most flimsy, roundabout, and un-
meaning nature. The first lines of that inimi-
table poem,
"The Seasons," are a specimen of
strange medley and nonsense:

"Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come!
And from the bosom of yon dripping cloud,
While music wakes around, vail'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend."

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words. In Cowper there is no such redundancy and superfluity of epithets. He is careful in the choice of his topics, simple in his style, and graphic in his descriptions. He has been accused, it is true, with too much fastidiousness and nervousness. As a man he was extremely fastidious and nervous, but he never carried the one or the other into his writings. He was a man there, though he was a child in his intercourse with the world around him. In his poetry there is no disease, no complaining, no fear, no distrust. All is sound, bright, clear, and consistent. He is as impressive as Young, without his epigrammatic smartness; he is as fervently a Christian as Montgomery; and often equals in solemn dignity the productions of Milton himself.

In epistolary correspondence Cowper has been taken as a model, and most justly so, for few men have written with more ease and correctness than himself. The following, while it gives a fair specimen of his skill in letter-writing, reveals, to a great extent, the severity of his depression of spirits, and shows also that faint gleams of pleasure could occasionally break through his settled melancholy. It is dated Mundsley, September 5, 1795, and is addressed to his friend, Mr. Buchanan:

"I will forget, for a moment, that to whomsoever I may address myself, a letter from me can no otherwise be welcome than as a curiosity. To you, sir, I address this; urged to it by extreme penury of employment, and the desire I feel to learn something of what is doing, and has been done at Weston-my beloved Weston!-since I left it. The coldness of these blasts, even in the hottest days, has been such, that, added to the irritation of the salt spray, with which they are always charged, they have occasioned me an inflammation in the eyelids, which threatened a few days since to confine me entirely; but by absenting myself as much as possible from the beach, and guarding my face with an umbrella, that inconvenience is in some degree abated. My chamber commands a very near view of the ocean, and the ships at high water approach so closely, that a man furnished with better eyes than mine might, I doubt not, discern the sailors from the window. No situation, at least when the weather is clear and bright, can be pleasanter; which you will easily credit, when I add, that it imparts something a little resembling pleasure even to me. Gratify me with news from Weston. If Mr. Gregson, and your neighbors the Courtenays, are there, mention me to them in such terms as you see good. Tell me if my poor birds are living: I never see the herbs I used to give them without a recollection of them, and sometimes am ready to gather them, forgetting that I am not at home. Pardon this intrusion."

Cowper has been accused, as before remarked, of feebleness and a want of masculine energy. But certainly this is without just foundation. His lines on the loss of the Royal George are as replete with real manliness and energy of expression

as the same number of lines from the pen of any other poet, living or dead, on any subject that may be named:

"Toll for the brave!

The brave that are no more! All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore! 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,
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!

Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought;
His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;

No tempest gave the shock;
She sprung upon no fatal leak;
She ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath;
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
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 plow the distant main. But Kempenfelt is gone;

His victories are o'er;

And he and his eight hundred

Shall plow the wave no more."

Every Sabbath in our churches we sing hymns of Cowper's composing. The reader, by turning to the index of first lines in his Hymn-Book, will find several from his pen.

His lines to Mary and those on receiving the picture of his mother are admitted, even by the severest critics, to be among the most pathetic ever written. It seems unnecessary to make quotations from either of them. The reader is referred to them in proof of the position just taken. His satires are keen and pointed, and copy much of the razor-like irony of Horace, with whose poems he was particularly familiar. His life was a strange and melancholy one; but it had no influence in tinging his poetry with sadness. The Castaway is one of his finest pieces. There is a feeling of such loneliness, and solitude, and utter ruin and desolation pervading it as makes one shudder in its perusal. We close this article, already too long, with the last stanza of this poem, in which the poet brings in himself to share the general misery:

"No voice divine the storm allayed,

No light propitious shone,
When, snatched from all effectual aid,
We perished each alone;

But I beneath a rougher sea,

And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he."

YANKEE ENTERPRISE.

YANKEE ENTERPRISE.

BY PROFESSOR Z. B. LIPPITT.

I was sitting in the parlor of one of our most wealthy and influential citizens a short time since, when the conversation turned upon the rapid growth of Cincinnati and the wealth of her citizens, and then upon the west, with its yet undeveloped power and its giant strides in the march of improvement within the last half century. We spoke of the vast fortunes which had been realized by the early settlers, who fortunately purchased ground near the present city limits. At length he began to speak of his own history, and related to me the following incidents, which I have deemed of sufficient importance to appear in the pages of the Repository.

"In my earlier years I came from the 'land of steady habits' to seek a fortune in the then almost wilderness west. Here and there were small trading posts scattered through this great valley. Our location was forty miles from a grocery or mill. The forest was unbroken, and game was abundant. Just back from the river on the hills, deer were abundant, and at any time one could be brought in. Wild turkeys were so plenty that they were of little value. I knew one settler who packed in salt a barrel of the breasts of this wild fowl. Other game was in like manner abundant. Cincinnati was a small town of only five thousand inhabitants. There were then no steamers plying on the waters of Ohio, or crowding the levees of the cities now so thickly set along its shores. The flat-boat was the only method of conveying our produce to the southern market. The voyage to New Orleans was long and difficult, occupying sometimes six months' time. I have known men to make their wills before leaving home on the voyage, fearing lest they might never return. And their parting from their family and friends seemed often like a farewell scene of those who never expect to meet again. Sometimes several neighbors would combine, and build a boat, in which they would float their produce to the market at the mouth of the Mississippi; and then, selling their boat, walk back to their homes on the Ohio, through the dense and untrodden forests of the south and west. At other times, when groceries were to be brought back, they would urge their boat against the rapid current of the river with their long oars, or by taking a rope ahead, make it fast to a tree, and then hauling the boat up to it, and then again taking the rope ahead. Thus wearily, day after day, and week after week, did we labor to bring home our groceries, which are now brought by the steamer in six days. "For several years I was engaged in this kind of boating business. In the mean time I became acquainted with a young lady of much loveliness of character, at a small place about one hundred and fifty miles above Cincinnati; and the time drew near when I was to make her my own. As might

245

be supposed, I began to look around me to see how I should be enabled to support her. With all my hard toil for years I had saved only a few dollars, and I knew that unless I could get into some permanent business I should never succeed.

But

"The day of my marriage came, and with it came the will and energy to do, now that I felt that I had some one for whom to labor. My wife's father gave her a small piece of land, and desired me to settle upon it, and become a farmer. farming was not congenial to my tastes, and I could not think of doing it. If I could only get to Cincinnati I felt sure that I could succeed. I had about three hundred dollars with which to commence; but how was I to get there, or how commence after I got there? My scanty means would not go far toward accomplishing the object.

"At last I determined to build me a boat, and in it place my wife and goods and float down to Cincinnati. Where there is a will, there is a way,' is

an old but a true proverb. Forthwith I commenced, and after a few days completed my flat-boat. I then placed in it all our worldly goods, and pushed boldly out into the stream, trusting that it would bear us safely to our desired port. Swiftly the current bore us away from the home of her I loved. But as the faces of those we loved grew dim in the distance, and were finally lost by a sudden curve in the river, a pang of something like remorse came over me. I could not feel that it was right in me thus to jeopardize the happiness of another than myself in any such wild scheme, and I almost condemned myself for the step I had taken. Then I turned my eyes toward the shore of the river, whose steep banks were covered with various kinds of trees, and all beautiful with the fresh-bursting foliage of spring, and glittering in the rays of the morning sun; and then, as I gazed at the azure sky, so calm, and pure, and hopeful, and then in the eyes of her who sat in the rude-built boat, for whose sake I had dared all, risked all, and read there only hope and encouragement, I felt strong to go on.

“Thus silently, through the long day, we floated down the river; and when the shades of night gathered round, and began to wrap the forest and the river in its gloom, I fastened the boat to the shore, and then kindled a fire. In the wilderness we ate our solitary meal, and then slept in our boat. But it was not such sleep as comes to the fainting spirit midst perfect security, but was broken oft by the howl of the wolf and the thought of the Indian prowling along the river banks. And even in my sleep came dreams of wolves or Indians; so that all night long I was fighting the wolf from the boat with its sleeping burden, or struggling with my Indian foe to rescue one dearer than life to me.

"Morning dawned at last; and with the sweet light, that poured like the perfume of incense upon the grateful heart, came the hope of another day. Another, and a third day passed in like manner.

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