Olney Hymnal. He translated thirty-five of the French mystic hymns of Madame de la Mothe Guion, and wrote a hymn for the use of the Sunday school at Olney. Altogether then he has contributed one hundred and four hymns to the repertoire of English sacred song. From this large store only three hymns have been selected by the compilers of "Hymns Ancient and Modern." These are, "Hark, my soul, it is the LORD," (260,) "GOD moves in a mysterious way," (373,) and "GOD of our life, to Thee we call," (374.) All the hymns of Cowper are alike devout in sentiment and felicitous in expression. His Latin poems are elegant specimens of composition, more particularly is a little gem in Latin hexameters to be noted, beginning "O matutini voces auræque salubres." The remarkable peculiarity of all the poetry of Cowper is that besides the religious earnestness and the sympathetic love of nature with which it is filled, it also is impregnated with a severity of sarcastic repartee and with a spirit of clear common sense, such as we could hardly have expected to have met with in the writings of one whose mental idiosyncrasies and social surroundings were of such a character as were those of Cowper. That one, subject always to a habit of despondency and of morbid introspection, and occasionally to severe attacks of mental aberration, should be so skilled in “ holding the mirror up to nature," and in analysing the thoughts and motives of men that one whose life was that of a retired recluse in a remote country village should show such a familiarity with the causes, the types, and the peculiarities of the sins, vices, and crimes of men : these are the powers the possession of which by Cowper is so remarkable and marvellous. It shows how genius by an intuitive perception will grasp at once a deeper knowledge of men and things than laborious mediocrity can ever attain to. Another peculiarity of the poetry of Cowper is the readiness with which it lends itself to familiar quotation. Many of its lines have become almost popular proverbs, and are frequently cited by those who are ignorant of the source from which their inspiration is derived. A few of these familiar lines may suffice to illustrate this statement. "True piety is cheerful as the day." "One act that from a thankful heart proceeds "When nations are to perish in their sins, "The cup That cheers, but not inebriates.” “Men deal with life as children with their play, "Knowledge and wisdom far from being one "All we behold is miracle.” "Nature is but a name for an effect Whose cause is GOD." "Many a crime deemed innocent on earth Is registered in heaven." “The only amaranthine flower on earth Is virtue. The only treasure, truth." "How weak the banner of man's nature proves Opposed against the pleasures nature loves." "We love the play place of our early days." "The parson knows enough who knows a duke.” “England, with all thy faults, I love thee still." "For solitude, however some may rave, Seeming a sanctuary, proves a grave." "GOD made the country, and man made the town.” "Oh for a lodge in some vast wilderness.” "There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know." "Variety's the very spice of life That gives it all its flavour." “Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that hast survived the fall.” "Dropping buckets into empty wells, And growing old in drawing nothing up." "The town has tinged the country." "Life spent in indolence and therefore sad." "But war's a game, which were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at." "Weak to perform, though mighty to pretend." "Power usurped Is weakness when opposed." "Made poetry a mere mechanic art, And every warbler has his tune by heart." "How much a dunce that has been sent to Rome "Accomplishments have taken virtue's place, "Thus men go wrong with an ingenious skill, "Faults in the mind breed errors in the brain." "Pride may be pampered while the flesh grows lean." "Tis liberty alone that gives the bloom Of fleeting life, its lustre and perfume." "He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, "How many deeds with which the world has rung, "Absence of occupation is not rest, A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed." "An idler is a watch that wants both hands, As useless when it goes as when it stands." "Seldom alas the power of logic reigns With much sufficiency in royal brains." "If sentiment were sacrificed to sound, And truth cut short to make a period round." "That like some cottage beauty strikes the heart, "To dally much with subjects mean and low, 66 Religion, harsh, intolerant, severe, Parent of manners like herself austere, Drew a rough copy of the Christian face, Without the smile, the kindness, and the grace." From such quotations as these we may learn how pithy and pointed are the sentences, and how practical the philosophy of the poetry of Cowper. It need not therefore surprise us to perceive how familiar in our ears are many of the passages of his writings, and how frequently his pregnant axioms couched in a rhythmical form have become incorporated into the ordinary proverbial sayings of men. "His He strove, however, and that with success, to make men not merely wiser and more prudent in secular concerns, but nobler in character and more spiritually minded, with a deeper sense of religion and with a loftier aspiration of soul. "Morality," says Stebbing, "never found in genius a more devoted advocate than Cowper, nor has moral wisdom in its plain and severe precepts been ever more successfully combined with the delicate spirit of poetry than in his works." satire," says Newton, "if it may be called so, is benevolent (like the operations of the skilful and humane surgeon who wounds only to heal) dictated by a just regard for the honour of GOD, and indignant grief excited by the profligacy of the age, and a tender compassion for the souls of men." His popularity, as it was not owing at the time to any adventitious agencies, to any powerful patronage, to any social eminence, or to any party partiality, so it has not diminished since his decease. Heralded by no venal advocates, his works became at once popular by their intrinsic merits. As Standfast says, "The genius, the scholar, the critic, the devout man, and the man of the world, each found in the works of Cowper something to excite their admiration, something congenial with their habits and feelings, something which taste readily selected and judgment decidedly confirmed." "It is impossible," says Cunningham, "to describe the poetry of Cowper better than by saying that it treats in a masterly manner all that affects us here or influences us hereafter, that it pleads the cause of the poor and the desolate in the presence of the rich, admonishes the rich of their duty to their country, their cotters, and their God; takes the senate to task, shakes the scourge of enduring verse over the pulpit, holds a mirror before the profligacy of cities, till they shudder at their own shadow, and exhibits to the hills and dales of the country an image of the follies of their sons and daughters." Cowper's works, as J. Montgomery says, have proved how false the statement so often made is "that religion can neither be adorned by poetry nor poetry ennobled by religion." All attempts, however, that have been made by others or that we have made to analyse and describe the genius and character of Cowper sink into feebleness when compared with the glowing, concise, and exquisite lines in which his characteristics are portrayed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning in her poem called "Cowper's Grave." In the three verses that we cite she epitomises with all the skill of her vigorous imaginative genius, details which many pages of prose might have failed to elucidate as clearly. "O poets, from a maniac's tongue was heard the deathless singing, O Christians, at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging, O men, this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace, and died while ye were smiling. "And now what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, And how when one by one sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, "He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down to meeker adoration, Named softly as the household name of one whom God hath taken." The Fourth Book, known as "The Winter's Evening," of "The Task," is probably the highest effort of Cowper's genius, and to cite any other less finished verses from his works as an example of his style is hardly fair to his merits as a poet. The descriptions in that book of the arrival of the country post,-of the varied contents of the newspapers that he brings,-of the domestic pleasures of a winter evening,—of the meditation of the solitary at twilight,―of the amusements of towns,—of the fall of snow,—of the waggoner, the poor peasant family, the midnight thief and the country lass, of the country magistrate, the county militia, and the borough corporations,—of the village inn, and of the rustic simplicity of country life, all these are executed in the highest style of poetic art, and are imbued throughout with a lofty Christian spirit and an elevated moral tone, which the greater number of descriptive poems that aim at being didactic are entirely destitute of. The blank verse of Cowper, moreover, has a special charm of its own. At times it reaches the grandeur and eloquence of Milton, while it is free from his artificiality and involved classical constructions. At other times it attains to the ease and naturalness of Thompson, while it is not disfigured by any of his carelessness of diction that marks "The Seasons." Cowper's style in fact is unique. It is eminently simple, vigorous, and dignified, and at times when the poet rises to the height of his great argument it bursts forth into a strain of lofty and sublime eloquence about heavenly themes which is not to be surpassed by any passage in Paradise Lost. |