The whole scene is so defined, that one longs to see it transferred to painting. He is one of the few poets, who have indulged neither in descriptions nor acknowledgments of the passion of love; but there is no poet, who has given us a finer conception of the amenity of female influence. Of all the verses that have been ever devoted to the subject of domestic happiness, those in his winter evening, at the opening of the fourth book of the Task, are perhaps the most beautiful. In perusing that scene of "intimate delights," "fireside enjoyments," and "home-born happiness," we seem to recover a part of the forgotten value of existence, when we recognize the means of its blessedness so widely dispensed, and so cheaply attainable, and find them susceptible of description at once so enchanting and so faithful. Though the scenes of "The Task" are laid in retirement, the poem affords an amusing perspective of human affairs. Remote as the poet was from the stir of the great Babel, from the "confusæ sonus urbis et illætabile murmur," he glances at most of the subjects of public interest, which engaged the attention of his contemporaries. On those subjects, it is but faint praise to say, that he espoused the side of justice and humanity. Abundance of mediocrity of talent is to be found on the same side, rather injuring than promoting the cause, by its officious declamation. But nothing can be farther from the stale common-place and cuckooism of sentiment, than the philanthropic eloquence of Cowper-he speaks "like one having authority." Society is his debtor. 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 in the pages of Cowper, exposed as a being degraded by giving stripes and tasks to his fellow creature. 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. I should have ventured to offer a few remarks on the shorter poems of Cowper, as well as on his translation of Homer, if I had not been fearful, not only of trespassing on the reader's patience, but on the boundaries which I have been obliged to prescribe to myself, in the length of these notices. There are many zealous admirers of the poet, who will possibly refuse all quarter to the observations on his defects, which I have freely made; but there are few, who have read him, I conceive, who have been so slightly delighted as to think I have over-rated his descriptions of external nature, his transcripts of human manners, or his powers as a moral poet, of inculcating those truths and affections which make the heart feel itself better and more happy. FROM THE TASK. BOOK I. Colonnades commended-Alcove, and the view from it-The Wilderness-The Grove-The Thresher-The necessity and benefits of Exercise. Nor distant far, a length of colonnade Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast) Disfigures earth: and, plotting in the dark, The summit gain'd, behold the proud alcove, Vocif'rous, and impatient of delay. Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet Hence the declivity is sharp and short, All summer long, which winter fills again. Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys. |