Слике страница
PDF
ePub
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

THE

LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER

WITH

SELECTIONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE.

SEELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIDAY, FLEET STREET,

AND B. SEELEY, HANOVER STREET,

LONDON. MDCCCLV.

310. m. 109.

LONDON:

Printed by G. BARCLAY, Castle St. Leicester Sq.

PREFACE.

THE selection of the Life of William Cowper, for the opening of the present series, has been suggested, not merely by the popularity of the subject, but also by the fact that such a volume was obviously required. The existing Memoirs of the poet are bulky and expensive. The smaller work of Mr. Taylor has been long out of print, and its republication was hardly to be desired; since, having been written before the appearance of Dr. Southey's Memoir, it is necessarily imperfect, and open to correction in many particulars. Hence the most natural course seemed to be to prepare a new work, rather than to reproduce any of the old ones.

It has been stated in the Prospectus of the present Series, that it is intended in general to give the most

original and authentic memoir that in each case is found to exist. In commencing, therefore, in the present instance, with a new compilation, it is obviously expedient to point out the necessity which has existed for thus departing from what is intended to be the general rule.

In the present case, the Private Memoir, written by Cowper himself, of the first thirty-four years of his life, is the only document which can be called authentic ; and which has some sort of completeness. It is given entire in the Appendix to the present volume. But this narrative includes only the first and most barren portion of the poet's life.

The other biographies of Cowper which exist could neither be copied nor abridged. The two principal writers, Hayley and Southey, were each wholly unfit for the task, from their want of appreciation of the poet's views and feelings. We do not usually look to an ardent Churchman as the fittest person to delineate the character of an eminent Dissenter. A Jesuit, however able, would not be the right person to frame a memoir of an eminent Jansenist, nor a Scotch Presbyterian to give the history of Arch

« ПретходнаНастави »