William Cowper- Collected Poetical Works

by William Cowper

  CHAPTER VI. SHORT POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.

  The task was not quite finished when the influence which had inspired it was withdrawn. Among the little mysteries and scandals of literary history is the rupture between Cowper and Lady Austen. Soon after the commencement of their friendship there had been a “fracas,” of which Cowper gives an account in a letter to William Unwin. “My letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion, that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne Street and us. Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement. She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the same house and educated together. At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and, because writing does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me. This sort of intercourse had not been long maintained before I discovered, by some slight intimations of it, that she had conceived displeasure at somewhat I had written, though I cannot now recollect it; conscious of none but the most upright, inoffensive intentions, I yet apologized for the passage in question, and the flaw was healed again. Our correspondence after this proceeded smoothly for a considerable time, but at length, having had repeated occasion to observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and built such expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her that we were mortal, to recommend her not to think more highly of us than the subject would warrant, and intimating that when we embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its real merits, we make it an idol, and have nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes, and that we shall derive nothing from it but a painful conviction of our error. Your mother heard me read the letter, she read it herself, and honoured it with her warm approbation. But it gave mortal offence; it received, indeed, an answer, but such an one as I could by no means reply to; and there ended (for it was impossible it should ever be renewed) a friendship that bid fair to be lasting; being formed with a woman whose seeming stability of temper, whose knowledge of the world and great experience of its folly, but, above all, whose sense of religion and seriousness of mind (for with all that gaiety she is a great thinker) induced us both, in spite of that cautious reserve that marked our characters, to trust her, to love and value her, and to open our hearts for her reception. It may be necessary to add that by her own desire, I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and she to me as my sister. Ceu fumus in auras.” It is impossible to read this without suspecting that there was more of “romance” on one side, than there was either of romance or of consciousness of the situation on the other. On that occasion the reconciliation, though “impossible,” took place, the lady sending, by way of olive branch, a pair of ruffles, which it was known she had begun to work before the quarrel. The second rupture was final. Hayley, who treats the matter with sad solemnity, tells us that Cowper’s letter of farewell to Lady Austen, as she assured him herself, was admirable, though unluckily, not being gratified by it at the time, she had thrown it into the fire. Cowper has himself given us, in a letter to Lady Hesketh, with reference to the final rupture, a version of the whole affair:— “There came a lady into this country, by name and title Lady Austen, the widow of the late Sir Robert Austen. At first she lived with her sister about a mile from Olney; but in a few weeks took lodgings at the vicarage here. Between the vicarage and the back of our house are interposed our garden, an orchard, and the garden belonging to the vicarage. She had lived much in France, was very sensible, and had infinite vivacity. She took a great liking to us, and we to her. She had been used to a great deal of company, and we, fearing that she would feel such a transition into silent retirement irksome, contrived to give her our agreeable company often. Becoming continually more and more intimate, a practice at length obtained of our dining with each other alternately every day, Sundays excepted. In order to facilitate our communication, we made doors in the two garden-walls aforesaid, by which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the other, and could meet when we pleased without entering the town at all; a measure the rather expedient, because the town is abominably dirty, and she kept no carriage. On her first settlement in our neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that time I was not employed in writing, having published my first volume and not begun my second) to pay my devoirs to her ladyship every morning at eleven. Customs very soon became laws. I began The Task, for she was the lady who gave me the Sofa for a subject. Being once engaged in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my morning attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till ten; and the intervening hour was all the time I could find in the whole day for writing, and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour was all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was no remedy. Long usage had made that which was at first optional a point of good manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect The Task to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But she had ill-health, and before I had quite finished the work was obliged to repair to Bristol.” Evidently this was not the whole account of the matter, or there would have been no need for a formal letter of farewell. We are very sorry to find the revered Mr. Alexander Knox saying, in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb, that he had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very artful woman. On the other hand, the unsentimental Mr. Scott is reported to have said, “Who can be surprised that two women should be continually in the society of one man and quarrel, sooner or later, with each other?” Considering what Mrs. Unwin had been to Cowper, and what he had been to her, a little jealousy on her part would not have been highly criminal. But, as Southey observes, we shall soon see two women continually in the society of this very man without quarrelling with each other. That Lady Austen’s behaviour to Mrs. Unwin was in the highest degree affectionate, Cowper has himself assured us. Whatever the cause may have been, this bird of paradise, having alighted for a moment in Olney, took wing and was seen no more.

  Her place, as a companion, was supplied, and more than supplied, by Lady Hesketh, like her a woman of the world, and almost as bright and vivacious, but with more sense and stability of character, and who, moreover, could be treated as a sister without any danger of, misunderstanding. The renewal of the intercourse between Cowper and the merry and affectionate play-fellow of his early days, had been one of the best fruits borne to him by The Task, or perhaps we should rather say by John Gilpin, for on reading that ballad she first became aware that her cousin had emerged from the dark seclusion of his truly Christian happiness, and might again be capable of intercourse with her sunny nature. Full of real happiness for Cowper were her visits to Olney; the announcement of her coming threw him into a trepidation of delight. And how was this new rival received by Mrs. Unwin. “There is something,” says Lady Hesketh in a letter which has been already quoted, “truly affectionate and sincere in Mrs. Unwin’s manner. No one can express more heartily than she does her joy to have me at Olney; and as this must be for his sake it is an additional proof of her regard and esteem for him.” She could even cheerfully yield precedence in trifles, which is the greatest trial of all. “Our friend,” says Lady Hesketh, “delights in a large table and a large chair. There are two of the latter comforts in my parlour. I am sorry to say that he and I always spread ourselves out in them, leaving poor Mrs. Unwin to find all the comfort she can in a small one, half as high again as ours, and considerably harder than marble. However, she protests it is what she likes, that she prefers a high chair to a low one, and a hard to a soft one; and I hope she is sincere; indeed, I am persuaded she is.” She never gave the slightest reason for doubting her sincerity; so Mr. Scott’s coarse theory of the “two women” falls to the ground, though, as Lady Hesketh was not Lady Austen, room is still left for the more delicate and interesting hyp
othesis.

  By Lady Hesketh’s care Cowper was at last taken out of the “well” at Olney and transferred with his partner to a house at Weston, a place in the neighbourhood, but on higher ground, more cheerful, and in better air. The house at Weston belonged to Mr. Throckmorton of Weston Hall, with whom and Mrs. Throckmorton, Cowper had become so intimate that they were already his Mr. and Mrs. Frog. It is a proof of his freedom from fanatical bitterness that he was rather drawn to them by their being Roman Catholics, and having suffered rude treatment from the Protestant boors of the neighbourhood. Weston Hall had its grounds, with the colonnade of chestnuts, the “sportive light” of which still “dances” on the pages of The Task; with the Wilderness, —

  Whose well-rolled walks,

  With curvature of slow and easy sweep,

  Deception innocent, give ample space

  To narrow bounds —

  with the Grove, —

  Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms

  We may discern the thresher at his task,

  Thump after thump resounds the constant flail

  That seems to swing uncertain, and yet falls

  Full on the destined ear. Wide flies the chaff,

  The rustling straw sends up a fragrant mist

  Of atoms, sparkling in the noonday beam.

  A pretty little vignette, which the threshing-machine has now made antique. There were ramblings, picnics, and little dinner-parties. Lady Hesketh kept a carriage. Gayhurst, the seat of Mr. Wright, was visited as well as Weston Hall; the life of the lonely pair was fast becoming social. The Rev. John Newton was absent in the flesh, but he was present in the spirit, thanks to the tattle of Olney. To show that he was, he addressed to Mrs. Unwin a letter of remonstrance on the serious change which had taken place in the habits of his spiritual children. It was answered by her companion, who in repelling the censure mingles the dignity of self-respect with a just appreciation of the censor’s motives, in a style which showed that although he was sometimes mad, he was not a fool.

  Having succeeded in one great poem, Cowper thought of writing another, and several subjects were started — The Mediterranean, The Four Ages of Man, Yardley Oak. The Mediterranean would not have suited him well if it was to be treated historically, for of history he was even more ignorant than most of those who have had the benefit of a classical education, being capable of believing that the Latin element of our language had come in with the Roman conquest. Of the Four Ages he wrote a fragment. Of Yardley Oak he wrote the opening; it was apparently to have been a survey of the countries in connexion with an immemorial oak which stood in a neighbouring chace. But he was forced to say that the mind of man was not a fountain but a cistern, and his was a broken one. He had expended his stock of materials for a long poem in The Task.

  These, the sunniest days of Cowper’s life, however, gave birth to many of those short poems which are perhaps his best, certainly his most popular works, and which will probably keep his name alive when The Task is read only in extracts. The Loss of the Royal George, The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk, The Poplar Field, The Shrubbery, the Lines on a Young Lady, and those To Mary, will hold their places for ever in the treasury of English Lyrics. In its humble way The Needless Alarm is one of the most perfect of human compositions. Cowper had reason to complain of Aesop for having written his fables before him. One great charm of these little pieces is their perfect spontaneity. Many of them were never published, and generally they have the air of being the simple effusions of the moment, gay or sad. When Cowper was in good spirits his joy, intensified by sensibility and past suffering, played like a fountain of light on all the little incidents of his quiet life. An ink-glass, a flatting mill, a halibut served up for dinner, the killing of a snake in the garden, the arrival of a friend wet after a Journey, a cat shut up in a drawer, sufficed to elicit a little jet of poetical delight, the highest and brightest jet of all being John Gilpin. Lady Austen’s voice and touch still faintly live in two or three pieces which were written for her harpsichord. Some of the short poems on the other hand are poured from the darker urn, and the finest of them all is the saddest. There is no need of illustrations unless it be to call attention to a secondary quality less noticed, than those of more importance. That which used to be specially called “wit,” the faculty of ingenious and unexpected combination, such as is shown in the similes of Hudibras, was possessed by Cowper in large measure.

  A friendship that in frequent fits

  Of controversial rage emits

  The sparks of disputation,

  Like hand-in-hand insurance plates,

  Most unavoidably creates

  The thought of conflagration.

  Some fickle creatures boast a soul

  True as a needle to the pole,

  Their humour yet so various —

  They manifest their whole life through

  The needle’s deviations too,

  Their love is so precarious.

  The great and small but rarely meet

  On terms of amity complete;

  Plebeians must surrender,

  And yield so much to noble folk,

  It is combining fire with smoke,

  Obscurity with splendour.

  Some are so placid and serene

  (As Irish bogs are always green)

  They sleep secure from waking;

  And are indeed a bog, that bears

  Your unparticipated cares

  Unmoved and without quaking.

  Courtier and patriot cannot mix

  Their heterogeneous politics

  Without an effervescence,

  Like that of salts with lemon juice,

  Which does not yet like that produce

  A friendly coalescence.

  Faint presages of Byron are heard in such a poem as The Shrubbery, and of Wordsworth in such a poem as that To a Young Lady. But of the lyrical depth and passion of the great Revolution poets Cowper is wholly devoid. His soul was stirred by no movement so mighty, if it were even capable of the impulse. Tenderness he has, and pathos as well as playfulness; he has unfailing grace and ease; he has clearness like that of a trout-stream. Fashions, even our fashions, change. The more metaphysical poetry of our time has indeed too much in it, besides the metaphysics, to be in any danger of being ever laid on the shelf with the once admired conceits of Cowley; yet it may one day in part lose, while the easier and more limpid kind of poetry may in part regain, its charm.

  The opponents of the Slave Trade tried to enlist this winning voice in the service of their cause. Cowper disliked the task, but he wrote two or three anti-Slave-Trade ballads. The Slave Trader in the Dumps, with its ghastly array of horrors dancing a jig to a ballad metre, justifies the shrinking of an artist from a subject hardly fit for art.

  If the cistern which had supplied The Task was exhausted, the rill of occasional poems still ran freely, fed by a spring which, so long as life presented the most trivial object or incident could not fail. Why did not Cowper go on writing these charming pieces which he evidently produced with the greatest facility? Instead of this, he took, under an evil star, to translating Homer. The translation of Homer into verse is the Polar Expedition of literature, always failing, yet still desperately renewed. Homer defies modern reproduction. His primeval simplicity is a dew of the dawn which can never be re-distilled. His primeval savagery is almost equally unpresentable. What civilized poet can don the barbarian sufficiently to revel, or seem to revel, in the ghastly details of carnage, in hideous wounds described with surgical gusto, in the butchery of captives in cold blood, or even in those particulars of the shambles and the spit which to the troubadour of barbarism seem as delightful as the images of the harvest and the vintage? Poetry can be translated into poetry only by taking up the ideas of the original into the mind of the translator, which is very difficult when the translator and the original are separated by a gulf of thought and feeling, and when the gulf is very wide, becomes impossible. There is nothing for it in the c
ase of Homer but a prose translation. Even in prose to find perfect equivalents for some of the Homeric phrases is not easy. Whatever the chronological date of the Homeric poems may be, their political and psychological date may be pretty well fixed. Politically they belong, as the episode of Thersites shows, to the rise of democracy and to its first collision with aristocracy, which Homer regards with the feelings of a bard who sang in aristocratic halls. Psychologically they belong to the time when in ideas and language, the moral was just disengaging itself from the physical. In the wail of Andromache for instance, adinon epos, which Pope improves into “sadly dear,” and Cowper, with better taste at all events, renders “precious,” is really semi-physical, and scarcely capable of exact translation. It belongs to an unreproducible past, like the fierce joy which, in the same wail, bursts from the savage woman in the midst of her desolation at the thought of the numbers whom her husband’s hands had slain. Cowper had studied the Homeric poems thoroughly in his youth, he knew them so well that he was able to translate them, not very incorrectly with only the help of a Clavis; he understood their peculiar qualities as well as it was possible for a reader without the historic sense to do; he had compared Pope’s translation carefully with the original, and had decisively noted the defects which make it not a version of Homer, but a periwigged epic of the Augustan age. In his own translation he avoids Pope’s faults, and he preserves at least the dignity of the original, while his command of language could never fail him, nor could he ever lack the guidance of good taste. But we well know where he will be at his best. We turn at once to such passages as the description of Calypso’s Isle,