There is scarcely a poet of any note in the annals of
literature who has not expressed his enthusiastic admiration for the rural life. Yet
a very small proportion of our bards have resided in the country, and, with few
exceptions, we can scarcely name a set of men less apparently satisfied with
seclusion, or whose practice has appeared more decidedly at variance with profession.
We do not find fault with them for their conformity to their real notions of
enjoyment; on the contrary, we think the world has gained much by it. But there is
no
occasion for any deception in the matter, and accordingly we find it is daily
becoming a more simple and natural thing, if we may so speak, to be a poet. With all
our admiration for departed genius, and, in individual instances, for its vast
attainments, we cannot be insensible to this great charm of our modern poetry. We
have done with poetical priestcraft. We see in our bards a race of men, not set
apart, like Druids, for holy and solemn purposes, but mingling in our avocations,
giving and collecting sweets from the social as well as from the solitary scene; men
who feel keenly, and imagine promptly; men whom we are little inclined to take for
our guides, "spiritual or temporal," but who nevertheless do sometimes quicken both
body and soul: and while we think ourselves indebted to them for much that makes the
rugged prospect of life look beautiful, we hold that the advantages of our communion
are strictly mutual. Now and then a poetical Pope, or, if it pleases our readers
better, a literary arch-druid, will start up, and plead for the almost-forgotten
supremacy of the bard; but we, meanwhile, like not such extorted homage, and are
better pleased with those wholesome, sweet, and life-cheering strains, which are
evidently the product of minds kept in exercise by constant communion with their
fellows, than with the lonely and mystical musings of the solitary dreamer. The
retired poet is not, generally speaking, an agreeable character. We have no sympathy
with a being who, while pretending to a more than ordinary relish for natural, seems to have little perception of social, beauty. Give us the bard who can bring to our
fire-sides the light and warmth of his genius; who can place in new and beautiful
colours the circumstances of our daily lives; whose heart seems to be touched with
human kindness. With all this, reason and experience
tell us, may be joined a most exuberant imagination and a refined taste. Indeed, it
is remarkable, that poetical genius has generally thriven much better in society than
in solitude. Even our best descriptive poets have seldom been secluded men. Nothing,
it will readily be acknowledged, can be more exquisite than some of Shakespeare's descriptions:
vol. ii. no. viii.m[Page 154]yet he did not spend his days and years in
musing on the world of natural beauty. In accordance with this, we may observe that
all his sweet and refreshing descriptions come in, in the way of digression: he
pauses amid the hurry and business of action, to rest us with Lorenzo and Jessica
in
"the sweet moonlight;" and even while leading us along in the rapid career of
ambition, he brings before our eyes, in lovely contrast, a view of the peaceful
beauties of nature. None but a quick observer could have done this: but a habit of
ready observation is chiefly to be acquired in active life; and hence it is, we
think, that social habits are favourable to the improvement of the poetical
character. It has been said, however, that retirement is desirable, not only or
chiefly as it acquaints the poet with nature, but as it acquaints him with himself.
This is very true; and we perfectly agree with Mr. Wordsworth;—

However, the poet who trusts to meditation upon his own mind alone for improvement,
will, we fear, find himself in the predicament of the religionist, who relies, for
his spiritual progress, on solitariness and self-watching. Both disdain the aliment
upon which mind and heart are fed, and both are in imminent danger of starvation.
Both also are liable to fall into that great error, the darling child of solitude,
an
overweening sense of self-importance, and a contempt of their brethren of mankind.
In
the little poem from which we have above quoted, we find much to censure. The man
who
can thus deliberately set at nought the advantages of communion with his fellows,
who
can remark upon the scandalous, trifling, and unprofitable discourse of some, leaving
us to infer that such, and no better, is to be met with in the world, may find
hearers to whom he can descant, Of personal themes, and such as he loves
best,Matters wherein right voluble he is;³ space between stanzas but can hardly expect to find listening ears, admiring eyes, and applauding
tongues in every circle. We are apt to reckon the religious bigotry of Cowper the worst blemish of the
Task.⁴
That bigotry, however, had in it nothing personal; and we can far better tolerate
the
timid Christian, when we see him shrinking from a world, whose practices he has
learnt to conceive as evil, than we can bear with the man whose assumed superiority
is that of intellect, not of principle. But of all people, the poet, [Page 155]perhaps, has the least excuse for being a dogmatist. "To him all that is
interesting or amiable in human character, all that excites or engages our benevolent
affections: all the truths which make the heart feel better and more happy—all these
supply materials out of which he forms and peoples a world of his own, where no
inconveniences damp our enjoyments, where no shades darken our prospects."⁵ His object is, to catch the
fleeting ideas of grandeur and of beauty, from whatever sources derived, by whatever
objects suggested; to fix them, and embody them for himself, for us, and for ages
to
come. Perish the criticism that would damp the ardour of his research! and perish
the
odious spirit of sectarianism, that would throw a shade over the glories of poetical
liberty!

We have thus prefaced the few remarks we intend to make upon the poems of Cowper, in order to preclude the idea
that our partialities are, generally, in favour of
retirement as the nurse of poetical talent,—an idea to which our fervent admiration
for the Bard of Weston might possibly
lead. We think the case of Cowper,
however, a peculiar one. From the constitution of his mind it appears that his life
must either have been that which it really was, or a scene of excessive misery. All speculations,
therefore, upon what he might have been under different circumstances, are cruelly
misplaced. We regard him as one whose lot was cast for him without revoke; and we
think of him as a poet who had nothing to do with systems, whose peculiarities were
those of his own mind, and who wrote simply as he felt or imagined. Every one must
allow that in spirit he was far from a dogmatist. His gentle and affectionate heart
taught him the value of those social pleasures from which he felt himself for ever
excluded:—hence there is not the smallest particle of the leaven of selfishness in
his censures of the vices of society; not one word from whence we can reasonably
infer that the poet was retaliating upon the world the wrongs which he had received.
The character of Cowper's mind, though
acute and penetrating, was not, doubtless, very enlarged. He was too timid a
Christian to be a good metaphysician, and has written nothing which it requires any
stretch of the faculties fully to comprehend. In this respect, indeed, he differs
widely from Mr. Wordsworth, who,
though often too mystical for the common run of poetical readers, is far better
acquainted with the human mind. Mr.
Wordsworth, however, when he stoops from his highest and most successful
flights, is sure to affront common readers by being over trite and obvious. Not so
Cowper.
m 2[Page 156] Natural and easy as he is, he is never babyish. The man, the scholar,
and the poet, never are forgotten. We should be at a loss to point out any author
throughout whose volumes we could discern the presence of such perfect and entire
simplicity—yet only in one or two instances does it seem to have led him into details
inconsistent with the dignity of poetry.

A great deal has been said upon a question which we would fain avoid, if remarks upon
Cowper could be written without
touching upon it. It has been thought improper to blend devotional addresses to the
Supreme Being with appeals to the imagination; and poets who have done this are
considered by many as having infringed on the province of fancy, and sinned against
good taste. We perfectly agree with those who only mean to protest against our
implicitly adopting the poet's creed; but, loving and respecting religion ourselves,
we cannot see any thing objectionable in giving her cause all the advantage which
good taste and good scholarship can bring to it. A great many people, doubtless, will
admire such a poet as Cowper for his
piety, who know little about poetry—but where is the harm of this? Such people, if
they are not gifted by nature or education with an understanding capable of
appreciating the highest kinds of poetical merit, are alive to the perception of
beauty of some sort, and seeing religious and moral truths presented before them in
an amiable and striking point of view, they catch a degree of refinement to which
they would otherwise have been strangers. It is no slight merit to have raised and
purified the devotional feelings of numbers, as Cowper has done.

But the Poems of Cowper have often been
accounted melancholy, and melancholy they are to us, who read them with the lively
recollection of the poet's life before us. Yet it is not the fashion of our day to
complain of our bards for indulging in depressing contemplations—many are allowed
to
mourn like Cowper, who know but little
of the hope that, in his darkest hours, kept its station near him, ready to comfort
and cheer every moment which the black fiend of melancholy deigned to spare to her
victim. It has cheered us, many a time, to think that over so dark a life such gleams
of comfort came; that such awful visitations of evil should be interspersed with such
exquisite perceptions of good; that the miseries of this life should be so often
relieved by clear and decisive anticipations of that which is to come. Religion and
nature are infinitely endeared to us while we observe their beneficial influence on
the poet's mind.

In conclusion—to wish Cowper other than
he was, except with regard to his indescribable sufferings, is almost impossible.
But
we do not wish for other Cowpers. That
depression which[Page 157] unfitted him for the world, kept him from the desire of
literary dictation. He stood alone — but his loneliness was not the effect of pride.
For most poets a very different lot is desirable.

E.T.