green-hill top," and the "branching elms that overhung the thatch," have disappeared together. On the elevated scite the proprietor has erected a neat farm-house, which for the mere purposes of habitation may be well enough; but they who remember the former cottage must needs sigh! The scenes which are portrayed in such glowing colours in the continuation of the Sofa, are all within the enclosure of Weston Park: the colonnade-the rustic bridge the glen-the alcove-the avenue-the wilderness, and more need not be said in their praise, than that they do not disappoint the expectation raised by the poet's description. Considering that a period of nearly forty years has elapsed since the publication of the Task, I was agreeably surprised to find that the landscape still retains so much of its original character; so many of the prominent features with which the poem has made us familiar. Enough certainly remains to establish its identity. Some allowance of course is to be made for poetical embellishment; and some for the author's attachment to his favourite village; and it is the allowance thus claimed which gives to the place its peculiar charm, the conviction that it is still Cowper's Weston.

we sink

It is impossible to linger in such a scene without connecting with it the whole of his interesting story. The present is forgotten in the past-we turn from his Task to his Life" the poet in the friend." In this grove, where he so often wandered his silent retreat in the hours of affliction-he is still present to the imagination. In a memorable passage in "Retirement" he has supplied (as I have always thought) a melancholy outline of himself.

"Look where he comes,-in this embower'd alcove

"Stand close concealed-and see a statue move

66

Lips busy, and eyes fix'd-foot falling slow,

"Arms hanging idly down, hands clasp'd below-
"Interpret to the marking eye distress,

"Such as its symptoms can alone express !"

Leaving the pleasure-grounds, we entered the village of Weston Underwood, which Cowper has described " as one of the prettiest in England." Unquestionably he has rendered it one of the most interesting. Its tranquil and sequestered situation-its cultured scenery, with which his eye had long been familiar, and the air of comfort which the benevolence of an amiable family then gave (and still continues to give) to the line of humble cottages, must have been powerful recommendations to him. At the extremity of the village, and nearly opposite the church, is Weston Lodge; it is a cheerful and convenient house, and has undergone little alteration since the poet's time; but the garden of which he speaks so frequently, and with so much pleasure, has

been cruelly neglected. To this, his favourite residence, he removed in June, 1786, and remained there during the nine following years. Here he flattered himself that he might find peace in the evening of his life, and, at last, "a safe retreat

"Beneath the turf which he had often trod."

But the fearful malady which had darkened so many of his earlier years-which excluded him from society, and imbittered his solitude which debarred him from the pleasures of this life, and clouded his hopes of the next-pursued its victim to the last. For many a long day, and many a week, his eyes were shut to the beauties of creation around him; and his ears deaf to the melody of rural sounds, and "sweeter music of a virtuous friend." He was denied his last wish: he died remote from the home of his choice, and found a grave among strangers! There were intervals indeed of sunshine in his chequered day; and it is not the least curious among the many interesting phenomena attending aberration of mind, that during these seasons of respite, he was capable of such high intellectual exertion; he was conscious that it was only by continued employment that his mind could be prevented from turning vindictively on itself; and "that way madness lay." It was thus that several of his works were undertaken, not indeed in the twilight of his intellect, but under the sad foreboding of future ill; and to this impression they may probably owe much of the soft and melancholy colouring which it shed over them.

While he was living, he was known to the world only as an author; ambitious indeed of success, but almost alarmed when he had attained it. The voice of fame was wafted to the interesting recluse in his solitude, and dearly was it welcome to him; yet even that powerful stimulus could not draw him from the lowly roof of his retirement. But the veil which concealed him from the public eye has long since been withdrawn: his poems, with which he was immediately identified (for they bear the broad marks of originality and truth) had introduced him favourably to the world; and every one who could appreciate genuine poetry, and English feeling, found that he had an unknown friend in the author of the Task: when his Letters were published, and in that delightful form of auto-biography (if I may so term it) he was permitted to tell his own affecting story; the impression previously made in his favour was powerfully confirmed; the charm was complete. It was then seen that he had been drawing, not from imagination, but nature-that the lovely home scenes with which he had enriched his poem, and delighted his readers, had been realized in the happier moments of his own life-that in the portraits which he had exhibited of the generous

feelings and softer charities, which ameliorate life, he "had drawn from himself," and that while with a trembling hand he "struck the deep sorrows of his lyre," he was suffering "in patient wretchedness at home."

I could not expect, at this late period, to gather any fresh particulars of his life or character, but a natural curiosity led me to the few individuals still living in the neighbourhood who were intimately acquainted with him. To them I am indebted not only for the patient kindness with which they answered a series of minute questions, but for the readiness with which they communicated to me several circumstances connected with the poet's habits, which were probably deemed too trivial to be recorded in Mr. Hayley's work: one of these individuals, a favourite and faithful domestic, lived with Cowper during the whole of his residence at Weston, and now occupies a beautiful cottage in the village. He has built a summer-house in his garden in honour of his lamented master; and he has there inscribed the stanzas which were originally written for the "Moss-house in the Shrubbery." It was in his "favourite village" that Cowper was best known; and, as a necessary consequence, most beloved; the poor found in him a friend; and the afflicted a comforter: his voice was familiar to their cottages in consolation and in prayer; his hand relieved their wants; his own means were indeed very limited; but he was the distributor of more extensive bounty, as the agent of one, in whom benevolence was an hereditary virtue,

"I mean the man, who, when the distant poor
"Need help, denies them nothing but his name."

I have hitherto been speaking of Cowper as a man. I am little qualified to speak of him as a poet, but I shall always consider that the literature of our country is indebted to him for the finest and purest specimen of blank verse produced since the days of Milton. In the reign of Charles II., which has been absurdly called the Augustan age (in compliment, I suppose, to "the thousand gentlemen who wrote with ease") the poetical taste of the country became greatly vitiated; Shakspeare, Spenser, and Milton, the three master-spirits of their times, were "left in dust to rest," and the laureates of wit and ribaldry were worshipped in their stead. And it had been well for the best interests of his people, if the return of that profligate prince had been marked by no other depravation of national taste. In the succeeding reigns, the French school, with its monotonous cadencies and meretricious ornaments, was gradually adopted; and the genius of poetry was nearly sacrificed to the art. A line of demarcation was drawn to distinguish the land of poetry from the

rest of creation; beyond this chimerical boundary," the chartered libertines of nature" were forbidden to stray, and within it they were required to speak in a dialect of their own. It was reserved for Cowper to cast off these inglorious trammels, and "Vestigia Græca

“Ausus deserere, et celebrare domestica facta;"

to re-assert the free rights of his brethren, and to produce a poem emphatically English.

The peculiar beauties of the Task,—the rare union of strength and simplicity, vigour of thought, and tenderness of feeling; the accurate delineation of those pure affections of domestic enjoyments which are endeared to us by all the associations of early life; and the happy transitions from melancholy to playfulness, have been long and generally acknowledged :

66

Hope and fear alternate swayed his breast, "Like light and shade upon a waving field,

Coursing each other, when the flying clouds "Now hide, and now reveal, the sun."

It has been objected as a fault in the Task (for, as Dr. Johnson said of Cooper's Hill, "if it be maliciously inspected it will not be found without its faults") that in the vein of satire which pervades the poem there is more acrimony and bitterness than is reconcileable with the mild and gentle character of its author. Of this he appears to have been in some measure conscious; for when the words of Pliny were applied to his former volume, "Multa tenuiter, multa sublimiter, multa venustè, multa tenerè, multa dulciter, multa cum bile," he readily acknowledged that the latter part was very true. "Yes, yes, there are multa cum bile."-(Hayley's Life, vol. I. p. 381.)-With a mind of feminine purity, and feelings painfully acute, he regarded the folly and miseries of the world from which he had retreated, not as an indifferent spectator, but as one who still felt a brother's sympathy for his kind

"I was born of woman, and drew milk

"As sweet as charity from human breasts :——

And his reproof, "when most severe and mustering all its force,” was breathed in sorrow, rather than in anger.

From a superficial view of this subject, Miss Seward was led to prefer against Cowper the heavy charge of Misanthropy; a charge which requires no comment here; for it stands refuted by the whole tenor of his life; non magna loquimur, sed vivimus. That the fair critic of Litchfield, the professed admirer and imitator of Doctor Darwin, should have found little to commend in the style of Cowper, was natural enough. She had been educated in another school of poetry, and formed her prin

"

ciples of taste on a very different model. The muse of the Task (to borrow an illustration from Goldsmith) is "unadorn'd and plain;" fresh in youth and loveliness, and "secure to please. The Lady we meet in the " Botanic Garden," has repaired her smiles and awakened every grace, at the toilet of art; but alas! there is a charm beyond the reach of art." The period at which that matchless charm (young beauty's transitory flower) begins to fade, the Sylphs have wisely concealed, even from female solicitude; but when it has passed away, the fairest pretenders (and Darwin's muse can rank no higher) shine forth, "in all the glaring impotence of dress!" Considered as a didactic poem, the Task is remarkable for the same earnestness and sincerity, which formed such principal ingredients in the poet's character it is singularly free from that morbid and querulous sentimentality, of which, in our own time, we have had too many specimens. The moral lessons it inculcates, and the warning voice in which it speaks to our feelings and prejudices, may" sound. unmusical in Volscian ears," and doubtless many a gay and gentle reader has thrown aside the book, with the same feeling which Lord Peterborough expressed, on leaving the venerable Archbishop of Cambray, "Fenelon is a delicious creature, but I was obliged to force myself from him, as soon as I possibly could, else he would have made me pious !" If mere popularity had been the object of Cowper's ambition, the highest Guerdon he proposed to himself, assuredly he would have adopted a different course: he would have spoken of his country with the enthusiasm of one who loved her, not only in spite of her faults ("Perfida, sed quamvis perfida, cara tamen,") but for those very faults! He would have joined the chorus of Optimists in proclaiming the virtues and triumphs of his age: he would have palliated the vices he could not defend, and flattered the prevailing foibles of the day. It is enough to say that he was actuated by nobler motives; and if (under their influence) he viewed, with impatience, the busy triflers who waste life, and with severity, the corrupt sycophants who disgraced his country, let those motives plead his apology.

But in order to form a just estimate of his character on this point, something must be conceded to his religious, and something to his political, opinions. Inheriting the politics of his family, he was a constitutional Whig; and I trust the day is yet distant when to have adopted the principles of Lord Chancellor Cowper, ❝ clarum et venerabile nomen," will be deemed a reproach to any man. Of his religion this is not the place to speak; if it be thought that the principles of which he was the eloquent advocate are too high for us," let it be remembered that they were practically illustrated by him; he lived up to the standard which VOL. III. PART I.

66

E