CHAPTER XII.

"SISTER ANNE;" OR, THE WRITING OF

HIS FIRST VOLUME.

(December, 1780-February, 1782.)

77. "The Progress of Error," "Truth,” and "Table Talk."-January and February, 1781.

P

ERCEIVING that the occupation of writing

pleased him, Mrs. Unwin encouraged it. Newton's praise of "Anti-Thelyphthora," too, though it was misplaced, had considerable influence in inciting Cowper to make further use of his pen. And so it came about that he, who, for want of a better occupation, had mended kitchen windows, drawn mountains and dabchicks, and grown cantaloupes, found from that day forward he had enough to do. The first intimation we have of what he was about is in the letter to Newton, dated December 21, 1780. "It will," he says, "not be long, perhaps, before you will receive a poem called 'The Progress of Error.' That will be succeeded by another, in due time, called 'Truth.' Don't be alarmed. I ride Pegasus with

a curb. He will never run away with me again. I have even convinced Mrs. Unwin that I can manage him, and make him stop when I please."

From this it may be gathered that though Newton had praised Cowper's former poem, the lengths the writer had gone had somewhat alarmed him. There was need, however, for no further fear. Henceforward Pegasus would be managed better.

"The Progress of Error" was finished in January, and Cowper's neighbour, Mr. Raban, being under the necessity of visiting London, undertook to carry the poem to the Rev. John Newton. No sooner had the poem departed, however, than Cowper began to feel uneasy, for he knew Mr. Raban "to be that sort of genius, which, being much busied in making excursions of the imaginary kind, is not always present to its own immediate concerns, much less to those of others; and wished the poem had been entrusted to a less volatile person."" The important missive, however, arrived safely at its destination. "I am glad," says Cowper, "that "The Progress of Error' did not err in its progress, as I feared it had, and that it has reached you safe; and still more pleased that it has met with your approbation, for had it not, I should have wished it had miscarried."

On Raban's return, Cowper was of course all eagerness to know how his friend Newton was going on, and all about him; but, provokingly enough, though "engineered with question after question," the reticent Mr. Raban had next to nothing to tell. We are allowed to picture this worthy seated in Cowper's parlour, with legs stretched out at full length, crossed feet, and folded

arms, his head reclining upon his shoulder, as he is elsewhere described, and answering Cowper's eager questions with a yawn and a monosyllable. "He told us, indeed,” says Cowper," that some invisible agent supplied you every Sunday with a coach, which we were pleased with hearing; and this, I think, was the sum total of his information."

He

In "The Progress of Error" Cowper satirizes, among other things, inordinate love of the chase, and the fashionable education of the day, and inveighs against gambling, drinking, gluttony, and other vices. makes another and a last attack on his cousin, Martin Madan, whom he dubs "The Speculatist," and gibbets Lord Chesterfield (Petronius) as a foe to goodness and a corrupter of youth. The "quavering and semiquavering" Occiduus, who falls under his displeasure, was probably a clergyman near Olney, and not Charles Wesley, as is generally supposed—at least, so says Squire Mansel of Lathbury (near Olney), contemporary of Cowper's, who annotated a copy of his poems. That Occiduus was an acquaintance of Cowper's is clear from the letter to Newton, dated September 9, 1781.

In drawing the picture of the "cassocked huntsman there is little doubt that Cowper, though he mentions no particular name, had in his eye the Rev. Mr. Pomfret, rector of the neighbouring village of Emberton, a gentleman so addicted to the chase that it is remembered of him that after the sermon he would lean over the pulpit as the people were withdrawing, and inquire of his churchwarden, "Mr. Hale, where do the hounds meet to-morrow?"

The poem entitled "Truth," the second in order of composition, was likewise rapidly nearing completion. It is already longer than its elder brother," writes Cowper, "and is yet to be lengthened by the addition of perhaps twenty lines." On February 4th it is spoken of as "long since finished." "I wrote that poem," he tells Unwin, June 24, 1781, "on purpose to inculcate the eleemosynary character of the Gospel, as a dispensation of mercy in the most absolute sense of the word, to the exclusion of all claims of merit on the part of the receiver; consequently to set the brand of invalidity upon the plea of works, and to discover, upon scriptural ground, the absurdity of that notion, which includes a solecism in the very terms of it, that man by repentance and good works may deserve the mercy of his Maker." "Table Talk," the third poem, was also as good as completed, and he was engaged in making a fair copy of it for Newton. Now," says he, "I believe I shall hang up my harp for the remainder of the year, and—

"Since Eighty-one has had so much to do,

Postpone what yet is left till Eighty-two.”

On February 18th he writes:

"I send you Table Talk.' It is a medley of many things, some that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise procures me to drop a word in favour of religion. In short, there is some froth, and here and there a bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle

it justly to the name of a certain dish the ladies call a trifle. I did not choose to be more facetious, lest I should consult the taste of my readers at the expense of my own approbation; nor more serious than I have been, lest I should forfeit theirs. A poet in my circumstances has a difficult part to act: one minute obliged to bridle his humour, if he has any; and the next, to clap a spur to the sides of it: now ready to weep from a sense of the importance of his subject, and on a sudden constrained to laugh, lest his gravity should be mistaken for dulness."

Of the great pains he took with his poems Cowper made no secret. "To touch and retouch," he says, "is, though some writers boast of negligence, and others would be ashamed to show their foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, especially in verse. never weary of it myself" (July 2, 1780).

I am

78. "Expostulation."-February, 1781. Notwithstanding his " purpose to shake hands with the Muse," and take his leave of her for the present, Cowper very soon, to use his own expression, had another tête-à-tête with her. The title of his new experiment was "Expostulation." His plan was to give a brief summary of the history of the Jews, the miraculous interpositions in behalf of that people, their great privileges, their abuse of them, and their consequent destruction; and then, by way of comparison, such another display of the favours vouchsafed to this country, the similar ingratitude with which they have