THE POETRY OF WILLIAM COWPER.

COWPER is one of the few poets who at once attained speedy popularity, and secured permanent power. His "Task," we have seen, arose instantly to fame, and his writings, we believe, are still as much read and relished as ever they were. No succeeding splendours of genius-no revolutions in tasteno importations of poetry from abroad-and no new schools of it at home-have been able to lessen the reputation of this true poet. Comet after comet has swept over the literary sky; constellation after constellation of genius has arisen; and still the sweet, large, solitary star of Cowper burns brightly in the firmament, and woos many an eye for which more flaring and gorgeous orbs have little charms. Not only so, but almost all readers admire and love his poetry. There are many who utterly loathe Byron. There are many who yawn over Wordsworth, and with "sputt'ring nose" reject Shelley. But few or none, even among those who may prefer other writers, but have a nook in their hearts to spare for the strong yet sweet singer of Olney, as well as a tear to drop over his matchless sorrows. We propose, in the following paper, inquiring into the causes of this universal popularity; and these, we think, will be found the following:-1st, Cowper's poetry is closely identified with his personal character and history, yet free from egotism. 2dly, It is true to nature, and intensely simple. 3dly, It combines strong sense with genuine bardic afflatus, with wit, humour, and sarcastic power. 4thly,

It is in a high degree healthy. 5thly, It is distinctly original. 6thly, It is unspeakably sincere-a "true thing"-full of earnest purpose. And, 7thly, It is steeped in piety-a piety evangelical, but without cant-stern, but merciful-awful in its holiness, but tender in its love. These, we think, are the main merits of Cowper's poetry: of its faults we shall speak afterwards.

1st, His poetry is closely identified with his personal character and history. Whenever the personal character of an author is interesting, even though it be evil-whenever his history is peculiar, even although it be painful—it adds great supplementary interest to his works, and, as it were, binds up a portrait of his face along with his writings. What a wild charm does the romantic history of a Byron or a Shelley give to their poetry, and how eagerly do we read those passages in their writings in which they betray their sorrows, embalm the memory of their joys, or recount the stranger incidents in their lives! And how keenly do we often lament that we know so little of the story of Homer and Shakspeare, which, had it been more fully known, might have cast light upon many parts of their works which are now obscure, and enabled us to unite love for their persons with boundless admiration for their genius! In Cowper's poems, we never long lose sight of the author. At every turning of the page we encounter the amiable, heart-broken recluse, with his large, timid, harelike eyes, his throbbing, feverish forehead, his anxious, startled looks and attitudes-here mending his bird-cages, there feeding his tame leverets-here poring over Homer, and there lingering above his flowers-now reading the newspapers just arrived, beside the hissing, bubbling urn and a fair teamaker, and now plodding through the thick snows of the winter noon-now laughing at the humours of Olney, and now, with prophetic rage and solemn energy, inditing the last lines of "Expostulation "-now revelling in short-lived gaiety and mirth, as he listens to the vivacious talk and delightful anecdotage of Lady Austen, and now coiled up in the profoundest torpor of dejection, like a frozen snake in a cave, shrunk and shrouded in absolute despair, under his dream that

a power mightier and worse than even the fallen angels, Ahrimanes himself, is the lord of him, body and soul (see one of his last letters to Newton). His poetry is his life; and then his betrayals of personal experience in it are so brief and glancing, so free from vanity, and so evidently the unavoidable escapes of his soul, that you never for a moment charge him with egotism or affectation. You so love and sympathize with the poet that you cannot get enough of his history: you read greedily every allusion he makes to himself in his poems, and then recur with insatiable appetite to his Life and Letters for more. Often the character of an author, from its selfishness, or vice, or malignity, casts a shade over his writings you seem reading them in the gloom of an eclipse. But in Cowper it is far otherwise. The honest kind-hearted man and the strong original poet are one; and the darkness of his misery only rests on his pages, like the hallowed hues of an autumnal twilight, adding a diviner beauty to what was beautiful before, and a more spiritual wealth of interest to what was rich already.

2dly, His poetry is true to nature, and intensely simple. He arose in an age which had not entirely recovered from the cold, although brilliant, conventionalisms of Pope. Thomson, Young, and Collins, indeed, had dared to write in a new and natural vein; but, partly owing to the relict influence of Pope's poetry, and partly to the tyrannic sway of Johnson's criticism, none of them had yet risen to their true rank. Of Collins, for instance, Cowper had never heard, till he saw his Life in Johnson; and Thomson's Seasons and Young's Night Thoughts were read greatly in consequence of their subjects, and of their gorgeous extravagance of style, and in spite of their genuine poetic merits. At this crisis a Cowper was needed-and a Cowper was sent. There was needed a man who, to great originality and freshness of mind, and much earnestness of purpose, should unite a certain contempt of conventional reputation, and a resolution of mind supplied if not by hope, by despair. Cowper was exactly such a man. He had a rich vein of natural genius, he had a strong moral end in view, he had an edifying con

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tempt for the established laws of literary etiquette, and he had the resolution of despair. "How should I fear," says Prometheus, "since I am never to die?" "How should I care for the criticism of men," said Cowper, "who am doomed to everlasting destruction by God? Why should a Laocoon, wrestling with divinely-sent serpents, heed the thorns thrust in his foot by an idle boy, or the kicks of a passing ass?" And, on this hint, and with this dauntless resolution, he sate down to write naturally, simply, and boldly-to say exactly what he thought, in precisely the language which his own genius suggested and his own taste approved—to write as if he were the first or were to be the last of authors. His poetry proceeded on the three postulates, "Nature around me, God above me, my own Soul within me;" and for the time all things else were forgotten. He stood up to illustrate the beauties of that nature which he loved with a passion, to proclaim the supremacy of the gospel of that God whom he adored, although it was with trembling and without hope, and to relieve the burden of personal conviction and prophetic impulse which lay on his own soul. Hence the fresh forcefulness of his poetry. Here was a man venturing to look at nature with his own eyes; dashing away the coloured spectacles of the past; solicitous for no words but the words of truth and soberness, and for no effects but such as simplicity and natural power were able to produce, and had before, although at rare intervals, produced, in poetry. His sayings are often distinguished by a daring commonplace. He utters what might seem to others mere truisms, with such a blunt directness, with such an empressement of manner, that they assume the air of, and are in a degree originalities. How differently are the words "Good morning!" pronounced by men of different temperaments and dispositions; how much character may be discovered in the very mode in which they are uttered; and how much more they tell when proceeding from a deep chest, and spoken in fresh, cheerful, ringing tones! And it is precisely the same with what are called commonplaces. In the mouth of a commonplace man they are trite and dull to the last degree; in the mouth of a