Part 4 (1/2)

The task was not quite finished when the influence which had inspired it ithdrawn A the little mysteries and scandals of literary history is the rupture between Cowper and Lady Austen Soon after the commencement of their friendshi+p 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 h sudden in the commencement

She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the saether At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and, because writing does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence withht intimations of it, that she had conceived displeasure at soh I cannot now recollect it; conscious of none but the ized for the passage in question, and the flaas healed again Our correspondence after this proceeded s had repeated occasion to observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and built such expectations of felicity upon our friendshi+p, as ere sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her that ere hly of us than the subject would warrant, and inti that e embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its realto 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 warave 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 friendshi+p that bid fair to be lasting; being for stability of tereat experience of its folly, but, above all, whose sense of religion and seriousness of reat 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 i 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 ”i, 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 hiratified by it at the time, she had thrown it into the fire

Cowper has hiiven 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, theof the late Sir Robert Austen At first she lived with her sister about a s 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 co that she would feel such a transition into silent retirereeable co continually th obtained of our dining with each other alternately every day, Sundays excepted In order to facilitate our coarden-walls aforesaid, by which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the other, and couldthe town at all; a measure the rather expedient, because the town is aboe On her first settlehbourhood, I made it my own particular business (for at that ti published un my second) to payat eleven Custoan _The Task_, for she was the lady who gave ed in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience ofattendance We had seldo hour was all the ti, and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour was all that I could secure for the purpose But there was no ree had ood 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 as 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 tomen 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 tomen continually in the society of this verywith each other That Lady Austen's behaviour to Mrs Unas in the highest degree affectionate, Cowper has himself assured us Whatever the cause hted for aand was seen no more

Her place, as a companion, was supplied, and more than supplied, by Lady Hesketh, like her a woht and vivacious, but with more sense and stability of character, and who, er of,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 becaed froht again be capable of intercourse with her sunny nature Full of real happiness for Coere her visits to Olney; the announceht And hoas this new rival received by Mrs

Unwin ”There is so,” 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 ard 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 the poor Mrs Unwin to find all the coain 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 ahtest reason for doubting her sincerity; so Mr Scott's coarse theory of the ”toh, as Lady Hesketh was not Lady Austen, roo hypothesis

By Lady Hesketh's care Coas 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, ed to Mr Throckmorton of Weston Hall, hom and Mrs Throckmorton, Cowper had beco It is a proof of his freedom from fanatical bitterness that he was rather drawn to the suffered rude treathbourhood 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, Thu uncertain, and yet falls Full on the destined ear Wide flies the chaff, The rustling straw sends up a fragrantin the noonday bea-s, 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 beco social The Rev John Neas 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 ree which had taken place in the habits of his spiritual children It was answered by her conity of self-respect with a just appreciation of the censor's h he was so succeeded in one great poe 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 norant than most of those who have had the benefit of a classical education, being capable of believing that the Latin elee had coes_ he wrote a frag; it was apparently to have been a survey of the countries in connexion with an i 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 ofpoem 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 co written his fables before hireat charm of these little pieces is their perfect spontaneity Many of theenerally they have the air of being the siay or sad

When Coas 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 flattingof 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 ritten 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 sie measure

A friendshi+p 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 huh 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 sofire with smoke, Obscurity with splendour

Soreen) They sleep secure fro, that bears Your unparticipated cares Un

Courtier and patriot cannot eneous 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 poe Lady_ But of the lyrical depth and passion of the great Revolution poets Cowper is wholly devoid His soul was stirred by no hty, 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-streae The more metaphysical poetry of our time has indeed too er 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 ain, 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 Du to a balladof an artist from a subject hardly fit for art

If the cistern which had supplied _The Task_ was exhausted, the rill of occasional poe as life presented the most trivial object or incident could not fail Why did not Cowper go on writing these charreatest 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 dahich can never be re-distilled His priery is almost equally unpresentable What civilized poet can don the barbarian sufficiently to revel, or seee, 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 barbarises 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, beco for it in the case of Homer but a prose translation Even in prose to find perfect equivalents for soical date of the Hoical date , as the episode of Thersites shows, to the rise of democracy and to its first collision with aristocracy, which Ho in aristocratic halls Psychologically they belong to the ti 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 sae woht of the numbers whom her husband's hands had slain Cowper had studied the Hohly 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 coinal, and had decisively noted the defects which ed 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 coe could never fail hiood taste But ell knohere he will be at his best We turn at once to such passages as the description of Calypso's Isle,

Alighting on Pieria, down he (Herhtly skimmed In form a sea-mew, such as in the bays Tre, dips oft in brine her auise o'er , now, that isle rerove Where dwelt the amber-tressed nymph arrived Found her within A fire on all the hearth Blazed sprightly, and, afar diffused, the scent Of s cheered the happy isle

She, busied at the looolden shuttle, with rove on either side, Alder and poplar, and the redolent branch Wide-spread of cypress, skirted dark the cave Where many a bird of broadest pinion built Secure her nest, the owl, the kite, and daw, Long-tongued frequenters of the sandy shores