Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

desired to sit, spoke as follows: Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All Saints, in Northampton; brother of Mr. C. the upholsterer. It is customary for the person in my office to annex to a bill of mortality, which he publishes at Christmas, a copy of verses. You would do me a great favour, Sir, if you would furnish me with one.' To this I replied; Mr. C. you have several men of genius in your town, why have you not applied to some of them? There is a namesake of yours in particular, Mr. C. the statuary, who everybody knows is a first-rate maker of verses. He surely is the man, of all the world, for your purpose. 'Alas! Sir,' replied he, 'I have heretofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading, that the people of our town cannot understand him.' I confess I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was almost ready to answer, perhaps, my good friend, they may find me unintelligible for the same reason. But on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston on purpose to implore the assistance of my muse, and on his replying in the affirmative, I felt my mortified vanity a little consoled, and pitying the poor man's distress, which appeared to be considerable, promised to supply him. The wagon has accordingly gone this day to Northampton, loaded in part with my effusions in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs upon individuals, I have written one that serves two hundred persons."

On another occasion, Cowper thus writes to Mr. Hill, adverting to the numerous entreaties he sometimes received for the assistance of his muse. "My muse were a vixen, if she were not always ready to fly in obedience to your commands. But what can be done? I can write nothing in the few hours that remain to me of this day, that will be fit for your purpose and, unless I could despatch what I write by to-morrow's post, it would not reach you in time. I must add, too, that my friend the vicar of the next parish, engaged me the day before yesterday, to furnish him by next Sunday with a hymn to be sung on the occasion of his preaching to the children of the Sunday-school; of which hymn I have not yet produced a syllable. I am somewhat in the case of Lawyer Dowling, in Tom Jones; and could I split myself into as many poets as there are muses, I could find employment for them all."

These numerous engagements, however, did not prevent the poet from recording his sentiments respecting any circumstance that occurred which he thought deserving notice. About this time the following melancholy event happened,

which drew from him lines expressive of his entire abhorrence of cruelty, by whomsoever perpetrated, and whether practised upon man or upon the lower order of animals. John A, Esq., a young gentleman of large fortune, who was passionately fond of cock-fighting, came to his death in the following awful manner. He had a favourite cock, upon which he had won many large sums. The last bet he laid upon it he lost, which so enraged him, that he had the bird tied to a spit, and roasted alive, before a large fire. The screams of the suffering animal were so affecting, that some gentlemen who were present attempted to interfere, which so exasperated Mr. A— that he seized the poker, and with the most furious vehemence declared that he would kill the first man who interfered; but in the midst of his passionate assertions, awful to relate, he fell down dead upon the spot. Cowper was so deeply affected by the circumstance, that he composed a poetic obituary on the occasion, which was inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine for May, 1789, from which we extract the following lines.

"This man (for since the howling wild
Disclaims him, man he must be styled)
Wanted no good below:

Gentle he was, if gentle birth

Could make him such, and he had worth,
If wealth can worth bestow.

[blocks in formation]

The master stormed, the prize was lost,
And, instant, frantic at the cost,

He doom'd his favourite dead.

He seized him fast, and from the pit
Flew to the kitchen, snatch'd the spit,
And, Bring me cord, he cried;
The cord was brought, and at his word,
To that dire implement, the bird,
Alive, and struggling, tied.

The horrid sequel asks a veil,
And all the terrors of the tale

That can be, shall be sunk;
Led by the sufferer's screams aright,
His shock'd companions view the sight,
And him with pity, drunk.

All, suppliant, beg a milder fate,
For the old warrior at the grate :
He, deaf to pity's call,

Whirl'd round him, rapid as a wheel,
His culinary club of steel,

Death menacing on all.

But vengeance hung not far remote,
For while he stretched his clamorous throat,
And heaven and earth defied;
Big with a curse too closely pent,
That struggled vainly for a vent,
He totter'd, reel'd, and died.

'Tis not for us, with rash surmise,
To point the judgment of the skies;
But judgments plain as this,

That, sent for men's instruction, bring
A written label on their wing,

'Tis hard to read amiss."

It was Cowper's intention, after finishing his translation, to publish a third volume of original poems, which was to contain, in addition to a poem he intended to compose, similar to the Task, entitled "The Four Ages," all the minor unpublished productions of his pen. And it is deeply to be regretted that he was not permitted to carry this design into

completion, as the interesting subject of the different stages of man's existence would have been admirably adapted for a complete developement of his poetic talents.

The readiness of Cowper to listen to any alterations in his productions, suggested by his correspondents, ought not to go unrecorded. To the Rev. Walter Bagot he thus writes. "My verses on the Queen's visit to London, either have been printed, or soon will be in the world. The finishing to which you objected I have altered, and have substituted two new stanzas in the room of it. Two others also I have struck out, another friend having objected to them. I think I am a very tractable sort of a poet. Most of my fraternity would as soon shorten the noses of their children because they were said to be too long, as thus dock their compositions, in compliance with the opinions of others. I beg that when my life shall be written hereafter, my authorship's ductibility of temper may not be forgotten."

15*

CHAPTER XIV.

Mrs. Unwin much injured by a fall-Cowper's anxiety respecting her Continues incessantly engaged in his Homer-Expresses regret that it should, in some measure, have suspended his correspondence with his friends-Revises a small volume of poems for children-State of his mind-Receives, as a present from Mrs. Bodham, a portrait of his mother-Feelings on the occasion Interesting description of her character-His affectionate attachment to her—Translates a series of Latin letters from a Dutch minister of the Gospel-Continuance of his depression-Is attacked with a nervous fever-Completion of his translation-Death of Mrs. Newton-His reflections on the occasion Again revises his Homer-His unalterable attachment to religion.

IN the commencement of 1789, a circumstance occurred, which occasioned Cowper considerable uneasiness. Mrs. Unwin, his amiable inmate, and faithful companion, received so severe an injury by a fall, which she got when walking on a gravel path, covered with ice, that she was confined to her room for several weeks. Though she neither dislocated any joint, nor broke any bones, yet such was the effect of the fall, that it crippled her completely, and rendered her as incapable of assisting herself as a child. It happened providentially, that Lady Hesketh was at Weston, when this painful event occurred. By her kind attention to Mrs. Unwin, and her no less tender care over her esteemed relative, lest his mind should be too deeply affected by this afflicting occurrence, she contributed greatly to the recovery of the former, and to the support of the latter. It was, however, several weeks before Mrs. Unwin recovered her strength sufficiently to attend to her domestic concerns. Her progress too, when she began to amend, was so slow, as to be almost imperceptible, and her lengthened affliction, notwithstanding the precautionary measures adopted by herself, and by Lady Hesketh to prevent it, tended, in a great degree, to depress the mind of Cowper.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »