208 SPORTIVENESS. there is a God, and that a life like yours can not be according to His will.'" Some of Cowper's letters to Newton, as well as his other correspondents, are exquisitely sportive. His sense of the ludicrous was keen and delicate, and no man that ever wrote English was happier in his descriptions of humorous and ridiculous scenes and encounters. We may refer, for illustration in his prose, to his letter to Newton, giving an account of the beadle thrashing the thief, the constable the beadle, and the lady the constable; a story which in rhyme would have made a rival of "John Gilpin," and would give some original Cruikshanks in engraving a subject of admirable humor. His description of the life of an Antediluvian, and also of the chase that took place in Olney on the escape of his tame hare, and of the donkey that ran away with the market-woman; as also his letters in the form of prose, but in swift galloping metre, are happy illustrations of his native propensity and power. Perhaps the very drollest letters in the whole of his private correspondence as well as the darkest and gloomiest, are to Newton; sufficiently refuting the ill-natured insinuation which we have already had occasion to notice on the part of Southey, that it seemed as if Cowper always went to his correspondence with Newton as if he were a sinner going to the confessional, or toiling under a task. There are numerous inci HUMOROUS LETTERS. 209 dental notices, as well as whole epistles, that demonstrate how very unjust any intimation of this nature must have been ; unjust to Cowper himself as well as Newton, and conveying an idea of constraint, if not dissimulation, where there was never any thing but openness and freedom. For example, Cowper sent to Newton, in one of his letters, the following lines, entitled Mary and John: If John marries Mary, and Mary alone, Tis a very good match between Mary and John. Should John wed a score, oh the claws and the scratches! In another letter, November 27, 1781, he refers to this trifle, and says to Newton, "I never wrote a copy of Mary and John' in my life, except that which I sent to you. It was one of those bagatelles which sometimes spring up like mushrooms in my imagination, either while I am writing, or just before I begin. I sent it to you, because to you I send any thing that I think may raise a smile, but should never have thought of multiplying the impression." Now let us take, as additional instances of the familiar and playful attitude of his mind in his correspondence with Newton, first, an amusing letter, which beautifully sets forth his motive and manner in writing his admirable poem "On Charity ;' and second, as an example of the spontaneous ease 210 LETTERS то NEWTON. with which his thoughts flowed in the particular form of versification in which that poem was cast, his poetical letter to Mrs. Newton, thanking her for a present of oysters. Both these epistles were in the same year, 1781. ( "My very dear friend, I am going to send, what when you have read, you may scratch your head, and say I suppose, there's nobody knows, whether what I have got, be verse or not ;-by the tune and the time, it ought to be rhyme; but if it be, did ever you see, of late or of yore, such a ditty before? "I have writ Charity,' not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good; and if the 'Reviewer' should say to be sure, the gentleman's muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace, and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and hoidening play, of the modern day; and though she assume a borrowed plume, and now and then wear a tittering air, 'tis only her plan, to catch if she can, the giddy and gay, as they go that way, by a production of a new construction; she has baited her trap, in the hope to snap all that may come, with a sugar-plum. His opinion in this will not be amiss; 'tis what I intend, my principal end; and if I succeed, and folks should read, till a few are brought to a serious thought, I shall think I am paid for all I have |