|  William
Cowper (1731 – 1800) was in many ways a remarkable poet, although
his work is seldom noticed these days apart from The
Diverting History of John Gilpin, which appeared in our
column for November 18th, 2001. It begins:
John Gilpin
was a citizen
Of credit and renown,
A trainband captain eke was he
Of famous London town.
John Gilpin’s
spouse said to her dear:
Though wedded we have been
These twice ten tedious years, yet we
No holiday have seen.
To-morrow
is our wedding-day,
And we will then repair
Unto the Bell at Edmonton
All in a chaise and pair.
My sister,
and my sister’s child,
Myself, and children three,
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride
On horseback after we.
He soon
replied, I do admire
Of womankind but one,
And you are she, my dearest dear,
Therefore it shall be done.
However,
he was much more important in the history of English poetry than
this simple example would suggest. He was perhaps the chief architect
of a major change in English poetry, leading the way in freeing
English verse of the artificiality of Pope’s (1668 – 1744) classicism,
towards the romantic voices of Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) and Coleridge
(1772 – 1834).
I think I
should first tell you how his name is pronounced. The
Cowper and Newton Museum has a website that includes some
interesting details of the contents of the museum, and an extensive
biography, which I will be making use of (together with some of
my usual sources) in this piece. One of the items in the museum
on display in the Hall is a letter from Charles Longuett-Higgins,
son of Cowper's friend, which settles this question quite conclusively:
“I can
with certainty inform you that the Poet himself, and all his
immediate relatives and friends, used to pronounce his name
as if it was spelt Cooper - that is without the w.
My dear
Father and grandfather, who were among his most intimate friends,
the whole time of his living at Weston Underwood and Olney,
knew well this to have been the case. I have myself heard my
father say so very many times”.
 Cowper
was the fourth child of Rev. John Cowper, Chaplain to George II,
and Rector of Great Berkhamsted. John Cowper came from a Hertfordshire
family and was son of Judge Spencer Cowper. In 1728 he married
Ann Donne: William’s three older siblings died young, and Ann
died in childbirth when his younger brother John was born, in
1737. In 1741, William’s father married Rebecca Marryat, although
he died later that same year.
John was
described as an “undemonstrative parent” of his surviving children,
William and John. Prior to her death Ann appears to have been
a “sensitive and affectionate parent”. Her death was the strongest
of William’s childhood memories; in 1790 he wrote a poem entitled
On Receipt of my Mother’s Picture after he received the
picture from his cousin, Ann Bodham:
O that
those lips had language! Life has pass’d
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails, else how distinct they say,
“Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!”
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalize,
The art that baffles Time’s tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
O welcome guest, though unexpected here:
Who bidst me honour with an artless song,
Affectionate, a mother lost so long.
On the death
of his mother, he was sent to Dr Pittman's Boarding School where
he was severely bullied for two years until his persecutor was
expelled. This period is described in the Introduction to The
Complete Poetical Works of William Cowper, with Life, and Critical
Notice of his Writings. The version I found was published
by Gould and Lincoln, in Boston, in 1855, but I think it was first
published in Edinburgh, Scotland a year or two earlier. After
his death, Cowper’s writings were edited in 15 volumes by Robert
Southey (1774 – 1843) between 1835 and 1837. In addition to his
poetry, he is considered one of the best letter writers in English.
It is possible that the Life in the collection is by
Southey, but the editor is not identified in the Gould and Lincoln
book. However, at the end it says “Edinburgh, June 1, 1853” which
makes it unlikely. Here is what is said about this early period:
“When only
six years of age, he was sent to the school of Dr. Pitman, in
Market Street, on the borders of Hertfordshire. Here he continued
two years—a period embittered by the cruelty of a boy of fifteen
years of age, “whose savage treatment,” says Cowper, “impressed
such a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember
being afraid to lift up my eyes upon him higher than his knees;
and that I knew him by his shoe-buckles better than any other
part of his dress.” It is characteristic of the gentle spirit
of the poet, that he refrains from mentioning the name of his
persecutor.”
“In consequence
of an affection in the eyes which threatened to deprive him
of sight, he was sent to an eminent oculist in London, in whose
house he remained until he was ten years of age, when he had
so far recovered as to be able to attend Westminster School.
An attack of small-pox, three years afterwards, completed the
restoration of his eyesight. At Westminster he continued till
he was eighteen, having acquired a considerable knowledge of
the Latin and Greek classics.”
 He
left Westminster and was articled to a solicitor, Mr Chapman,
but this lasted only three years. He spent much time at his uncle
Ashley's house in Southampton Row with fellow clerk Edward Thurlow
- later to become Lord Chancellor - where according to Cowper
they spent a great deal of time "constantly employed
from morning to night in giggling and making giggle"
the daughters of the house, his cousins. One of these was Theodora
Cowper, and William became very attached to her. However, the
family were opposed to the idea of a union between people so closely
related. The other cousin was Harriet (1733 – 1807), who married
Lord Hesketh; she became a major factor in his life and a constant
correspondent.
Later he
was admitted to the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in
1754. He founded the Nonsense Club, a society of Westminster men
who dined weekly and produced ballads - "two or three
becoming popular".
He was appointed
Commissioner of Bankrupts which gave him an income of £60
p.a. but he never actually practised as a barrister. When he was
offered the appointment of Clerk of the Journals of the House
of Lords he despaired at the news that he would have to qualify
himself at the Bar of the House in front of the Law Lords.
This worry
aggravated his depression so much that he made three suicide attempts
and in 1763 he was placed in Dr Nathaniel Cotton's asylum in St.
Albans – called the ‘Collegium Insanorum’.
Cotton was
born in London in about 1706, the son of a Levantine merchant,
Samuel Cotton. He studied medicine in Leyden University under
the famous Dutch physician, Professor Boerhaare. On returning
to England he became assistant to Dr Thomas Crawley, who ran a
private asylum in Dunstable, Bedfordshire. According to James
Corbett, when Dr Crawley died Nathaniel moved to a house near
St. Peter's church, in St. Albans, bringing with him the housekeeper
and several patients from Dunstable. In 1738 he married Ann Pembroke
of St Albans, and they had eight children before she died in 1749.
In 1751 he married Harriet Everett of London and had three more
children.
Dr Cotton
was a poet and evangelical in his religious persuasion. Cowper
so improved under his care and so enjoyed his company that he
stayed at St. Albans after he had recovered. It is suggested that
while there he wrote the hymn How blest thy creature is
although it was first published in the Olney Hymns in
1779. It begins:
How blest
thy creature is, O God,
When, with a single eye,
He views the lustre of thy word,
The dayspring from on high!
Through
all the storms that veil the skies,
And frown on earthly things,
The Sun of Righteousness he eyes,
With healing on his wings.
Struck
by that light, the human heart,
A barren soil no more,
Sends the sweet smell of grace abroad,
Where serpents lurk’d before.
Cotton died
in 1788 and is buried with his two wives in St. Peter’s churchyard.
In 1766 Cowper
moved from St. Albans to Huntingdon to be nearer his brother John
in Cambridge. (John was a Fellow of Corpus Christi College.) Cowper
was no good at financial management and he and his servant managed
to get through a year's allowance in three months.
He resigned
as Commissioner and became dependent on relatives and friends
for financial support.
 Coming
out of church in Huntington, Cowper met a young undergraduate,
William Unwin; the two became close friends. Unwin introduced
Cowper to his parents, the Reverend Morley Unwin and his wife
Mary. Cowper went to spend a couple of weeks with them, and then
became a lodger in their home. Morley Unwin had been a headmaster
of Huntington Grammar School (founded in 1565; the early scholars
there included Oliver Cromwell and Samuel Pepys). When Cowper
moved in with them, Unwin had retired, but was still teaching
private students. Eighteen months later, he died as a result of
a riding accident. Mary Unwin wanted to leave Huntingdon to move
to a town where she would be under the pastorship of an evangelical
minister. At just about that time, the Reverend John Newton (1725
– 1807) arrived with a letter of introduction to Morley Unwin,
mentioning also his interesting lodger. It seemed appropriate
for Mary and Cowper to move to Olney where Newton was the curate.
John Newton
was a major influence in Cowper’s life. He was a remarkable man.
Newton was born in London July 24, 1725, the son of a commander
of a merchant ship which sailed the Mediterranean. When John was
eleven, he went to sea with his father and made six voyages with
him before the elder Newton retired. In 1744 John was impressed
into service on a man-of-war, the H. M. S. Harwich. Finding conditions
on board intolerable, he deserted but was soon recaptured and
publicly flogged and demoted from midshipman to common seaman.
Finally at
his own request he was exchanged into service on a slave ship,
which took him to the coast of Sierra Leone. He then became the
servant of a slave trader and was brutally abused. Early in 1748
he was rescued by a sea captain who had known John's father. John
Newton ultimately became captain of his own ship, one that plied
the slave trade. On May 10th, 1748, the ship encountered a violent
storm, and disaster seemed inevitable. He called on God for help,
and in fact the ship escaped the storm. From this point on, he
was a devoted Christian.
 In
1750 he married Mary Catlett, with whom he had been in love for
many years. By 1755, after a serious illness, he had given up
seafaring forever. During his days as a sailor he had begun to
educate himself, teaching himself Latin, among other subjects.
From 1755 to 1760 Newton was surveyor of tides at Liverpool, where
he came to know George Whitefield, deacon in the Church of England,
evangelistic preacher, and leader of the Calvinistic Methodist
Church. Newton became Whitefield’s enthusiastic disciple. During
this period Newton also met and came to admire John Wesley, founder
of Methodism. Newton’s self-education continued, and he learned
Greek and Hebrew.
John Newton
wrote of his experiences in his autobiography An Authentic
Narrative published in 1764. In the same year, he was ordained
as a priest in the Church of England in 1764.
He accepted
the curacy of Olney, where he lived until 1780 when he became
Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in London.
Newton himself
is now best known for his hymn Amazing Grace; here is
the version as he wrote it:
Amazing
grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav'd a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.
'Twas grace
that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev'd;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ'd!
Thro' many
dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
The Lord
has promis'd good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures
Yes, when
this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease;
I shall possess, within the vail,
A life of joy and peace.
The earth
shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who call'd me here below,
Will be for ever mine.
Newton did
not write any music for his hymn, as at that time, in the established
Church, hymns were chanted rather than sung. Furthermore, as the
congregation in general could not read (they were mostly lace
makers), they were encouraged to learn the words of the hymns
by rote.
Although
written in a small English town, this hymn was initially not well-known
in England, and does not appear in any of the earlier hymnbooks.
It was in America that it became established.
The Americans
did two things for it. The first was that they set it to the tune
of an old plantation melody entitled Loving Lambs. This
is the melody that everyone now knows as Amazing Grace.
The other
was the substitution of a final verse drawn from the anonymous
hymn Jerusalem, my happy home found in A Collection
of Sacred Ballads compiled by Richard and Andrew Broaddus
and published in 1790:
When we've
been there ten thousand years
Bright shining as the sun,
We’ve no less days to sing God’s praise
Than when we've first begun.
Newton and
Cowper collaborated on writing hymns, beginning in 1771; the collection
was published in 1779 as Olney Hymns. Apparently there
were 350 of these: Newton wrote 282 and Cowper wrote 68. I have
only the Cowper hymns, because they were included in his collected
works. In 1769, Mary became seriously ill, and Cowper was afraid
that she would die. He wrote the hymn Walking with God,
which became the first in the Cowper Olney Hymns; it
begins:
Oh! for
a closer walk with God,
A calm and heavenly frame;
A light to shine upon the road
That leads me to the Lamb!
Where is
the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his word?
What peaceful
hours I once enjoy’d!
How sweet their memory still!
But they have left an aching void,
The world can never fill.
Fortunately,
Mary recovered. But in 1770, his brother John died.
 Later,
John Newton became involved in the anti-slavery movement in England,
and Cowper wrote some poems addressing this issue: I shall not
include them here, because I hope to write one of these pieces
concerned with the poetry of the anti-slavery movements in both
England and the United States.
In 1772,
Cowper became engaged to Mary, but in 1773 he had another episode
of deep depression, and the engagement was broken off. Later in
that year, he again attempted suicide. In 1774 he recovered; but
was so convinced of his own faults that he gave up church attendance
for the rest of his life.
On his return
to Orchard Side he was glad "of anything that would engage
my attention without fatiguing it". Some neighbour's
children had a leveret of which they grew tired. Cowper was offered
this and two others. In a letter dated 28th May 1784 Cowper describes
the arrangements he made for his pets:
“Immediately
commencing carpentry, I built them houses to sleep in; each
had a separate apartment so contrived that their ordure would
pass through the bottom of it; an earthenware pan placed under
each received whatsoever fell, which duly emptied and washed
thus kept sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range
of the hall, and at night retired to his own bed, never intruding
into that of another.........”
 A
memorandum found among Cowper's papers dated 9th March 1786 records
the last of his three hares:
“This day
died poor Puss, aged eleven years and eleven months. She died
between twelve and one, at noon, of old age, and apparently
without pain.”
The Life
in the collection mentioned earlier writes “Cowper had now reached
the age of fifty, and was as yet unknown to the world. A few light
and agreeable poems, two hymns written at Huntingdon, with about
sixty others composed at Olney, are almost the only known poetical
productions of his pen between the years 1749 and 1780. The long
pent-up stream of his genius was now to break out. At the suggestion
of Mrs. Unwin, he wrote Table Talk, the first poem in
the present collection of his works, to which were afterwards
added, The Progress of Error, Truth, Expostulation, Hope,
Charity, Conversation, and Retirement. These were
all written in little more than a year, and were published in
one volume, Poems of William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq.
in 1782. It met with a favourable reception from the critics of
the day, and slowly found its way into the esteem of the public.”
My first Poem of this week is a brief extract from Table
Talk.
 In
July of 1781 he met the widowed Lady Anne Austen (another source
says Lady Austen was Sarah Austen, née Richardson), a neighbor
The Life author says: “About this time he formed an acquaintance
with a highly-accomplished woman, Lady Austen; she was wealthy,
had seen much of the world, and possessed a liveliness of manner
which charmed away his melancholy. After three years’ intimacy,
this friendship was unfortunately broken up by the not unnatural
jealousy of Mrs. Unwin, who was afraid it might end in a nearer
connexion. To Lady Austen we owe the amusing ballad of John Gilpin,
and his great poem the Task.”
“The
Task was begun in the summer of 1783, and completed before
the close of 1784. Lady Austen, who, as an admirer of Milton,
was partial to blank verse, had often solicited Cowper to try
his power in that species of composition. To his objection that
he knew of no suitable subject, she replied, “Oh, you can never
be in want of a subject—you can write upon any; write upon this
sofa.” The idea struck him, he took up the pen and began, —
I sing
the Sofa. I who lately sang
Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touch’d with awe
The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,
Escaped with pain from that adventurous flight,
Now seek repose upon an humbler theme;
The theme though humble, yet august and proud
The occasion—for the Fair commands the song.
The poem
thus casually suggested grew into six books, and is deservedly
the most popular of his larger poems. Many passages in his first
volume are not inferior to the best pieces of the Task;
but in the Task he takes a wider range, and flies with
freer and bolder wing.” The poem was published in 1785.
Another section
of this poem near the beginning is aimed at the walks that he
and Mary enjoyed:
And witness,
dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive
Fast lock’d in mine, with pleasure such as love,
Confirm’d by long experience of thy worth
And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire—
Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.
Thou know’st my praise of nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjured up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,
But genuine, and art partner of them all.
I have largely
discussed here the major works, but of course he wrote a number
of shorter, and generally more light-hearted poems. These are
included in the collection I have mentioned several times as ‘Miscellaneous
Poems’. My second poem of this week is one of them: The Love
of the World Reproved: or, Hypocrisy Detected. It isn’t exactly
politically correct at the moment, but some have suggested it
is where the phrase ‘going the whole hog’ originated.
Two miles
from Olney was Weston Underwood with a park, to which its owner
gave Cowper the use of a key. In 1782 a younger brother, John
Throckmorton, came with his wife to live at Weston, and continued
Cowper's privilege. The Throckmortons were Roman Catholics, but
in May 1784, Mrs. Unwin was tempted by an invitation to see a
balloon ascent from their park. Their kindness as hosts won upon
Cowper; they sought and had his more intimate friendship, till
in his correspondence he playfully abused the first syllable of
their name and called them Mr. and Mrs. Frog.
In 1784 Cowper
began his translation of Homer, but in 1787 he suffered another
bout of depression, and the completion was delayed until 1791,
thanks to the assistance he received from the Throckmortons. In
1791 Mary Unwin suffered her first stroke, and in 1792 she suffered
a second. Lady Hesketh took over the running of the household
in 1793, and in 1794 Cowper suffered another attack of depression.
In 1795 Mary and Cowper moved to East Dereham, in Norfolk, under
the care of John Johnson.
On December
17th, 1796, Mary died.
As he increasingly
became subject to attacks; he wrote very little new poetry of
his own, and spent much time translating Milton’s Latin and Italian
poems, and other poems by different poets. These included Madame
Jeanne Marie Bouvier de la Mothe Guyon, (1647-1717); and Vincent
Bourne (1695-1747).
Here is his
translation from the French of a poem by Madame Guyon, The
Swallow:
I am fond
of the swallow—I learn from her flight,
Had I skill to improve it, a lesson of love:
How seldom on earth do we see her alight!
She dwells in the skies, she is ever above.
It is on
the wing that she takes her repose,
Suspended and poised in the regions of air,
‘Tis not in our fields that her sustenance grows,
It is wing’d like herself—’tis ethereal fare.
She comes
in the spring, all the summer she stays,
And, dreading the cold, still follows the sun—
So, true to our love, we should covet his rays,
And the place where he shines not immediately shun.
Our light
should be love, and our nourishment prayer;
It is dangerous food that we find upon earth;
The fruit of this world is beset with a snare,
In itself it is hurtful, as vile in its birth.
‘Tis rarely,
if ever, she settles below,
And only when building a nest for her young;
Were it not for her brood, she would never bestow
A thought upon anything filthy as dung.
Let us
leave it ourselves (‘tis a mortal abode),
To bask every moment in infinite love;
Let us fly the dark winter, and follow the road
That leads to the dayspring appearing above.
From my point
of view, though, the most interesting of his translations were
those from Bourne. Here is Strada’s Nightingale:
The shepherd
touch’d his reed; sweet Philomel
Essay’d, and oft essay’d to catch the strain,
And treasuring, as on her ear they fell,
The numbers, echo’d note for note again.
The peevish
youth, who ne’er had found before
A rival of his skill, indignant heard,
And soon (for various was his tuneful store)
In loftier tones defied the simple bird.
She dared
the task, and, rising as he rose,
With all the force that passion gives inspired,
Return’d the sounds awhile, but in the close
Exhausted fell, and at his feet expired.
Thus strength,
not skill prevail’d. O fatal strife,
By thee, poor songstress, playfully begun;
And, O sad victory, which cost thy life,
And he may wish that he had never won!
On the 25th
of April 1800, William Cowper died. He was buried in St. Edmund’s
Chapel, East Dereham Church. Lady Hesketh erected a marble tablet
to his memory.
In that same
year, the two-volume version of Lyrical Poems, by William
Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)
was published: this was the key event in the introduction of the
Romantic Movement in English poetry, for which Cowper was the
catalyst.
His own last
poem, The Castaway,
was written in 1798. It is my last poem of this week.
I hope you
enjoyed this story of a troubled man who nevertheless played a
key role in the development of our art.
|
