"I will forget, for a moment, that to whomsoever I may address myself, a letter from me can no otherwise be welcome than as a curiosity. To you, sir, I address this; urged to it by extreme penury of employment, and the desire I feel to learn something of what is doing, and has been done, at Weston, (my beloved Weston!) since I left it.
"The coldness of these blasts, even in the hottest days, has been such, that, added to the irritation of the salt-spray, with which they are always charged, they have occasioned me an inflammation in the eye-lids, which threatened a few days since to confine me entirely, but, by absenting myself as much as possible from the beach, and guarding my face with an umbrella, that inconvenience is in some degree abated. My chamber commands a very near view of the ocean, and the ships at high water approach the coast so closely, that a man furnished with better eyes than mine might, I doubt not, discern the sailors from the window. No situation, at least when the weather is clear and bright, can be pleasanter; which you will easily credit, when I add, that it imparts something a little resembling pleasure even to me.—Gratify me with news of Weston! If Mr. Gregson, and your neighbours the Courtenays are there, mention me to them in such terms as you see good. Tell me if my poor birds are living! I never see the herbs I used to give them, without a recollection of them, and sometimes am ready to gather them, forgetting that I am not at home. Pardon this intrusion!
"Mrs. Unwin continues much as usual.
"Mundsley, Sept. 5, 1795."
Mr. Buchanan endeavoured, with great tenderness and ingenuity, to allure his dejected friend to prolong a correspondence, that seemed to promise some little alleviation to his melancholy; but this distressing malady baffled all the various expedients that could be devised to counteract its overwhelming influence.
Much hope was entertained from air and exercise, with a frequent change of scene.—In September, Mr. Johnson conducted his kinsman (to the promotion of whose recovery he devoted his most unwearied efforts) to take a survey of Dunham-Lodge, a seat at that time vacant; it is situated on high ground, in a park, about four miles from Swaffham. Cowper spoke of it as a house rather too spacious for him, yet such as he was not unwilling to inhabit—a remark which induced Mr. Johnson, at a subsequent period, to become the tenant of this mansion, as a scene more eligible for Cowper than the town of Dereham.—This town they also surveyed in their excursion; and, after passing a night there, returned to Mundsley, which they quitted for the season on the seventh of October.
They removed immediately to Dereham; but left it in the course of a month for Dunham-Lodge, which now became their settled residence.
The spirits of Cowper were not sufficiently revived to allow him to resume either his pen or his books; but the kindness of his young kinsman continued to furnish him with inexhaustible amusement, by reading to him almost incessantly; and, although he was not led to converse on what he heard, yet it failed not to rivet his attention, and so to prevent his afflicted mind from preying on itself.
In April, 1796, Mrs. Unwin, whose infirmities continued to engage the tender attention of Cowper, even in his darkest periods of depression, received a visit from her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Powley. On their departure, Mr. Johnson assumed the office which Mrs. Powley had tenderly performed for her venerable parent, and regularly read a chapter in the Bible every morning to Mrs. Unwin before she rose. It was the invariable custom of Cowper to visit his poor old friend the moment he had finished his breakfast, and to remain in her apartment while the chapter was read.
In June, the pressure of his melancholy appeared in some degree alleviated, for, on Mr. Johnson's receiving the edition of Pope's Homer, published by Wakefield, Cowper eagerly seized the book, and began to read the notes to himself with visible interest. They awakened his attention to his own version of Homer. In August he deliberately engaged in a revisal of the whole, and for some time produced almost sixty new lines a day.
This mental occupation animated all his intimate friends with a most lively hope of his progressive recovery. But autumn repressed the hope that summer had excited.
In September the family removed from Dunham-Lodge to try again the influence of the sea-side, in their favourite village of Mundsley.
Cowper walked frequently by the sea; but no apparent benefit arose, no mild relief from the incessant pressure of melancholy. He had relinquished his Homer again, and could not yet be induced to resume it.
Towards the end of October, this interesting party retired from the coast to the house of Mr. Johnson, in Dereham—a house now chosen for their winter residence, as Dunham-Lodge appeared to them too dreary.
The long and exemplary life of Mrs. Unwin was drawing towards a close:—the powers of nature were gradually exhausted, and on the seventeenth of December she ended a troubled existence, distinguished by a sublime spirit of piety and friendship, that shone through long periods of calamity, and continued to glimmer through the distressful twilight of her declining faculties. Her death was calm and tranquil. Cowper saw her about half an hour before the moment of expiration, which passed without a struggle or a groan, as the clock was striking one in the afternoon.
On the morning of that day, he said to the servant who opened the window of his chamber, "Sally, is there life above stairs?" A striking proof of his bestowing incessant attention on the sufferings of his aged friend, although he had long appeared almost totally absorbed in his own.
In the dusk of the evening he attended Mr. Johnson to survey the corpse; and after looking at it a very few moments he started suddenly away, with a vehement but unfinished sentence of passionate sorrow. He spoke of her no more.
She was buried by torch-light, on the twenty-third of December, in the north aisle of Dereham church; and two of her friends, impressed with a just and deep sense of her extraordinary merit, have raised a marble tablet to her memory with the following inscription:
IN MEMORY OF MARY,
WIDOW OF THE REV. MORLEY UNWIN,
AND
MOTHER OF THE REV. WILLIAM CAWTHORN UNWIN,
BORN AT ELY, 1724.
BURIED IN THIS CHURCH 1796.
It might have been anticipated that the death of Mrs. Unwin, in Cowper's enfeebled state, would have proved too severe a shock to his agitated nerves. But it is mercifully ordained that, while declining years incapacitate us for trials, they, at the same time, weaken the sensibility to suffering, and thereby render us less accessible to the influence of sorrow. It may be regarded as an instance of providential mercy to this afflicted poet, that his aged friend, whose life he had so long considered as essential to his own, was taken from him at a time when the pressure of his malady, a perpetual low fever, both of body and mind, had, in a great degree, diminished the native energy of his faculties and affections.
Owing to these causes, Cowper was so far preserved in this season of trial, that, instead of mourning the loss of a person in whose life he had seemed to live, all perception of that loss was mercifully taken from him; and, from the moment when he hurried away from the inanimate object of his filial attachment, he appeared to have no memory of her having existed, for he never asked a question concerning her funeral, nor ever mentioned her name.
Towards the summer of 1797, his bodily health appeared to improve, but not to such a degree as to restore any comfortable activity to his mind. In June he wrote a brief letter to Hayley, but such as too forcibly expressed the cruelty of his distemper.
The process of digestion never passed regularly in his frame during the years that he resided in Norfolk. Medicine appeared to have little or no influence on his complaint, and his aversion at the sight of it was extreme.
From asses' milk, of which he began a course on the twenty-first of June in this year, he gained a considerable acquisition of bodily strength, and was enabled to bear an airing in an open carriage, before breakfast, with Mr. Johnson.
A depression of mind, which suspended the studies of a writer so eminently endeared to the public, was considered by men of piety and learning as a national misfortune, and several individuals of this description, though personally unknown to Cowper, wrote to him in the benevolent hope that expressions of friendly praise, from persons who could be influenced only by the most laudable motives in bestowing it, might re-animate his dejected spirit. Among these might be enumerated Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff, who kindly addressed him in the language of encouragement and of soothing consolation; but the pressure of his malady had now made him utterly deaf to the most honourable praise.
He had long discontinued the revisal of his Homer, when his kinsman, dreading the effect of the cessation of bodily exercise upon his mind during a long winter, resolved, if possible, to engage him in the revisal of this work. One morning, therefore, after breakfast, in the month of September, he placed the Commentators on the table, one by one; namely, Villoison, Barnes, and Clarke, opening them all, together with the poet's translation, at the place where he had left off a twelvemonth before, but talking with him, as he paced the room upon a very different subject, namely, the impossibility of the things befalling him which his imagination had represented; when, as his companion had wished, he said to him, "And are you sure that I shall be here till the book you are reading is finished?" "Quite sure," replied his kinsman, "and that you will also be here to complete the revisal of your Homer," pointing to the books, "if you will resume it to-day." As he repeated these words he left the room, rejoicing in the well-known token of their having sunk into the poet's mind, namely, his seating himself on the sofa, taking up one of the books, and saying in a low and plaintive voice, "I may as well do this, for I can do nothing else."[741]
In this labour he persevered, oppressed as he was by indisposition, till March 1799. On Friday evening, the eighth of that month, he completed his revisal of the Odyssey, and the next morning wrote part of a new preface.
To watch over the disordered health of afflicted genius, and to lead a powerful, but oppressed, spirit by gentle encouragement, to exert itself in salutary occupation, is an office that requires a very rare union of tenderness, intelligence, and fortitude. To contemplate and minister to a great mind, in a state that borders on mental desolation, is like surveying, in the midst of a desert, the tottering ruins of palaces and temples, where the faculties of the spectator are almost absorbed in wonder and regret, and where every step is taken with awful apprehension.
Hayley, in alluding to Dr. Johnson's kind and affectionate offices, at this period, bears the following honourable testimony to his merits, which we are happy in transcribing. "It seemed as if Providence had expressly formed the young kinsman of Cowper to prove exactly such a guardian to his declining years as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. I never saw the human being that could, I think, have sustained the delicate and arduous office (in which the inexhaustible virtues of Mr. Johnson persevered to the last) through a period so long, with an equal portion of unvaried tenderness and unshaken fidelity. A man who wanted sensibility would have renounced the duty; and a man endowed with a particle too much of that valuable, though perilous, quality, must have felt his own health utterly undermined, by an excess of sympathy with the sufferings perpetually in his sight. Mr. Johnson has completely discharged, perhaps, the most trying of human duties; and I trust he will forgive me for this public declaration, that, in his mode of discharging it, he has merited the most cordial esteem from all, who love the memory of Cowper. Even a stranger may consider it as a strong proof of his tender dexterity in soothing and guiding the afflicted poet, that he was able to engage him steadily to pursue and finish the revisal and correction of his Homer, during a long period of bodily and mental sufferings, when his troubled mind recoiled from all intercourse with his most intimate friends, and laboured under a morbid abhorrence of all cheerful exertion."
In the summer of 1798, his kinsman was induced to vary his plan of remaining for some months in the marine village of Mundsley, and thought it more eligible to make frequent visits from Dereham to the coast, passing a week at a time by the sea-side.
Cowper, in his poem on "Retirement," seems to inform us what his own sentiments were, in a season of health, concerning the regimen most proper for the disease of melancholy.
The frequent change of place, and the magnificence of marine scenery, produced at times a little relief to his depressed spirits. On the 7th of June 1798, he surveyed the light-house at Happisburgh, and expressed some pleasure on beholding, through a telescope, several ships at a distance. Yet, in his usual walk with his companion by the sea-side, he exemplified but too forcibly his own affecting description of melancholy silence:
On the twenty-fourth of July, Cowper had the honour of a visit from a lady, for whom he had long entertained affectionate respect, the Dowager Lady Spencer—and it was rather remarkable, that on the very morning she called upon him he had begun his revisal of the Odyssey, which was originally inscribed to her. Such an incident in a happier season would have produced a very enlivening effect on his spirits: but, in his present state, it had not even the power to lead him into any free conversation with his distinguished visitor.
The only amusement that he appeared to admit without reluctance was the reading of his kinsman, who, indefatigable in the supply of such amusement, had exhausted a successive series of works of fiction, and at this period began reading to the poet his own works. To these he listened also in silence, and heard all his poems recited in order, till the reader arrived at the history of John Gilpin, which he begged not to hear. Mr. Johnson proceeded to his manuscript poems; to these he willingly listened, but made not a single remark on any.
In October 1798, the pressure of his melancholy seemed to be mitigated in some little degree, for he exerted himself so far as to write the following letter, without solicitation, to Lady Hesketh.
Dear Cousin,—You describe delightful scenes, but you describe them to one, who, if he even saw them, could receive no delight from them: who has a faint recollection, and so faint, as to be like an almost forgotten dream, that once he was susceptible of pleasure from such causes. The country that you have had in prospect has been always famed for its beauties; but the wretch who can derive no gratification from a view of nature, even under the disadvantage of her most ordinary dress, will have no eyes to admire her in any.
In one day, in one minute, I should rather have said, she became an universal blank to me, and though from a different cause, yet with an effect as difficult to remove as blindness itself.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mundsley, Oct. 13, 1798.
On his return from Mundsley to Dereham, in an evening towards the end of October, Cowper, with Miss Perowne and Mr. Johnson, was overturned in a post-chaise: he discovered no terror on the occasion, and escaped without injury from the accident.
In December he received a visit from his highly esteemed friend, Sir John Throckmorton, but his malady was at that time so oppressive that it rendered him almost insensible to the kind solicitude of friendship.
He still continued to exercise the powers of his astonishing mind: upon his finishing the revisal of his Homer, in March, 1799, his kinsman endeavoured in the gentlest manner to lead him into new literary occupation.
For this purpose, on the eleventh of March he laid before him the paper containing the comencement of his poem on "The Four Ages." Cowper altered a few lines; he also added a few, but soon observed to his kind attendant—"that it was too great a work for him to attempt in his present situation."
At supper Mr. Johnson suggested to him several literary projects that he might execute more easily. He replied—"that he had just thought of six Latin verses, and if he could compose anything it must be in pursuing that composition."
The next morning he wrote the six verses he had mentioned, and subsequently added the remainder, entitling the poem, "Montes Glaciales."
It proved a versification of a circumstance recorded in a newspaper, which had been read to him a few weeks before, without his appearing to notice it. This poem he translated into English verse, on the nineteenth of March, to oblige Miss Perowne. Both the original and the translation appear in the Poems.
On the twentieth of March he wrote the stanzas entitled "The Cast-away," founded on an anecdote in Anson's Voyage, which his memory suggested to him, although he had not looked into the book for many years.
As this poem is the last original production from the pen of Cowper, we shall introduce it here, persuaded that it will be read with an interest proportioned to the extraordinary pathos of the subject, and the still more extraordinary powers of the poet, whose lyre could sound so forcibly, unsilenced by the gloom of the darkest distemper, that was conducting him, by slow gradations, to the shadow of death.
In August he translated this poem into Latin verse. In October he went with Miss Perowne and Mr. Johnson to survey a larger house in Dereham, which he preferred to their present residence, and in which the family were settled in the following December.
Though his corporeal strength was now evidently declining, the urgent persuasion of his kinsman induced him to amuse his mind with frequent composition. Between August and December, he wrote all the translations from various Latin and Greek epigrams, which the reader will find in the present volume.
In his new residence, he amused himself with translating a few fables of Gay's into Latin verse. The fable which he used to recite when a child—"The Hare and many Friends"—became one of his latest amusements.
These Latin fables were all written in January 1800. Towards the end of that month, Hayley requested him to new-model a passage in his Homer, relating to the curious monument of ancient sculpture, so gracefully described by Homer, called the Cretan Dance. This being the last effort of his pen, and the passage being interesting, as a representation of ancient manners, we here insert it.
See Cowper's Version, Book xviii.
On the very day that this endearing mark of his kindness reached Hayley, a dropsical appearance in his legs induced Mr. Johnson to have recourse to fresh medical assistance. Cowper was with great difficulty persuaded to take the remedies prescribed, and to try the exercise of a post-chaise, an exercise which he could not bear beyond the twenty-second of February.
In March, when his decline became more and more visible, he was visited by Mr. Rose. He hardly expressed any pleasure on the arrival of a friend whom he had so long and so tenderly regarded, yet he showed evident signs of regret at his departure, on the sixth of April.
The illness and impending death of his talented son precluded Hayley from sharing with Mr. Rose in these last marks of affectionate attention towards the man, whose genius and virtues they had once contemplated together with mutual veneration and delight; whose approaching dissolution they felt, not only as an irreparable loss to themselves, but as a national misfortune. On the nineteenth of April, Dr. Johnson remarks, the weakness of this truly pitiable sufferer had so much increased, that his kinsman apprehended his death to be near. Adverting, therefore, to the affliction, as well of body as of mind, which his beloved inmate was then enduring, he ventured to speak of his approaching dissolution as the signal of his deliverance from both these miseries. After a pause of a few moments, which was less interrupted by the objections of his desponding relative than he had dared to hope, he proceeded to an observation more consolatory still; namely, that, in the world to which he was hastening, a merciful Redeemer had prepared unspeakable happiness for all his children—and therefore for him. To the first part of this sentence, he had listened with composure, but the concluding words were no sooner uttered, than his passionately expressed entreaties, that his companion would desist from any further observations of a similar kind, clearly proved that, though it was on the eve of being invested with angelic light, the darkness of delusion still veiled his spirit.[742]
On Sunday, the twentieth, he seemed a little revived.
On Monday he appeared dying, but recovered so much as to eat a slight dinner.
Tuesday and Wednesday he grew apparently weaker every hour.
On Thursday he sat up as usual in the evening.
In the course of the night, when exceedingly exhausted, Miss Perowne offered him some refreshment. He rejected it with these words, the very last that he was heard to utter, "What can it signify?"
Dr. Johnson closes the affecting account in the following words.
"At five in the morning of Friday 25th, a deadly change in his features was observed to take place. He remained in an insensible state from that time till about five minutes before five in the afternoon, when he ceased to breathe. And in so mild and gentle a manner did his spirit take its flight, that though the writer of this Memoir, his medical attendant Mr. Woods, and three other persons, were standing at the foot and side of the bed, with their eyes fixed upon his dying countenance, the precise moment of his departure was unobserved by any."
From this mournful period, till the features of his deceased friend were closed from his view, the expression which the kinsman of Cowper observed in them, and which he was affectionately delighted to suppose "an index of the last thoughts and enjoyments of his soul, in its gradual escape from the depths of despondence, was that of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise."
He was buried in St. Edmund's Chapel, in the church of East Dereham, on Saturday, May 2nd, attended by several of his relations.
He left a will, but without appointing his executor. The administration, therefore, of the little property he possessed devolved on his affectionate relative, Lady Hesketh; but not having been carried into effect by that Lady, the office, on her decease, was undertaken by his cousin german, Mrs. Bodham.
Lady Hesketh raised a marble tablet to his memory, with the following inscription from the pen of Hayley:
IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.
BORN IN HERTFORDSHIRE,
1731,
BURIED IN THIS CHURCH.
We have now conducted the endeared subject of this biography through the various scenes of his chequered and eventful life, till its last solemn termination; and it is impossible that any other feelings can have been awakened than those of admiration for his genius, homage for his virtues, and profound sympathy for his sufferings. It was fully anticipated by his friends, that the hour of final liberation, at least, would have been cheered by that calm sense of the divine presence, which is the delightful foretaste of eternal rest and glory. Young beautifully observes:
The Bible proclaims the same animating truth. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace!" The divine faithfulness is an ample security for the fulfilment of these declarations; but the promises of God, firm and unchangeable as they are in themselves, after all, can be realized only in a mind disposed for their reception; as the light cannot pass through a medium that is incapable of admitting it. Such, alas! is the influence of physical causes and of a morbid temperament on the inward perceptions of the soul, that it is possible to be a child of God, without a consciousness of the blessing, and to have a title to a crown, and yet feel to be immured in the depths of a dungeon.
The consolation to the friends of the unhappy sufferer, if not to the patient himself, is, that the chains are of his own forging, and that, if he had but the discernment to know it, the delusion would promptly vanish, and the peace of God flow into the soul like a river.
That such was the case with Cowper, no one can doubt for a moment. A species of mental aberration, on a particular subject, involved his mind in a strange and sad delusion. The Sun of Righteousness, therefore, failed in his last moments to impart its refreshing light and comfort, because the cloud of despair intervened, and obscured the setting beams of grace and glory.
Who can contemplate so mysterious a process of the mind, without exclaiming—
It is impossible to dwell on the manner of Cowper's death, and not to be reminded of the wish cherished by himself on this subject, and recorded so impressively in the following lines:
God mercifully granted the best portion of his prayer, but saw fit to deny the rest. No conscious guilt or open transgression stained his life; his heart was the seat of every beneficent and kind affection. As an author, he was blessed with an honourable career of usefulness; the public voice conferred upon him the title to immortality, and succeeding times have ratified the claim. But if perception be necessary to enjoyment, he was not "peaceful in his end;" for he died without this conviction. He did not, like Elijah, ascend in a chariot of fire; it was his lot rather to realize the quaint remark of some of the old divines, "God sometimes puts his children to bed in the dark," that they may have nothing whereof to boast; that their salvation may appear to be more fully the result of his own free and unmerited mercy, and that in this, as in all things, he may be known to act as a sovereign, who "giveth no account of his matters."[744]
But the severest exercises of faith are always mingled with some gracious purpose; and God may perhaps see fit to appoint these dark dispensations, that the transition into eternity may be more glorious; and that the emancipated spirit, bursting the shackles of death and sin, and delivered from the bondage of its fears, may rise with a nobler triumph from the depths of humiliation into the very presence-chamber of its God.
These remarks are so closely connected with the subject of Cowper's afflicting malady, that the time is now arrived when it is necessary to enter into a more detailed view of its nature and character; to trace its origin and progress, and to disengage this complicated question from that prejudice and misrepresentation which have so inveterately attached to it. At the same time, it is with profound reluctance that the Editor enters upon this painful theme, from a deep conviction that it does not form a proper subject for discussion, and that the veil of secrecy is never more suitably employed, than when it is thrown over infirmities which are too sacred to meet the gaze of public observation. This inquiry is now, however, no longer optional. Cowper himself has, unfortunately, suffered in the public estimation by the manner in which his earliest biographer, Hayley, has presented him before the public. By suppressing some very important letters, which tended to elucidate his real character, an air of mystery has been imparted which deeply affects its consistency; while, by attributing what he could not sufficiently conceal of the malady of the poet to the operation of religious causes, truth has been violated, and an unmerited wound inflicted upon religion itself. Thus Hayley, from motives of delicacy most probably, or from misapprehension of the subject, has committed a double error; while others, misled by his authority, have unhappily aided in propagating the delusion.
The Private Correspondence of Cowper, which is exclusively incorporated with the present edition, is of the first importance, as it dispels the mystery previously attached to his character. All that now remains is, to establish by undeniable evidence that, so far from religious causes having been instrumental to his malady, the order of events and the testimony of positive facts both militate against such a conclusion.
For this purpose, we shall now introduce to the notice of the reader, copious extracts from the Memoir of Cowper, written by himself, containing the particulars of his life, from his earliest years to the period of his malady and subsequent recovery. This remarkable document was intended to record his sense of the Divine mercy in the preservation of his life, during a season of disastrous feeling; and to perpetuate the remembrance of that grace which overruled this event, in so remarkable a manner, to his best and eternal interests. He designed this document principally for the perusal of Mrs. Unwin, to whose hands it was most confidentially entrusted. A copy was also presented to Mr. Newton, and ultimately to Dr. Johnson; but the parties were strictly enjoined never to allow another copy to be taken. By some means the Memoir at length found its way before the public. On this ground the editor feels less difficulty in communicating its purport; as the seal of secrecy has been already broken, though in the estimation of Dr. Johnson and his friends, in so unauthorized a manner. Its publication, however, has been unquestionably attended by one beneficial result, in having established, beyond the possibility of contradiction, that so far from Cowper's religious views having been the source of his malady, they were the first occasion and instrument of its cure.[745]
The Memoir is interesting in another respect. It elucidates the early events of Cowper's history. One important subject is however omitted, his attachment to Miss Theodora Cowper, the failure of which formed no small ingredient in the disappointments of his early life. This omission we shall be enabled to supply.
With these preliminary remarks we shall now introduce this curious and remarkable document, simply suppressing those portions which violate the feelings, without being essential to the substance of the narrative.
WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.
I cannot recollect, that, till the month of December, in the thirty-second year of my life, I had ever any serious impressions of the religious kind, or at all bethought myself of the things of my salvation, except in two or three instances. The first was of so transitory a nature, and passed when I was so very young, that, did I not intend what follows for a history of my heart, so far as religion has been its object, I should hardly mention it.
At six years old, I was taken from the nursery, and from the immediate care of a most indulgent mother, and sent to a considerable school in Bedfordshire.[746] Here I had hardships of different kinds to conflict with, which I felt more sensibly in proportion to the tenderness with which I had been treated at home. But my chief affliction consisted in my being singled out from all the other boys, by a lad about fifteen years of age, as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the cruelty of his temper. I choose to forbear a particular recital of the many acts of barbarity with which he made it his business continually to persecute me: it will be sufficient to say, that he had, by his savage treatment of me, 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. May the Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory!
One day, as I was sitting alone on a bench in the school, melancholy, and almost ready to weep at the recollection of what I had already suffered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, these words of the Psalmist came into my mind, "I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me." I applied this to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God that would have been no disgrace to a much more experienced Christian. Instantly I perceived in myself a briskness of spirits, and a cheerfulness, which I had never before experienced,—and took several paces up and down the room with joyful alacrity—his gift in whom I trusted. Happy had it been for me, if this early effort towards a dependence on the blessed God had been frequently repeated by me. But, alas! it was the first and last instance of the kind between infancy and manhood. The cruelty of this boy, which he had long practised in so secret a manner that no creature suspected it, was at length discovered. He was expelled from the school, and I was taken from it.
From hence, at eight years old, I was sent to Mr. D., an eminent surgeon and oculist, having very weak eyes, and being in danger of losing one of them. I continued a year in this family, where religion was neither known nor practised; and from thence was despatched to Westminster. Whatever seeds of religion I might carry thither, before my seven years' apprenticeship to the classics was expired, they were all marred and corrupted; the duty of the school-boy swallowed up every other; and I acquired Latin and Greek at the expense of a knowledge much more important.[747]
Here occurred the second instance of serious consideration. As I was crossing St. Margaret's churchyard, late one evening, I saw a glimmering light in the midst of it, which excited my curiosity. Just as I arrived at the spot, a grave-digger, who was at work by the light of his lanthorn, threw up a skull which struck me upon the leg. This little accident was an alarm to my conscience; for that event may be numbered among the best religious documents which I received at Westminster. The impression, however, presently went off, and I became so forgetful of mortality, that, strange as it may seem, surveying my activity and strength, and observing the evenness of my pulse, I began to entertain, with no small complacency, a notion that perhaps I might never die! This notion was, however, very short-lived; for I was soon after struck with a lowness of spirits, uncommon at my age, and frequently had intimations of a consumptive habit. I had skill enough to understand their meaning, but could never prevail on myself to disclose them to any one; for I thought any bodily infirmity a disgrace, especially a consumption. This messenger from the Lord, however, did his errand, and perfectly convinced me that I was mortal.
That I may do justice to the place of my education, I must relate one mark of religious discipline, which, in my time, was observed at Westminster; I mean, the pains which Dr. Nicholls took to prepare us for confirmation. The old man acquitted himself of his duty like one who had a deep sense of its importance; and I believe most of us were struck by his manner, and affected by his exhortation. For my own part, I then, for the first time, attempted prayer in secret; but being little accustomed to that exercise of the heart, and having very childish notions of religion, I found it a difficult and painful task; and was even then frightened at my own insensibility. This difficulty, though it did not subdue my good purposes, till the ceremony of confirmation was past, soon after entirely conquered them; I relapsed into a total forgetfulness of God, with the usual disadvantage of being more hardened, for having been softened to no purpose.
At twelve or thirteen I was seized with the small-pox. I only mention this, to show that, at that early age, my heart was become proof against the ordinary means which a gracious God employs for our chastisement. Though I was severely handled by the disease, and in imminent danger, yet neither in the course of it, nor during my recovery, had I any sentiment of contrition, any thought of God or eternity. On the contrary, I was scarcely raised from the bed of pain and sickness, before the emotions of sin became more violent in me than ever; and Satan seemed rather to have gained than lost an advantage; so readily did I admit his suggestions, and so passive was I under them.
By this time I became such an adept in falsehood that I was seldom guilty of a fault for which I could not, at a very short notice, invent an apology, capable of deceiving the wisest. These, I know, are called school-boys' tricks; but a sad depravity of principle, and the work of the father of lies, are universally at the bottom of them.
At the age of eighteen, being tolerably furnished with grammatical knowledge, but as ignorant in all points of religion as the satchel at my back, I was taken from Westminster; and, having spent about nine months at home, was sent to acquire the practice of the law with an attorney. There I might have lived and died without hearing or seeing any thing that might remind me of a single Christian duty, had it not been that I was at liberty to spend my leisure time (which was well nigh all my time) at my uncle's,[748] in Southampton Row. By this means I had indeed an opportunity of seeing the inside of a church, whither I went with the family on Sundays, which probably I should otherwise never have seen.
At the expiration of this term, I became, in a manner, complete master of myself; and took possession of a complete set of chambers in the Temple, at the age of twenty-one. This being a critical season of my life, and one upon which much depended, it pleased my all-merciful Father in Jesus Christ to give a check to my rash and ruinous career of wickedness at the very onset. I was struck, not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair.[749] I presently lost all relish for those studies to which I had before been closely attached; the classics had no longer any charms for me; I had need of something more salutary than amusement, but I had no one to direct me where to find it.
At length I met with Herbert's Poems; and gothic and uncouth as they were, I yet found in them a strain of piety which I could not but admire. This was the only author I had any delight in reading. I pored over him all day long; and though I found not here, what I might have found, a cure for my malady, yet it never seemed so much alleviated as while I was reading him. At length I was advised by a very near and dear relative, to lay him aside; for he thought such an author more likely to nourish my disorder than to remove it.[750]
In this state of mind I continued near a twelvemonth; when, having experienced the inefficacy of all human means, I at length betook myself to God in prayer; such is the rank which our Redeemer holds in our esteem, never resorted to but in the last instance, when all creatures have failed to succour us. My hard heart was at length softened; and my stubborn knees brought to bow. I composed a set of prayers, and made frequent use of them. Weak as my faith was, the Almighty, who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, was graciously pleased to hear me.
A change of scene was recommended to me; and I embraced an opportunity of going with some friends to Southampton, where I spent several months. Soon after our arrival, we walked to a place called Freemantle, about a mile from the town: the morning was clear and calm; the sun shone bright upon the sea; and the country on the borders of it was the most beautiful I had ever seen. We sat down upon an eminence, at the end of the arm of the sea, which runs between Southampton and the New Forest. Here it was, that, on a sudden, as if another sun had been kindled that instant in the heavens, on purpose to dispel sorrow and vexation of spirit, I felt the weight of all my misery taken off; my heart became light and joyful in a moment; I could have wept with transport had I been alone. I must needs believe that nothing less than the Almighty fiat could have filled me with such inexpressible delight; not by a gradual dawning of peace, but as it were with a flash of his life-giving countenance. I think I remember something like a glow of gratitude to the Father of mercies for this unexpected blessing, and that I ascribed it to his gracious acceptance of my prayers. But Satan, and my own wicked heart, quickly persuaded me that I was indebted for my deliverance to nothing but a change of scene and the amusing varieties of the place. By this means he turned the blessing into a poison; teaching me to conclude, that nothing but a continued circle of diversion, and indulgence of appetite, could secure me from a relapse.[751]
Upon this false principle, as soon as I returned to London, I burnt my prayers, and away went all thoughts of devotion and dependence upon God my Saviour. Surely it was of his mercy that I was not consumed; glory be to his grace! Two deliverances from danger not making any impression, having spent about twelve years in the Temple, in an uninterrupted course of sinful indulgence, and my associates and companions being either, like myself, professed Christians, or professed infidels, I obtained, at length, so complete a victory over my conscience, that all remonstrances from that quarter were in vain, and in a manner silenced; though sometimes, indeed, a question would arise in my mind, whether it were safe to proceed any farther in a course so plainly and utterly condemned in the word of God. I saw clearly that if the gospel were true, such a conduct must inevitably end in my destruction; but I saw not by what means I could change my Ethiopian complexion, or overcome such an inveterate habit of rebelling against God.
The next thing that occurred to me was a doubt whether the gospel were true or false. To this succeeded many an anxious wish for the decision of this important question; for I foolishly thought, that obedience would presently follow, were I but convinced that it was worth while to attempt it. Having no reason to expect a miracle, and not hoping to be satisfied with any thing less, I acquiesced, at length, in the force of that devilish conclusion, that the only course I could take to secure my present peace was to wink hard against the prospect of future misery, and to resolve to banish all thoughts of a subject, upon which I thought to so little purpose. Nevertheless, when I was in the company of deists, and heard the gospel blasphemed, I never failed to assert the truth of it with much vehemence of disputation; for which I was the better qualified, having been always an industrious and diligent inquirer into the evidences by which it was externally supported. I think I once went so far into a controversy of this kind, as to assert, that I would gladly submit to have my right hand cut off, so that I might but be enabled to live according to the gospel. Thus have I been employed, when half intoxicated, in vindicating the truth of scripture, while in the very act of rebellion against its dictates. Lamentable inconsistency of a convinced judgment with an unsanctified heart! An inconsistency, indeed, evident to others as well as to myself, inasmuch as a deistical friend of mine, with whom I was disputing upon the subject, cut short the matter, by alleging that, if what I said were true, I was certainly lost by my own showing.
By this time, my patrimony being well nigh spent, and there being no appearance that I should ever repair the damage by a fortune of my own getting, I began to be a little apprehensive of approaching want. It was, I imagine, under some apprehensions of this kind, that I one day said to a friend of mine, if the clerk to the journals of the House of Lords should die, I had some hopes that my kinsman, who had the place in his disposal, would appoint me to succeed him. We both agreed that the business of that place, being transacted in private, would exactly suit me. Thus did I covet what God had commanded me not to covet. It pleased the Lord to give me my heart's desire, and with it an immediate punishment for my crime. The man died, and, by his death, not only the clerkship of the journals became vacant, but it became necessary to appoint officers to two other places, jointly, as deputies to Mr. De Grey,[752] who at this time resigned. These were the office of reading clerk, and the clerkship of the committees, of much greater value than that of the journals. The patentee of these appointments (whom I pray to God to bless for his benevolent intention to serve me) called on me at my chambers, and, having invited me to take a turn with him in the garden, there made me an offer of the two most profitable places; intending the other for his friend Mr. A. Dazzled by so splendid a proposal, and not immediately reflecting upon my incapacity to execute a business of so public a nature, I at once accepted it; but at the same time (such was the will of Him whose hand was in the whole matter) seemed to receive a dagger in my heart. The wound was given, and every moment added to the smart of it. All the considerations, by which I endeavoured to compose my mind to its former tranquillity, did but torment me the more; proving miserable comforters and counsellors of no value. I returned to my chambers thoughtful and unhappy; my countenance fell; and my friend was astonished, instead of that additional cheerfulness he might so reasonably expect, to find an air of deep melancholy in all I said or did.
Having been harassed in this manner by day and night, for the space of a week, perplexed between the apparent folly of casting away the only visible chance I had of being well provided for and the impossibility of retaining it, I determined at length to write a letter to my friend, though he lodged in a manner at the next door, and we generally spent the day together. I did so, and therein begged him to accept my resignation, and to appoint Mr. A. to the places he had given me; and permit me to succeed Mr. A. I was well aware of the disproportion between the value of his appointment and mine; but my peace was gone; pecuniary advantages were not equivalent to what I had lost; and I flattered myself, that the clerkship of the journals would fall fairly and easily within the scope of my abilities. Like a man in a fever, I thought a change of posture would relieve my pain; and, as the event will show, was equally disappointed. At length I carried my point; my friend, in this instance, preferring the gratification of my desires to his own interest; for nothing could be so likely to bring a suspicion of bargain and sale upon his nomination, which the Lords would not have endured, as his appointment of so near a relative to the least profitable office, while the most valuable was allotted to a stranger.
The matter being thus settled, something like a calm took place in my mind. I was, indeed, not a little concerned about my character; being aware, that it must needs suffer by the strange appearance of my proceeding. This, however, being but a small part of the anxiety I had laboured under, was hardly felt, when the rest was taken off. I thought my path to an easy maintenance was now plain and open, and for a day or two was tolerably cheerful. But, behold, the storm was gathering all the while; and the fury of it was not the less violent for this gleam of sunshine.
In the beginning, a strong opposition to my friend's right of nomination began to show itself. A powerful party was formed among the lords to thwart it, in favour of an old enemy of the family, though one much indebted to its bounty; and it appeared plain that, if we succeeded at last, it would only be by fighting our ground by inches. Every advantage, I was told, would be sought for, and eagerly seized, to disconcert us. I was bid to expect an examination at the bar of the house, touching my sufficiency for the post I had taken. Being necessarily ignorant of the nature of that business, it became expedient that I should visit the office daily, in order to qualify myself for the strictest scrutiny. All the horror of my fears and perplexities now returned. A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me as this intelligence. I knew, to demonstration, that upon these terms the clerkship of the journals was no place for me. To require my attendance at the bar of the house, that I might there publicly entitle myself to the office, was, in effect, to exclude me from it. In the meantime, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward; all pressed me to undertake that which I say to be impracticable. They whose spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public exhibition of themselves, on any occasion, is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horrors of my situation; others can have none.
My continual misery at length brought on a nervous fever: quiet forsook me by day, and peace by night; a finger raised against me was more than I could stand against. In this posture of mind, I attended regularly at the office; where, instead of a soul upon the rack, the the most active spirits were essentially necessary for my purpose. I expected no assistance from anybody there, all the inferior clerks being under the influence of my opponent; and accordingly I received none. The journal books were indeed thrown open to me, a thing which could not be refused; and from which, perhaps, a man in health, and with a head turned to business, might have gained all the information he wanted; but it was not so with me. I read without perception, and was so distressed, that, had every clerk in the office been my friend, it could have availed me little; for I was not in a condition to receive instruction, much less to elicit it out of manuscripts, without direction. Many months went over me thus employed; constant in the use of means, despairing as to the issue.
The feelings of a man when he arrives at the place of execution, are probably much like mine every time I set my foot in the office, which was every day for more than half a year together.
At length, the vacation being pretty far advanced, I made a shift to get into the country, and repaired to Margate. There, by the help of cheerful company, a new scene, and the intermission of my painful employment, I presently began to recover my spirits; though even here, for some time after my arrival (no-withstanding, perhaps, that the preceding day had been spent agreeably, and without any disturbing recollection of my circumstances), my first reflections, when I awoke in the morning, were horrible and full of wretchedness. I looked forward to the approaching winter, and regretted the flight of every moment which brought it nearer; like a man borne away by a rapid torrent into a stormy sea, whence he sees no possibility of returning, and where he knows he cannot subsist. At length, indeed, I acquired such a facility of turning away my thoughts from the ensuing crisis, that, for weeks together, I hardly adverted to it at all; but the stress of the tempest was yet to come, and was not to be avoided by any resolution of mine to look another way.
"How wonderful are the works of the Lord, and his ways past finding out!" Thus was he preparing me for an event which I least of all expected, even the reception of his blessed gospel, working by means which, in all human contemplation, must needs seem directly opposite to that purpose, but which, in his wise and gracious disposal, have, I trust, effectually accomplished it.
About the beginning of October, 1763, I was again required to attend the office and prepare for the push. This no sooner took place, than all my misery returned; again I visited the scene of ineffectual labours; again I felt myself pressed by necessity on either side, with nothing but despair in prospect. To this dilemma was I reduced, either to keep possession of the office to the last extremity, and by so doing expose myself to a public rejection for insufficiency (for the little knowledge I had acquired would have quite forsaken me at the bar of the house); or else to fling it up at once, and by this means run the hazard of ruining my benefactor's right of appointment, by bringing his discretion into question. In this situation, such a fit of passion has sometimes seized me, when alone in my chambers, that I have cried out aloud, and cursed the hour of my birth; lifting up my eyes to heaven, at the same time, not as a supplicant, but in the spirit of reproach against my Maker. A thought would sometime come across my mind, that my sins had perhaps brought this distress upon me, that the hand of divine vengeance was in it; but in the pride of my heart, I presently acquitted myself, and thereby implicitly charged God with injustice, saying, "What sins have I committed to deserve this?"
I saw plainly that God alone could deliver me; but was firmly persuaded that he would not, and therefore omitted to ask it. Indeed at his hands, I would not; but as Saul sought to the witch, so did I to the physician, Dr. Heberden; and was as diligent in the use of drugs, as if they would have healed my wounded spirit, or have made the rough places plain before me. I made, indeed, one effort of a devotional kind; for, having found a prayer or two, I said them a few nights, but with so little expectation of prevailing that way, that I soon laid aside the book, and with it all thoughts of God and hopes of a remedy.
I now began to look upon madness as the only chance remaining. I had a strong kind of foreboding that so it would one day fare with me; and I wished for it earnestly, and looked forward to it with impatient expectation. My chief fear was, that my senses would not fail me time enough to excuse my appearance at the bar of the House of Lords, which was the only purpose I wanted it to answer. Accordingly, the day of decision drew near, and I was still in my senses; though in my heart I had formed many wishes, and by word of mouth expressed many expectations to the contrary.
Now came the grand temptation; the point to which Satan had all the while been driving me. I grew more sullen and reserved, fled from society, even from my most intimate friends, and shut myself up in my chambers. The ruin of my fortune, the contempt of my relations and acquaintance, the prejudice I should do to my patron, were all urged on me with irresistible energy. Being reconciled to the apprehension of madness, I began to be reconciled to the apprehension of death. Though formerly, in my happiest hours, I had never been able to glance a single thought that way, without shuddering at the idea of dissolution, I now wished for it, and found myself but little shocked at the idea of procuring it myself. I considered life as my property, and therefore at my own disposal. Men of great name, I observed, had destroyed themselves; and the world still retained the profoundest respect for their memories.
[An imperative sense of duty compels me to throw a veil over the afflicting details which follow. Respect for the known wishes of my departed brother-in-law, a desire not to wound the feelings of living characters, and a consciousness that such disclosures are not suited to meet the public eye, confirm me in this resolution. It may be said, the facts are accessible, and may be known; why make a mystery of communicating them? My answer is, I am a father; I will not inflict a shock on the youthful minds of my own children, neither will I be instrumental in conveying it to those of others. I will make such use of the Memoir as may answer the purpose I have in view, but I will not be the medium of revealing the secrets of the prison-house. It is sufficient to state that Cowper meditated the crime of self-destruction, and that he was arrested in his purpose by an Almighty arm. To quote his own emphatic words, "Unless my Eternal Father in Christ Jesus had interposed to disannul my covenant with death, and my agreement with hell, that I might hereafter be admitted into the covenant of mercy, I had by this time been the just object of his boundless vengeance."
All expectation of being able to hold the office in parliament being now at an end, he despatched a friend to his relative at the coffee-house.]
As soon, he observes, as the latter arrived, I apprised him of the attempt I had been making. His words were, "My dear Mr. Cowper, you terrify me; to be sure you cannot hold the office at this rate. Where is the deputation?" I gave him the key of the drawers where it was deposited; and, his business requiring his immediate attendance, he took it away with him; and thus ended all my connexion with the parliament house.
To this moment I had felt no concern of a spiritual kind. Ignorant of original sin, insensible of the guilt of actual transgression, I understood neither the law nor the gospel; the condemning nature of the one, nor the restoring mercies of the other. I was as much unacquainted with Christ, in all his saving offices, as if his blessed name had never reached me. Now, therefore, a new scene opened upon me. Conviction of sin took place, especially of that just committed; the meanness of it, as well as its atrocity, were exhibited to me in colours so inconceivably strong, that I despised myself, with a contempt not to be imagined or expressed, for having attempted it. This sense of it secured me from the repetition of a crime, which I could not now reflect on without abhorrence.
A sense of God's wrath, and a deep despair of escaping it, instantly succeeded. The fear of death became much more prevalent in me than ever the desire of it had been.
A frequent flashing, like that of fire, before my eyes, and an excessive pressure upon the brain, made me apprehensive of an apoplexy.
By the advice of my dear friend and benefactor, who called upon me again at noon, I sent for a physician, and told him the fact, and the stroke I apprehended. He assured me there was no danger of it, and advised me by all means to retire into the country. Being made easy in that particular, and not knowing where to better myself, I continued in my chambers, where the solitude of my situation left me at full liberty to attend to my spiritual state; a matter I had till this day never sufficiently thought of.
At this time I wrote to my brother, at Cambridge, to inform him of the distress I had been in, and the dreadful method I had taken to deliver myself from it; assuring him, as I faithfully might, that I had laid aside all such horrid intentions, and was desirous to live as long as it would please the Almighty to permit me.
My sins were now set in array against me, and I began to see and feel that I had lived without God in the world. As I walked to and fro in my chamber, I said within myself, "There never was so abandoned a wretch, so great a sinner." All my worldly sorrows seemed as though they had never been; the terrors which succeeded them seemed so great and so much more afflicting. One moment I thought myself shut out from mercy by one chapter; the next by another. The sword of the Spirit seemed to guard the tree of life from my touch, and to flame against me in every avenue by which I attempted to approach it. I particularly remember, that the parable of the barren fig-tree was to me an inconceivable source of anguish; and I applied it to myself, with a strong persuasion in my mind that, when the Saviour pronounced a curse upon it, he had me in his eye, and pointed that curse directly at me.
I turned over all Archbishop Tillotson's sermons, in hopes to find one upon the subject, and consulted my brother upon the true meaning of it; desirous, if possible, to obtain a different interpretation of the matter than my evil conscience would suffer me to fasten on it. "O Lord, thou didst vex me with all thy storms, all thy billows went over me; thou didst run upon me like a giant in the night season, thou didst scare me with visions in the night season."
In every book I opened, I found something that struck me to the heart. I remember taking up a volume of Beaumont and Fletcher, which lay upon the table in my kinsman's lodgings, and the first sentence which I saw was this: "The justice of the gods is in it." My heart instantly replied, "It is a truth;" and I cannot but observe, that as I found something in every author to condemn me, so it was the first sentence, in general, I pitched upon. Everything preached to me, and everything preached the curse of the law.
I was now strongly tempted to use laudanum, not as a poison, but as an opiate, to compose my spirits; to stupify my awakened and feeling mind, harassed with sleepless nights and days of uninterrupted misery. But God forbad it, who would have nothing to interfere with the quickening work he had begun in me; and neither the want of rest, nor continued agony of mind, could bring me to the use of it: I hated and abhorred the very smell of it.
Having an obscure notion about the efficacy of faith, I resolved upon an experiment to prove whether I had faith or not. For this purpose, I resolved to repeat the Creed: when I came to the second period of it, all traces of the former were struck out of my memory, nor could I recollect one syllable of the matter. While I endeavoured to recover it, and when just upon the point, I perceived a sensation in my brain, like a tremulous vibration in all the fibres of it. By this means I lost the words in the very instant when I thought to have laid hold of them. This threw me into an agony; but, growing a little calmer, I made an attempt for the third time; here again I failed in the same manner as before.
In this condition my brother found me, and the first words I spoke to him were, "Oh! brother, I am lost! think of eternity, and then think what it is to be lost!" I had, indeed, a sense of eternity impressed upon my mind, which seemed almost to amount to a full comprehension of it.