Olney, Mr. Bean, made another application, and was successful, for this was the result. Stanzas, &c. (BULL, and POEMS, 1803.) The origin of this poem, and of the five which follow, forms one of the most amusing episodes in the poet's life. He thus describes it in a letter to Lady Hesketh : "On Monday morning last, Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure made its appearance, and, being desired to sit, spoke as follows: Sir, I am clerk of the parish of AllSaints, in Northampton, brother of Mr. Cox, 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 will do me a great favour, sir, if you would furnish me with one.' To this I replied, 'Mr. Cox, 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-Cox, 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, 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 to you, my dear, 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 too, 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 waggon has accordingly gone this day to Northampton loaded in part with my effusions in the mortuary style." It will be noticed that there is no poem for 1791. The old clerk died, and Cowper hoped that this would put himself "out of office." After a year's interval, however, the new clerk came to beseech a continuance. Page 370. Impromptu. (HAYLEY, iii. 21.) In a humorous letter to Unwin. He begins by saying that he has been trying again and again to find something to write about, and then goes off into these lines. The Lines on the Queen's Visit to London, to see the illuminations, after the king's recovery, were written at the request of Lady Hesketh, and presented to the Princess Augusta, in the expectation that they would be shown to her Majesty; but Cowper never heard any more of them. Page 371. (JOHNSON, iii.) This circumstance is narrated in the Gentleman's Magazine for April 1789, but contradicted in the following month. However, it is admitted that the subject concerned did throw an unsuccessful bird on the fire, but it escaped "by its natural, unconfined agility." He soon afterwards drank himself into a fatal fever. Page 372. Lines, &c. (HAYLEY, iii. 188.) In a letter to Rose. "My cousin and I diverted ourselves by imagining the manner in which Homer would have described the scene." Page 373- To Mrs. T. (H. iii. 203.) The Ode of Horace was found in one of the Roman libraries in 1788. Cowper asked Mrs. T. to copy it into the fly-leaf of his Horace, and her execution of the task procured her this compliment, which he wrote in a blank page of the same book. Page 374. (PRIV. CORRESPONDENCE.) Mrs. King, wife of the rector of Pertenhall, introduced herself to him on the ground of being a friend of his brother. He gladly opened correspondence with her, and it was warm and constant on both sides. They never met. Stanzas on the late, &c. (HAYLEY, iv. 264.) The coffin of Milton, buried at Cripplegate Church, was opened, and a pamphlet published, describing the appearance of the body. Page 375. On Thornton, see Memoir, p. XXXVI. note. Page 376. To Mr. Bagot. (HAYLEY, iii. 269.) This is the opening of a letter. The Four Ages (HAYLEY, iv. 121) was suggested by his neighbour, Mr. Buchanan, curate of Ravenstone, who sketched out his idea of what the work should be. Cowper replied, "You have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting nothing but metre.' Cowper tried, as we see, to write it, but the troubles which came upon him forced him to abandon the idea. Page 377. (HAYLEY, iii. 294.) The "two nymphs" were May and June, and the poem was written in consequence of the inclemency of the former month in 1791. "Oh! what a month of May this has been!" he says, in a letter to John Johnson. "Let never poet, English poet at least, give himself to the praises o: May again." Fage 378. On the Refusal, &c. occurs in a letter to Mrs. Throckmorton. Some friend of Mr. Throckmorton's had made the application, and Cowper felt the refusal keenly. "It seems not a die extracidinary that persons so nobly patronised selves on the score of literature should resolve to give no encouragement to it in return. Should I find a fair opportunity to thank them hereafter, I will not neglect it.' The retired Cat. (HAYLEY, iii. 72.) Page 380. Yardley Oak (H. iv. 423) was in Yardley Chase, near Olney. A memorandum in Cowper's handwriting says, "Yardley Oak is 22 feet 6 inches in girth." It is said to have been planted by Judith, daughter of William the Conqueror, and wife of Earl Waltheof. Page 380, 35. "The Fabled Twins," Castor and Pollux, sons of Leda. 741. At Dodona was an oracle of Jupiter, the responses of which were given from a hollow oak tree. Page 383. To the Nightingale. (H. iii. 261.) The author mentions the circumstance in a letter to Johnson, and, as in the poem, hopes it is a happy omen. But it was unfulfilled; for he says afterwards that 1792 is the saddest year he has yet known. Page 384. The Lines written for Insertion &c., were altered more than once. nal form was "In vain to live from age to age The origi We modern bards endeavour; The final version was due to the suggestion of Lady Hesketh. To Wilberforce. (H. iii. 275.) It had been rumoured about in the county that Cowper's views upon the slave trade were questionable. He refuted the charge by merely inserting the present sonnet in the Northampton Mercury, and took no further notice. The last two lines originally stood thus : Page 385. Miss Sally Hurdis was sister of Rev. James Hurdis, a minor poet (and Professor of Poetry at Oxford), and one of Cowper's correspondents. Concerning his friendship with Hayley, see Memoir, p. lxviii. Hayley, as seen by the Sonnet, had just visited him, and during his visit Mrs. Unwin's attack had taken place, and he had been most kind and useful in the emergency. Page 386. (HAYLEY, iii. 406.) Mr. Courtenay was Sir John Throckmorton's brother, and succeeded him in the title. (HAYLEY, iii. 399.) The lines to Dr. Darwin were written at Eartham in August, 1792. He was a warm friend of Hayley. Page 387. On his approaching, &c. (HAYLEY, iii. 413. The opening of a letter to him.) The floods and flames refer to the dreadful nervous fits he had had concerning this journey, which are described in the letter. (HAYLEY, iv. 23.) The Sonnet to Romney occupied three months in writing, so depressed were the poet's spirits. To George Romney. This picture is now in the possession of Mr. H. R. Vaughan Johnson. It appeared in the Exhibition of Portraits in 1868, beside the portrait of his mother which his lines have made so famous. Page 388. Epitaph on Fop (HAYLEY, iv. 2), written at Eartham, and sent to Mrs. Courtenay. The two lines to Lady Hesketh (HAYLEY, iv. 39) are the heading of a letter, describing his condition. Without his nightly dose of twelve drops of laudanum, he says, he is devoured by melancholy. Epitaph on Mr. Chester (HAYLEY, iv. 262). Page 389. On a Plant, &c. (JOHNSON, íii. 249.). Page 390. The young friend (HAYLEY, iv. 67) was John Johnson. Inscription, &c. (HAYLEY, iv. 264.) This was written for a rough house which he intended building, but his intention was frustrated by a much finer one being built, for which these lines would have been unfitting. See his humorous account in the note to the Epigrams at p. 397. To Mrs. Unwin. When this exquisite sonnet (HAYLEY, ii.) was written, Mrs. Unwin was a sad wreck. Cowper describes, at the time of Hayley's visit, how they sit reading together, and adds, "Poor Mrs. Unwin, in the meantime, sits quiet in her corner, occasionally laughing at us both, and not seldom interrupting me with some remark, for which she is rewarded by me with Hush, hold your peace." To John Johnson, &c. (H. iv. 258.) Cowper had expressed a wish for a bust of Homer, and Johnson made several attempts to procure one, and at length succeeded. It still stands in the grounds at Weston, with Cowper's inscription. See p. 391. Page 391. On a Portrait of Himself (HAYLEY iii. 410). Written July 15, 1792, shortly before starting for Eartham. The portrait was taken at the request of John Johnson, who wanted it for his aunt, Mrs. Bodham. By universal consent, it was pronounced an excellent likeness. The Thanks for a Present, &c., was sent in a letter to Johnson, December 31, 1793. Copeman was a friend of Johnson. The sonnet to Hayley (H. iv. 68) was in answer to a proposal that they should undertake a joint literary work. Cowper added, that he had other reasons for not entertaining the proposal. "I am nobody in verse, unless in a corner and alone, and unconnected in my operations." He afterwards, however, entertained a proposal that he and Hayley should complete "The Four Ages" between them, as a vehicle for illustrations by Flaxman and Lawrence. See his letter to Hayley of July 7, But the increased gloominess which fell on him, at the end of the year, put the whole plan out of possibility. 1793. Page 393. (HAYLEY, iii. 160.) Page 394. (HAYLEY, iv. 272.) Catharine Fanshawe was a co-heiress with two sisters, and was known among her friends for her talent for graceful pleasantry, both in prose and verse, as well as for her skill in art. She was the authoress of the well-known riddle on the letter H "Twas whispered in Heaven, 'twas muttered in Hell," &c. There is a laughable mock ode of hers in Miss Berry's Journal, and an equally laughable letter with it, vol. ii. pp. 298-301. The "stanzas which she had addressed to Lady Hesketh were produced under the following circumstances. Lady Hesketh had lent her a MS. poem of Cowper, on condition that she should neither show nor copy it. Miss Fanshawe kept her promise in the letter, but sent it back with the following stanzas: "What wonder if my wavering hand When Hesketh gave a harsh command, Then take this tempting gift of thine, More lasting than the touch of art The "Letter" was one which Miss Fanshawe wrote to Lady Hesketh, who sent Cowper an extract from it-doubtless some pretty compliment on his "Stanzas.' " Page 394. On Flaxman's Penelope. (HAYLEY, iv. 92.) Sent in a letter to H. Page 395. (HAYLEY, iv. 45.) The calm of passionate despair seems to reign over these exquisite verses. They were written shortly before leaving Weston for ever. Page 396. On receiving, &c. (JOHNSON, iii. 265.) at Motto for a Clock. This was a clock sculptured by Bacon for King George III. It is now in the Presence Chamber Windsor Castle. The translation is by Hayley. In a time, &c. (HAYLEY, ii. 135.) Written July 7, 1793. Hayley was a man who sought much after shade; he "could not bear a sunbeam." Page 397: (HAYLEY, iv. 77 and 99.) On his return from Eartham, Cowper said to his favourite domestic, "Sam, build me a shed in the garden, with anything you can find, and make it rude and rough, like one of those at Eartham." "Yes, sir," said Sam, and straightway, laying his own noddle with the village carpenter's, built a thing fit for Stowe Gardens. (Letter to Hayley, July 24, 1793.) The poet was going to put the first of the epigrams over the door, but that he feared to "break Sam's heart, and the carpenter's too." Montes Glaciales. (H. iv. 367.) Page 400. "I have heard of my wether mutton from many quarters," he writes; "I have accordingly satirized myself in two stanzas which I composed last night, while I lay awake, tormented with pain, and dosed with laudanum," The Castaway. On this terrible but grand poem, see Memoir, p. lxxii. Page 403. Jeanne Marie Bouvières de la Mothe was born in April, 1648, at Montargis, a town about 50 miles south of Paris, in the province of Orleanois. Little is known of her parents but that they were well-to-do people, and of pious life. They had both been married before, and each had a family; and one of her half-sisters, a nun in the Ursuline convent at Montargis, was the cause of her being placed for education in the same convent. Whilst there, the widowed English queen, Henrietta Maria, wished her to become maid of honour to her daughter; but her father refused the offer. She early formed the resolution of giving herself to God, and has recorded her endeavours to do so, her successes and failures, in her autobiography. In 1663 her father removed with his family to Paris, and the following year she was married to a rich gentleman of the court, M. Guyon, thirty-eight years old, she being but just sixteen. Her mother-in-law disliked her heartily, and lost no opportunity of insulting her; and her husband, though sometimes kind, was more often cold and harsh with her; but these sorrows did but decide her the more earnestly to seek rest in religion. The views which she ultimately took up, and found sufficient for her spiritual needs, were given to her by a Fransciscan (his name does not appear), who had spent five years in solitude, and to whom she now resorted for confession. On telling her self-dissatisfaction to him, he "remained silent for some time in meditation and prayer," and then said, "Your efforts have been unsuccessful because you have sought without, what you can only find within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your heart, and you will not fail to find Him." She says that these words darted into her soul like lightning, and she never lost sight of them. The poem entitled "Love and Gratitude" (p. 413) was written when the effect of them was still upon her. From the day of this speech, July 22, 1668, she always dated her conversion. It would be out of the question here to give a detailed account of her views, or extracts from her prose writings. Cowper's beautiful translations of her verses will amply answer the purpose of showing what her theology was. Quietism is the name which was given to it. It might be summed up in the words, "Deus est summum bonum. Rest is to be found in the mind reposing itself upon the love of God." It belongs to the same class as S. Augustine's Confessions, or Thomas à Kempis's "Imitatio Christi," or Leighton's Commentary-not to name living writers. Her increased fervour met with little favour from her husband. When she went to her private devotions, she complains, he would time her with his watch, and if she was more than half-an-hour at a time he would be vexed. Her only worldly joy was in her three children-two M M sons and a daughter. Of these the eldest son was for a while alienated from her through the influence of her mother-in-law, and the smallpox, after destroying her own great beauty of face, carried off her younger and best-loved boy. "I loved my boy tenderly," she writes: "but though I was greatly afflicted, I saw the hand of the Lord so clearly that I shed no tears. I offered him up to God." It was now that she wrote "Divine Justice Amiable (p. 411). It was nearly at the same time that she first became acquainted with Francis de la Conibe, an eloquent Barnabite friar, who had been introduced to her by her cousin. She was the means of inspiring him with her views, and he became the foremost preacher of Quietism in France. After a few years he was seized by a leitre de cachet, and sent to the Bastille for heresy. He was afterwards placed in another prison; but a prisoner he remained until his death, twenty-two years after his first arrest. In 1672 another heavy blow fell upon her-a twofold blow. Her father and little daughter died nearly together. Becoming convinced more and more that it was God's will to perfect her by afflictions, she resolved, by the advice of a nun, to mark the fourth anniversary of her conversion by drawing up and signing what she called a "marriage covenant with the Saviour." Here it is: "I henceforth take Jesus Christ to be mine. I promise to receive Him as a husband to me. And I give myself to Him, unworthy though I am, to be His spouse. I ask of Him, in this marriage of spirit with spirit, that I may be of the same mind with Him-meek, pure, nothing in myself, and united in God's will. And, pledged as I am to be His, I accept, as a part of iny marriage portion, the temptations and sorrows, the crosses and the contempt, which fell to Him. "JEANNE M. B. DE LA MOTHE GUYON. 66 Sealed with her ring." the This document is a sufficient explanation of poem entitled " Aspirations," &c. (p. 410). state Soon after came on what she calls a of deprivation," which lasted for six years-a deprivation not of holy desire or purpose, or faith or hope, but of consolation in religion. It was to teach her, as she afterwards believed, that religious joy must not be sought for its own sake; that it can only be possessed with safety when its possessor cares not for it, but only for God. The poems at pp. 408, 421, 423, are descriptive of this phase of her experience, and there are many other references to it. "The Joy of the Cross," at p. 426, was written as the sorrow was passing away. The mention, fiom time to time, of the forest and its songsters is explained by her frequent retirement for prayer to a forest near her home, where, more than anywhere, as she writes, her soul found peace. Her husband died in 1676. They had been much estranged, but not separated; but they were entirely reconciled in his last days. She soon after left her mother-in-law, and devoted herself to almsdeeds and works of love in different parts of France, afterwards in Italy, being forced to move constantly in consequence of the persecutions of the Bishop of Geneva, whose request that she would go into a convent she had refused. This is the "Banishment" to which she refers in the last poem in p. 412. That in p. 410, "Happy Solitude," is said to have been written on the Lake of Geneva immediately after her success in freeing a girl from the temptations of a wicked ecclesiastic; and that in the following page, "The Triumph," &c., was the outpouring of her heart on crossing the Alps, and looking down for the first time on the land of the Po and Adige. In July 1686 she returned to Paris, and soon after occurred the arrest and imprisonment of La Combe, already mentioned. Soon after she herself was seized, and confined for eight months. Several poems belonging to this imprisonment have not been translated by Cowper. She appealed to her enemies, but they replied with taunts; then to Père la Chaise, the King's confessor, but no answer was returned. An application by her friend Madame de Miramion to Madame de Maintenon was more successful, and she regained her liberty. Almost immediately after this she began her acquaintance and correspondence with the Abbé Fenelon. As this correspondence does not bear upon her poetry, we pass it by. But it was apparently the influence which she exerted over Fenelon which led Bossuet to uneasiness and suspicion of her, ending in his bringing the matter before the king, and being appointed, with two others, commissioners to examine her writings. Whilst waiting in suspense, and expecting an unfavourable judgment, she wrote The Acquiescence," &c., at p. 415. judgment was pronounced at this time; and after the trial she retired for a season to a convent at Meaux, where her life and conversation won her such love and reverence, that the prioress entreated her to stay for life. She returned, however, to Paris; but soon after, the opposition continuing, she was imprisoned at Vincennes. The following poems belong to this imprisonment:-"The Entire Surrender" (p. 415), "Glory to God alone" (p. 416), "Selflove and Truth," &c. (p. 417), "The Love of God," &c. (p. 417), "The Secrets," &c. (p. 419), and several not translated by Cowper. Νο Just at the same time Fenelon was made Archbishop of Cambray. Louis XIV. did not like him; but the appointment was urged upon him by the Duke of Burgundy, and Fenelon's high position made refusal difficult. Probably, too, the king expected to win him over to his side. The hope, however, was vain. Fenelon published his Explication des Maximes des Saints, in which the principles of Quietism v ere avowed, and it was immediately attacked as heretical by Bossuet. That great orator and controversialist was now at the height of his reputation; and though Fenelon had written little, all men knew that the controversy would be a battle between giants. It does not fall within the limits of the present note, except that, as it progressed, Bossuet, irritated at being foiled by his opponent, lost his temper, and actually descended to throwing out insinuations concerning the relations of Fenelon and Madame Guyon, and compared the two to Fenelon the heretic Montanus and Priscilla. doubted whether to answer this; but his friends were urgent that he should do so, and accordingly he produced a reply, of which Charles Butler says, "A nobler effusion of the indignation of insulted virtue and genius, eloquence has never produced." Public opinion declared that the great Bossuet himself had found his match. But this did not meet the king's views, and he appealed to the Pope. Innocent XII. was an amiable and pious man, and desired and entreated that conciliatory measures might prevail. But the king was too urgent for this, and demanded a censure almost with menaces. So it was pronounced, and Fenelon accepted it so far as to cease from controversy any further. He certainly never changed his views; but in his preaching he avoided forms of expression which were likely to be called Quietist. His latest writings are some of his most beautiful. He died in 1715, at the age of sixty-five. Madame Guyon was removed to the Bastille in 1698, after having had shameful indignities to bear; and in this terrible place she wrote "Truth and Divine Love," &c. (p. 411) and "The Testimony," &c. (p. 413). She was released in 1702, but banished to Blois. Her constitution, however, was broken, and her life was from this time uneventful. Her eldest son was living in the neighbourhood, and seems to have treated her dutifully. She spoke as fervently as ever of the love of God, but strength for active work was gone. She died on the 9th of June, 1717, after drawing up a will, the piety of which proves that He whom her soul loved was sustaining her unto the end. Page 431. See list of books, p. xviii. No. 7, and Memoir, p. lxvii. Deodati was not only a college friend of Milton, but they saw much of each other in London, and were frequent correspondents. Two letters from Deodati to Milton are in the British Museum. The second of them was sent from Cheshire, whither Deodati had removed after taking his degree in 1625, and is probably that referred to in Milton's answer, written in the spring of 1626. ll 3, 4. Deva, the Dee. Vergivium is the Latin name of the Irish Sea. 12. My forbidden cell. This refers to some incident in Milton's college life, the nature of which has caused a controversy too complicated to be discussed here. See Masson's Life of Milton, pp. 135-141. All that need be said here is that Milton and his tutor, Chappell, had some quarrel, that the Master of the college had to interfere, and that Milton was "rusticated"-sent away for awhile. He appears, however, to have soon come back, and to have been placed under another tutor. Page 431, 12. Ovid, who was banished by Augustus to Tomi, on the Euxine. Milton probably rates hiin too highly in the lines which follow. 31, These characters are all of them from Terence; except the " coifed brooder," or lawyer, who is taken from a modern Latin play, Ignoramus, which was extremely popular at Cambridge. (Masson, p. 186) 176. Alluding to the legend that London was founded by the Trojans, under Brut-a legend which Milton's "History of England" showed that he half believed. 7 88. "The sightless boy," Cupid. Page 433, Elegy ii. This Bedel was Richard Redding, M.A. Died Oct. 1626. Ist stanza "Summons clear," refers to the practice of Bedels giving public notice of Convocations. 2nd stanza. "Leda's paramour," the swan. son was, according to the legend, made young again by his daughter Medea. (Ov. Met. vii.) Apollo's son was Esculapius. 3rd stanza. Cyllenius, Hermes (Mercury), who dwelt on Mount Cyllene. Eurybates, one of the heralds sent by Agamemnon to Achilles. (Iliad, i. 320.) Page 434. The Bishop was Lancelot Andrewes, who died Sept. 21, 1626. 74. The Plague raged this year so fiercely that Parliament was adjourned from London to Oxford: 10,coo persons died of it in London. 79. The "fraternal pair" (brothers in arms) were Prince Christian of Brunswick and Count Mansfeld, the two ablest supporters of the Elector Palatine in the Thirty Years' War. They both died in 1626. See Dyer's Modern The "heroes" are apparently Europe, ii. 550. the large number of rank and file who died in the same campaign. 26. The creatures of the sea. 134. Iberian, Spanish. 143. Chloris, goddess of flowers; identical with the Roman Flora. Alcinous, the happy ruler of the Phæacians in the isle of Scheria. See the description of his gardens in the Odyssey. |