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Letters of William Cowper

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Letters of William Cowper THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE *"""»"" (Bofden Creaeurp device LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER i ( EDITED, WITH INTRODUCTION, BY THE Rev. W. BEN HAM, B.D., F.S.A., RECTOR OF ST. EDMUND THE KING, LOMBARD STREET i » » . MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 1907 » 4 « • • • • First Edition pritt ted 1884. Reprinted 1^93, 1899, 1902, 1:07 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1'AGE Introduction xi Letters from London. i,52. To Clotworthy Rowley Sef>t. 1763. To Lady Hesketh . Aug. Letters from Huntingdon. 1765. To Joseph Hill June 24 5 To Lady Hesketh July 1 6 To the Same . July 4 7 To the Same . Sept. 14 9 To Joseph Hill July 3 11 To the Same . Aug. 14 »3 To the Same . Oct. 25 '4 1766. To Mrs. Cowper Oct. 20 15 1767. To Joseph Hill May 14 17 „ To the Same . July 16 18 Letters from Olney. 1767. To Joseph Hill Oct. 10 1769. To Mrs. Cowper 1770. To Mrs. Madan To Joseph Hill 1776 To the Same VI TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1778. To the Rev. W. Unwin 1779. To the Same . To the Same . To the Same . To the Same . To Joseph Hill To the Rev. W. Unwin 1780. To the Same . To the Rev. J. Newton To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Rev. J. Newton 1781. To the Same . To the Rev. W. Unwin To Joseph Hill To the Rev. J. Newton To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Same . To Joseph Hill To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Same . To the Rev. J. Newton To the Same . To the Same . To the Same . To the Same . To the Same . To Joseph Hill 1782. To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Same . To the Same . To Mrs. Newton . To Joseph Hill . 1783- I'" the Rev. J. Newton To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Rev. William Bull To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Same . To the Same . To the Rev. J. Newton 1784. To the Rev. W. Unwin To the Rev. J. Newton To the Same . To the Rev. W. Unwin TABLE OF CONTENTS. 1784- To the Rev. J. Newton ,, To the Rev. W. Unwin „ To the Same . „ To the Rev. J. Newton ,, To the Same . ,, To Mr. Johnson (Printer) „ To the Rev. W. Unwin 1785. To the Same . „ To the Rev. J. Newton ,, To Lady Hesketh . ,, To the Same . 1786. To the Same . „ To the Same . „ To the Rev. J. Newton ,, To Lady Hesketh . ,, To the Same . To Joseph Hill ,, To Lady Hesketh . ,, To the Rev. W. Unwin „ To the Same . via TABLE OF CONTENTS. 789. To Samuel Rose . TABLE OF CONTENTS. IX >79 2 - To the Same . To Lady Hesketh To William Hayley To the Same . To the Same . To the Rev. William Bull To William Hayley TABLE OF CONTENTS Letters from Norfolk. 1795. To the Rev. Mr. Buchanan . „ To Lady Hesketh, Cheltenham ,, To the Same, Cheltenham 1796. To the Same, at Bath . ,. To the Same . 1797. To the Same . 1798. To the Same . To the Rev. J. Newton „ To Lady Hesketh . 1799. To the Rev. J. Newton INTRODUCTION. Two men of mark in English Literature, Southey ami Alexander Smith, have called Cowper "the best of be found to chal- English letter-writers," and few will lenge this opinion. The charm of Cowper's letters, like that of his poetry, lies first of all in his naturalness and sincerity. He writes simply because he has something to say, or be- cause he loves his correspondent, and has no idea of of his letters posing for effect. He never dreamt being It was so with his first published when he wrote them. or to amuse poems. He wrote to drive away melancholy, his friends, and carelessly sent the last piece written to whatever friend he happened to be addressing, and was old before the idea of of nearly fifty years publishing any these pieces was suggested to him. of His letters, then, are the simple statement whatever in and beautiful he has in his mind ; written pure refined taste of a English ; full of the information and well-read man; overflowing now with humour, now were natural to him. with deep religious feeling, for both It follows, as a matter of course, that they are deeply of the interesting as materials for the biography poet, though here one caution is needed. The letters will not Xll LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER. unfrequently give us a wrong impression if we forget his peculiar circumstances. We may read one couched in terms of the deepest melancholy, and imagine that there was no sunshine in his life. That was not so. He set down on paper truly enough the sad thoughts of the moment, hut he was also ahle, at all events for many years, to put such thoughts away by an effort, and to be quietly and tranquilly content and cheerful when the fit was over. His correspondence with Mr. Newton, for is all a so that example, nearly of gloomy character ; not with his cousins, Lady Hesketh and John Johnson. I have elsewhere, I think, shown that Mr. Newton's influ- ence upon his life, though incontestably well-intentioned, was most disastrous. Cowper always writes as though talking personally to whomsoever he is addressing, and the imaginary presence of Newton before him is sure to depress him at once, and to bring thunderclouds into his sky. And as years went on, Newton, with a perversity that angers one all the more because of his good inten- tions, seemed to take care that the gloom should not be dispelled, by writing from time to time to scold the poor, delicate-nerved, timid poet for seeking to cast away his cares. But Cowper's letters are far more than contributions towards his biography. The graceful affectionateness, the shrewd estimate of men and things, the genuine love of fun and appreciation of it in others, all contribute to make his correspondence delightful. In fact, to many readers his prose will be more agreeable than his poetry, though, as in many like cases, his letters were only pub- lished because his poetry had made him famous. Cowper's letters have been preserved from a date much earlier than that of his appearance before the world as a poet. His friends cherished them, feeling that there was a peculiar charm about them, and after his death INTRODUCTION. xiii in 1S00 they were published in a piecemeal fashion by several rival editors, each of whom had some portions, and no one the whole. In consequence of which no edition to this day has all the letters complete, or in chronological sequence. Thus some of the most inter- until had esting of them were out of Southey's reach he finished his edition of the poet's life and works, and these he had therefore to place in a supplementary volume. This is not the only drawback to the multiform character of the editions. One of the editors, Grimshawe, took upon him to judge on religious grounds what letters were and what and portions of the edifying not, he has in consequence frequently cut out paragraphs, are Then apparently only because they amusing. again, not improperly, it was judged well to leave blanks in many cases for the names of people who were living at the time of publication. There is no such necessity now, and in the present selection I have collated the letters with the original manuscripts where they have been within my reach, and restored much which had been suppressed. The arrangement followed is the simplest, namely, the Edition of his chronological order. To the Globe poems of and there- I have prefixed a full biography Cowper, fore refer to that for the details; but for purposes of convenient reference, I have set down the main heads of short notices of the friends to the poet's life, and given whom letters are addressed. in I. He was born at Berkhamstead Rectory 1731 ; educated first at a village school in Hertfordshire, then at Westminster; entered of the Middle Temple, 1748; called to the Bar, 1754; lived in London some years, a and holding a Commissionership worth ^60 year, was to a writing a few magazine papers ; appointed XIV LETTERS OF WILLIAM COWPER. clerkship of the Journals of the House of Lords, but pre vented from entering on the office by an attack of in- sanity, and was sent in December 1763 to Dr. Cotton's Asylum at St. Albans. Clotivorthy Rowley, of Tendring Hall, near Stoke-by- Nayland, was a friend and fellow -Templar. The two first of Cowper's extant letters are addressed to him. first is in Latin the second is in the The ; given present volume. As in the case of so many of his friends, Covvper ceased all correspondence with him for many years. It was renewed through Rowley's returning some books which Covvper had lent him twenty-five years previously. Harriet, Lady Hesketh, the wife of Sir Thomas Hesketh, was the daughter of Ashley Cowper, the poet's uncle, and the sister of Theodora, his youthful love. On his first leaving London he wrote several letters to Lady Hesketh, chiefly on religious subjects. The tone of them found no sympathy with her, and all correspondence between them ceased for twenty years. Then to the poet's over- flowing delight she began it again (see pp. 9 and 130, and Globe, p. lix). II. He remained at Dr. Cotton's until his recovery in June 1765, when he removed to Huntingdon, feeling that London was not a fitting place for him to live in, and desiring also to be within reach of his brother John at Cambridge.
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