Homes and Haunts of the Most Eminent British Poets Part 26

WILLIAM COWPER.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

There is scarcely any ground in England so well known in imagination as the haunts of Cowper at Olney and Weston; there is little that is so interesting to the lover of moral and religious poetry. There the beautiful but unhappy poet seemed to have created a new world out of unknown ground, in which himself and his friends, the Unwins, Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh, the Throckmortons, and the rest, played a part of the simplest and most natural character, and which fascinated the whole public mind. The life, the spirit, and the poetry of Cowper present, when taken together, a most singular combination. He was timid in his habit, yet bold in his writing; melancholy in the tone of his mind, but full of fun and playfulness in his correspondence; wretched to an extraordinary degree, he yet made the whole nation merry with his John Gilpin and other humorous writings; despairing even of G.o.d's mercy and of salvation, his religious poetry is of the most cheerful and even triumphantly glad kind;

"His soul exults, hope animates his lays, The sense of mercy kindles into praise."

Filled with this joyous a.s.surance, wherever he turns his eye on the magnificent spectacle of creation, he finds themes of n.o.blest gratulation. He looks into the heavens, and exclaims:

"Tell me, ye shining host, That navigate a sea that knows no storm, Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, If from your elevation, whence ye view Distinctly scenes invisible to man, And systems, of whose birth no tidings yet Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race Favored as ours, transgressors from the womb, And hastening to a grave, yet doomed to rise, And to possess a brighter heaven than yours?

As one who, long detained on foreign sh.o.r.es, Pants to return, and when he sees afar His country's weather-bleached and battered rocks From the green wave emerging, darts an eye Radiant with joy toward the happy land; So I with animated hopes behold, And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, That show like beacons in the blue abyss, Ordained to guide the embodied spirit home From toilsome life to never-ending rest.

Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires, That give a.s.surance of their own success, And that, infused from heaven, must thither tend."

_The Task_, Book v.

Such is the buoyant and cordial tone of Cowper's poetry; how unlike that iron deadness that dared not and could not soften into prayer, which so often and so long oppressed him. Nay, it is not for himself that he rejoices only, but he feels in his glowing heart the gladness and the coming glory of the whole universe.

"All creatures worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place; That creeping pestilence is driven away; The breath of Heaven has chased it. In the heart No pa.s.sion touches a discordant string, But all is harmony and love. Disease Is not, the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age.

One song employs all nations, and all cry, 'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!'

The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy: Till nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosanna round.

Behold the measure of the promise filled; See Salem built, the labor of a G.o.d!

Bright as a sun the sacred city shines: All kingdoms, and all princes of the earth Flock to that light; the glory of all lands Flows into her; unbounded is her joy, And endless her increase. Thy rams are there, Nebaioth, and the flocks of Kedar there; Praise is in all her gates: upon her walls, And in her streets, and in her s.p.a.cious courts, Is heard salvation. Eastern Java there Kneels with the native of the farthest West; And Ethiopia spreads abroad the hand, And worships. Her report has traveled forth Into all lands. From every clime they come To see thy beauty, and to share thy joy, O Sion! an a.s.sembly such as earth Saw never, such as Heaven stoops down to see.

Thus heavenward all things tend. For all were once Perfect, and all must be at length restored.

So G.o.d has greatly purposed."--_The Task_, Book vi.

Such was the lofty and all-embracing spirit of that man whom hard dogmatists could yet terrify and chill into utterest woe. Shrinking from the world, he yet dared to lash this world from which he shrunk, with the force of a giant, and the justice of more than an Aristides. Of the Church, he yet satirized severely its errors, and the follies of its ministers; in political opinion he was free and indignant against oppression. The negro warmed his blood into a sympathy that produced the most effective strains on his behalf--the worm beneath his feet shared in his tenderness. Thus he walked through life, shunning its tumults and its highways, one of its mightiest laborers. In his poetry there was found no fear, no complaining; often thoroughly insane, nothing can surpa.s.s the sound mind of his compositions; haunted by delusions even to the attempt at suicide, there is no delusion in his page. All there is bright, clear, and consistent. Like his Divine Master, he may truly be said to have been bruised for our sakes. As a man, nervous terrors could vanquish him, and unfit him for active life; but as a poet, he rose above all nerves, all terrors, into the n.o.blest heroism, and fitted and will continue to fit others for life, so long as just and vigorous thought, the most beautiful piety, and the truest human sympathies command the homage of mankind. There is no writer who surpa.s.ses Cowper as a moral and religious poet. Full of power and feeling, he often equals in solemn dignity Milton himself. He is as impressive as Young without his epigrammatic smartness; he is as fervently Christian as Montgomery, and in intense love of nature there is not one of our august band of ill.u.s.trious writers who surpa.s.ses him. He shows the secret of his deep and untiring attachment to nature in the love of Him who made it.

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, And all are slaves beside. There's not a chain That h.e.l.lish foes, confederate for his harm, Can wind around him, but he casts it off With as much ease as Samson his green withes.

He looks abroad into the varied field Of Nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own.

His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who with filial confidence inspired Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say, 'My Father made them all!'

Are they not his by a peculiar right, And by an emphasis of interest his, Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy, Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love That planned, and built, and still upholds a world So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?

Yes, ye may fill your garners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot; but ye will not find In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who, unimpeached Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than ye.

He is indeed a freeman: free by birth Of no mean city, planned or ere the hills Were built, the fountains opened, or the sea With all his roaring mult.i.tude of waves."

_The Task_, Book v.

The writings of Cowper testify every where to that grand sermon which is eternally preached in the open air; to that Gospel of the field and the forest, which, like the Gospel of Christ, is the voice of that love which overflows the universe; which puts down all sectarian bitterness in him who listens to it; which, being perfect, "casts out all fear,"

against which the gloom of bigots and the terrors of fanatics can not stand. It was this which healed his wounded spirit beneath the boughs of Yardley Chase, and came fanning his temples with a soothing freshness in the dells of Weston. When we follow his footsteps there, we somewhat wonder that scenes so unambitious could so enrapture him; but the glory came from within, and out of the materials of an ordinary walk he could raise a brilliant superstructure for eternity.

William Cowper was born in the parsonage of Great Berkhampstead. The Birmingham railway whirls you now past the spot; or you may, if you please, alight, and survey that house, hallowed by the love of a mother such as he has described, and by the record of it in those inimitable verses of the son on receiving her picture.

"Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bawble coach, and wrapped In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet capped.

'Tis now become a history little known, That once we called the pastoral house our own."

Cowper was at school at Market-street, Hertfordshire, then at Westminster; after which he was articled for three years to Mr. Chapman, a solicitor. After quitting Mr. Chapman, he entered the Inner Temple as a regular law student, where his a.s.sociates were Thurlow, afterward the well-known lord-chancellor, Bonnel Thornton, and Colman. Cowper's family was well connected, both on the father's and mother's side, and he had every prospect of advancement; but this the sensitiveness of his nature prevented. Being successively appointed to the offices of reading clerk, clerk of the private committees in the House of Lords, and clerk of the Journals, he was so overwhelmed by being unexpectedly called on to discharge his duty publicly before the House, that it unsettled his mind, his prospects of a wordly nature were forever over, and in a state of the most settled melancholy he was committed to the care of Dr.

Cotton, of St. Alban's. In the summer of 1765 he quitted St. Alban's, and retired to private lodgings in the town of Huntingdon. There he was, as by a direct act of Providence, led to the acquaintance of the family of the Rev. Mr. Unwin, one of the clergymen of the place. Cowper had attended his church, and his interesting appearance having attracted the attention of his son William Cawthorne Unwin, he followed him in his solitary walk, and introduced himself to him. This simple fact decided, as by the very finger of Heaven, the whole destiny of the poet, and probably secured him as a poet to the world. With this family he entered into the most affectionate intimacy. They were people after his own heart, pious, intelligent, and most amiable. The father was, however, soon after killed by a fall from his horse, the son was himself become a minister, and the widow, the ever-to-be-loved Mary Unwin, retired with the suffering poet to Olney, at the invitation of the Rev. John Newton, the clergyman there, where she watched over him with the tender solicitude of a mother. To her, in all probability, we owe all that we possess in the poetry of Cowper.

With his life here we are made familiar by his poetry and letters, and the biography of Hayley. His long returns of melancholy; the writing of poetry, which Mrs. Unwin suggested to him to divert his thoughts; his gardening, his walks, his tame hares, his successive acquaintances with Lady Austen, Lady Hesketh, and the like all--this we know. What now concerns us is the present state and appearances of his homes and haunts here. To these the access is now easy. From the Wolverton station, on the Northwestern railway, an omnibus sets you down, after a run of nine miles, at the Bull Inn, in the s.p.a.cious, still, and triangular market-place of Olney. Here, again, prints have made us most accurately acquainted with the place. The house occupied by Cowper stands near the eastern corner, loftily overtopping all the rest. There are the other quiet, cottage-like houses stretching away right and left, the tall elm-tree, the pump, the old octagon stone lock-up house. The house which was Cowper's makes an imposing appearance in a picture, and in reality is a building of considerable size. But it must always have been internally an ill-finished house. He himself, and his friends, compared it to a prison. It had no charms whatever of location. Opposite to it came crowding up some common dwellings; behind lay the garden, on a dead flat, and therefore with no attractions but such as art and a poet's imagination gave it. It was, for some years after he quitted it, inhabited by a surgeon. He has, in his turn, long left it; and it now is divided into three tenements. One is a little grocer's shop, the other part in front is an infant school, and the back part is a work-shop of some kind. The house is altogether dingy and desolate, and bears no marks of having at any time been finished in any superior style. That which was once the garden is now divided into a back yard and a small garden surrounded by a high stone wall. They show an apple-tree in it which they say Cowper planted. The other and main portion of the garden is cut off by the stone wall, and the access to it is from a distant part of the town. This garden is now in the possession of Mr. Morris, a master bootmaker, who, with a genuine feeling of respect for the poet's memory, not only retains it as much as possible in the state in which it was in Cowper's time, but has the most good-natured pleasure in allowing strangers to see it. The moment I presented myself at his door, he came out, antic.i.p.ating my object, with the key, and proffered his own guidance. In the garden, about the center, still stands Cowper's summer-house. It is a little square tenement, as Cowper describes it himself in one of his letters, not much bigger than a sedan chair. It is of timber, framed, and plastered, and the roof of old red tiles. It has a wooden door on the side next to his own house, and a gla.s.s one, serving as window, exactly opposite, and looking across the next orchard to the parsonage. There is a bench on each side, and the ceiling is so low that a man of moderate stature can not stand upright in it. Except in hot weather, it must have been a regular wind-trap. It is all over, of course, written with verses, and inscribed with names. Around it stand evergreens, and in the garden remain various old fruit-trees, which were there in Cowper's time, and some of them, no doubt, planted by him. The back of some low cottages, with their windows level with the very earth, forms part of the boundary wall, and the orchard in front of the summer-house remains as in Cowper's time. It will be recollected that, in order to save himself the trouble of going round through the town, Cowper had a gate put out into this orchard, and another into the orchard of the Rectory, in which lived his friend Mr. Newton. He paid a pound a year for thus crossing his neighbor's orchard, but had, by this means, not only a very near cut to the parsonage opened to him, but a whole quiet territory of orchards. This still remains. A considerable extent of orchards, bounded, for the most part, by the backs of the town houses, presents a little quiet region in which the poet could ramble and muse at his own pleasure. The parsonage, a plain, modern, and not large building, is not very distant from the front of the summer-house, and over it peeps the church spire. One can not help reflecting how often the poet and his friends used to go to and fro there. Newton, with his genuine friendship for Cowper, but with his severe and predestinarian religion, which to Cowper's grieving spirit was terrifying and prostrating; then, a happy change, the lively, and affectionate, and witty Lady Austen, to whom we owe John Gilpin and the Task. Too lively, indeed, was this lady, charming as she was, for the nerves and the occupations of the poet. She went, and then came that delightful and true-souled cousin, Lady Hesketh, a sister, as Mary Unwin was a mother to the poet. She had lived much abroad, from the days in which Cowper and herself, merry companions, had laughed and loved each other dearly as cousins. The fame of him whom she had gone away deploring as blighted and lost forever, met her on her return to her native land, a widow; and with a heart and a purse equally open, she hastened to renew the intercourse of her youth, and to make the poet's life as happy as such hearts only could make him. There is nothing more delightful than to see how the bursting-forth fame of Cowper brought around him at once all his oldest and best friends--his kith and kin who had deemed him a wreck, and found him a gallant bark, sailing on the brightest sea of glory to a sacred immortality.

Lady Hesketh, active in her kindness as she was beautiful in person and in spirit, a true sisterly soul, lost no time in removing Cowper to a more suitable house and neighborhood. Of the house we have spoken. The situation of Olney is on the flat, near the River Ouse, and subject to its fogs. The town was dull. It is much now as it was then; one of those places that are the links between towns and villages. Its present population is only 2300. In such a place, therefore, every man knew all his neighbors' concerns. It was too exposed a sort of place for a man of Cowper's shy disposition, and yet had none of that bustle which gives a stimulus to get out of it into the country. Removing from it to the country was but pa.s.sing from stillness to stillness. The country around Olney, moreover, is by no means striking in its features. It is like a thousand other parts of England, somewhat flat, yet somewhat undulating, and rather naked of trees. Weston, to which he now removed, was about a mile westward of Olney. It lies on higher ground, overlooking the valley of the Ouse. It is a small village, consisting of a few detached houses on each side of the road. The hall stood at this end, and the neat little church at the other. Trees grew along the street, and Cowper p.r.o.nounced it one of the prettiest villages of England. Luckily, he had neither seen all the villages of England, nor the finest scenery of this or other countries. To him, therefore, the country was all that he imagined of lovely, and all that he desired. It never tired, it never lost its hold upon his fancy and his heart.

"Scenes must be beautiful, which, dayly viewed, Please dayly, and where novelty survives Long knowledge, and the scrutiny of years.

Praise justly due to those that I describe."

This he said of this scenery around Weston; and in setting out for that village from Olney, we take the track which, even before he went to live there, was his dayly and peculiarly favorite walk. Advancing out of Olney-street, we are at once on an open ascent on the highway. At a mile's distance before us lies Weston and its woods, its little church tower overlooking the valley of the Ouse. Behind us lies Olney, its tall church spire rising n.o.bly into the sky; and close beneath it the Ouse emerges into sight, sweeping round the water-mills which figure in the poet's works, and then goes in several different streams, as he says, lazily along a fine stretch of green meadows, in which the scenes of "The Dog and Water-lily," and "The Poplar Field" occur. On this eminence stood Cowper often, with Mary Unwin on his arm, and thus he addresses her, as he describes most vividly the view:

"And witness, dear companion of my walks, Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love, Confirmed by long experience of thy worth And well-tried virtues could alone inspire-- Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.

Thou knowest my praise of nature most sincere, And that my raptures are not conjured up To serve occasions of poetic pomp, But genuine, and art partner of them all.

How oft upon yon eminence our pace Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew, While admiration, feeding at the eye, And still unsated dwelt upon the scene.

Thence with what pleasure we have just discerned The distant plow slow moving, and beside His laboring team, that swerved not from the track, The st.u.r.dy swain diminished to a boy; Here Ouse slow winding through a level plain Of s.p.a.cious mead, with cattle sprinkled o'er, Conducts the eye along his sinuous course Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank, Stand, ne'er overlooked, our favorite elms, That screen the herdsman's solitary hut; While far beyond, and overthwart the stream, That, as with molten gla.s.s, inlays the vale, The sloping land recedes into the clouds; Displaying on its varied side the grace Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower, Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells Just undulates upon the listening ear, Groves, heaths, and smoking villages remote."

We should not omit to notice that behind us, over Olney, shows itself the church tower and hall of Clifton, the attempt to walk to which forms the subject of Cowper's very humorous poem, The Distressed Travelers.

Before us, as we advance--the Ouse meadows below on our left, and plain, naked farm-lands on our right--the park of Weston displays its lawns, and slopes, and fine ma.s.ses of trees. It will be recollected by all lovers of Cowper that here lived Sir John and Lady Throckmorton, Cowper's kind and cordial friends, who, even before they knew him, threw open their park and all their domains to him; and who, when they did know him, did all that generous people of wealth and intelligence could do to contribute to his happiness. The village and estate here wholly belonged to them, and the hall was a second home to Cowper, always open to him with a warm welcome, and an easy, una.s.suming spirit of genuine friendship, Lady Throckmorton herself voluntarily becoming the transcriber of his Homer when his young friend Rose left him. In the whole of our literature there is no more beautiful instance of the intercourse of the literary man and his wealthy neighbors than that of Cowper and the Throckmortons. Their reward was the pleasure they conferred; and still more, the fame they have thus won.

The Throckmortons having other and extensive estates, the successors of Cowper's friends have deserted this. The house is pulled down, a wall is built across the bottom of the court-yard, which cuts off from view what was the garden. Gra.s.s grows thickly in the court, the entrance to which is still marked by the pillars of a gateway bearing vases. Across the court are erected a priest's house and Catholic chapel--the Throckmortons were and are Catholic--and beyond these still stand the stables, coach-house, &c., bearing a clock-tower, and showing that this was once a gentleman's residence. At the end of the old thatched out-building you see the word SCHOOL painted; it is the village school, Catholic, of course, as are all, or nearly all, the inhabitants. A pair of gateway pillars, like those which led to the house, mark the entrance to the village a little beyond the house. On the opposite side of the road to the house is the park, and directly opposite to the house, being taken out of the park, is the woodland wilderness in which Cowper so much delighted to ramble.

The village of Weston is a pretty village. The house of Cowper, Weston Lodge, stands on the right hand, about the center of it, forming a picturesque old orchard. The trees, which in his time stood in the street opposite, however, have been felled. A few doors on this side of the lodge is a public house, with the Yardley Oak upon its sign, and bearing the name of Cowper's Oak. The lodge, now inhabited by Mr.

Swanwell, the steward, who very courteously allows the public to see it, is a good and pleasant, but not large house. It is well known by engravings. The vignette at the head of this article represents the tree opposite as still standing, which is not the fact, and the house wants shrubbery round it, by which its present aspect is much improved. The room on the right hand was Cowper's study. In his bed-room, which is at the back of the house overlooking the garden, there still remain two lines which he wrote when about to leave Weston for Norfolk, where he died. As his farewell to this place, the happiest of his life, when his own health, and that of his dear and venerable friend, Mrs. Unwin, were both failing, and gloomy feelings haunted him, these lines possess a deep interest. They are written on the bevel of a panel of one of the window-shutters, near the top right-hand corner, and when the shutter has been repainted, this part has been carefully excepted.

"Farewell, dear scenes, forever closed to me!

Oh for what sorrow must I now exchange you?

July 22.

-- -- even here 28 } 1795 July 22 } 1795."

The words and dates stand just as here given, and mark his recurrence to these lines, and his restless state of mind, repeating the date of both month and year.

From this room Cowper used to have a view of his favorite shrubbery, and beyond it, up the hill, pleasant crofts. The shrubbery was generally admired, being a delightful little labyrinth, composed of flowering shrubs, with gravel walks, and seats placed at appropriate distances. He gave a humorous account to Hayley of the erection of one of these arbors: "I said to Sam, 'Sam, build me a shed in the garden with any thing you can find, and make it rude and rough, like one of those at Eartham.' 'Yes, sir,' says Sam; and straightway laying his own noddle and the carpenter's together, has built me a thing fit for Stowe Gardens. Is not this vexatious? I threaten to inscribe it thus:

Beware of building! I intended Rough logs and thatch, and thus it ended."

All this garden has now been altered. A yard has been made behind, with outbuildings, and the garden cut off with a brick wall.

Not far from this house a narrow lane turns up, inclosed on one side by the park wall. Through this old stone wall, now well crowned with ma.s.ses of ivy, there used to be a door, of which Cowper had a key, which let him at once into the wilderness. In this wilderness, which is a wood grown full of underwood, through which walks are cut winding in all directions, you come upon what is called the Temple. This is an open Gothic alcove, having in front an open s.p.a.ce, scattered with some trees, among them a fine old acacia, and closed in by the thick wood. Here Cowper used to sit much, delighted with the perfect and deep seclusion.

The temple is now fast falling to decay. Through a short winding walk to the left you come out to the park, which is separated from the wilderness by a sunk fence. A broad gra.s.s walk runs along the head of this fosse, between it and the wilderness, and here you find the two urns under the trees, which mark the grave of two favorite dogs of the Throckmortons', for which Cowper condescended to write epitaphs, which still remain, and may be found in his poems. There is also a figure of a lion, couchant, on a pedestal, bearing this inscription: "Mortuo Leone etiam Lepores insultant, 1815."

From this point also runs out the fine lime avenue, of at least a quarter of a mile long, terminated by the alcove. Every scene, and every spot of ground which presents itself here, is to be found in Cowper's poetry, particularly in the first book of his Task--The Sofa. The Sofa was but a hook to hang his theme upon; his real theme is his walk all through this park and its neighborhood, particularly this fine avenue, closing its boughs above with all the solemn and inspiring grace of a Gothic cathedral aisle. To the right the park descends in a verdant slope, scattered with n.o.ble trees. There, in the valley, near the road to Olney, is the Spinny, with its rustic moss-house, haunted by Cowper, and where he wrote those verses, full of the deepest, saddest melancholy which ever oppressed a guiltless heart, beginning,

"Oh, happy shades, to me unblest!

Friendly to peace, but not to me!

How ill the scene that offers rest, And heart, that can not rest, agree."

There, too, in the valley, but where it has freed itself from the wood, is the Rustic Bridge, equally celebrated by him; and beyond it, in the fields, the Peasant's Nest, now grown from a laborer's cottage, shrouded in trees, to a considerable farm-house, with its ricks and buildings, conspicuous on an open eminence. Still beyond are the woods of Yardley Chase, including those of Kilwick and Dinglebury, well known to the readers of Cowper; and this old chase stretches away for four or five miles toward Castle Ashby. In traversing the park to reach the woods and Yardley Oak, we come into a genuinely agricultural region, where a sort of peopled solitude is enjoyed. Swelling, rounded eminences, with little valleys winding between them; here and there a farm-house of the most rustic description; the plow and its whistling follower turning up the ruddy soil; and the park, displaying from its hills and dells its contrast of n.o.bly umbrageous trees, showed where Cowper had often delighted himself, and whence he had drawn much of his imagery:

"Now roves the eye: And posted on this speculative height Exults in its command. The sheepfold here Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.

At first, progressive as a stream, they seek The middle field; but scattered by degrees, Each to his choice, soon whitens all the land.

There from the sunburn'd hay-field homeward creeps The loaded wain; while, lightened of its charge, The wain that meets it pa.s.ses swiftly by; The boorish driver leaning o'er his team, Vociferous, and impatient of delay.

Nor less attractive is the woodland scene, Diversified with trees of every growth, Alike, yet various. How the gray, smooth trunks Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine Within the twilight of their distant shades: There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs."