Page:Studies in Letters and Life (Woodberry, 1890).djvu/236

226 is an expression of Puritan iconoclasm which acquaints the reader at once with Cowper's provincialism. The passage is English to the core, and not only does it suggest the æsthetic deficiencies of the poet and his life, but it also brings up once more the characteristic English picture of the family singing psalms and reading sermons, year in, year out, with which the letters begin. This correspondence has made that group of interest to the world; but in answer to the question, What was its life and its spirit, can one help feeling that trivial, not to say belittling, occupations, and a narrowing theology, were principal elements? Cowper's work, in the main, has only the sluggish vitality of this life; in his letters more than in his verses, speaking generally, there is literary grace and personal charm; but in both they seem a sort of salvage. A vision of quiet green fields, inhabited by respectable gentlefolk who led an existence of humble routine in a neighborly way, made up Cowper's world; he lived in it overshadowed by the ever present fear of damnation, and at last, sunk in despair, he died in it. Out of such a world no great poet either of the soul or of nature could come.