Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/65

Rh one who had made such a sensation. They were astonished to find a volume of serious poetry, but not the less delightful. When once opened, "The Task" needed no other recommendation, and more than that, it led them to seek out the previously neglected volume. The success was triumphant; a new edition was called for, and next year the two volumes were published together.

The great beauties of "The Task," and its pure and elevated feeling, can hardly be said to make it a poem of the highest class. The very method of its origin was some bar to success. The author began it without a definite purpose; in fact, changed his views as he went along, for he began it to please Lady Austen, and continued in such a way as to please Mrs. Unwin. The graceful address to Mrs. Unwin in the First Book, lines 144-162, may very probably have been inserted as a compliment, to wipe away any unpleasantness after the rupture with Lady Austen, but, on the other hand, it is not impossible that the author's leaving "The Sofa" for other subjects may synchronize with the breach. It is curious to mark his mode of transition. He hopes he shall never have to lie on the sofa through gout, because he likes walking. When he walks, he sees rural scenes. And thereupon he goes off into rural scenes, and the Sofa is quite done with and forgotten. Of course it is the scenery of Olney which occupies him wholly, and the description of his walks is as beautiful as any poetry can make it. Towards the end of the First Book he again changes his subject, for the purpose of moralizing. The country and the life therein are contrasted with the town, and this affords the opening for satire, which is just touched in the end of the First Book, but forms the staple of the Second. And splendid satire it is, full of vigour, and energy, and point, sometimes mere good-humoured badinage, sometimes full of burning indignation. It is satire of a different kind from that of his former poems; it is less bilious, more free from personality. Yet, Antaeus-like, the author loses all his power when he ceases to touch his proper sphere. His faculty of keen observation enables him to lash effectively the false pretensions and follies which he sees. But his reflections upon the world without are of the poorest kind. He foresees the end of the world close at hand. He rails at the natural philosopher who attempts to discover the causes of physical calamities, such as earthquakes and diseases; at the historian who takes the trouble to investigate the motives of remarkable men; at the geologist and the astronomer. For the last especially there is nothing but contempt. It would be hard to find a more foolish and mischievous piece of rant than that contained in "The Garden," lines 150-190. But no man ought to sit in judgment as he has done who lives in retirement. We have already spoken of his censoriousness. It came from his want of knowledge of men. The hard and revolting view of religion which he took from his theological friends was not corrected by any experience of those at whom he railed. His indiscriminate abuse of pursuits that did not interest him might just as fairly be