Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/69

Rh is only stiff and pompous, and that while scholars delight in the original, English readers have found the translation turgid, wearisome, and intolerable. Having thus prepared the way for himself he wrote to his publisher, announcing his intention of publishing by subscription. Johnson endeavoured to dissuade him from this, adding that he would make him liberal offers. But Cowper held to his purpose, finding that friends to whom he began to communicate his design entered into it warmly. One of these was the Rev. Walter Bagot, an old schoolfellow, whom he had scarcely seen since leaving Westminster, but who had recently taken an opportunity of renewing the acquaintance. He now sent him £20 beforehand, and asked for a parcel of the subscription papers. At the same time a correspondence was renewed with his old friends Colman and Thurlow. His angry feelings had passed away after writing the "Valediction," and he seized at a kind expression of Colman's repeated to him by Hill to write him a warm and affectionate letter, which received a like response.

Colman proved useful at this moment. He had won much credit by his translation of Terence, and his criticism was therefore valuable. His encouraging remarks on the specimen which Cowper sent him comforted him for many of a contrary kind which he had received. Another favourable judge, for a long time unknown to him, proved to be the painter Fuseli, to whom Johnson had shown a portion.

And now, for a while, his peace of mind in great measure returned to him. In a letter to his cousin, written in January 1786, after giving an account of his late malady, he adds: "Methinks I hear you ask—your affection for me will, I know, make you wish to do so,—Is it quite removed? I reply, In great measure, but not quite. Occasionally I am much distressed, but that distress becomes continually less frequent, and I think less violent. I find writing, and especially poetry, my best remedy. Perhaps, had I understood music, I had never written verse, but had lived on fiddle strings instead. It is better, however, as it is." And here again: "He who hath preserved me hitherto, will still preserve me. All the dangers that I have escaped are so many pillars of remembrance, to which I shall hereafter look back with comfort My life has been a life of wonders for many years, and a life of wonders I believe in my heart it will be to the end. Wonders I have seen in the great deep, and wonders I shall see in the paths of mercy also. "

Yet this was the time that Newton thought that he was growing worldly, and thought proper to warn him about renewing his intercourse with his family! Cowper answered him with warmth, not to say bitterness. The following words are significant: "I could show you among them two men, whose lives, though they have but little of what we call evangelical light, are ornaments to a Christian country—men who fear God more than some who profess to love Him."