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CHAPTER VII.

COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

William Cowper-The Progress of Error'- The Task'Secundem Artem'-Epigrams-'The Rolliad' and its authors-John Wolcot-Farewell Odes'-ParodiesWilliam Gifford The Baviad'-Richard Porson-Epigrams-George Crabbe-'The Village'-Hannah More -Bas Bleu'-William Blake-'Orator Prig'-Robert Burns.

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CHAPTER VII.

COWPER AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES.

BETWEEN the time of Cowper and that brilliant period which acknowledges Byron as its master-mind in wit and humour, there comes an interval, not filled indeed by many voices, but marked by song and speech, on the part of a select few, of very great excellence and charm. This is the interval in which Cowper in England and Burns in Scotland-both of them the victim of a mistaken and deplorable religionism, not religion-held respective sway; the one as the gentle humourist of the parlour, the other as the savage satirist of the country-side. Side by side with them are the authors of The Rolliad as representatives, along with Wolcot, of political satire; Gifford as the representative of literary satire, in his Baviad and Maviad; and Porson, as the representative of epigram-Crabbe and Blake and Hannah More being included in the interval by a licence which may possibly be disputed. Hannah More, indeed, died thirty-three years after Cowper, Crabbe thirtytwo, and Blake twenty-seven-all of them, too, died after Byron. Still, on the other hand, the lady was for more than fifty years contemporary with the author of The Task; Crabbe was contemporary with him for rather less than fifty years; whilst Blake was contemporary with him for rather more than forty. It is not, therefore, without some reason for the act that we class them along with Cowper in this chapter.

With the general public Cowper takes rank as a humourist almost wholly on the strength of his 'John Gilpin.' His Eyes or No Eyes' is also very popular and

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* William Cowper, born 1731, died 1800. The Progress of Error appeared in 1782; The Task in 1784.

familiar; but apart from these two admirable, if hackneyed pieces, he would not, we suspect, be regarded vulgarly as in any sense a humourist at all. Yet how delightful is Cowper in what we may call his characteristically humorous mood-the quiet one, in which the persiflage is so light and bright that it is not every one who will detect it, and of which his poems absolutely bristle with examples! There are, of course, occasions on which Cowper essays the Juvenalian manner, and then we have such passages as this upon 'the trifler :'

Rufillus, exquisitely formed by rule,

Not of the moral but the dancing school,
Wonders at Clodio's follies in a tone
As tragical as others at his own.

He cannot drink five bottles, bilk the score,
Then kill a constable and drink five more;
But he can draw a pattern, make a tart,
And has the ladies' etiquette by heart.

Go, fool; and arm in arm with Clodio, plead

Your cause before a bar you little dread;

But know the law which bids the drunkard die
Is far too just to pass the trifler by.

Or, from the same poem, The Progress of Error, this:

Accomplishments have taken virtue's place,
And wisdom falls before exterior grace;
We slight the precious kernel of the stone,
And toil to polish its rough coat alone.
A just deportment, manners graced with ease,
Elegant phrase, and figure formed to please,
Are qualities that seem to comprehend
Whatever parents, guardians, schools intend.
Hence an unfurnished and a listless mind,
Though busy, trifling; empty, though refined;
Hence all that interferes, and dares to clash,
With indolence and luxury, is trash;
While learning, once the man's exclusive pride,
Seems verging fast towards the female side.

At other times, again, we get a strain like this from Conversation:

-The solemn fop; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge;
He says but little, and that little said
Owes all its weight, like loaded dice, to lead.
His wit invites you by his looks to come,
But when you knock it never is at home.*
'Tis like a parcel sent you by the stage,
Some handsome present, as your hopes presage,
'Tis heavy, bulky, and bids fair to prove
An absent friend's fidelity and love;

But when unpacked your disappointment groans
To find it stuffed with brickbats, earth, and stones.

But Cowper is not happiest in this vein.

Of Cowper in the vein of humour that at once suits him best, and is most characteristic of him, we do not think we could have a better instance than is afforded by the introduction to The Task:

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Time was, when clothing sumptuous or for use,
Save their own painted skins, our sires had none.
As yet black breeches were not, satin smooth,
Or velvet soft, or plush with shaggy pile;
Those barbarous ages past, succeeded next
The birthday of invention, weak at first,
Dull in design, and clumsy to perform.
Joint-stools were then created; on three legs
Upborne they stood;-three legs upholding firm
A massy slab, in fashion square or round.
On such a stool immortal Alfred sat,

And swayed the sceptre in his infant realms;

And such in ancient halls and mansions drear

May still be seen, but perforated sore

And drilled in holes the solid oak is found,

By worms voracious eaten through and through.
At length a generation more refined

* Almost identical with an epigram attributed to Pope, and quoted ante.

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