THE PERSON AND CHARACTER OF COWPER.

[SKETCHED BY THE REV. T. S. GRIMSHAWE, F. S. A., IN A RECENT LONDON EDITION OF COWPER'S WORKS.]

WHENEVER men have acquired celebrity by those powers of genius with which Providence has seen fit to discriminate them, a curiosity prevails to learn all the minuter traits of person, habit, and real character. We wish to realize the portrait before our eyes, to see how far all the component parts are in harmony with each other; or whether the elevation of mind which raises them beyond the general standard is perceptible in the occurrences of common life.

The person and mind of Cowper seem to have been formed with equal kindness by nature: and it may be questioned if she ever bestowed on any man, with a fonder prodigality, all the requisites to conciliate affection and to inspire respect.

He is said to have been handsome in his youth. His features strongly expressed the powers of his mind and all the sensibility of his heart; and even in his declining years, time seemed to have spared much of its ravages, though his mind was harassed by unceasing nervous excitement.

He was of a middle stature, rather strong than delicate in the form of his limbs: the color of his hair was of a light brown, that of his eyes a bluish gray, and his complexion ruddy. In his dress he was neat but not finical; in his diet temperate, and not dainty.

He had an air of pensive reserve in his deportment, and his extreme shyness sometimes produced in his manners an inde

scribable mixture of awkwardness and dignity; but no person could be more truly graceful, when he was in perfect health, and perfectly pleased with his society. Towards women, in particular, his behavior and conversation were delicate and fascinating in the highest degree.

There was a simplicity of manner and character in Cowper which always charms, and is often the attribute of real genius. He was singularly calculated to excite emotions of esteem and love by those qualities that win confidence and inspire sympathy. In friendship he was uniformly faithful; and, if the events of life had not disappointed his fondest hopes, no man would have been more eminently adapted for the endearments of domestic life.

His daily habits of study and exercise are so minutely and agreeably delineated in his Letters, that they present a perfect portrait of his domestic character.

His voice conspired with his features to announce to all who saw and heard him the extreme sensibility of his heart; and in reading aloud he furnished the chief delight of those social, enchanting winter evenings, which he has described so happily in the Fourth Book of "The Task."

Secluded from the world as he had long been, he yet retained in advanced life singular talents for conversation; and his remarks were uniformly distinguished by mild and benevolent pleasantry, by a strain of delicate humor, varied by solid and serious good sense, and those united charms of a cultivated mind, which he has himself very happily described in drawing the character of a venerable friend :

"Grave without dulness, learned without pride,
Exact, yet not precise; though meek, keen-eyed;
Who, when occasion justified its use,

Had wit as bright as ready to produce;
Could fetch from records of an earlier age,

Or from philosophy's enlighten'd page,
His rich materials, and regale your ear
With strains, it was a privilege to hear.

Yet, above all, his luxury supreme,

And his chief glory, was the gospel theme:

Ambitious not to shine or to excel,

But to treat justly what he loved so well."

But the traits of his character are nowhere developed with happier effect than in his own writings, and especially in his poems. From these we shall make a few extracts, and suffer him to draw the portrait for himself.

His admiration of the works of Nature:

"I never framed a wish, or form'd a plan
That flatter'd me with hopes of earthly bliss,
But there I laid the scene. There early stray'd
My Fancy, ere yet liberty of choice

Had found me, or the hope of being free.
My very dreams were rural; rural too

The first-born efforts of my youthful muse;
Sportive and jingling her poetic bells

Ere yet her ear was mistress of their powers.

No bard could please me but whose lyre was tuned
To Nature's praises."

Task, Bk, IV.

""Tis born with all; the love of Nature's works

Is an ingredient in the compound man,

Infused at the creation of his kind.

God seen and adored in the works of Nature:

"Not a flower

But shows some touch in freckle, streak, or stain,

Of His unrivall'd pencil. He inspires

Their balmy odors, and imparts their hues,
And bathes their eyes with nectar, and includes,
In grains as countless as the sea-side sands,
The forms with which He sprinkles all the earth.”
Bk. VI., 240–246.

His fondness for retirement:

"Since then, with few associates, in remote
And silent woods I wander, far from those
My former partners of the peopled scene;
With few associates, and not wishing more.
Here much I ruminate, as much I may,
With other views of men and manners now
Than once, and others of a life to come," &c.

Bk. III., 117–133.

His love for his country:

"England, with all thy faults I love thee still-
My country! and, while yet a nook is left,
Where English minds and manners may be found,
Shall be constrain'd to love thee. Though thy clime
Be fickle, and thy year most part deform'd
With dripping rains, or wither'd by a frost,
I would not yet exchange thy sullen skies,
And fields without a flower, for warmer France
With all her vines; nor for Ausonia's groves
Of golden fruitage, and her myrtle bowers."

His humane and generous feelings :

"I was born of woman, and drew milk

As sweet as charity from human breasts.

I think, articulate, I laugh and weep,

And exercise all functions of a man.

How then should I and any man that lives
Be strangers to each other?" &c.

Bk. II.

Bk. III., 196-210.

His love of liberty:

"O Liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art Fancy's nurse;
Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse;
Heroic song from thy free touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires:
Place me where Winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will sing, if Liberty be there;

And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet,

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat."

Table Talk.

""Tis liberty alone that gives the flower
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume;
And we are weeds without it."

Task, Bk. V.

His depressive malady, and the source of its cure:

"I was a stricken deer, that left the herd
Long since; with many an arrow deep infix'd
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by One, who had himself

Been hurt by the archers. In his side he bore,
And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars.

With gentle force soliciting the darts,

He drew them forth, and heal'd, and bade me live.”

Bk. III.

The employment of his time, and design of his life and writ

ings:

"Me, therefore, studious of laborious ease,
Not slothful, happy to deceive the time,
Not waste it, and aware that human life
Is but a loan to be repaid with use,
When He shall call his debtors to account,