The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

CO WPER'S LIFE AND WORKS. VOL.
Saunders and Otley. London. 1835.
This handsome work is at length brought to a close,
and in its external appearance and careful getting up,
is worthy to vie with Murray's late editions of Byron,
Crabbe, and Boswell. Not only does it comprise all
the poems of Cowper, but those admirable letters also,
which he wrote, with no view to publication at the
time, to his familiar friends, and which, as Fox justly
observed, may rank, as models of ease, grace, and pro-
priety, among, the best in the language. The great
charm of Cowper's correspondence is the unequivocal
tokens it everywhere displays of a gentle, modest,
and philanthropic spirit. There is no air of as-
sumption or pedantry—no parade or affectation—
nothing of that self-consciousness of intellec-
tual superiority about it, which we perpetually
witness in the letters of Pope and Swift. Cowper
writes like a gentleman, not like an author, a character
of which the " Twickenham wasp" could never divest
himself. Throughout his very lengthened corres-
pondence, he commits his thoughts to paper, with as
much fearless unconcern and frank familiarity, as if he
were gossiping by his own fire-side, under the inspira-
tion of " the cups that cheer, but not inebriate," with
his old friends Newton, Throckmorton, or Hayley.
With the exception, perhaps, of Lord Byron—for
Horace Walpole, though otherwise an inimitable cor-
respondent, was constantly, like Voltaire, aiming at
effect—Cowper is the only English author who shows
himself in his correspondence, precisely as he was,
giving us access to his inmost thoughts, and acquaint-
ing us without reserve, for he had nothing to conceal,
with every varying mood of his mind. Nor are his
Poems, especially the " Task," the best of them all,
less characteristic of the author's amiable and unaf-
fected nature. The feeling which he brings to his
sketches of landscape scenery is equalled only by
Thompson, whose descriptions, if superior, arc only so,
because they arc on a more grand and comprehensive
scale. Cowper contents himself with giving minute
and polished details of the various beauties that go to
make up a beautiful landscape ; not a elm nor a cot-
tage, not even a hedge with linen hanging to dry on
it, escape his quick and close observation. He cata-
logues and gives a charm to every item ; whereas
Thompson deals with generalities, and gives effect to
his sketches as a whole, not in portions. The one has
more skill and accuracy ; the other more genius and
apprehension of the picturesque. Thompson could not
have given us such a highly-finished cabinet-picture as
the " Winter Walk at Noon ;" nor Cowper such a
tragic one, as the " Traveller lost in the Snow." Both,
however, are consummate artists in their way, and both
will live as long as the language shall endure. It is
no slight recommendation to the present edition, that
its landscape embellishments, by Finden, convey as ac-
curate an idea as can be furnished by the pencil, of
the various sylvan scenes, quiet and unassuming as his
own genius, which the poet has immortalized in his
" Task." Here we have the Church-yard, among
whose old yews he so often, like Gray, loved to medi-
tate ; the Thrush-grove where he would stand for
hours listening to the cheerful songs of its tenants ;
the Cottage which sheltered him from the rain, when
surprised in one of his favourite evening strolls—all
are here ; but where is he who has consecrated them
in our memories ? Gone, where Spencer and Thomp-
son have gone before him, leaving, however, a name,
imperishable in the recollections of his countrymen.