is Spencer Madan (1758-1836), younger brother of Martin Madan, the author of Thelyphthora, and first cousin of Cowper. He became Bishop of Bristol in 1792, and was translated to Peterborough in 1794. He was a Bishop of great piety, simplicity, and even austerity of life, and of an activity in the discharge of his Episcopal duties far beyond what was common in his day. P. lxxxiii. Blithfield was the house of his friend Walter Bagot. See note to page 477. Who the friends were who wished to be his hosts in Bath and Normandy, I do not know. P. lxxxix. For Dr. Darwin, see note to the lines addressed to him on p. 490. NOTES P. 1. Of the thirty-four pieces here classed as Early Poems, the largest and most important section, those referring to his love of Delia (Theodora Cowper) were first printed in Poems, the Early Productions of William Cowper, Now first published from the originals in the possession of James Croft, 1825. The manuscripts of these, and of the other pieces which Croft printed, came to him from, the executors of a lady to whom Theodora Cowper had sent them in a sealed packet with directions that it was not to be opened till after her death. This lady died a little before Theodora Cowper, whose death took place in October, 1824. The "Delia" poems, hitherto as a rule interspersed among the other "Early Poems," are here brought together and placed in what appears to be their probable chronological order. Croft had apparently no qualifications for his task except that of having married Theodora Cowper's niece. His editing is careless in every way, and not least in interrupting the series of love poems by other pieces which have no connection with it. The titles here prefixed to them are those printed by Croft where he prints any. For those on pages 16 and 17, the second of the two on page 18, and those on pages 22 and 24, I am responsible. The other pieces that come from this collection of Theodora Cowper's, and first appear in Croft's book, are those given on pp. 2-7 inclusive, the lines headed Of Himself, The Certainty of Death, and the Translation of Psalm CXXXVII. The opening verses written at Bath were given first by Hayley (i. 21), who also gave the Epistle to Lloyd, the lines which begin "Doomed, as I am," and several stanzas of the Ode on Sir Charles Grandison. (Hayley, i. 12, 15, 20.) The poem on the Prayer for Indifference was first printed in John Johnson's edition in 1815. For the four remaining pieces, To Joseph Hill, Lines written under the Influence of Delirium, A Song of Mercy, and Die Ultimo, 1774, see the special notes. The translations of two of the Satires of Horace, which have generally been given with the other pieces written during Cowper's London period, I have thought it more convenient to place with the rest of the Latin translations. The translation of the Psalm, however, retains its place with the poems that come from Croft's book. With these Early Poems all the editors have printed as Cowper's the Pindaric Ode given below. It was Southey who first ascribed it to Cowper. In the first volume of his edition (p. 95), after mentioning the Dissertation on the Modern Ode which appears signed with Cowper's initials in the St. James Magazine in April, 1763, and promises a perfect ode to be composed according to the directions given, he argues that this ode, which appeared in November of the same year, is "evidently by the same person, though signed with a different initial." Mr. Bell has followed Southey in confidently asserting that the ode is Cowper's. Other editors have printed it, though apparently with less confidence. But the true author is undoubtedly Lloyd. For, in the first place, it is signed with the initial L., and it is absurd to suppose that Cowper after using his own initial for the Dissertation would use an L. to sign the ode it promised. But the absolutely conclusive proof lies in a comparison of this ode with the acknowledged works of Lloyd, such as the Ode to Genius. When that is done, it is at once plain that both style and subject are exactly his. The sneering allusion to the poets of "Granta's shore" is natural enough in the mouth of the author of the parodies of Gray, but not at all likely to come from so great an admirer of Gray as Cowper; and the whole complaint that poetry is become a mere affair of mechanical rhyme is the burden of both pieces. The Pindaric Ode, alleged to be Cowper's, contrasts the former poets, inspired by "Fancy, bright aërial maid" with the "sons of modern Rime, Mechanic dealers in sublime." Lloyd's Ode to Genius calls upon Genius as one who "look'st with high disdain Upon the dull mechanic train." When I add that the very same phrase "Fancy, bright aërial maid” occurs in both, it will, I think, be admitted to be clear that both are by the same author. And that author is Lloyd. I have, therefore, felt bound to deprive it of the place it has hitherto held among the works of Cowper, while giving it with this note that students may form their own opinion of it. AN ODE SECUNDUM ARTEM 1 Shall I begin with Ah, or Oh? Be sad? Oh! yes. Be glad? Ah! no. But let the sober matron wear Her own mechanic sober air: Ah me! ill suits, alas! the sprightly jig, And all my faculties benumb; Let thought turn exile, while the vacant mind, To win the ear, neglects the heart. Of rhythm converted into rime, Court the quaint Muse and con her lessons o'er, Stretch, cramp, or lop the verse's limb, 2 O Fancy, bright aërial maid! Where have thy vagrant footsteps strayed? Whose lady Muse full wantonly is drest, As varnish on the cheek of harlot light; Smooth, soothing sounds, and sweet alternate rime, 3 The lark shall soar in every Ode, There mouldering stones o'erspread the rugged ground. There babbling fonts, and prattling rills; Here some gay river floats in crispèd streams, Drives in description down the west. Oh let me boast, with pride-becoming skill, From every new poetic flower, Whose sweets collected may a wreath compose, To bind the poet's brow, or please the critic's nose. P. 1, 1. 6. Hayley, who first prints this poem, gives " bowel-racking." Southey, Bell, and Benham give "bowel-raking." The alteration seems quite unnecessary. The Oxford English Dictionary gives "bowelracking" and not "bowel-raking." Bruce gives "bowel-racking." P. 2, 1. 25. Benham gives "froward" for "forward," which is the word printed originally by Croft. Croft is often plainly wrong, but it seems safest to follow him when his text is a possible one: for no later editor has seen the original MSS. But P. 3, 1. 1. Croft gives "glassy." All other editors "glossy." may not Cowper be thinking of "vitreus," as used by Horace, of whom he was then a great reader? There is even something of the same contrast in "Penelopen vitreamque Circen " (Horace, Odes, i. 17. 20) as there is here in "Venus' smiles, Diana's mien." It may be noted that he uses the epithet "glassy" of a lake in Truth, 259. Still "glassy locks" is scarcely a happy phrase, and "glossy" may possibly be right. P. 4, 1. 2. Croft, followed by Southey and Benham, gives "fluttered"; and there seems no sufficient reason for the substitution with Bell and Bruce of the more obvious "flattered.” P. 4, 1. 3. Croft, "and lovers drowned," a mere misprint. P. 6, 11. 25 and 34. Croft, whom Bruce follows, gives "from what source on earth,” and, in l. 34, “shall not wrong." Hayley quoted four stanzas of this poem in his Life (i. 20), and the readings in the text are his. They are followed by Southey, Bell, and Benham. Probably both versions are Cowper's own: there are a good many cases in which alternative readings exist which both rest on the authority of the poet. P. 7, 1. 7. Southey, followed by Bruce, Bell, and Benham, has altered the second "there" into "thence." But Croft's original is surely correct: the two "theres" correspond to the two "nows": it is a series of scenes, or pictures. P. 7, 1. 8. Croft gives "in" her votary's eye, but "on" seems right. It is to be remembered that he is not to be blindly trusted. His book is very carelessly printed, his readings being frequently impossible. In the second line of this poem, for instance, he prints "heights" in the first line of the Ode on the Marriage of a Friend he prints, "The magic lyre": in the fifth line "waters" for " warblings," and on pages 8, 9 "pathless ray," for "way." And there are many other instances in which he is as certainly wrong. Still, when his text is not impossible it is right to remember that he had the original before him, and we have not. P. 7, 1. 18. Cowper was an admirer of Gray, and it is interesting to notice the obvious influence of Gray, and, behind Gray, of Dryden, in this Ode. P. 8, 1. 2. Croft, "that tear that dims," and so Southey; that dims," Bell, Bruce, Benham. "the tear P. 8, 1. 25. Robert Lloyd, the poet, joint author with Colman of the Odes to Obscurity and Oblivion, written in ridicule of Gray and Mason, was one of Cowper's intimates in his Temple days, and a brother member of the Nonsense Club. He was editor of the St. James Magazine from 1762 and died in 1764. Hayley (i. 14) says this Epistle was written when Cowper was twenty-three, that is in 1754. It is, therefore, like the piece which here follows it, later in date than some of the "Delia" poems, but it has been thought better, even in defiance of chronological order, to keep the Delia pieces together as an unbroken series. P. 9, 1. 1. It is worth noticing that, even at this early age, Cowper's health already gave what we can now see to be signs of the disease which was afterwards to have such terrible effects. And it is curious that then, as later, he turned to the composition of verse as a cure for melancholy. P. 9, 1. 18. "pitch-kettled." According to Hayley (i. 16) this was "a favourite phrase at the time when this Epistle was written, expressive of being puzzled, or what, in the spectator's time, would have been called bamboozled." P. 10. To Joseph Hill:-These humorous verses are here printed for the first time. The original is in the collection of Cowper's letters to Hill, lately the property of Mr. Edward Jekyll, who kindly allowed me access to them, and now of the Rev. Canon Cowper Johnson, of Yaxham |