THE NIGHTINGALE AND GLOW-WORM (1780) REPORT OF AN ADJUDGED CASE (1780) . INTRODUCTION. COWPER AND HIS PLACE IN ENGLISH POETRY. TAINE in his notice of Cowper1 has said of the poet that his poems Iwere but the echo of his life." The remark is This, however, is not because Cowper's life was one of striking changes, stirring experiences, strong passions, or strenuous toils. Much of it was monotonous. The greater part of it was passed in seclusion. His horizon was bounded by the sky line of a somewhat obscure English village. It is, in fact, the inner rather than the outer life of the poet which finds its "echo" in the poems. But there can be no mistake as to the fact and the degree of reflection of this inner life in his poetical work. The Cowper of The Task is the Cowper of the Letters, lineament for lineament, tone for tone; and if this gives so much of flavor and coloring to his poetry, if it makes up so much of its charm and power, on the other hand it entails limitations. Olney and Weston could at best afford only a narrow circle of interests, and in these the poet's life was centered. But, oh! wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffith, let me pass for a genius at Olney." So wrote Cowper in anticipation of a criticism on his poems. Whether we view his life and surroundings as friendly or adverse to the development of his poetic genius, we should know something of his history in order to have a true appreciation of that genius. The sorrowful experiences ९९ 1 English Literature, Am. ed., vol. ii, p. 243. which preluded his lasting retirement from the London world, his habits of life at Olney and Weston, his friendships, and, above all, his insanity, that dreadful malady clouding so many years and never wholly lifted,—all this should be known in outline at least, if the true measure of his poetry is to be taken. I. BIRTH AND EDUCATION. William Cowper was born at Great Berkhampstead, Nov. 26, 1731. He counted among his paternal ancestors, Sir William Cowper, a staunch Royalist, who died in 1664, a second Sir William Cowper, grandson of the former, and an Earl Cowper, his son. The poet's father was the Reverend John Cowper, a chaplain of George II and the rector of Great Berkhampstead. The maiden name of Cowper's mother was Anne Donne. It is said that she could trace her descent from Henry III, and that she numbered among her ancestors Dr. John Donne, the poet. Cowper alludes to his gentle birth in the close of his poem on The Receipt of My Mother's Picture, My boast is not that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth. It may Of his earlier years we know very little. His birthplace was a quiet village of some note in English history, first as a royal seat under the Mercian kings and once again under the Plantagenets. It was situated in a region of picturesque scenery, which Cowper, as a boy, knew well, for he says in 1 H speaking of his early home: There was neither tree, nor gate, nor stile in all that country, to which I did not feel a relation, and the house itself I preferred to a palace." Cowper's school days began at a very early age. In the Lines on the Receipt of My Mother's Picture, he recalls them among other incidents of childhood,— And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way. ९९ Shortly after her death, in 1737, he was sent from home to the school of a Dr. Pitman at Market Street, a village some seven miles distant from Berkhampstead. Here the storms of his life began. He was made the victim of a school bully, more than twice his age, and for two years endured from him "acts of barbarity" which Cowper would not name, whose "savage treatment of me impressed such a dread of his figure upon my mind that I even remember being afraid to lift my eyes upon him, higher than his knees; and I knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by any other part of his dress." Cowper in the account of his early life adds : May the Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory." But this forgiving disposition did not restrain the poet from writing his Tirocinium. At Market Street, too, began the attacks of melancholia, caused in part, at least, by such brutalities inflicted on a shrinking and sensitive boy, attacks which were later to assume forms so terrible and become a mental disease so seated. He was removed from the school, but the mischief had been wrought. Southey in his life of Cowper says that when he " was removed from Dr. Pitman's, he was in some danger of losing his sight, specks having appeared on both eyes, which, it was feared, might cover them." To gain relief from his threatened blindness, he spent two years, 1739-41, under the care and in the house of an oculist, Mr. Disney. Cowper was so far relieved from ophthalmic trouble, |