Some must be great. Great offices will have To me an unambitious mind, content 790 In the low vale of life, that early felt A wish for ease and leisure, and ere long 800 Found here that leisure and that ease I wish'd. NOTES BOOK III. THE GARDEN. AFTER the digression of the second book, Cowper returns to softer and more familiar scenes better fitting the poet of the Sofa. He begins by an invocation of domestic happiness. Next to the Country his favourite theme is Home. With a charming ingenuousness, an egotism which is wholly unselfish, he gives us a chapter of his religious autobiography. From his own retreat he moralises on the stir and turmoil of the world that he has left, the idle dreams of the philosopher, the vain aspirations of the crowd. He then passes, by a natural transition, to the pleasures of the solitary man -the cultivation of a garden. He shows us the brighter side of his life, he speaks as a man who has handled a spade and wheeled a barrow himself, and enjoyed the true luxury of making plants grow and watching their growth. Parts of the book, such as the directions for raising cucumbers, labour under the unavoidable defect of a didactic poem; in proportion as they are minute and precise enough to be useful, they cease to be poetical. The Book ends as it began, with a tirade against the follies and extravagances of town life. 1-40 As a traveller, after losing his way, rejoices when he regains the high road, so after my long digression on political evils and social vices, I rejoice to return to my original theme, the Sofa (or rather to the themes which it has suggested, the quiet pleasures of the country). And it is but wise that I should do so, for when preachers who know the world fail to convince, what chance is there that a recluse like me should be heard? Better to take my ease in summer under shady trees, or in winter on the sofa, and, if I must vent my spleen, do so in the ears of two or three trusty friends alone. I Brakes. Properly broken ground, then a thicket or underwood. Used in the sense of a precipice in My Mother's Picture, 1. 66. "Ne'er roughened by those cataracts and brakes, 2 Entangled. According to Wedgwood, "tangle" is a word of sound, and was first applied to confused sounds, then to confused textures. What is the force of the prefix en-? Winds. The ideas of turning and going are connected in most languages. What is "went" the past. indef. of? 3 What does "uncertain" agree with? 5 What is the "slough of despond"? 8 Faithful to the foot. Express this in prose. Cf. Shakespeare, "stubborn to justice," "a will most incorrect to heaven." 9 Cherups. The same word as "chirp," now more commonly spelt "chirrup." Properly a neuter verb, but used here in a transitive sense, just as "to bay the moon," and colloquially, "to whistle a dog off." Brisk. Parse. "Brisk" is the French "brusque." Ear-erecting. A proleptic epithet. See note on book ii. 452. 10 Point out any fault of style in this line. I-IO This sentence is an instance of what is called in Greek an anacoluthon. Show where the sentence is irregular, and point out the reason for this irregularity. See Abbott's Sh. Gr., p. 303. 13 Its slumbers. What is meant by "the Sofa's slumbers"? Cf. Sofa, 1. 44, "but restless was the chair." Is this a proper use of the possessive genitive? What is the history of the word "its"? Ought it properly to be written with an apostrophe? See Marsh's Students' Manual of the English Language, p. 278. 14 Wide. Parse. 15 Academic. Derive. 17 Cleanlier. The suffix -ly both of adjectives and adverbs is the A.S. -lice, the dative or ablative of -lic-like, -lic was at the same time a noun meaning "body;" German "leich," a corpse. 18 At large. "At" has the force of the French "à," compare at odds, at friend. Winter's Tale, v. I, 140. Words 21 Reflect. The figure called in Greek "catachresis." properly relating to one sense are used in reference to another. Cf. Milton's "Far off their coming shone." 22 Most part. Cf. the Latin "maximam partem." 99.66 25 To purpose. Notice the common omission of the article in prepositional and adverbial phrases, “in season, at heart," "to relief."-Henry V., i. I. 26 Crack the satiric thong. A common metaphor for satire. "Nec scutica dignum horribili sectere flagello." -HOR. Sat. i. 3, 129. Twere wiser far. Cf. Milton's Lycidas, 1. 67. How does Milton answer the question? How far is Cowper in earnest in this statement? 66 27 Sequestered. "Sequester" in Latin is an indifferent person who holds a deposit. Sequestro," to put into the hands of such a person, and so to lay aside. What does "to sequestrate mean in English? 29 An echo of Horace. 32 Nitrous air. "The name given by Priestley to oxygen gas, whose researches into its nature were nearly contemporaneous with the writing of these lines." Note of Globe Edition. Cf. Thomson's Winter, 1. 692. "The joyous Winter days, Frosty, succeed; and through the blue serene, 37 Gall. French "galler," to gall, fret, itch. 38 Disgust concealed. A Latin construction; the epithet has a predicative force. So 1. 97. "Well dressed, well bred, well equipaged is ticket good enough." should expect, is common in Milton: -P. L., v. 248. 66 The construction, as we after his charge received." 41-108 An invocation to domestic happiness, the last blessing left to fallen man, the mother of virtue, the constant foe of vicious pleasures. Vice nowadays stalks unblushingly in our streets. Even hypocrisy is better than effrontery. Notice the personification of abstract substantives, a distinguishing mark of the poetry of the 17th century, from which even Wordsworth only gradually freed himself. Cf. bk. ii. 1. 734. seq. 44 Tasting. What sort of participle? Turn it into a dependent sentence. 46 Drops of bitter. "Medio de fonte leporum, surgit amari aliquid."-LUCRETIUS. Neglect, i.e., neglect of one another, want of sympathy. metuens solvere gratia.' Cf. Horace 66 et zonam 80 A waif. A legal term for unclaimed property, or an animal wandering without an owner. "Waif" in Scotch means to blow. Cf. English "waft." 85 Nice. Scrupulous. 86 Sharped. The verb is almost obsolete, but we keep the substantive, a sharper. 91 Possibly Cowper is thinking of Admiral Byng, who was most unjustly shot in 1757, n consequence of his defeat by the French Admiral La Gallissonnière, "pour mieux encourager les autres," according to Voltaire's witty epigram. 94 In construction. In the interpretation we put on one another's conduct. 97 Well-dressed. The fact of being well dressed. Compare the Latin idiom, "Diu non perlitatum tenuerat dictatorem."—Livy. See note on 1. 38. 100 Hypocrisy is the tribute that virtue pays to vice. So Swift says wisely: "Hypocrisy is much more eligible than open infidelity or vice; it wears the livery of religion, and is cautious of giving scandal; nay, continued disguises are too great a restraint; men would leave off their vices rather than undergo the toil of practising them in private." 105 The metaphor will not bear examination. herself the mask. Hypocrisy is 108-190. Cowper compares himself to a wounded deer which has left the herd to die alone. The arrows with which he is pierced are. sins of the world. Christ has found him and healed him by his grace. From his retreat he moralises on the world he has left. All is vanity. One half of mankind are careless, the other visionaries; historians who evolve history from their own consciousness; geologists who contradict revelation; natural philosophers who try to explain the the laws of the universe, but cannot agree among themselves. Notwithstanding all this learning, they suffer from the common ills of humanity and die like other men. He feels nothing but pity for these creatures who defy their Creator and spend their days in cobwebs of the brain. For Cowper's personal history see Introduction. In his invocation to domestic happiness we see Cowper at his best, here we see him at his worst. He is narrow and bigoted, and his narrowness and bigotry, as usual, proceed from ignorance. Cowper had never studied history or geology. The latter science was still in its infancy; and though from Thucydides downwards there have been philosophical historians, history is only now gradually asserting its rank as a science. 108 A stricken deer. Compare and contrast the soliloquy of Jacques in As you Like it, and Hamlet's song, iii. 2, “Why, let the stricken deer go weep.' 112 Isaiah liii. 4, "Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.' 115 Soliciting. A Latinism, imitated from Virgil, Æn. xii. 404. “Nequidquam trepidat, nequidquam spicula dextra Sollicitat, prensatque tenaci forcipe ferrum." 120 With few associates. A repetition common with poets from Homer downwards. 121 Ruminate. French "ruminer," "to ruminate or chew the cud; also to ponder, weigh, examine."-COTGrave. 124 Isaiah liii. 6. 129 Rings the world. Justify the order of the words. 133 The million flit as gay. Cf. Gray's Ode on the Spring. |