The danger of popular applause : O popular Applause! what heart of man And therefore heedless, can withstand thy power? These rebukes, pungent as they are, were needed. The works of Mrs. Hannah More bear unquestionable testimony to this fact. But we may now record with gratitude a very perceptible change, and appeal to the evidences of reviving piety among all classes of her clergy. Though the singular and mysterious malady of Cowper has been the occasion of repeated remark, yet we cannot dismiss the subject without a few concluding reflections. His In contrasting with his other letters the correspondence with Newton, the chosen depositary of all his secret woe, it is difficult to recognise in the writer the same identity of character. mind appears to have undergone some transforming process, and the gay and lively tints of his sportive imagination to be suddenly shrouded in the gloom of a mysterious and appalling darkness. We seem to enter into the regions of sorrow and despair, and to trace the terrific inscription so finely drawn by the poet, in his celebrated " Inferno:" "Voi ch' entrate lasciate ogni speranza." Ye who enter here leave all hope behind. In contemplating this afflicting dispensation, and referring every event, as we must, to the appointment or permissive Providence of God, we feel constrained to exclaim with the patriarch, "The thunder of his power who can understand?" + But life, as Bishop Hall observes, is made up of perturbations; and those seem most subject to their occurrence, who are distinguished by the gifts of rank, fortune, or genius. Such is the discipline which the moral Governor of the world sees fit to employ. for the purification of their possessors! In recording the lot of genius, Milton, it is known, was blind, Pope was afflicted with sickness, and Tasso, Swift, Smart, and Collins, were exposed to the aberrations of reason. "Moralists," says Dr. Johnson, "talk of the uncertainty of fortune, and of the transitoriness of beauty; but it is yet more dreadful to consider that the powers of the mind are equally liable to change that understanding may make its appearance and depart, that it may blaze and expire." It seems as if the mind were too ethereal to be confined within the bounds of its earthly prison, or that the too frequent and intense exercise of thought disturbs the digestive organs, and lays the foundation of hypochondriacal feelings, which cloud the serenity of the soul. It is painful to reflect how much our sensations of comfort and happiness depend on the even flow and circulation of the See the "Inferno" of Dante, where this motto is inscribed over the entrance into the abodes of woe. Job xxvi. 14. blood. But the connexion of physical and moral causes has been the subject of philosophical remark in all ages. The somewhat analogous case of the celebrated Dr. Johnson seems to have been overlooked by preceding biographers of Cowper. "The morbid melancholy," observes Boswell, "which was lurking in his constitution, and to which we may ascribe those peculiarities, and that aversion to regular life, which, at a very early period, marked his character, gathered such strength in his twentieth year, as to afflict him in a dreadful manner. While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation, in 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with a horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence." Let those to whom Providence has assigned a humbler path, learn the duty of contentment, and be thankful that if they are denied the honours attendant on rank and genius, they are at least exempted from its trials. For where there are heights, there are depths; and he who occupies the summit is often seen descending into the valley of humiliation. That a similar morbid temperament may be traced in the case of Cowper is indisputable; no can a more conclusive evidence be adduced than the words of his own Memoir :-"I was struck, not long after my settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair.” * In his subsequent attack, religion became an adjunct, not a cause, for he describes himself at that period as having lived without religion. The impression under which he laboured was therefore manifestly not suggested by a theological creed, but was the delusion of a distempered fancy. Every other view is founded on misconception, and must inevitably tend to mislead the public. The History of Cowper suggests also some important admonitions, which we beg to impress on the attention of the reader. The fruitful source of all his misery was the indulgence of an over-excited state of feeling. His mind was never quiescent. Occurrences, which an ordinary degree of self-possession would have met with calmness, or passive indifference, were to him the subject of mental agony and distress. His imagination gave magnitude to trifles, till what was at first ideal, at length assumed the character of a terrible reality. He was always anticipating evil; and so powerful is the influence of fancy that what we dread we seldom fail to realize. Thus Swift lived in the constant fear of mental imbecility, and at length incurred the calamity. We scarcely know a spectacle more pitiable, and yet more reprehensible. For what is the use of reason, if we reject its dictates? or the promise of the Spirit to * See page 270. help our infirmities, if we nevertheless yield to their sway? How important in the education of youth to repress the first symptoms of nervous irritability, to invigorate the principles, and to train the mind to habits of self-discipline, and firm reliance upon God! The far greater proportion of human trials originate not in the appointment of Providence, but may be traced to the want of a well-ordered and duly regulated mind; to the ascendancy of passion, and to the absence of mental and moral energy. It is possible to indulge in a state of mind that shall rob every blessing of half its enjoyment, and give to every trial a double portion of bitterness. We turn with delight to a more edifying feature in his character His submission under this dark dispensation. It is It is easy to exhibit the triumphs of faith in moments of exultation and joy; but the vivid energy of true faith is never more powerfully exemplified, than when it is left to its own naked exercise, unaided by the influence of exciting causes. amid the desolation of hope, and when the iron enters into the soul--it is amid pain, depression, and sorrow, when the eye is suffused with tears, and every nerve vibrates with emotion-to be able to exclaim at such a moment, "Here I am, let him do with me as seemeth him good;"* this is indeed the faith which is of the operation of the Spirit, which none but God can give, and which will finally lead to a triumphant crown. That the mind should still indulge its sorrows, in moments of awakened feeling, is natural. On this Letter to Newton, Mav 20, 1786. |