ts, indeed, shared those religious views which
commended him more than any literary excellence to a large class of
readers. Religious poetry is generally popular out of all proportion to
its aesthetic merits. Young was but a second-rate Pope in point of
talent; but probably the 'Night Thoughts' have been studied by a dozen
people for one who has read the 'Essay on Man' or the 'Imitations of
Horace.' In our own day, nobody, I suppose, would hold that the
popularity of the 'Christian Year' has been strictly proportioned to its
poetical excellence; and Cowper's vein of religious meditation has
recommended him to thousands who, if biassed at all, were quite
unconsciously biassed by the admirable qualities which endeared him to
such a critic as Sainte-Beuve. His own view was frequently and
unequivocally expressed. He says over and over again--and his entire
sincerity lifts him above all suspicion of the affected
self-depreciation of other writers--that he looked upon his poetical
work as at best innocent trifling, except so far as his poems were
versified sermons. His intention was everywhere didactic--sometimes
annoyingly didactic--and his highest ambition was to be a useful
auxiliary to the prosaic exhortations of Doddridge, Watts, or his friend
Newton. His religion, said some people, drove him mad. Even a generous
critic like Mr. Stopford Brooke cannot refrain from hinting that his
madness was in some part due to the detested influence of Calvinism. In
fact, it may be admitted that Newton--who is half inclined to boast that
he has a name for driving people mad--scarcely showed his judgment in
setting a man who had already been in confinement to write hymns which
at times are the embodiment of despair. But it is obviously contrary to
the plainest facts to say that Cowper was driven mad by his creed. His
first attack preceded his religious enthusiasm; and a gentleman who
tries to hang himself because he has received a comfortable appointment
for life, is in a state of mind which may be explained without reference
to his theological views. It would be truer to say that when Cowper's
intellect was once unhinged, he found a congenial expression for the
tortures of his soul in the imagery provided by the sternest of
Christian sects. But neither can this circumstance be alleged as in
itself disparaging to the doctrines thus misapplied. A religious belief
which does not provide language for the darkest moods of the human mind,
for