Mr. Bull gives several letters from Mr. Newton belonging to this period. That they breathe real piety needs not to be said; but they are not altogether pleasing to read. Instead of enlarging upon God's care for His creatures, and His mercy toward every soul which seeks after Him, he gives highly-wrought pictures of particular providences, and searches after God's love in religious excitement. The Lord is to be found not in the still small voice, but in the wind, the earthquake, and the fire. Where these are not, so it might seem, God is not. As long as these feelings were kept alive by the unhealthful religious stimulants, Cowper could boast of his "decided Christian happiness." But a time comes when stimulants fail to act, and then reaction comes, and ruin with it.
Threatenings appeared from a very early period of his residence at Olney. In a letter to Hill, for instance, dated June 16, 1768, he expresses his belief that his life is drawing to an end. All his letters are upon religious topics, and generally gloomy in tone; he drops his old friends, and even writes chilling letters to Hill—one declining an invitation, another in reply to the announcement of his marriage. The common idea that his first years at Olney were happy ones is certainly not well-founded.
His melancholy was greatly increased by the death of his brother, which took place at Cambridge in March 1770. Their affection from infancy had been unbroken, and Cowper mourned for him deeply. He gave expression to his feelings by writing a memoir of him, which was afterwards published by Newton. (No. 9 in List of Works, p. xviii. See also the "Time Piece," 780—787.) His brother left £700, but £350 were owed to his college; the rest was transferred to Cowper's account by Hill. But he speaks of himself as being a considerable loser by his brother's death. He must therefore have received a regular allowance from him as well as from his other relatives.[1]
In 1771 Mr. Newton proposed that they should jointly compose a volume of hymns, partly "for the promotion of the faith and comfort of sincere Christians," partly to perpetuate the memory of their friendship. The work was undertaken, but not completed for 8 years. It was then published with this title:—
Book I.— On Select Texts of Scripture.
II.—On Occasional Subjects.
III.— On the Spiritual Life.
Cantabitis, Arcades, inquit,
Montibus haec vestris: soli cantare periti
Arcades. O mihi turn quam molliter ossa quiescant,
Vestra meos olim si fistula dicat amores.
2 Cor. vi. 10.
- ↑ See letters to Hill, Nov. 5 and 17, 1772.
