Cowper | Page 8

made more vivid by the sight
of the broken garter, saw at once that all thought of the appointment
was at end, and carried away the instrument of nomination. Let those
whom despondency assails read this passage of Cowper's life, and
remember that he lived to write John Gilpin and The Task.
Cowper tells us that "to this moment he had felt no concern of a
spiritual kind;" that "ignorant of original sin, insensible of the guilt of
actual transgression, he understood neither the Law nor the Gospel, the
condemning nature of the one, nor the restoring mercies of the other."
But after attempting suicide he was seized, as he well might be, with
religious horrors. Now it was that he began to ask himself whether he
had been guilty of the unpardonable sin, and was presently persuaded
that he had, though it would be vain to inquire what he imagined the
unpardonable sin to be. In this mood, he fancied that if there was any
balm for him in Gilead, it would be found in the ministrations of his
friend Martin Madan, an Evangelical clergyman of high repute, whom
he had been wont to regard as an enthusiast. His Cambridge brother,
John, the translator of the _Henriade_, seems to have had some
philosophic doubts as to the efficacy of the proposed remedy; but, like
a philosopher, he consented to the experiment. Mr. Madan came and
ministered, but in that distempered soul his balm turned to poison; his
religious conversations only fed the horrible illusion. A set of English
Sapphics, written by Cowper at this time, and expressing his despair,
were unfortunately preserved; they are a ghastly play of the poetic
faculty in a mind utterly deprived of self-control, and amidst the
horrors of inrushing madness. Diabolical, they might be termed more
truly than religious.
There was nothing for it but a madhouse. The sufferer was consigned to
the private asylum of Dr. Cotton, at St. Alban's. An ill-chosen
physician Dr. Cotton would have been, if the malady had really had its
source in religion; for he was himself a pious man, a writer of hymns,

and was in the habit of holding religious intercourse with his patients.
Cowper, after his recovery, speaks of that intercourse with the keenest
pleasure and gratitude; so that in the opinion of the two persons best
qualified to judge, religion in this case was not the bane. Cowper has
given us a full account of his recovery. It was brought about, as we can
plainly see, by medical treatment wisely applied; but it came in the
form of a burst of religious faith and hope. He rises one morning
feeling better; grows cheerful over his breakfast, takes up the Bible,
which in his fits of madness he always threw aside, and turns to a verse
in the Epistle to the Romans. "Immediately I received strength to
believe, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me.
I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon in His
blood, and the fulness and completeness of His justification. In a
moment I believed and received the Gospel." Cotton at first mistrusted
the sudden change, but he was at length satisfied, pronounced his
patient cured, and discharged him from the asylum, after a detention of
eighteen months. Cowper hymned his deliverance in _The Happy
Change_, as in the hideous Sapphics he had given religious utterance to
his despair.
The soul, a dreary province once Of Satan's dark domain, Feels a new
empire form'd within, And owns a heavenly reign.
The glorious orb whose golden beams The fruitful year control, Since
first obedient to Thy word, He started from the goal,
Has cheer'd the nations with the joys His orient rays impart; But', Jesus,
'tis Thy light alone Can shine upon the heart.
Once for all, the reader of Cowper's life must make up his mind to
acquiesce in religious forms of expression. If he does not sympathize
with them, he will recognize them as phenomena of opinion, and bear
them like a philosopher. He can easily translate them into the language
of psychology, or even of physiology, if he thinks fit.

CHAPTER II
.
AT HUNTINGDON--THE UNWINS.
The storm was over; but it had swept away a great part of Cowper's
scanty fortune, and almost all his friends. At thirty-five he was stranded

and desolate. He was obliged to resign a Commissionership of
Bankruptcy which he held, and little seems to have remained to him but
the rent of his chambers in the Temple. A return to his profession was,
of course, out of the question. His relations, however, combined to
make up a little income for him, though from a hope of his family, he
had become a melancholy disappointment; even