Immortal Memories | Page 9

divergent as were their lives and their work--and one readily
recognizes the incomparably greater position of the former--had alike a
keen sense of humour, rare among poets it would seem, and hugely
would they both have enjoyed such a controversy as this.

This suggestion of the humour of Cowper brings me to my main point.
Humour is so essentially a note of sanity, and it is the sanity of Cowper
that I desire to emphasize here. We have heard too much of the insanity
of Cowper, of the "maniac's tongue" to which Mrs. Browning referred,
of the "maniacal Calvinist" of whom Byron wrote somewhat scornfully.
Only a day or two ago I read in a high-class journal that "one fears that
Cowper's despondency and madness are better known to-day than his
poetry." That is not to know the secret of Cowper. It is true that there
were periods of maniacal depression, and these were not always
religious ones. Now, it was from sheer nervousness at the prospect of
meeting his fellows, now it was from a too logical acceptance of the
doctrine of eternal punishment. Had it not been these, it would have
been something else. It might have been politics, or a hundred things
that now and again give a twist to the mind of the wisest. With Cowper
it was generally religion. I am not here to promote a paradox. I accept
the only too well-known story of Cowper's many visitations, but,
looking back a century, for the purpose of asking what was Cowper's
contribution to the world's happiness and why we meet to speak of our
love for him to- day, I insist that these visitations are not essential to
our memory of him as a great figure in our literature--the maker of an
epoch.
Cowper lived for some seventy years--sixty-nine, to be exact. Of these
years there was a period longer than the full term of Byron's life, of
Shelley's or of Keats's, of perfect sanity, and it was in this period that
he gave us what is one of the sanest achievements in our literature,
view it as we may.
Let us look backwards over the century--a century which has seen
many changes of which Cowper had scarcely any vision--the wonders
of machinery and of electricity, of commercial enterprise, of the
newspaper press, of book production. The galloping postboy is the
most persistent figure in Cowper's landscape. He has been replaced by
the motor car. Nations have arisen and fallen; a thousand writers have
become popular and have ceased to be remembered. Other writers have
sprung up who have made themselves immortal. Burns and Byron,
Coleridge and Wordsworth, Scott and Shelley among the poets.

We ask ourselves, then, what distinctly differentiates Cowper's life
from that of his brothers in poetry, and I reply--his sanity. He did not
indulge in vulgar amours, as did Burns and Byron; he did not ruin his
moral fibre by opium, as did Coleridge; he did not shock his best
friends by an over-weening egotism, as did Wordsworth; he did not
spoil his life by reckless financial complications, as did Scott; or by too
great an enthusiasm to beat down the world's conventions, as did
Shelley. I do not here condemn any one or other of these later poets.
Their lives cannot be summed up in the mistakes they made. I only
urge that, as it is not good to be at warfare with your fellows, to be
burdened with debts that you have to kill yourself to pay, to alienate
your friends by distressing mannerisms, to cease to be on speaking
terms with your family--therefore Cowper, who avoided these things,
and, out of threescore years and more allotted to him, lived for some
forty or fifty years at least a quiet, idyllic life, surrounded by loyal and
loving friends, had chosen the saner and safer path. That, it may be
granted, was very much a matter of temperament, and for it one does
not need to praise him. The appeal to us of Robert Burns to gently scan
our brother man will necessarily find a ready acceptance to-day, and a
plea on behalf of kindly toleration for any great writer who has inspired
his fellows is natural and honourable. But Cowper does not require any
such kindly toleration. His temperament led him to a placid life, where
there were few temptations, and that life with its quiet walks, its
occasional drives, its simple recreations, has stood for a whole century
as our English ideal. It is what, amid the strain of the severest
commercialism in our great cities, we look forward to for our declining
years as a haven on this side of the grave.
But I have undertaken to plead for Cowper's sanity. I desire, therefore,
to beg you to look