=

=

lightning.

243.-31. Ghastness terror. Do you perceive the ghastness of her eye?" (Othello, V. 1.)-34. Levin (M. E. levene, levyn lightning.) Faerie Queene, Bk. V. C. VI. 1. 40. 45. Chapournette. "A small round hat, . formerly worn by ecclesiastics and lawyers." (Chatterton.) (Fr. chapournet a small hood.)-47. Bederoll. To tell one's beads backwards was a figurative expression to signify cursing." (Chatterton.)

=

244.-50. Cope cloak; mantle. (See Centy. Dict.)—52. Autremete. Chatterton here means by this word "a loose white robe worn by priests."-63. Crouch = crucifix, cross (Lat. crux, M. E. crouche).-74. Jape "a short surplice, worn by friars of an inferior class, and secular priests."75. Limitour. A friar licensed to beg, and limited to a certain specified district. (See Chaucer's Prologue to The Knight's T'ale, 1. 209.)

245.-87. Semi-cope = "a short under-cloak."-90. Glour = glory (Fr. gloire).

COWPER.

245. In the succession of poets that prepared the way for Wordsworth, and those who came with and after him, WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800) holds an honorable and important place. The close relations in which he stands to the poets who immediately precede or follow him are apparent to every thoughtful reader and cannot now be enlarged upon. The Task, for instance, may be appropriately placed between The Seasons on the one hand and The Excursion on the other. His relations to the new England springing up about him are equally important. He touches it at many points: its renewal of religious fervor; its growing love of country-life; its antagonism to the constraint and artificiality of great cities; its love of animals; its tender pity for suffering; its generous championship of the wronged and the oppressed. To appreciate the real meaning of Cowper's work, we must remember his convictions and the spirit in which he wrote. The poems and passages given in the text are, in many cases, personal revelations, and they must be read in the light of our knowledge of the man and his time.

Cowper did not write of the country in the midst of the din of London his poetry of nature was composed under the quieting influence of the scenes he describes. After failing to make his way in the capital, he retired into Huntingdonshire in 1765, leaving worldly ambition behind him, and leading (except for a few devoted friends) the life of a recluse. He had

his dog and his pet hares, and he rambled through fields and woods, or meditated beside the lazy waters of his favorite Ouse. In 1779 he joined his friend Rev. John Newton in the publication of a book of hymns. Two voluines of verse followed, the second of which contained John Gilpin (1785). The Task, incomparably the best of his longer poems, appeared in 1785; in the year following Burns published his first volume, Poems Chiefly in the Scotch Dialect. The gloom that had long darkened Cowper's life deepened towards the close. His mind had long been affected, and at the last his state became pitiable in the extreme. Possessed by a marked religious melancholy, he looked upon himself as an outcast from the Divine mercy. Out of the darkness of his last years come two sad but beautiful poems, Lines on the Receipt of my Mother's Picture and The Castaway. The latter was his last original

poem.

THE TASK.

BOOK I. THE SOFA.

700: Reynolds. At this time Sir Joshua Reynolds (17231792) was at the height of his fame as a painter. For about sixteen years he had been President of the Royal Academy, and the year before The Task was published had been appointed painter to the king.

246.-702. Bacon. John Bacon (1740-1799), who at this time held in sculpture a position somewhat comparable to that of Reynolds in painting.—704. Chatham. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, one of the greatest of English orators. He had been dead for about six years when The Task appeared.

247.-722 Increasing London. The population of England increased rapidly toward the end of the eighteenth century; the greater part of the increase being in the towns. This of course was due to the growth of manufactures, commerce, and the Enclosure Acts. In 1750 the population of London was about 600,000; by 1801 it had increased to 864,035. (See note to Goldsmith's Deserted Village, 1. 308.)-732. In denouncing death, etc. The penal laws, at this time, were both cruel and illogical. To give only a few illustrations: to steal a sheep or a horse, to cut down another's trees, to pick a man's pocket of more than twelve pence, were all crimes punishable with death. On the other hand, it was not a capital offence for a man to attempt to murder his father or to stab another severely, provided his victim did not die from his wounds. Sir Samuel Romilly (1757-1818) was the first to effect any important reforms in these barbarous laws. (See Lecky's Hist. of Eng. in the 18th Centy. Vol. VI. Ch. XXIII.)

248.-755. Know no fatigue, etc. Compare note to Goldsmith's Deserted Village, 1. 266.

BOOK II. THE TIME-PIECE.

249.-40. Slaves cannot breathe in England. The question as to whether slaves were legally emancipated by being brought to England was not settled until 1772. Then a sick slave, named Somerset, was dismissed by the master who had brought him to England. When the slave recovered, his former master forcibly seized him, in order that he might sell him in Jamaica. The case was brought before Lord Mansfield, who decided in Somerset's favor, and held that every slave, as soon as he touched England, acquired his freedom. Wilberforce, Sharpe, and others, worked hard for the total abolition of slavery, and in 1787 the Society for the Suppression of Slavery was instituted. The Abolition Act, however, was not passed until 1807.

BOOK III. THE GARDEN.

108. I was a stricken deer, etc. Cowper suffered from attacks of terrible dejection, which several times resulted in insanity. After he had recovered from the worst of one of these, he gave up all hope of succeeding at the bar.

BOOK IV. THE WINTER'S EVENING.

250.-5. He comes, the herald, etc. Palmer's mail-coaches, which were started in 1784, considerably improved the postal service. There were many places, however, still dependent on postboys, who travelled on horseback over the rough and less frequented roads. In 1771 the press finally obtained the right to criticise and publish Parliamentary proceedings; and about and after that time many important newspapers were founded. -10. Inn. This was an inn in Olney called The Swan." There is one there at the present time, of the same name, but not in the exact location of the one so called when Cowper wrote.

251.-28. Is India free? In 1784 Pitt introduced a bill for the government of India, which was a subject of much general interest and discussion. England was feeling the weight of her responsibilities in regard to it, and India had suffered much from oppression and injustice. Her cause, however, was soon to be investigated in the famous trial of Warren Hastings, which was begun in 1786. It is interesting to remember that Hastings was at one time a schoolfellow of Cowper's.-39. The cups, etc. Although there is mention made of tea by an Englishman as early as 1615, it does not seem to have been used in England until the middle of the

seventeenth century. When first introduced, it was such an expensive luxury that it was not in general use until much later. By 1785, however, it could be bought for five or six shillings per pound.-120. Oh Winter! The fact that most of The Task was written during a particularly severe winter, accounts for the numerous and accurate descriptions of that

season.

252.-243. Come Evening. Compare this with Milton's beautiful description, "Now came still Evening on", etc. (Par. Lost, Bk. IV. 598.)

254.-364. That breathes the spleen. Cf. n. to 11. 16 and 59, in C. IV. of The Rape of the Lock.-367. The poor beasts. Note here the care and sympathy shown for animals which appears so often in Cowper; see, e.g., the often-quoted passage beginning, "I would not enter on my list of friends" (Bk. VI. 560).

BOOK VI. THE WINTER WALK AT NOON.

66. The embattled tower is thought to refer to the church at Emberton, which is about a mile from Olney.

ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

257. This picture was a miniature painted in oils by Heines. "In acknowledging the receipt of the gift, the poet says (February 27, 1790): The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it and hung it where it is the last object that I sec at night, and of course the first upon which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I completed my sixth year, yet I remember her well and am an oracular witness of the great fidelity of the copy.'" (The Life of William Cowper, by Thomas Wright, 512.)

ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE.

261. The Royal George, a vessel in the British navy, was lost off Spithead, August 29, 1792. The ship had been heeled over for repairs. While the crew were at dinner, she was struck by a sudden squall, and, the leeward deck-ports being left open, she rapidly filled and sank. From six to eight hundred men are said to have perished. Admiral Kempen felt, who was in command, was the son of Col. Kempenfelt of

Sweden, immortalized by Addison in the Sir Roger De Coverley Papers under the name of Captain Sentry.

THE CASTAWAY.

It is founded on

262. This poem was written in 1799. an incident related in Anson's Voyages, but those who know Cowper's history will have no difficulty in seeing that it is rather a touching record of the poet's own spiritual experience.

263.-25. Some succor, etc. In the early part of 1797 Cowper sank into a state of dejection, and the efforts of his friends to help him were like "the cask, the coop, the floated cord," of but temporary avail.

BLAKE.

264. WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827), painter, poet, and (as he esteemed himself) seer and prophet, had his own distinctive and recognized part and place in the rise of the new poetry. He was "at ten years of age an artist, at twelve a poet." His Poetical Sketches were published in 1783, his Songs of Innocence in 1789, and the companion volume, the Songs of Experience, in 1794. His best known and most intelligible poems are contained in one or the other of these three books, but besides these he produced a mass of poetry of an obscure and allegori cal character. It is not in these so-called "prophetic books," fascinating as they may be to the enthusiastic or curious student, that we are to look for Blake's most vital contribution to literature; it is in his lyrics. There he touches the deepest questions with the simplicity of an inspired child; there, as the poet of the sacred mystery of childhood, he is the precursor of Wordsworth. Many of those new convictions which we have noted as dominating the poetry of Cowper and the poets of the new order, are found also in Blake, but impressed with the marks of his own peculiar personality.

TO THE MUSES.

264. This poem was written in 1783. The complaint of the dearth of poetic expression at this time is well founded, as Goldsmith and Gray were dead, and neither Burns nor Wordsworth had begun their work.

THE TIGER.

270. The unison of grace and malignity in the tiger confounds Blake, and he asks: "Did He who made the Lamb