Asylum in 1765, and is a reflection of his decision to spend the rest of his life in retirement in the country.

P. 69. Hymn LIII. Among the Ash MSS. is one of this Hymn. It reads, in line 3, "an angel of the Lord"; in line 13, "Delights far richer "; in line 17, "your troubles bring"; in line 19, "Supply is sure while he is King."

This is evidently not a series of cases in which the text has been misprinted, but an alternative version, and it may be assumed that the one Newton printed is Cowper's final choice.

Benham's "as he said" in line 11 must be a misprint.

P. 74. Hymn LXI. This Hymn also occurs among the Ash MSS. In the last line of the third stanza the MS. reads "Oh where's the Gospel's seal?" For the rest, it agrees with the printed text.

P. 79. Anti-Thelyphthora :-For this poem see Introduction, p. xxxv. Madan's book, against which it is directed, was called Thelyphthora (corruption of women), his idea being that the polygamy he advocated would prevent prostitution. Among the Welborne MSS. is the copy of a letter to Newton, dated December 21. 80. This copy includes an unpublished passage as follows:

“If Anti (i.e., Anti-Thelyphthora) should live through a second impression, I have four lines by me that I think might be added with some advantage, though I have never taken the trouble to mark the place where they might be inserted. That, however, might be easily found. Having given one hero a spear, I would give the other a shield as thus:

'His shield with Hebrew lore was scribbled round

But, snatching it impatient from the ground

And slinging it reversed upon his arm,

He changed it to a Cabbalistic charm.'

As Cowper did not himself decide how these lines were to be inserted in the poem, it is clearly best for his editors not to do so.

Anti-Thelyphthora was published anonymously. The original title-page is as follows:

"Anti-Thelyphthora. A tale in Verse.

Ah miser

Quanta laborabas in Charybdi.

-Hor. Lib. i. Ode 27.

London: Printed for J. Johnson, 1781.”

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Martin Madan (1726-1790), whose mother was Judith Cowper, sister of the poet's father, was converted" by hearing Wesley preach, took orders, and became a celebrated preacher at the Lock Hospital. Part of the modern forms of the hymns "Lo He comes" and "Hark the herald angels sing" were written by him. His private character was excellent, but the scandal caused by the publication of his book Thelyphthora, which advocated polygamy, was so great that he was obliged to resign his chaplaincy. He spent his later years at Epsom in literary and theological work.

P. 83. On a Review, etc:-The article referred to is that mentioned in Cowper's own Note to Anti-Thelyphthora. It appeared in the Monthly Review for October, 1780.

P. 84. Love Abused:-This poem may be read in the poet's own hand among the Unwin MSS. in the British Museum (Add. MSS., 24,154, fol 40).

P. 85. The French motto is taken from the Jouissance de Soi Même of Caraccioli, chapter xi., De la Verité. Louis Antoine de Caraccioli was born at Paris in 1721 and died there in 1803. He was the author of a number of moral and religious works. Cowper had a high opinion of them and thought of translating the Jouissance de Soi Même; see the letter of November 7, 1781, and those of February, and of March 8, 1784, to Newton (Wright, ii. 161, 167).

P. 87. This Preface only appears in a few copies of the original edition. It was withdrawn at the request of Johnson, the publisher, who thought it would injure the sale of the volume. Cowper had it reinserted in the fifth edition, 1793, by Newton's request. See the letter of October 26, 1790.

P. 90. For Table Talk, and the first volume generally, see Introduction, p. xxxv.

P. 90, 1. 6.

Canon Benham compares Byron, Childe Harold, iv. 41:"For the true laurel wreath which glory wreathes

Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves.”

There was an ancient belief that lightning will not strike laurel.

P. 90, 1. 13. Among the Ash MSS. are lines 13-28 of Table Talk. They are in Cowper's hand, as are all the Ash MSS., and the lines are given as printed except line 15 which runs :—

"Who with a courage sound both heart and root."

The letter to Newton, March 18, 1781, shows that this passage was not in the original draft of the poem but was substituted for something to which Newton objected.

P. 91, 11. 65-82. George III. obviously supplies some features of the portrait of the ideal king, given here and in lines 140-167, though perhaps not so many as the poet believed.

P. 91, 1. 83. The patriotic tribe :-A "patriot," in the political language of the eighteenth century, was not one who loved England as opposed to France or Spain, but one who loved, or professed to love, the nation as opposed to the King or the Court. The classical instance of this once common use of the word is Johnson's famous "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

P. 92, 1. 89. "That hate" original edition, 1782; also 1786, followed by Southey, Bell, and Bruce; "who hate” 1787 and later editions down to Southey.

P. 92, 1. 93. Quevedo :-Francisco Gomez de Quevedo, a distinguished Spanish poet, was born at Madrid in 1580, and died in 1645. Southey notes: "I do not know where Cowper found this; but certainly no such <sober tale' would ever have been allowed to pass by the censors of the press in Spain."

P. 93, l. 137. "Struck" 1782-1787: Southey, Bell, Bruce. "Stuck" 1788 and later editions till Southey. Bruce is wrong in saying the 1787 edition gives "stuck." "Stuck" is plainly a mere corruption, and one of many indications that the later editions are of little authority.

P. 95, 1. 234. Cf. Goldsmith's description of the French in The Traveller, lines 240 et seq.

"Gay sprightly land of mirth and social ease,

Pleased with thyself, whom all the world can please;"

and the whole passage, with the character of the English which follows a little later. The Traveller was published in 1764, but apparently Cowper had not read it when he wrote his first volume, as he writes to Lady Hesketh, on November 30, 1785: “I have read Goldsmith's Traveller and his Deserted Village, and am highly pleased with them both, as well for the manner in which they are executed as for their tendency and the lessons they inculcate." This seems to imply that it was his first sight of them.

P. 97, 1. 340. With this fine panegyric of Chatham, cf. the famous passage in The Task: Timepiece, 237.

P. 98, 1. 384. The Rev. John Brown (1715-1766), author of an essay on Shaftesbury's "Characteristics" highly praised by J. S. Mill, and, with many other productions, of the "Estimate" to which Cowper refers. It was entitled An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times, appeared in 1757, and was in its seventh edition the next year. Sir Leslie Stephen describes it (Dict. Nat. Biog.), as a well-written version of the ordinary complaints of luxury and effeminacy which gained popularity from the contemporary fit of national depression." It was of course forgotten in the glories of the great administration of Chatham.

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P. 101, 1. 527. The two figures, which formerly stood on the Church of St. Dunstan in the West, and beat the hours on a bell, were removed when the church was rebuilt in 1831.

P. 104, 1. 672. Charles Churchill, author of "The Rosciad," and other Satires, among which Cowper particularly admired "Gotham," was born in 1731 and died in 1764. For his influence on Cowper see Introduction, p. xl. He was buried at St. Martin's, Dover, where his grave bears a line from his own Candidate which, especially considering who and what he was, is perhaps the strangest inscription ever set up in a Christian churchyard :

"Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies."

P. 105, 1. 744. The later editions substitute "idle" for "idol": another proof that they are not to be trusted.

Holmes

P. 107, 11. 49, 50. "These open," "those call" 1782. The later editions, followed by Bruce, give "those open," "these call." Southey and Bell rightly follow the original edition.

P. 108, l. 99. "Prodigious, ominous," 1782-1787; "prodigies, ominous," 1788; "prodigies ominous" from 1793 onwards till Southey restored "prodigious." Bell, Bruce, and Benham give " prodigies ominous."

P. 108, 1. 103. "That man " from 1793, till Southey restored the original reading.

P. 108, l. 125. Occiduus (west) is, almost certainly, a punning name for Charles Wesley, as Leuconomus stands for Whitefield in Hope. Local gossip at Olney seems, however, to have identified Occiduus with a neighbouring clergyman. Cowper's letter to Newton (September 9, 1781) refers to the person meant but leaves the identity obscure.

P. 109, 1. 150. Later in life Cowper had a better opinion of "fiddling parsons." See his letter to John Johnson, April 17, 1790, to whom he writes: "Thus qualified, and by the aid of your fiddle into the bargain, together with some portion of the grace of God (without which nothing can be done) to enable you to look well to your flock when you shall get one, you will be well set up for a parson."

P. 112, 1. 261.

1787.

P. 112, 1. 278.

"Should tell you" 1782, 1786; "would tell you”

"Deep impression" 1782-1788: "impressions" 1793. Southey as usual follows the early editions and so, in this case, does Benham; Bruce and Bell give the later reading.

P. 113, 1. 318. "Scribbled" first in 1787 and subsequent editions, strangely followed by Bruce, Bell, and Benham; Southey restored scribble," the reading of 1782-1786.

P. 113, II. 335-352. The reference is, of course, to Lord Chesterfield's letters to his son.

This passage was not in the original draft of The Progress of Error. It was sent to Newton with the letter of January 21, 1781, a copy of which, among the Welborne MSS., contains an unpublished passage showing this to have been the case. Cowper, as will be seen by a reference to the printed letter, had lately sent The Progress of Error to Newton, who managed the publication of his first volume for him. After the passage referring to it which, as printed, ends at the words more to be depended on," the original letter continued:

"Since I sent you the copy I have added some lines upon a character, which did not occur to me at the first heat, but which I should have been sorry to have omitted till it had been too late to insert it. I must beg you to bespeak a place for it immediately after the address to the Novelists where it will be very properly disposed of, and will add force to what follows upon the subject of Thelyphthora."

Then followed in the original the Chesterfield passage, 335-352, but the copyist says that in the letter the first line was written

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Chesterfield! All the Muses weep for Thee;" and the line which is printed

was in the letter

"To purge and skim away the filth of vice"

"To simmer and scum off the filth of vice."

The passage is now found, as Cowper directed, after the "address to the Novelists" but no allusion to Thelyphthora follows. The letter of March 5, 1781, shows that the poet decided to cancel the passage which attacked Thelyphthora directly he agreed to give his name with his volume. In an unpublished passage of this letter, which occurs in a copy at Welborne, he asks Newton whether he thinks the removal of the lines beginning Abhorred Thelyphthora "will clear it (i.e., Progress of Error) from all danger of a personal application to Mr. Madan," adding that, in that case, he will set his "name to it without fear. It is certain that I had him pretty much in view, not there only, but in other parts of the production likewise. But it seems, upon present recollection, that the rest are of such a kind as to stand fairly acquitted of the charge of personality." He then says that he proposes to write something to fill the place of the omitted passages, and this was done (letter to Newton, April 8, 1781); but what part of the poem, as we now read it, was the substituted passage, I do not know. Madan was, of course, Cowper's cousin.

P. 114, 1. 373. Cowper originally wrote:

"With memorandum book to minute down

The several posts, and where the chaise broke down."

The mistake was only discovered while the book was in the press. P. 116, L. 440. Bruce and Bell both print "be gone," for which there is no authority.

P. 117, l. 485. Antoine van Leuwenhoek, a celebrated Dutch naturalist, was born in 1632, and died in 1723. He was named a member of the English Royal Society in 1679. His special distinction is the discoveries he made in the blood and other parts of animals by means of the microscope. Cowper is probably alluding to his accounts of the infinite number and infinitesimally small size of the spermatic animalcules, which he claimed to have discovered, and of which he declared a grain of sand could hold fifty thousand.

P. 118, 1. 576. "He that" 1782, 1786; "he who" 1787, 1788, etc. P. 119, 1. 596. This is an extreme instance of Cowper's harsh and ungrammatical changes of subject. It is of course not "clemency" that is "damned without excuse " but the man against whose abuses clemency revolts. For similar constructions, cf. Table Talk, 242, 276. But they are frequent throughout his poems.

P. 120. Truth. The motto is from Horace, Epistles, ii. 1.