LXVII. The Cowper Translation of Mme Guyon's Poems

Abstract

If the word acrimonious may be applied to anything connected with the gentle personality of William Cowper, it might be to that part of interpretative criticism which has attempted to determine the relationship between his unfortunate obsession of damnation and his religious creed. The Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, F.S.A.—who was so scathingly denounced by Robert Southey, Esq. LL.D.—was of the firm opinion that religion was an adjunct, not a cause, of Cowper's malady: “The impression under which he labored was therefore manifestly not suggested by a theological creed, but was the delusion of a distempered fancy. Every other view is founded on misconception.” Mr. Hugh Fausset, on the other hand, speaks of the “demoralizing unreality” of Cowper's faith. More temperate critics, Goldwin Smith, for example, feel that “religion in this case was not the bane” while David Cecil, in the course of a full chapter on Cowper's madness, has said what perhaps is all that can be said on the subject with certainty: “In vain we scan the imperfect records.”