public may be assured, that the whole number (of Hymns) were composed by two persons only. The original design would not admit of any other association."— What was that design?— "It was intended as a monument to perpetuate an intimate and endeared friendship."
Thus then, prompted by the suggestion and emboldened by the example of plain but intrepid John Newton, the diffident poet was encouraged to make trial of those pure and exquisitely precious talents which had lain like gold untouched, nay, almost undiscovered in the mine, through the greater part of that period of life during which the instinct of ambition is most restless, and its votaries are eagerly pursuing fame at every sacrifice which they can or cannot afford. No person qualified to judge impartially (the mere man of letters is not, for such things must be spiritually discerned) will deny that the greater number of those Hymns which bear the mark of C. in their titles bear also the impress of Cowper's genius in their style, character, and subjects. Many of them, in fact, are miniature poems, regularly planned, brilliantly adorned, and felicitously executed. It is true, that, amidst these morning dreams of his awakening muse, blackness of darkness fell upon his mind, from the malignant influence of bodily distemper acting upon it; yet will his unfinished portion remain a splendid trophy of intellectual prowess, and spiritual attainments, in one who was permitted, by the inscrutable direction of Providence, at times, to lose all command of the former, and all consciousness of the latter. When Cowper was restored to sanity the second time, this very evidence of the gift within him was considered as a pledge of what greater things might be expected from the employment of his genius in an
