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CHAPTER VII.

THE LETTERS.

Southey, no mean judge in such a matter, calls Cowper the best of
English, letter-writers. If the first place is shared with him by any
one it is by Byron, rather than by Gray, whose letters are pieces of
fine writing, addressed to literary men, or Horace Walpole, whose
letters are memoirs, the English counterpart of St. Simon. The
letters both of Gray and Walpole are manifestly written for
publication. Those of Cowper have the true epistolary charm. They are
conversation, perfectly artless, and at the same time autobiography,
perfectly genuine, whereas all formal autobiography is cooked. They
are the vehicles of the writer's thoughts and feelings, and the mirror
of his life. We have the strongest proofs that they were not written
for publication. In many of them there are outpourings of wretchedness
which could not possibly have been intended for any heart but that to
which they were addressed, while others contain medical details which
no one would have thought of presenting to the public eye. Some, we
know, were answers to letters received but a moment before; and Southey
says that the manuscripts are very free from erasures. Though Cowper
kept a note-book for subjects, which no doubt were scarce with him, it
is manifest that he did not premeditate. Grace of form he never lacks,
but this was a part of his nature, improved by his classical training.
The character and the thoughts presented are those of a recluse who was
sometimes a hypochondriac; the life is life at Olney. But simple
self-revelation is always interesting, and a garrulous playfulness with
great happiness of expression can lend a certain charm even to things
most trivial and commonplace. There is also a certain pleasure in
being carried back to the quiet days before railways and telegraphs,
when people passed their whole lives on the same spot, and life moved
always in the same tranquil round. In truth it is to such days that
letter-writing, as a species of literature belongs, telegrams and
postal cards have almost killed it now.

The large collection of Cowper's letters is probably seldom taken from
the shelf; and the "Elegant Extracts" select those letters which are
most sententious, and therefore least characteristic. Two or three
specimens of the other style may not be unwelcome or needless as
elements of a biographical sketch; though specimens hardly do justice
to a series of which t