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INDIANA UNIVERSITY STUDIES 



indebted not, perhaps, in great matters, but in that 'wisdom fitted 

 to the needs of hearts at leisure, ' of which he speaks so frequently 

 in ' The Prelude. ' 



Though the recluse of Olney spent most of his life thinking 

 about religion, this came from worry over his soul, not from emo- 

 tional meditation about the beauty of nature. Walter Bagehot 

 applies to him Wordsworth's description of Peter Bell — 



A primrose by the river's brim, 

 A yellow primrose was to him, 

 And it was iiotliiiig more. 



and says that to Cowper nature is simply a background, a space in 

 which the work and mirth of life pass and are performed. Though 

 this is not quite all the story, it serves to sharpen the dilference 

 between his view of nature and that of Wordsworth for whom the 

 whole aspect of nature was the special revelation of an immanent 

 and abiding power, also of a pervading art.^ Cowper delineated 

 the outer aspects of landscape and there left it. Wordsworth is not 

 satisfied unless he describes the reflected, highly wrought feelings 

 which objects excite in a self-conscious mind. To such a mind 

 Cowper 's verse may have well been a source of rest and refresh- 

 ment, and certainly Wordsworth knew ideas of Cowper 's so thor- 

 oughly that they became a part of his own poetic creed. Not only 

 this, he knew lines by Cowper so well that they influenced his style. 

 In fact the resemblance between the best style of each poet is so 

 close in certain descriptive passages that I doubt if the reader will, 

 in spite of considerable study, recognize, in the following concoc- 

 tion from 'The Task' and 'Lines Written above Tintern,' real 

 changes of style, though the authorship of the passage changes 

 hands several times: 



The day is come when I again repose 

 Here, under this dark sycamore, and view 

 These plots of cottage-gronnd, these orchard-tufts, 

 Which at this, season, with their unripe fruits. 

 Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves 

 'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see 

 These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines 

 Of si)ortive wood run wild : these pastoral farms. 

 Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke 

 Sent up, in silence, from among the trees 

 That screen the herdsman's solitary liut. 

 While far beyond and overthwart the stream 

 That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale, 



1 'Literary Studies.' 3 vols. London, 1895. Vol.1. 'William Cowper.* 



