The Henson Journals

[137]

Monday, August 26th, 1918.

1484th day.

The weather seems to have broken at last. I read Cowper's verse for an hour before getting up. In "Table talk" there is a capital description of the Kaiser! We have in fact been carried back to the time of Frederick the Great by his admirer, and (alas!) imitator:–

But let eternal infamy pursue

The wretch to naught but his ambition true:

Who, for the sake of filling with one blast

The post–horns of all Europe, lays her waste.

Think yourself station'd on a towering rock,

To see a people scatter'd like a flock,

Some royal mastiff panting at their heels;

Then view him self–proclaim'd in a gazette,

Chief monster that has plagued the nations yet.

The globe and sceptre in such hands misplaced,

Those ensigns of dominion, how disgraced!

The glass that bids man mark the fleeting hour,

And Death's own scythe, would better speak his power;

Then grace the bony phantom in their stead,

With the king's shoulder–knot and gay cockade;

Clothe the tarin brethren in each other's dress,

The same their occupation and success.

But monarchs had not yet in Cowper's day developed the Pecksniffian piety of the Kaiser.

[138]

It is in the same poem that reference is made to the Lord George Gordon riots.

When Tumult lately burst his prison door,

And set plebeian thousands in a roar;

When he usurp'd Authority's just place,

And dared to look his master in the face;

When the rude rabble's watchword was – Destroy,

And blazing London seemed a second Troy,

Liberty blush'd, and hung her drooping head,

Beheld their progress with the deepest dread;

Blush'd that effects like these she should produce,

Worse than the deeds of galley–slaves broke loose.

She loses in such storms her very name.

And fierce Licentiousness should bear the blame.

He refers to Churchill in terms at once respectful and censuring:

Contemporaries all surpass'd, see one.

Short his career indeed, but ably run;

Churchill, himself unconscious of his powers,

In penury consumed his idle hours;

And, like a scattered seed at random sown

Was left to spring by vigour of his own.

Lifted at length, by dignity of thought

And dint of genius, to an affluent lot,

He laid his head in Luxury's soft lap,

And took, too often, there his easy nap.

[139]

If brighter beams than all he threw not forth,

'Twas negligence in him, not want of worth.

Surly, and slovenly, and bold and coarse,

Too proud for art, and trusting in mere force,

Spendthrift alike of money and of wit,

Always at speed, & never drawing bit.

He struck the lyre in such a careless mood,

And so disdain'd the rules he understood,

The laurel seem'd to wait on his command,

He snatch'd it rudely from the Muses' hand.

Cowper's great power as a satirist is well shown in the poem "Hope". It is here that he introduces his famous eulogy of Whitfield (Leuconomus). This eulogy was creditable to him as indicating both courage & piety, but it is said to have compromised the success of his volume of verse, so strong at the time was the prejudice against the great Methodist preacher.

I wrote several letters, including one to Lord Hugh Cecil, who has an admirable letter in today's "Times", written in response to a request from the Dean of Christ Church to inform his constitutents of his views on Lord Lansdowne's letter. The news from France is still very good. Not only are the British making unexpectedly rapid advances over very difficult ground, but there are unmistakeable signs of demoralization among the Germans. The soldiers surrender with astonishing facility, and the resistance they offer is far less strenuous than might fairly be expected.

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