tailieunhanh - Cowper

Comte is now generally admitted to have been the most eminent and important of that interesting group of thinkers whom the overthrow of old institutions in France turned towards social speculation. Vastly superior as he was to men like De Maistre on the one hand, and to men like Saint Simon or Fourier on the other, as well in scientific acquisitions as in mental capacity, still the aim and interest of all his thinking was also theirs, namely, the renovation of the conditions of the social union. If, however, we classify him, not thus according to aim, but according to method, then he takes rank. | Cowper 1 Cowper The Project Gutenberg eBook Cowper by Goldwin Smith This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at Title Cowper Author Goldwin Smith Release Date June 29 2004 eBook 12772 Language English Character set encoding US-ASCII START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COWPER E-text prepared by Al Haines COWPER BY GOLDWIN SMITH London 1880 CONTENTS. CHAPTER I . Early Life CHAPTER II . At Huntingdon--The Unwins CHAPTER III . At Olney--Mr. Newton CHAPTER IV 2 CHAPTER IV . Authorship--The Moral Satires CHAPTER V . The Task CHAPTER VI . Short Poems and Translations CHAPTER VII . The Letters CHAPTER VIII . Close of Life COWPER. CHAPTER I EARLY LIFE. Cowper is the most important English poet of the period between Pope and the illustrious group headed by Wordsworth Byron and Shelley which arose out of the intellectual ferment of the European Revolution. As a reformer of poetry who called it back from conventionality to nature and at the same time as the teacher of a new school of sentiment which acted as a solvent upon the existing moral and social system he may perhaps himself be numbered among the precursors of the revolution though he was certainly the mildest of them all. As a sentimentalist he presents a faint analogy to Rousseau whom in natural temperament he somewhat resembled. He was also the great poet of the religious revival which marked the latter part of the eighteenth century in England and which was called Evangelicism within the establishment and Methodism without. In this way he is associated with Wesley and Whitefield as well as with the philanthropists of the movement such as Wilberforce Thornton and Clarkson. As a poet he touches on different sides of his character Goldsmith Crabbe and Burns. With Goldsmith and Crabbe he shares the honour of improving .