SOURCE: “Cowper's Olney Hymns,” in Essays and Studies, Vol. 38, 1985, pp. 45-65.

In the following essay, Watson offers a close reading of Cowper's hymns.

Cowper's share in the Olney Hymns of 1779 has received less attention than the remainder of his poetry. This is partly because of a prejudice against hymns, those ‘quatrains shovelled out four-square’ as Robert Lowell described them,¹ which led early critics such as Goldwin Smith into a brusque and sweeping dismissal (‘Cowper's Olney Hymns have not any serious value as poetry. Hymns rarely have.’²); and even if we reject this as unconsidered and intemperate, there is linked with it the suggestion that the composition of the hymns was a duty imposed upon Cowper by Newton rather than a poetic pleasure. ‘Cowper’, says David Cecil, ‘dutifully carried out his part of the bleak task.’³ A glance at the hymns which Cowper wrote should convince any fair-minded reader...