60. The " Task, " A " Poem, " In Six Books. " By William Cowper, " Of The Inner Temple, Esq. " Fit ?urculus arbor. " Anonym. " To which are added, " By The Same Author, " An Epistle to Joseph Hill, E?q. Tirocinium, or a " Review of Schools, and the History of John Gilpin. " London: " Printed For J. Johnson, N^o 72, St. Paul's " Church-Yard: " 1785.

In October, 1784, William Cawthorne Unwin,

received from Cowper "four quires of verse" with the request that it might be read by him and, if approved, conveyed to Joseph Johnson, the publisher of Cowper's first volume.

"If, when you make the offer of my book [The Task], to Johnson, he should stroke his chin, and look up at the ceiling and cry 'Humph!', anticipate him, I beseech you, at once by saying 'that you know I should be sorry that he should undertake for me to his own disadvantage, or that my volume should be in any degree pressed upon him. I make him the offer merely because I think he would have reason to complain of me if I did not.' But, that punctilio once satisfied, it is a matter of indifference to me what publisher sends me forth." Johnson, however, accepted.

"My imagination tells me," says Cowper to Unwin, "(for I know you interest yourself in the success of my productions) that your heart fluttered when you approached his door, and that it felt itself discharged of a burthen when you came out again."

The "Advertisement," or preface, accounting for The Task, is worth reprinting. It runs:

"The hi?tory of the following production is briefly this. A lady, fond of blank ver?e, demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him the Sofa for a ?ubject. He obeyed; and having much lei?ure, connected another ?ubject with it; and pur?uing the train of thought to which his ?ituation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, in?tead of the trifle which he at fir?t intended, a ?erious affair—a Volume."

The lady, who was Cowper's friend, Lady Austin, was also responsible for John Gilpin, for it was from her that the poet first heard the tale. It is said that he wrote the outline that night and sent it to The Public Advertiser, anonymously, the next morning; but, in fact, it appeared in November, 1782. It had a great success in the newspapers, and in pamphlet form, and Henderson, the actor, gave it further vogue by his recitations.

"I have not been without thoughts of adding 'John Gilpin' at the tail of all," wrote Cowper, while The Task was in press. "He has made a good deal of noise in the world; and perhaps it may not be amiss to show, that though I write generally with a serious intention, I know how to be occasionally merry."

There was some discussion between the poet and the publisher, as to the propriety of putting poems so different in character into the same volume. The poet says to Mr. Newton: "I should blame nobody, not even my intimate friends, and those who have the most favorable opinion of me, were they to charge the publication of John Gilpin, at the end of so much solemn and serious truth, to the score of the author's vanity; and to suspect that, however sober I may be upon proper occasions, I have yet that itch of popularity that would not suffer me to sink my title to a jest that had been so successful. But the case is not such. When I sent the copy of the Task to Johnson, I desired, indeed, Mr. Unwin to ask him the question, whether or not he would choose to make it a part of the volume. This I did merely with a view to promote the sale of it. Johnson answered, 'By all means.' Some months afterward, he enclosed a note to me in one of my packets, in which he expressed a change of mind, alleging, that to print John Gilpin would only be to print what had been hackneyed in every magazine, in every shop, and at the corner of every street. I answered, that I desired to be entirely governed by his opinion; and that if he chose to waive it, I should be better pleased with the omission. Nothing more passed between us on the subject, and I concluded that I should never have the immortal honor of being generally known as the author of John Gilpin. In the last packet, however, down came John, very fairly printed, and equipped for public appearance. The business having taken this turn, I concluded that Johnson had adopted my original thought, that it might prove advantageous to the sale; and as he had had the trouble and expense of printing it, I corrected the copy, and let it pass."

The half-title to John Gilpin in our copy reads: The Diverting " History " Of " John Gilpin, " Shewing How He Went Farther Than He " Intended And Came Safe Home Again.

The book appeared in June, having now grown into a volume of poems, containing, as the title-page shows, four works, paged continuously. It cost four shillings, in boards. The volume was a great success, and two issues were made in the same year. These show several variations, but chiefly in the arrangement of the pages. A half-title, found in some copies, and thought to belong only to late issues, reads: Poems, By William Cowper, Esq. Vol. II. Herein we may possibly see Johnson's afterthought to make the book a second volume to the collection of Poems issued in 1782, and referred to in the advertisement on the last page: "Lately publi?hed by the ?ame Author, in one Volume of this Size. Price 4s. ?ewed." It would have been a shrewd plan thus to make the successful later volume carry the unsuccessful earlier.

Cowper gave the copyright to Johnson, who afterward, when the work proved so successful, would have allowed him to take back his gift, but Cowper refused.

This Johnson was also the publisher of Horne Tooke, Fuseli, Bonnycastle, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Miss Edgeworth. He, as well as his successor, Rowland Hunter, was a dissenter, and the building which he occupied, we are told, was "plain and unadorned, befitting the head-quarters of the bookselling of Protestant Dissent." Charles Knight, in Shadows of the Old Booksellers, has a paragraph, which must be quoted in connection with the appearance of Johnson's books.

The publisher of Cowper was an exception to his brother publishers of that day, who are addressed in these lines. Aikin says of him, "It is proper to mention that his true regard for the interests of literature rendered him an enemy to that typographical luxury which, joined to the necessary increase of expense in printing, has so much enhanced the price of new books as to be a material obstacle to the indulgence of a laudable and reasonable curiosity to the reading public."

It is quite certain that in making the Task he did not sin against these principles of philanthropy, even if he sinned against many of the rules of good book-making.

Octavo.

Collation: 4 ll., 359 pp.