Benjamin Franklin and William Cowper

C.S. Lewis and Jane Austen are among his admirers. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a poignant poem after visiting his grave. He was subject of a famous biography by the poet laureate Robert Southey. In the 1950s, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and critic Mark Van Doren prepared a famous collection of his correspondence. Part of the distinguished Great Letters Series, this book accorded the British poet William Cowper a place in the company of Keats, Byron, and Chekhov.

Outside of literary circles, Cowper’s name (pronounced Cooper) is seldom mentioned now. Yet lines from his poems have become proverbial and entered the language: “God moves in a mysterious way,” “Variety’s the very spice of life/That gives it all its flavour,” and, “I am monarch of all I survey,” are among them.

More enigmatic still is the fact that many of Cowper’s best lines, whether in poetry or prose, were born of affliction. For prolonged periods in his life, he suffered grievously from moments of depression and despair. Yet as Dr. John Piper has written, from these seasons of affliction arose such timeless hymns as “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood” and “God Moves in a Mysterious Way.” Cowper’s mental illness, Piper concludes, “yielded sweet music of the mind for troubled souls.”

These moving words appear in The Hidden Smile of God: The Fruit of Affliction in the Lives of John Bunyan, William Cowper, and David Brainerd, a book which has done much to make the lives and work of these men of God better known.

Recently, I read the story of how Cowper found an unlooked-for solace that was a source of sweet music for his own soul.

This story unfolds as follows. In April 1782, the British merchant/philanthropist John Thornton, a cherished Christian friend of Cowper’s, sent a gift to Benjamin Franklin—then in France as part of the American diplomatic delegation. The gift was a copy of Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple.

It was a singular act of kindness. America and Britain were still technically at war, as the Treaty of Paris, which ended hostilities, would not be signed until September 1783. What is more, it is not known for certain why Thornton singled out Franklin as someone to whom he should send Cowper’s new book.

One can only surmise that since Thornton was one of the world’s great merchants and traded extensively with America, he and Franklin had become known to one another some years earlier when Franklin represented the then American colonies in London. Still, what prompted Thornton to perform his errand on Cowper’s behalf may never be fully known.

Thornton’s gift to Franklin was accompanied with a letter, which read in part: “Permit me to request your acceptance of some poems of a friend of mine who has been many years excluded from the World, as not being in his right Mind & considers himself as a Non Entity & reads nothing beyond a News paper, & yet he wrote the most of these poems last Year.”

Just over one month later, in May 1782, Franklin wrote a remarkable letter in reply.

I received the letter you did me the honour of writing to me, and am much obliged by your kind present of a book. The relish for reading poetry had long since left me; but there is something so new in the manner, so easy, and yet so correct in the language, so clear in the expression, yet concise, and so just in the sentiments, that I have read the whole with great pleasure, and some of the pieces more than once. I beg you to accept my thankful acknowledgements, and to present by respects to the author.

When Thornton received Franklin’s reply, he immediately forwarded the letter to Cowper. The reclusive poet could not have been more delighted. He wasted no time in writing to a friend who lived nearby, the Rev. William Unwin. Full of playfulness and wit, Cowper’s letter shows how clearly Thornton’s act of kindness (and Franklin’s words) had proved a tonic:

A Merchant, a friend of ours (you will soon guess him,) sent my Poems to one of the first Philosophers, one of the most eminent literary characters, as well as one of the most important in the political world, that the present age can boast of. Now perhaps your conjuring faculties are puzzled, and you begin to ask who, where, and what is he? Speak out, for I am all impatience. I will not say a word more, the Letter in which he returned his thanks for the Present shall speak for him.

Cowper then transcribed Franklin’s letter to Thornton and commented: “We may now treat the Critics as the Arch-Bishop of Toledo treated Gil Blas when he found fault with one of his Sermons. His Grace gave him a kick on the breech and said, ‘Begone for a Jackanapes, and furnish yourself with a better Taste if you know where to find it.’”

Seldom does one encounter a scene from history like this. Few are more happy or touching. For Cowper to have found relief in this way from the depression and despair that at times overwhelmed him is profoundly moving. Can one imagine a better surprise, let alone one that involved Benjamin Franklin? And this surprise had its origin in John Thornton’s kind regard for a troubled friend. Such a providence recalls some of Cowper’s most eloquent lines about the God who moves in mysterious ways:

NOTE: The letters cited above appear in The Library of Benjamin Franklin, by Edwin Wolf II and Kevin J. Hayes, p. 223.

Kevin Belmonte is a visiting author at Gordon College in Massachusetts and has served as a script consultant for the BBC. He acted as the lead historical consultant for Amazing Grace, a feature film about the life of Wilberforce, directed by acclaimed British director Michael Apted, now available on DVD. He is author of Hero for Humanity: A Biography of William Wilberforce.