SOURCE: Hutchings, W. B. “William Cowper and 1789.” Yearbook of English Studies 19 (1989): 71-93.

In the following essay, Hutchings evaluates Cowper as a political poet, especially in his responses to the French Revolution.

If a reader hopes that William Cowper's poem, ‘Annus Mirabilis, 1789’, will provide welcome evidence that the English literary world responded with alacrity to the events in Paris, he or she will be rapidly disabused:

The spring of eighty-nine shall be An aera cherish'd long by me, Which joyful I will oft record, And thankful at my frugal board; For then the clouds of eighty-eight, That threaten'd England's trembling state With loss of what she least could spare, Her sov'reign's tutelary care, One breath of Heav'n, that cry'd—Restore! Chas'd, never to assemble more, And far the richest crown on Earth, If valued by its wearer's worth, The symbol of a righteous reign, Sat fast on George's brows...