•Ml ! r x"i ::./ i:i;,;,ir 'li i'u(j! [■• '11. ..-.''I ;■ . I.,,. ,1 I ■ " ' ' i' ( ■ PUBLISHED EACH ALTERNATE MONTH, In Feap. Volumes, piice 3s. M. each, THE LIBRARY OF CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY SUPEEINTENDED BY THE REV. IIOBERT BICKERSTETH, M.A. Rector of St. Gilcs'-in-the-Piclds, and Canon of Salisbury. fbc i.mi ^'iK JJoIuuus bill tontuiit : — VOL. I. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. II. THE LIFE OF FELIX NEFF. III. THE LIFE OF JOHN BRADFORD. IV. THE LIFE OF JOHN NEWTON. V. THE LIFE OF DAVID BRAINERD. VI. THE LIFE OF MARTIN BOOS. Subr^cribers for the whole Year luay enter on payment of Twelve Shillings for the Six Volumes. THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE Ex Libris : C. K. OGDEN ..,,^fi^ /f^- / ^jW/A /'I''' 4 I, ///I / '^•1. ll.^..•,lalIi^'■S• '^iViCilam Cowpct. Aflcr Lawrence, 1793. THE LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER WITH SRLECTTONS FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. SF.ELEY, JACKSON, AND HALLIPAY, FLEET STREET, AND li. SEELEY, HANOVER STRKRT, LONDON. MDCCCLV. J LONDON: I'riiito.l by f!. Baiiolat, Castle St. Leicester Sq. PREFACE. The selection of the Life of William Cowper, for the opening of the present series, has been suggested, not merely by the popularity of the subject, hut also by the fact that such a volume was obviously required. The existing Memoirs of the poet are bulky and expensive- The smaller work of Mr. Taylor has been long out of print, and its republication was hardly to be desired ; since, having been written before the appearance of Dr. Southey's Memoir, it is necessai'ily imperfect, and open to correction in many particulars. Hence the most natural course, seemed to be to prepare a new work, rather than to reproduce any of the old ones. It has been stated in the Prospectus of the present Series, that it is intended in general to give the most IV PKKFACE. original and authentic memoir t4iat in each case is found to exist. In commencing, therefore, in the present instance, with a new compilation, it is oh- viously expedient to point out the necessity which has existed for thus departing from what is intended to he the general rule. In the present case, the Private Memoir, written by Cowper himself, of the first thirty-four years of his life, is the only document which can be called authentic ; and which has some sort of completeness. It is given entire in the Appendix to the present volume. But this narrative includes only the first and most barren portion of the poet's life. The other biographies of Cowper which exist could neither be copied nor abridged. The two principal writers, Hayley and Southey, were each ^vholly unfit fur the task, from their want of appreciation of the poet's views and feelings. We do not usuall}'^ look to an ardent Churchman as the fittest person to de- lineate the character of an eminent Dissenter. A Jesuit, however able, would not be the right per- son to frame a memoir of an eminent Jansenist, nor a Scotcli Presbyterian to give the history of Arch- PREFACE. bishop Laud. Yet the history of Cowper's life has beau twice accepted at the hands of men who plainly stated that they felt no sympathy with his religious views. The consequence was inevitable. Neither of these Memoirs does justice to its subject. On the other hand, Mr. Grimshawe's version of Hayley's Life is little more than a mere thread, stringing together the poet's letters ; and Mr. Taylor's volume is wanting in much valuable infurmatiou, which had not become public at the time when he wrote. The reader will, therefore, hardly blame the Editor for preferring to give a new compilation, rather than reproduce any of the attempts to which reference has just been made. It is hoped that the present attempt will be found sufficiently full, and generally fair. The compiler, while he admits a general sympathy with Cowper's religious views, has had no other pui-pose or desire than simply to speak the truth. He is aware that this one narrative presents difficulties which will hardly occur in any other case. That he has entirely over- come them is more than lie can venture to hope. VI PREFACE. Still, he trusts, that the hinate interest attaching to the subject, and the full light which has been thrown upon it by recent researches, will suffice to render the narrative a popular one; < and, he would fain hope, that, a Divine blessing accompanying it, it may be- come, in some respects, an useful one also. London, Dec. 23, 1854. CONTENTS. PAGE I. rillLDHOOD AND YOUTH .... 1 fr. EART.Y MANHOOD . ..... 8 III. RECOVERY AND RETIREMENT . . . .23 IV. FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY 55 V. SECOND ATTACK OF MENTAL ABERRATION GRADUAL RECOVERY HIS POEMS . 82 Vr. RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY . Ill VIT. COWPER AT WESTON TRANSLATION OF HOMER NEW FRIENDSHIPS .... 135 VII r. DECLINING YEARS, AND DEATH . . .172 IX. CONCLUSION . . . . • .208 APPENDIX . . . . . .289 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. I. CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. A.B. 1731—1748. The case of Cowper has generally been regarded as ono full of difficulty to the thoughtful mind. Yet it may be fairly questioned, whether there arc any other difficulties in the case than those which we create by our own hasty and ill-grounded conclusions. The mere fact of his long- continued mental suffisring offers no harder problem for our solution than the bodily agonies of some Christians, or the helpless povei-ty of many others. Our Lord forewarned his disciples, " In the world ye shall have tribulation ;" and his most eminent Apostle told us, that " Whom the Lord loveth he chastencth, and scourgeth every son whom he rcceiveth." Cowper himself may have spoken too un- reservedly when he said, — " The path of sorrow, and that path nhme, Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown :" But scarcely docs he go beyond the language of St. Paul : " If ye are without chastisement, whereof all [the children] arc partakers, then are ye bastards, and not soiw." The supposed difficulties of the case, however, chiefly originate in an idea that Cowper was driven into melan- choly by liis religion. This is a conclusion which those who dislike evangelical truth are ever ready to adopt ; and B 2 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. they have not always been met, as they ought to have been, by a prompt denial and refutation. Cowper's mind was of a very pecuhar construction. Singularly refined and sensitive, and in some respects of a high order of excellence, we observe in it another instance of the near neighbourhood, in human beings, of strength and weakness, — of beauty and decay. As it has been re- marked, that the sublime and the ridiculous lie close to- gether ; as the gi-eatest loveliness is often seen in one , destined to an early grave ; so the very refinement of Cow- per's mind resembled that of an instrument, which a breath or a touch might, in a moment, put out of tunc. But all this was a part of his bodily organisation : it depended on the construction of certain portions of the brain and nervous system. Now, who ever thinks of making religion answerable for other bodily ailments or misfortunes ? for weaknesses of the lungs, or of the eyes, or of the limbs ? And when it is clear that Cowper's many years of melancholy arose from nervous disorders, why should we irrationally cast the blame on his rehgious views ? But is not the connexion evident, between his " gloomy notions of religion " and his attacks of nervous depression % Unquestionably not. Three several instances of nervous disorder and of mental delusion are described by him, as occurring in the first portion of his life, before he embraced those views of religion with which his name afterwards be- came inseparably connected. At school, in the Temple, and on his appointment to office — in his eleventh, and twenty-first, and thirty-first year, he suffered from attacks of this kind : thus proving, beyond all doubt, that his reception of evangelical truth, which dates from his thirty-third year, had no share in causing those dis- orders of the mind which occurred both before and after his conversion. AVc will not, however, anticipate the history which we are about to write. We merely desire, at the outset, to avow our rejection of the hypothesis advanced by some writers, that the mental disorders of the poet were either caused, or greatly aggra^'ated, by religion. Whoever shall CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 3 follow US, with a candid mind, through the narrative we are now counnencing, will find how destitute of all real foundation is this very common supposition. William Cowpcr, " the most popular poet," says Southey, " of his generation, and the best of English letter-writers," was born on the loth of November, 1731 (o. s.), in the rectory of Great Berkhampstead. His parentage was elevated, if not illusti'ious. In the sixth year of Edward IV., John Cowper, of Strode, in the parish of Slingfield, Sussex, married the daughter and heiress of John Stan- bridge of the same parish. Their descendant, Sir W. Cow- per, baronet (a.d. 1631), erected a monument to Hooker, more than thirty j'ears after his death, in the church of Bishopsbourue. His grandson, also Sir William, was father of the first Earl Cowper, and of Spencer Cowper, a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Dr. John Cowper, chaplain to Gcoi-ge II., and rector of Great Berkhamp- stead, was the judge's second son. His third was Ashley Cowper, who, for sixty years, was clei'k to the House of Lords. Dr. Cowper married Anne, the daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., of Ludliam Hall, in Norfolk. She died in 1737, at the age of thii-ty-four, leaving, of several children, only two sons surviving. William, the eldest, was at that time about six years old ; of John, the younger, she died in child-bed. Few of our readers can be ignoraut of the poet's affecting reference to this, his first sorrow ; — " My mother ! when I leam'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed ? Hover'd tliy sjiirit o'er thy soiTowing son, — Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ? Perhai)s thou gavest me, though unseen, a kiss ; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bhss. I heard the bell toll'd on thy bmial-day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away; And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu." Thus ended the first short stage in the poet's life ; and 4 LIFE OF WIUJAII COWPER. if not tlic happiest, assuredly the one least marked hy any suffering or adversity. The surviving parent having, pro- bably, no female relative to fill a mother's place, took the common, but generally mistaken course, and sent his child to a large boarding-school. Seldom would the error be so calamitous as on this occasion. The child was " delicate to no common degree," and exhibited, even then, a con- stitutional tendency to melancholy and despair. He was consigned to the care of Dr. Pitman, the master of a large academy in the town of Market- strete, in Hertfordshire. " Here," he tells us, in his own brief memoir, " I had hardships of various kinds to conflict with, which I felt more sensibly in pi'oportion to the tenderness with which I had been treated at home. But my chief affliction con- sisted in being singled out from all the other boys, by a lad of about fifteen years of ago, as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the cruelty of his temper. I choose to conceal a particular recital of the many acts of barbarity with which he made it his business continually to per- secute me. It will be sufficient to say, that his savage treatment of me impressed such a dread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid to lift my eyes upon him higher than. his knees; and that I knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by any other part of his dress. May the Lord pardon him, and may we meet in glory ! " One day as I was sitting alone upon a bench in the school-room, melancholy, and almost ready to weep at the recollection of what I had already suffered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, the words of the Psalmist came into my mind, ' I will not fear what flesh can do unto me ! ' I applied them to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God that would have been no disgrace to a much more experienced Christian. I instantly perceived in myself a briskness of spirits and a cheerfulness I had never before experienced, and took se- veral paces up and down the room with joyful alacrity, • • his gift in whom I trusted. But alas ! it was the first and last instance of this kind between infancy and manhood. The cruelty of this boy, which he had long practised in CaiLDUOUU AND YOUTH. 5. SO secret a manner that no crcatnre suspected it, was at length discovered ; he was expelled the schoul, and I was taken from it." The two points here which most claim our attention are, his extreme timidity, and his early liability to impuUes. Both these features in his character will meet us repeat- edly in his after-history, and they explain many circum- stances in his life. Being removed from Dr. Pitman's, it was found that his eye-sight was seriously affected, and he was placed under the care of an eminent oculist, in whose house he appears to have spent two years. At the end of that time he was sufficiently recovered to enter Westminster School, then under the care of Dr. NichoUs. Here he remained about eight years, — years represented by some of his biographers as spent in suffering, but which Southey regards as " pro- bably the happiest in his hfe." His after-eminence proves that his time during these eight years was not ill-spent. He alludes to it in his Table Talk, in the following lines : " At "Westminster, where little poets strive To set a distich upon six and live, Where Discipline helps opening bmls of sense, And makes his pupils proud with silver pence, 1 was a poet too." And in one of his letters he says,— " He who cannot look forward Avith comfort, must find what comfort he can in looking backward. Uj^ou this principle I the other day sent my imagination upon a trip thirty years behind me. She, very obedient, and very swift of foot, presently performed her journey, and at last set me down in the sixth form at Westminster. I fancied myself once more a schoulboy ; a period of life in which, if I had never tasted true happiness, I was at least equally unacquainted with its contrary. No manufacturer of waking dreams ever succeeded better in his employment than I do ; I can weave such a piece of tapestry in a few minutes as not only has all the charms of reality, but is embellished also with a variety of beauties, which, though thev never existed, are more captivating than anv that ever 6 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. did. Accordingly I was a schoolljoy in high favour with the master, received a silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasure of seeing it sent from form to form for the admiration of all who were able to understand it." In another letter he adds, — "When I was a boy, I excelled at cricket aiad football ; but the fame I acquired by achievements that way is long since forgotten." In Tirocinium he thus refers to the same period : — " Be it a weakness, it desen^es some praise, "We love the playplace of our early days ; The scene is touching, and the heart is stone That feels not at that sight, and feels at none. The wall on which we tried our graving skill, The very name we carved subsisting still ; The bench on which we sat while deep employ'd, Though mangled, hack'd, and hew'd, not yet destroy'd : The little ones, unbuttoned, glowing hot, Playing our games, and on the very si^ot, As happy as we once to kneel and draw The chalky ring, and knuckle down at taw; To pitch the ball into the grounded hat, Or di'ive it devious with a dextrous pat ; The pleasing spectacle at once excites Such recollection of our own delights. That, viewing it, we seem almost to obtain Our innocent, sweet, simple j-^ears again. This fond attachment to the well-known place Where first we started into life's long race, [Maintains its hold with such unfailing sway. We feel it e'en in age, and at our latest day." But while we regard those years of his life as neither unhappy nor mis-spent, we must not overlook the fact that, even in these, his liability to sudden impulses of joy or sadness, not unmixed Avith mental delusion, was quite perceptible. Tims, in describing his early life, he says of this period : — " I became so forgetful of mortality, that, strange as it may seem, surveying my activity and strength, and ob- serving the evenness of my pulse, I began to entertain, with no small complacency, a notion that, perhaps, I might CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH. 7 never die. This notion was, howevei', very short-lived ; for I was soon after struck with a lowness of spirits un- common at my age, and frequently had intimations of a consumptive habit. This messenger from the Lord- did his errand, and perfectly convinced me that I was mortal." In this great school Cowper naturally formed friend- ships and connexions, more or less transitoiy, with many men destined to act brilliant parts in the drama of life. Hastings, Cumberland, Impey, BonncU Thornton, Colman, and Lloyd, were among his intimates. Joseph Hill re- mained his attached friend through life. Sir Richard Sutton was his fellow-student in a more than ordinary association ; but his most beloved associate was young Russell, afterwards Sir AVilliam. Thus passed the years away until he had reached the age of eighteen, when he returned to Bcrkhampstead, and remained in the paternal home for about three quarters of a year. 8 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. II. EAELY MANHOOD. A.D. 1749—1763. We now enter upon the next stage of Cowper's history — that which is really the saddest portion of the whole — the fourteen years spent by him in the metropolis after leaving school. This period is generally given by his biographers with the greatest vagueness ; events are narrated without the slightest regard to their chronology, and the result is, that the reader obtains only a confused idea of this, the most eventful portion of his history. The narrative of these fourteen years divides itself into two portions ; the year 17.57 being, as we shall find, the crisis of this part of his existence. " At the age of eighteen," he tells us in his own narra- tive, "being tolerably well furnished with gi-ammatical knowledge, but as ignorant of all kinds of religion as the satchel at my back, I was taken from Westminster ; and having spent about nine months at home, was sent to ac- quire the practice of the law with an attorney. There I might have lived and died, without seeing or hearing any- thing that might remind me of one single Christian duty, had it not been that I was at liberty to spend my leisure hours (which were well-nigh all my time) at my aunt's, in Southampton Eow. By this means I had the opportunity of seeing the inside of a church, whither I went with the family on Sundays, and which, probably, I should other- wise never have seen." From his letters we further learn, that a fellow-clerk at this same attorney's (Mr. Chapman's), was a young man from Canterbury school, named Tluirlow, This youth, destined in after-life to mount the woolsack, was intro- KARLY MANHOOD. 9 duccci by Cow^iei' at his uncle's house. Writing to Lady Hcskcth, many years after, he says : — " I did actually live three years with Mr. Chapman, a solicitor — that is to say, I slept three years in his house ; but I lived — that is to say, I spent my days, in Southamp- ton Row, as you very well remember. There was I and the future Lord Chancellor constantly employed, from morning to night, in giggling and making giggle, instead of studying the law. Oh, he, cousin ! how could you do so ?" Mr, Ashley Cowper, his father's brother, then resided in what was, in that day, a fashionable part of the town, near to the Duke of Bedford's, the French ambassador's, and the abodes of many other persons of rank. His house was the ninth from the passage which leads into Queen Square, and was, at that time, nearly the last in the new buildings, which looked out on the gardens of the duke's abode. It is at present No. 30 in Southampton Row. Offering thus a most agreeable place of resort, and ren- dci'ed still more attractive by the presence of two young cousins of the gentler sex, it is no wonder that a youth like William Cowper, left to his own choice, should con- stantly prefer this pleasant drawing-room to the tedious occupations of an attorney's office. We need add no stronger condemnation of his conduct than that which he affixed to it himself, in a letter written to a youthful friend more than thirty years afterwards.* Therein he says : — " You do well, my dear sir, to improve your opportu- nity ; to speak in the rural phrase, this is your sowing- time, and the sheaves you look for can never be yours, imlcss you make that use of it. The colour of our whole life is generally such as the three or four first years in which we are our own masters make it. Then it is that we may be said to shape our own destiny, and to treasure up for ourselves a series of future successes or disappoint- ments. Had I employed my time as wisely as you, in a situation very similar to yours, I had never been a poet, perhaps ; but I might by this time have acquired a cha- * To Samuel Rose, Esq. July 83, 17S9. 10 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. racter of more importance in society ; and a situation in which my friends would have been better pleased to see me. But three years mis-spent in an attorney's office were, almost of course, followed by several more equally mis- spent in the Temple ; and the consequence has been, as the Italian epitaph says, ' Sto qui ! ' (Here I am !) The only use I can make of myself now — at least the best — is to serve in terrorem to others, when occasion may happen to offer, that they may escape (as far as my admonitions can have any weight with them) my folly and my fate." But we must not overlook a fact, which, though it con- stitutes no excuse, does considerably account for his de- viation from the path of prudence and duty. His relative's house in Southampton Eow was the abode, as we have said, of his two female cousins. Wheu he first became a visitor there, his uncle apparently thought little of what soon became a probable result ; for the eldest of the two, Harriet, who afterwards became Lady Hesketh, was but fifteen, and the second, only thirteen or foiu-teen. A third, Elizabeth, who, in 1759, married Sir Archer Croft, an Irish baronet, was probably, when Cowper was a visitor at the house, merely a girl at school ; and her name rarely occurs in his history. But the three years mostly spent in his uncle's drawing-room, which had gradually carried their cousin to manhood, had made Harriet, the eldest, "a brilliant beauty, who attracted all eyes," while Theodora, the second, became " an accomplished woman, — her person elegant, and her understanding more than ordinarily good." In 1752, having arrived at man's estate, Cowqier left Mr. Chapman's and took chambers in the Middle Temple. Here, he tells us, he was " struck, not long after his settle- ment, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, Ijnng down in horror, and rising up in despair. I presently lost all relish for those studies to which I had before been closely attached ; the classics had no longer any charms for me : I had need of something more sahitary than amusement, but I had no one to direct mc where to find it. " At length I met with Herbert's Poems ; and, gothic EARLY MAJS^HOOD. 11 and uncouth as they were, I yet found in them a strain of piety which I could not but admire. This was the only author I had any delight in reading. I pored over him all day long ; and though I found not here, what I might have found, a cure for my malady, yet it never seemed so much aheviated as while I was reading him. At length I was advised by a very near and dear relative to lay him aside ; for he thought such an author more likely to nourish my disorder than to remove it." There can be no doubt that we here meet with another instance of those sudden gushes of melancholy, to which he was liable all his life through. But we must also ob- serve, that it was just at this period that he began to be aware of his own deep attachment to the younger of his two cousins, and of her return of that feeling. It is in 1752 that we first meet with verses addressed to Theodora, in which he avows his passionate admiration, and attributes to her influence certain improvements which had taken place in his manners and demeanour. Smaller poems of this kind are repeated in the little volume of his Early Pieces, until, in 1755, anxious doubts and fears begin to be expressed, and it becomes apparent that obstacles had pre- sented themselves to the accomphshment of his fondest wishes. In 1754 Cowper went through the ceremony of being called to the bar. It is quite evident, from the whole tenor of his life, that a laborious pursuit of the law was never his purpose. His family connexions were kno'mi to have patronage at their disposal ; but one necessary qualification was the rank of a barrister. Possessing this title, CoAvi^er was actually made a Commissioner of Bankrupts, and might, as wc shall presently see, have held the more hicra- tive post of clerk to the House of Lords, had not his malady prevented his acceptance of this appointment. But now the ripened attachment of the cousins ren- .dered a decision necessary. " When jMr. Ashley Cowi^er," says Southey, " perceived their mutual inchnation, he ob- jected to it, at first, on the score of want of means, and said to his daughter, ' If you marry William Cowper, what will you do V ' " 'Do, sir V she replied ; ' wash all day, and ride 1 2 LIFE OF WILLIAM CUW^EU. out on the great dog at night !' " An answer which, under the apparent gaiety of a playful temper, indicated also a willingness to encounter any hardships for his sake. But a further, and an unalterable objection, was started ; namely, that the marriage of persons so nearly connected was unlawful. This superstition, formerly general, has now nearly died away ; but at this period it induced Mr. Ashley Cowper to place an absolute negative on the proposal. Whe- ther his calm consideration of his nephew's personal cha- racter and prospects in life had not some share in fixing his decision, can only be the subject of conjecture. In 1755, in his verses to Theodora, Cowper utters the language of doubt and despondency. In 1756 he lost his father. " I was sent for," says he, " to attend him in his last illness, and he died just before I arrived. Then, and not till then, I felt, for the first time, that I and my native place were disunited for ever ; I sighed a long adieu to fields and woods, from which I once thought I never should be pai'ted, and was at no time so sensible of their beauties as just when I left them all behind me, to return no more." And now, left alone, to be the guide of his own actions, and " the cousins not ceasing to love, or occasionally to meet," his inicle evidently felt some decided step to be needed. In 1757 a double stroke fell upou the poet, for such he already was. His most valued friend. Sir William Russell, was drowned while bathing in the Thames ; and his uncle broke Tip his establishment in Southampton Row, and removed Theodora from that perilous vicinity. Even correspondence was forbidden, as we gather from an allu- sion in a letter to the elder sister, then become Lady Hes- keth, in 1763, wdiercin he says, "Adieu, my dear cousin ! So much as I love you, I wonder how it happened that I never was in love with you. Thank Heaven that I never was ! for I have a pleasure in writing to you, which in that case I should have forfeited." Thus separated, at the same moment, from the two persons most beloved, there burst from Cowpcr's heart that pathetic complaint, addressed to Theodora's sister, in which he first shows himself a poet possessed of more than common powers ;— EARLY MANHOOD. 13 " Poom'fl, as I fim, in solitude to waste The present moments, and regret the pas:t ; Deprived of every joy I valued most, !My friend torn from mo, and my mistress lost ; Call not this gloom I wear, this anxious mien, The dull effect of hiunour, or of spleen ! Still, still, I mourn, with each retiu'ning day. Him snatch'd hy fate, in early youth away ; And her — through tedious years of doubt and pain, I'ix'd in her choice, and faithful — hut in vain. O prone to jiity, generous, and sincere. Whose eye ne'er yet refused the wretch a tear ; Whose heart the real claim of friendship knows, Nor thinks a lover's are hut fancied woes ; See me, ere yet my distant coiarse half done, Cast forth a wand'rer on a wild unknown ! See me neglected on the world's rude coast, Each dear companion of my voyage lost ! Nor ask why clouds of soiTOw shade my Lrow, And ready tears wait only leave to flow ; Wliy, all that soothes a heart from anguish free, All that delights the happy, palls with me.'* And thus ends, with the year 1757, the first, most in- teresting, and most blameless, portion of his London life. Crushed, as he describes himself, by this ■wreck of the hopes which he had cherished " through tedious years of doubt and pain," he turned to literary dissipation, and the usual occupations of an idle Templar, for such consolations as they could afford. We must not, however, conceal the diftorent result on the two cousins. It appears as if, in most cases, hope is absolutely needful to keep affection alive in the heart of man. When this was utterly gone, Cowpcr could tell of "clouds of sorrow" and "ready tears ;" but when months had rolled by, the mind gi-adually recovered its tone, and then female excellence, in other forms, found in him a • It has becu said, even by Cowjier's latest biographer, tliat the date of these lilies cannot be ascertained. But surely there can exist no doubt on this point? They speak of a recent sorrow. Now, Sir W. Russell's death is given as occunnnpr in 1757 in all the obituaries, and Jlr. Ashley Cowper's removal from Southampton Row is found to have taken place in the same j-ear, by a reference to the parocliiiU records. 14 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. ready admirer. Southcy has detected, in a letter wiitteii to his friend Rowley, in August 1758, — which was, probably, more than a year after his final separation from Theo- dora, — a description, full of passionate admiration, of a yomig lady whom he had seen at Greenwich. He says, " No one can be more modest, or more silent ; but when she speaks, you might believe a muse was speaking. Woe is me that so bright a star looks to another region I having risen in the West Indies, thither it is about to return, and wiU leave me nothing but sighs and tears." To his beloved cousin we trace, after this, scarcely an allusion in his writings or correspondence. Many years after he says to Lady Hesketh, " I still look back to the memory of your sister, and regret her ; but how strange it is that, if we were to meet now, we should not know one another ! " Doubtless, when Co^^'per experienced the greatest of all changes, and became " a living man," the recollection that the lively girl with whom he used to "giggle and make giggle " in Southampton Row, would feel no sympathy with his deepest feehngs, helped to suppress all desire that they should meet again. To her sister, Lady Hesketh, Cowper freely wrote of the altered feelings of his soul with respect to religion, and the consequence was, a cessation of the correspondence, on her part, for more than eighteen years. But while Cowper's wound quickly healed, and left scarcely a scar, in his cousin's heart no such change took place. " Neither time uor absence," says Southey, " dimin- ished her attachment to the object of her first and only love ; the poems which, while their intercourse continued, he had transcribed for her as they were composed, she carefully preserved during many years ; and then, for reasons known only to herself, sent them in a sealed packet to a lady, her particular friend, with directions not to be opened till after her decease." We shall find, as we proceed, other proofs of her cease- less attachment, justifying, in a degree, the language in which Miss Austm contrasts the feehngs of the two sexes : — " We do not forget you, so soon as you forget iis. We live at home, quiet, confined, and our feelings prey iipon us. But you have always a profession, pursuits, business EARLY MANHOOD. 16 of some sort or other, to take you back into the world again, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions. All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one) is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone." * The thought will naturally occur to many minds, how different, and perhaps how far less unhappy, would Cowper's life have proved, had this natural and blameless attachment been allowed its ordinary course. Yet we should be careful how we repine, either against the decision of Theodora's father, or against the wise and gracious decision of Him who was " leading the blind by a way that he knew not." Painful as it must have been, and harsh as it must have seemed, to separate cousins who so dearly loved each other, it is quite possible that Mr. Ashley Cowper had already seen abundant signs of that tendency to melancholy which did, in fact, make his nephew's life " one long disease." And besides this, the unsettled and desultory cast of his character made his worldly prospects most unpromising. Either way, the marriage would have been a hazardous step for Theodora, and her father might justly consider, that he best provided for her peace of mind by positively forbidding the union. As to the still more important question, of the pro- vidential guidance of the poet's steps, no one, surely, can be bUnd to facts so obvious. The separation of 1757 was most painful, — of that there can be no doubt. But even in the next year, we have seen that the pain of the loss on his side had greatly subsided. No part of the after sufferings of his Ufe can be traced to this cause. So far as we can sunnise, he might, had he married Theodora, have still suffered all the pains and terrors of 1763, and have finally ended his days in a lunatic asylum. The kind pro- vidence which watched over him, prepared for him, in ]Mrs. Unwin, the most suitable and affectionate guardian and companion that could possibly have been found. And, after all, there remained that " perfect consummation and * " Persuasion," p. 424. 16 LIFE OF WILLIAM C'OV.'PER. bliss, iu eternal and everlasting glory," whicli Avould make all these circumstances " as a dream -when one awaketh, and as a watch in the night." But we must return to our narrative, and shall quickly close this portion of the history. His " friend torn from him, and his mistress lost," Cowper at first deemed himself " a wanderer on a wild unknown." But as weeks and months rolled on, he found, almost of necessity, new companions and new pursuits. He joined " The Nonsense Club," — a small society of Westminster men, who dined together every Thursday. With two of its members, Bonnell Thornton and Colman, Cowper joined in producing " The Connoisseur," — a weekly paper, which aspired to follow in the path of the " Spec- tator" and the " Rambler." He also wrote some pieces in the " St. James's Chronicle," and some in the " St. James's Magazine." But amidst these lighter occupations, nothing was done, or attempted, to secure for him a permanent income and an honourable position in society. He him- self tell us, that, drinking tea, about this time, at a lady's house in King Street, Bloomsbury, when Thurlow was present, so recently his fellow-clerk, he said to him, " Thur- low, I am nobody, and shall always be nobody ; and you will be Lord Chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are." Thurlow smiled and said, " I svirely will." In a letter dated the same year,* Cowper says : — " If my resolution to be a great man was half so strong as it is to despise the shame of being a little one, I should not despair of a house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with all its appurtenances ; for there is nothing more certain, and I could prove it by a thousand instances, than that every man may be rich if he will. What is the industry of half the industrious men in the world but avarice 1 and, call it by which name you will, it almost always succeeds. But this provokes me, that a covetous dog, who will work by candlelight in a morning to get what he does not want, shall be praised for his thriftiness, while a gentleman shall be abused for submitting to his wants, rather than work * Sept. 2, 1702. KARLY MANHOOD. 17 like an ass to relieve them. Did you ever in your life kuow a man who was guitlcd in the general course of his actions by anything but his natural temper ? And yet wc blame each other's conduct as freely as if that temper was the most tractalile beast in the world, and we had nothing to do but to twitch the rein to the right or the left, and go just as we are directed by others ! All this is nonsense, and nothing better." " Upon the whole, my dear Eowley, there is a degree of poverty that has no disgrace belonging to it ; that de- gree of it, I mean, in which a man enjoys clean linen and good company ; and if I never sink below this degree of it, I care not if I never rise above it." Cowper was now in the 32d year of his age ; his little patrimony was rapidly decreasing ; and the only hope which remained to him was that which must originally have decided his father in the choice of a profession. That hope was at last fulfilled. The clerk of the journals of the House of Lords died, and the office of reading clerk anil clerk of the committees, which was of greater value, was vacated by resignation. His relative, Major Cowper, who claimed the appointment to these olliccs, " called me," says Cowper, " out of my chambers, and having in- vited me to take a turn with him in the garden, there made me an offer of the two most profitable places ; in- tending the other for his friend Mr. Arnold. Dazzled by so splendid a proposal, and not immediately reflecting upon my incapacity to execute a business of so public a nature, I at once accepted it ; bvit at the same time, (such was the will of Him whose hand was in the whole matter,) seemed to receive a dagger in my heart. The wound was given, and every moment added to the smart of it. All the considerations, by which I endeavoured to compose my mind to its former trancpiillity, did but torment me the more ; proving miserable comforters and counsellors of no value. I returned to my chambers thoughtful and un- happy ; my countenance fell ; and my friend was asto- nished, instead of that additional cheerfulness he might so reasonably expect, to find an air of deep melancholy in all I said or did. c 18 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. " Having been harassed in this manner by day and night, for tlie sjiace of a week, perplexed between the appa- rent folly of casting away the only visible chance I had of being well provided for, and the impossibility of retaining it, I determined at length to write a letter to my friend, though he lodged in a manner at the next door, and we generally spent the day together. I did so, and therein begged him to accept my resignation, and to appoint Mr. Arnold to the places he had given me, and permit me to succeed Mr. Arnold. I was well aware of the disproportion between the value of his appointment and mine ; but my peace was gone ; pecuniary advantages were not equivalent to what I had lost ; and I flattered myself, that the clerk- ship of the journals would fall fairly and easily within the scope of my abilities. Like a man in a fever, I thought a change of posture would relieve my pain ; and, as the event will show, was equally disappointed. At length I earned my point, my friend, in this instance, preferring the gratification of my desires to his own interest ; for nothing could be so likely to bring a suspicion of bargain and sale upon his nomination, which the Lords would not have endured, as his appointment of so near a relative to the least profitable office, while the most valuable was allotted to a stranger. " The matter being thus settled, something like a calm took place in my mind. I was, indeed, not a little con- cerned about my character ; being aware that it must needs suffer by the strange appearance of my i^roceeding. This, however, being but a small part of the anxiety I had laboured under, was hardly felt when the rest was taken off. I thought my path to an easy maintenance was now plain and open, and for a day or two was tolerably cheerful. But, behold, the storm was gathering all' the while ; and the fury of it was not the less violent, for this gleam of sunshine. " In the beginning, a strong opposition to my friend's right of nomination began to show itself. A poweiful party was formed among the Lords to thwart it, in favour of an old enemy of the family, though one much indebted to its bounty ; and it appeared plain, that if wc succeeded EARLY MANHOOD. 19 at last, it would only be by figlitiiig our ground by inches. Every advantage, I was told, would be sought for, and eagei'ly seized, to disconcert us. I was bid to expect an examination at the bar of the House, touching my suf- ficiency for the post I had taken. Being necessarily ig- norant of the nature of that business, it became expedient that I should visit the office daily, in order to qualify my- self for the strictest scrutiny. All the horror of my fears and perplexities now returned. A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me as this intelligence. I knew, to de- monstration, that upon these terms the clerkship of the journals was no place for me. To require my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might there publicly entitle myself to the office, was, in effisct, to exclude mc from it. In the mean time, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward ; all pressed me to undertake that which I saw to be impracticable. They whose spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public exhilntion of them- selves, on any occasion, is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horrors of my situation ; others can have none. " ]My continual misery at length brought on a nervous fever ; quiet forsook me by day, and peace by night ; a finger raised against me was more than I could stand against. In this posture of mind I attended regularly at the office ; where, instead of a soul upon the ;'ack, the most active spirits were essentially necessary for my pui*- iwse. I expected no assistance from any body there, all the inferior clerks being under the influence of my 02>i)0- nent ; and accordingly I received none. The journal-books were, indeed, thrown open to me ; a thing which could not be refused ; and from which, perhaps, a man in liealth, and with a head turned to business, might have gained all the information he wanted : but it was not so with me. I read without perception, and was so distressed, that had every clerk in the office been my friend, it could have availed me little ; for I was not in a condition to receive instruction, much less to elicit it out of manuscripts, withuut direction. Many months went over me thus employed ; constant in the use of means, despairing as to the issue. 20 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. " The feelings of a man, when he arrives at the place of execution, are probably much like mine every time I set my foot in the ofBcc, which was every day, for naore than half a year together. At length the vacation being pretty far advanced, I made shift to get into the country, and repaired to Margate." About the beginning of October he was again required to attend the office, and jirepare for what was called " the push." But no sooner had he resumed, or seemed to resume, his inefTectual labours, — labours which were ineffectual only because he was possessed with the persuasion that they neces- sarily must be so, — than his nervous excitability returned. Again, he says, " I felt myself pressed by necessity on either side, with nothing but despair in prospect. To this dilemma was I reduced, — either to keep possession of the office to the last extremity, and by so doing expose myself to a public rejection for insufficiency, (for the little know- ledge I had acquired would have quite forsaken me at the bar of the House) ; or else to fling it up at once, and by this means run the hazard of ruining my benefactor's right of appointment, by bringing his discretion into question. In this situation, such a fit of passion has sometimes seized me, when alone in my chambers, that I have cried out aloud, and cursed the hour of my birth : lifting up my eyes to heaven, at the same time, not as a suppliant, but in the hellish spirit of rancorous reproach and blasphemy against my IMaker. A thought would sometimes come across my mind, that my sins had perhaps brought this distress upon me, — that the hand of divine vengeance was in it ; but in the pride of my heart I presently acquitted myself, and thereby implicitly charged God with injustice, saying, ' What sins have I committed to deserve this 1 ' " I saw plainly that God alone could deliver me ; but was firmly persuaded that he would not, and, therefore, omitted to ask it. Indeed, at his hands I would not ; but as Saul sought to the witch, so did I to the physician, Dr. Hcberdcn ; and was as diligent in the use of drugs as if tliey would have healed my wounded spirit, or have made the rough places plain before me. I made, indeed, one effort of a devotional kind ; for having found a prayer or EARLY MANHOOD. 21 two in that repository of self-riglitcousness and pliarisaical lumber, ' The Whole Duty of I\lan,' I said them a few nights, l)ut with so little expectation of prevaihng that way, that I soou laid aside the book, and with it all thoughts of God and hopes of a remedy." This state of horror lasted for several days, and ended, as }night have been expeeted, in an attempt to strangle himself. This decided the question. "As soon as my relative arrived, I pointed to the broken garter, v>rhich lay in the middle of the room ; and apprized him also of the attempt I had been making. His words were, ' My dear Mr. Cowper, yon terrify me ! To be snre you cannot hold the office at tliis rate, — where is the deputation V I gave him the key of the drawer where it was deposited ; and his business requiring his imme- diate attendance, he took it away with him ; and thus ended all my connexion with the Parliament-office." But now the Tempter, having been disappointed in one method of approach, immediately tried another. " To this moment I had felt no concern of a spiritual kind. Ignorant of original sin, insensible of the guilt of actual transgression, I understood neither the law nor the gospel ; the condemning nature of the one, nor the re- storing mercies of the other. I was as much unacquainted with Christ, in all his saving offices, as if his blessed name had never reached me. Now, therefore, a new scene opened tipon me. Conviction of sin took place, especially of that just committed ; the meanness of it, as well as its atrocity, was exhibited to me in colours so inconceivably strong, that I despised myself, with a contempt not to be imagined or expressed, for having attempted it. This sense of it secured me from the repetition of a crime, which I could not now reflect on without abhorrence. " Before I arose from bed, it was suggested to me that there was nothing wanted but miirder, to fill up the mea- sure of my iniquities ; and that, though I had failed in my design, yet I had all the guilt of that crime to answer for. • A sense of God's wrath, and a deep despair of escaping it, instantly succeeded. The fear of death became much more prevalent in mc than ever the desire of it liad been." 22 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. "My sins were now set in array before me. I began to ace and feel that I ]iad lived without God in the world. As I walked to and fro in my chamber, I said within my- self, ' There never was so abandoned a wretch ; so great a si7iner.' All my worldly sorrows seemed as though they had never been ; the terrors of my mind which succeeded them seemed so great, and so much more afflicting. One moment I thouglit myself shut out from mercy, by one chapter ; and the next, by another. The sword of the Sjiirit seemed to guard the Tree of Life from my touch, and to flame against me in every avenue by which I at- tempted to approach it. I particularly remember that the parable of the barren fig-tree was to me an inconceivable source of anguish ; I applied it to myself, with a strong persuasion in my mind, that when the Saviour pronounced a curse upon it he had me in his eye ; and pointed that curse directly at me." " While I traversed the apartment, in the most horrible dismay of soul, expecting every moment that the earth would open her mouth and swallow me ; my conscience scaring me, the avenger of blood pursuing me, and the city of refuge out of reach and out of sight ; a strange and hor- rible darkness fell upon me. If it were possible that a heavy blow could light on the brain, without touching the skull, such was the sensation I felt. I clapped my hand to my forehead, and cried aloud, through the pain it gave me. At every stroke iny thoughts and expressions became more wild and indistinct ; all that remained clear was the sense of sin, and the expectation of punishment. These kept undisturljcd possession all through my illness, without in- terruption or abatement. " My brother instantly perceived the change, and con- sulted with my friends on the best manner to dispose of me. It was agreed among them, that I should be carried to St. Alban's, where Dr. Cotton kept a house for the re- ception of such patients, and with whom I was kno'mi to have a slight acquaintance. Xot only his skill as a phy- sician recommended him to their choice, but his well- known humanity and sweetness of temper. It will be proper to draw a veil over the secrets of my prison-house." KECOVERY A^^D RETIUEMENT. 23 III. RECOVERY AND RETIREMENT. A.D. 1704—1707. Dreadful was Cowpcr's condition now. "Conviction of sin, and expectation of instant judgment, never left me, from the 7th of December, 17C3, until the middle of July following. Tlie accuser of the brethren," he tells us, " ever busy with him, night and day, brought to his recollection in dreams his long-forgotten sins, and charged upon his conscience things of an indifferent nature as atrocious crimes. All that passed in this long interval of eight months may be classed under two heads— conviction of sin, and despair of mercy." But months passed away, and the sentence of eternal condemnation seemed still deferred ; and thus one of the tempter's weapons began to lose its edge. " I began," says Cowper, " to persuade myself that while the execution of the sentence was deferred, it would be for my interest to indulge a less horrible train of ideas than I had been accustomed to dwell upon. I entered into con- versation with the doctor, laughed at his stories, and told him some of my own to match them ; still, however, carry- ing a sentence of irrevocable doom in my heart." In the course of a few weeks, his brother, hearing from Dr. Cotton the apparent amendment, came from Cambridge to visit him. His own sensations at this meeting he dc- acribes as painfully mingled with sorrow for his own reme- diless condition, and envy of his brother's happiness : — "As soon as we were left alone he asked me how I found myself; I answered, 'As much better as despair can make me.' We went together into the garden. Here, on expressing a settled assurance of sudden judgment, he 24 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. protested to me that it was all a delusion ; and protested so strongly that I could not help gi'V'ing some attention to him. I burst into tears, and cried out, 'If it be a delusion, then am I the happiest of beings.' Something like a ray of hope was shot into my heart, but still I was afraid to indulge it. We dined together, and I spent the afternoon in a more cheerful manner. Something seemed to whisper to me every moment, ' Still there is mercy.' " Even after he left me, this change of sentiment gathered ground continually ; yet my mind was in such a fluctuating state, that I can only call it a vague presage of better things at hand, without being able to assign a reason for it. The servant observed a sudden alteration in me for the better ; and the man, whom I have ever since retained in my service, expressed great joy on the occasion. "I went to bed and slept well. In the morning I dreamed that th-e sweetest boy I ever saw came dancing up to my bedside ; he seemed just out of leading-strings, yet I took particular notice of the firmness and steadiness of his tread. The sight affected me with pleasure, and served at least to harmonise my spirits ; so that I awoke for the first time with a sensation of dehght on my mind. Still, hoYv'ever, I knew not where to look for the establish- ment of the comfoi't I felt. Mj joy was as much a mystery to myself as to those about me. The blessed God was preparing me for the clearer light of his countenance by this first dawning of his light upon me." That he could feel the force of argument, and that he could weep, were evident symptoms of amendment. Indeed, he dated his recovery from his brother's visit ; saying, in a letter wi-itten before the Memoir, " though he only staid one ' day with me, his company served to put to flight a thousand deliriums and delusions which I still laboured under, and the next morning I found myself a new creature." Some short time before this, walking in the garden, he had found upon a s^at there a Bible, which very probably had ))een laid in his way. He opened it upon the chapter in which Lazarus is raised from the dead, and he saw " so much benevolence, and mercy, and goodness, and sympathy with miserable man in our Saviour's conduct," that ho was moved almost RECOVERY AND RETIREJIEXT. 25 to tears ; " little thinking," he says, " that it was an exact type of the mercy which Jesus was on the point of extend- ing towards myself. I sighed, and said, ' Oh, that I had not rejected so good a Redeemer, — that I had not forfeited all his favours ! ' Thus was my heart softened, though not yet enlightened. I closed the book, without intending to open it again." But now, after the dream described above, he says : — "Having risen with somewhat of a more cheerful feeling, I repaired to mj room, where breakfast waited for me. While I sat at table, I found the cloud of horror which had so long hung over me was every moment passing away ; and every moment came fraught with hope. I was con- tinually more and more persuaded that I was not utterly doomed to destruction. The way of salvation was still, however, hid from my eyes, nor did I see it at all cleaier than before my illness. I only thought that if it would please God to spare me, I would lead a better life ; and that I would yet escape hell if a religious obseiwance of my duty would secure me from it. Thus may the terror of the Lord make a Pharisee ; but only the sweet voice of mercy in the gospel can make a Christian. "But the happy period which was to shake off my fetters, and afford me a clear opening of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and, seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. Tlie first verse I saw was the twenty-fifth of the third chapter of Eomaus : ' Whom God hath set forth to be a propitia- tion through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbear- ance of God.' "Immediately I received strength to believe, and the fuU beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement He had made, my pardon sealed in His blood, and aU the fiUness and com- pletene.ss of His justification. In a moment I believed, and received the gospel. Whatever my friend • Madan had said to me, so long before, revived in all its clearness, with ' demonstration of the Spirit and with power.' Unless the 26 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Almighty arm had been under me I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. IMy eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport, I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder." But the work of the Holy Spirit is best described in his own words: "it was 'joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' Thus was my heavenly Father in Christ Jesus pleased to give me the full assurance of faith, and out of a stony, unbeheving heart, to raise up a child unto Abraham. How glad should I now have been to have spent every moment in prayer and thanksginng ! "I lost no opjiortunity of repairing to a throne of grace ; but flew to it with an earnestness irresistible, and never to be satisfied. Could I help it ] Could I do other- wise than love and rejoice in my reconciled Father in Christ Jesus ? Tlie Lord had enlarged my heart, and I ran in the way of His commandments. For many succeeding weeks tears were ready to flow if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my em})loyment. Too happy to sleep much, I thought it was lost time that was spent in slumber. Oh that the ardour of my first love had continued ! But I have known many a lifeless and unhallowed hour since ; long intervals of darkness, interrupted by short returns of peace and joy in believing. " My physician, ever watchful and apprehensive for my welfare, was now alarmed, lest the sudden transition from des2>air to joy should terminate in a fatal frenzy. But ' the Lord was my strength and my song, and was become my salvation.' I said, ' I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord ; he has chastened me sore, but not given me over unto death. give thanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever ! ' In a short time Dr. C. became satisfied, and acquiesced in the soundness of my cure ; and much sweet communion I had with him con- cerning the things of our salvation." And now Cowpcr could appreciate the value of his kind physician's sympathetic care ; and perceive in his position one proof of his heavenly Father's guidance. He say.s : — ■ RECOVERY AND RETIREMENT. 27 " I reckon it one instance of the providence which has attended me throughout this whole event, tliat instead of being delivered into the hands of one of the London phy- sicians — who were so much nearer tliat I wonder I was not — I was carried to Doctor Cotton. I was not only treated by him with the greatest tenderness while I was ill, and at- tended with the utmost diligence, but when my reason was restored to me, and I had so much need of a religious friend to converse with, to whom I could open my mind on the subject without reserve, I could hardly have found a fitter person for the purpose. INIy eagerness and anxiety to settle my opinions upon that long-neglected point, made it necessary that, while my mind was yet weak and my spirits uncertain, I should have some assistance. The doctor was as ready to administer relief to me in this article likewise, and as well qualified to do it, as in that which was more immediately his province. How many physicians would have thought this an irregular appetite, ami a symptom of remaining madness ! But if it were so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it was well for me that he was so." Cowper remained with Dr. Cotton for several months after his recovery. Resuming the use of his pen, he now wrote the "Happy Change," grounded on the passage in the Apocalypse, " Behold, I make all things new," Groat is the contrast between this and all his former produc- tions : — " How Llcst thy eroature is, Got!, Wlien with a single eye He views the lustre of thy word, The day spring from on high ! Tlirough all the storms that veil the skies, And frown on earthly things, The Sun of Righteousness he eyes, With healing on his wings. Struck by that hglit, the human lieart, A barren soil no more. Sends the sweet smell of grace abroad, Where serpents lurk'd before. 28 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Tlie soul, a dreary jirovince once Of Satan's dark domain, Feels a new empire form'd within, And owns a heavenly reign. The glorious orb, whose golden heams The fruitful year control, Since first, obedient to thy word, He started from the goal. Has cheer'd the nations with the joys His orient rays impart ; But, Jesus, 'tis thy hght alone Can shine upon the heart." The greatest of all changes had now passed uj^on Cow- per ; and one of its most natural and immediate results was, that London, the scene of all his hopes and joys, his fears and sorrows, for more tliau a dozen years past, now became hateful to him. He says : — '' I now employed my brother to seek out an abode for me in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, being determined, by the Lord's leave, to see London, the scene of my former abominations, no more. I had still one place of prefer- ment left, which seemed to bind me under the necessity of returning thither again. But I resolved to break the bond, chiefly because my peace of conscience was in ques- tion. I held for some years the office of Commissioner of Bankrupts, worth about 60^. per annum. Conscious of my ignorance of the law, I could not take the accustomed oath, and resigned it; thereby releasing myself from an occasion of great sin, and from every obhgation to return to London." And now occurs an incident in this remarkable histoiy which has excited little remark, but which deserves to be pondered over. His l)rother John, Cowper tells us, " made many unsuccessful attempts to procure me a lodging near him." IVIost strange ! seeing that Cambridge and its vicinity abounded in houses let in lodgings, and having accommo- dation of every class, and housekeepers of every kind. Our first supposition naturally is, that his brother did not reallii tn's/t t« find liini a lodging so near to liimsclf. But RECOVERY AXD RETIREMENT. 29 this liy]^iothe.sis is not tenable. John Cowi)er showed the greatest aiiection and sjanpathy, and must have wished to watch over his future progress. Cowper, too, was now " in perfect health ;" he was of shy and retiring hal)its, and hi.s pursuits quiet and literary. There could 1 le no reason why John Cowper could desire his brother to be at a distance from him, still less at such a distance as to compel a weekly journey. Yet we arc assured that in Cambridge, which is a town full of lodgings, John Cowper could not find one that would suit ; while in Huntingdon — fourteen miles off — he found accommodation without difficulty. Tlie circumstance would be altogether unaccountable, but for the hidden reason — hidden at the time to both brothers — which immediately afterwards appears. At Cam- bridge, at that moment, we know not that there existed one person qualified to aid and direct him in the journey to the lieavenly city, upon which he had now fully entered. Even his brother, kind and aftectiouate as he was, could not luidei'stand his religious views. But at Huntingdon dwelt, in utter ignorance of him and his circumstances, that remarkable indiN-idual, prepared especially for this work, who was to be his prop and stay — his affectionate nurse and beloved friend— for more than thirty years of his life. A woman so singularly fitted for this laborious and pecu- liar duty could have been found by no human search. But He who " ordereth all things after the counsel of his own will" — He who did not permit Jonah to be cast into the sea until he had " prepai-ed " and brought to the ship's side a great fish ready to receive him — He made it impossible for Cowper's brother to find lodgings in Cambridge, showed him suitable apartments in Huntingdon, and there, in the course of eight or ten weeks, gave to Cowper himself the friendship of that admirable woman, of whom, a quarter of a century after, he speaks as "a lady who has sui)plied to me the place of my own mother — my own invaluable mother — for these six-and-twenty years ;" and to whom he then addressed these touching lines : — " jMary I I want a lyre with other strings ; Such aid from heaven, as some have feign'd they drew ! 30 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new, And undebased by praise of meaner things ! That ere through age or woe I shed my flings I may record thy worth, with honour due, In verse as musical as thou art true, — Verse that immortalizes whom it sings ! But tliou hast little need. There is a book, By seraphs writ, with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look ; A chronicle of actions, just and bright ! There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine." Probably the whole range of Christian biography, if carefully searched, would not produce an instance more worthy of wondering thankfulness than this remarkable providence, l)y which Cowper was conducted to the abode of the faitliful friend who had been prepared for him. He left Dr. Cotton's on the 17th of June, 17G5, and proceeded to Ca.mbridge. Remaining there four days, ou Saturday, the 22d, his brother accompanied him to Hunting- don, introduced him to his new abode, and then left him. Very naturally his spirits began to sink, and he felt " like a traveller in the midst of an inhospitable desert, without a friend to comfort or a guide to direct him." He then continues : — " I walked forth, towards the close of the day, in this melancholy frame of mind, and, having wandered about a mile from the town, I found my heart, at length, so power- fully drawn towards the Lord, that, having gained a retired and secret nook in the corner of a field, I kneeled down under a bank, and poured forth my complaints before him. It pleased my Saviour to hear me, in that this oppression was taken off, and I was enabled to trust in him that caretli for the stranger, to roll my burden upon him, and to rest assured that, wheresoever he might cast my lot, the («od of all consolation would still be with me. But this was not all. Ho did for me more than either I had asked or thought. " Tlie next day I went to church, for the first time after RECOVERY AXD RETIREMENT. 31 my recovery. Throughout the whole sen-ice I had much to do to restrain my emotions, so fully did 1 see the beauty and the glory of the Lord. My heart was full of love to all the congregation, especially to them in whom I observed an air of sober attention. A grave and sober person sat in the pew with me ; him I have since seen, and often conversed with, and have found him a pious man, and a true servant of the blessed Redeemer. While he was singing the psalm I looked at him, and, observing him intent on liis holy employment, I could not help saying in my heart, with mucli emotion, ' Bless you, for praising him whom my soul loveth !' " Such was the goodness of the Lord to me, that he gave me 'the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ;' and though my voice Avas silent, being stopped by the intenseness of what I felt, yet my soul sung within me, and even leapt for joy. And when the Gospel for the day was read, the sound of it was more than I could well support. Oh, what a word is the word of God, when the Spirit quickens us to receive it, and gives the hearing car and the understanding heart ! The harmony of heaven is in it, and discovers its author. The parable of the prodigal sou was the portion. I saw myself iu that glass so clearly, and the loving-kindness of my slighted and forgotten Lord, that the whole scene was realised to me, and acted over in my heart. " I went immediately after church to the place where I had prayed the day before, and found the relief I had there received was but the earnest of a richer blessing. How shall I express what the Lord did for me, except by saying that he made all his goodness to pass before me ? I seemed to speak to him face to face, as a man con- versing with his friend, except that my speech was only in tears of joy, and groanings which cannot be uttered. I could say, indeed, with Jacob, not ' how dreadful,' but how lovely ' is this place ! This is none other than the house of God.' " He now, being in a position of entire leisure, began to renew his intercourse with the few friends that remained 32 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. to him. To liis cousin Harriet, uow Lady Hesketli, one of his first letters was directed, and we give it entire : — " Huiiihif/don, Julu 1, 17G5. " My dear Lady Heskctb, — Since the visit you were so kind to pay me in the Temple (the only time I ever saw you without pleasure), what have I not suffered ? And since it has pleased God to restore me to the use of my reason, what have I not enjoyed ? You know, by experi- ence, how pleasant it is to feel the first approaches of health after a fever, — but, oh ! the fever of the brain ! To feel the quenching of that fire is, indeed, a blessing, Avhich I think it impossible to receive without the most consummate gratitude. Terrible as this chastisement is, I acknowledge in it the hand of an infinite justice ; nor is it at all more difficult for me to perceive in it the hand of an infinite mercy, likewise : when I consider the effect it has had upon me, I am exceedingly thankful for it, and, without hypocrisy, esteem it the greatest blessing, next to life itself, I ever received from the divine bounty. I pray God that I may ever retain this sense of it, and then I am sure I shall continue to be, as I am at present, really happy. " I write thus to you, that you may not think me a forlorn and wretched creature ; which you might Ijc apt to do, considering my very distant removal from every friend I have in the world : a circumstance which, before this event bcfel me, would undoubtedly have made me so ; but my affliction has taught me a road to happiness, which, without it, I should never have found ; and I know, and have experience of it every day, that the mercy of God, to him who believes himself the object of it, is more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of every other blessing. "You may now inform all those whom you think really interested in my welfare, that they have no need to be apprehensive on the score of my happiness at present. And you yourself will believe that my happiness is no dream, because I have told you the foundation on which RECOVERY AND RETIREMEOT. 33 it is built. What I have written would appear like enthu- siasm to many, for we arc apt to give that name to every warm aiFection of the mind in others, which we have not experienced in ourselves ; but to you, who have so much to be thankful for, and a temper inclined to gratitude, it will not appear so. "I beg you will give my love to Sir Thomas, and believe that I am obliged to you both for inquiring after me at St. Alban's. " Yours ever, "W. C." Receiving an immediate reply, Cowper writes, three days afterwards, more at length : — ^'■Huntingdon, Jiihj 4, 17C5. "Being just emerged from the Ousc, I sit down to thank you, my dear cousin, for your friendly and comfort- able letter. What could you think of my unaccountable behaviour to you in that visit I mentioned in my last ? I remember I neither spoke to you nor looked at you. The solution of the mystery, indeed, followed soon after, but, at the time, it must have been inexplicable. The uproar within was even then begun, and my silence was only the sulkiness of a thunder-storm before it opens. I am glad, however, that the only instance in which I knew not how to value your company was when I was not in my senses. It was the first of the kind, and I trust in God it will be the last. " How naturally does affliction make us Christians ! and how impossible is it when all human help is vain, and the whole earth too poor and trifling to furnish us with one moment's peace, — how impossible is it then to avoid looking at the Gospel ! It gives me some concern, though at the same time it increases my gratitude, to reflect that a convert made in Bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling- block to others than to advance their faith. But, if it has that effect upon any, it is owing to their reasoning amiss, and drawing their conclusions from false premises. He who can ascribe an amendment of life and manners, and a reformation of the heart itself, to madness, is guilty of an D 34 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. absurdity that, in any other case, would fasten the imi)u- tation of madness upon himself; for, by so doing, he ascribes a reasonable effect to an unreasonable cause, and a positive effect to a negative. But when Christianity only is to be sacrificed, he that stabs deepest is always the Avisest man. You, my dear cousin, yourself, will be apt to think I carry the matter too far, and that, in the present warmth of my heart, I make too ample a concession in saying that I am only now a convert. You think I always believed — and I thought so too — but you were deceived, and so was I. I called myself, indeed, a Christian, but he who knows my heart knows that I never did a right thing, nor abstained from a wrong one, because I was so. But, if I did either, it was under the influence of some other motive. And it is such seeming Christians, such pre- tending believers, that do most mischief to the cause, and furnish the strongest arguments to siipport the infidelity of its enemies : unless profession and conduct go together, the man's life is a lie, and the validity of what he i^ro- fesses itself is called in question. The difference between a Christian and an unbeUevcr would be so striking, if the treacherous allies of the church would go OA'er at once to the other side, that I am satisfied religion would be no loser by the bargain. ***** " My dear cousin, you know not half the deliverances I have received ; my brother is the only one in the family who does. My recovery is, indeed, a signal one ; but a greater, if possible, went before it. My future life must express my thankfulness, for by words I cannot do it. " I pray God to bless you, and my friend Sir Thomas. " Yours ever, «W. C." This correspondence, once set on foot, was maintained for some time with great A-igour. Cowper, having entire leisure, naturally found it an agreeable employment to write, once or twice a-week, to so near and dear a relative. In September he thus introduces Lady Hesketh to the Unwins : — RECOVERY AND RETIREMENT. 35 " Hiiiitliigdoii, Se2)t. 1-i, 1705. " My dear Cousin, — The longer I live here the better I like the jilace, and the people who belong to it. I am upon very good terms with no less than five families, besides two or three odd scrambling fellows like myself. The last acquaintance I made here is with the race of the Unwins, consisting of father and mother, son and .daughter, the most comfortable, social folks, you ever knew. The son is about twenty-one years of age, one of the most unreserved and amiable young men I ever conversed with. He is not yet arrived at that time of life when suspicion recom- mends itself to us in the form of wisdom, and sets everj-- thiug but our own dear selves at an immeasurable distance from our esteem and confidence. Consequently, he is known almost as soon as seen, and, having nothing in his heart that makes it necessary for him to keep it barred and bolted, opens it to the perusal even of a stranger. The father is a clergyman, and the son is destined for orders. The design, however, is quite his own, proceeding merely from his being, and having always been, sincere in his belief and love of the Gospel. Another acquaintance I have lately made is with a Mr. Nicholson, a north-country divine, very poor, but very good, and very happy. He reads prayers here twice a-day all the year round, and travels on foot to serve two churches every Sunday through the year, his journey out and home again being sixteen miles. I supped with him last night. He gave me bread and cheese, and a black jug of ale of his own brewing, and, doubtless, brewed by his own hands. Another of my acquaintance is Mr. , a thin, tall old man, and as good as he is thin. He drinks nothing but water, and cats no flesh, partly (I believe) from a religious scruple (for he is very rehgious) and partly in the spirit of a valetudinarian. He is to be met with every morning of his life, at about six o'clock, at a fountain of very fine water, about a mile from the town, wliich is reckoneel extremely like the Bristol spring. Being both early risers, and the only early walkers in the place, we soon became acquainted. His great piety can be equalled by nothing but his gi-eat regu- larity ; for he is the most perfect timepiece in the world. 36 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. I have received a visit, likewise, from Mr. . He is very much a gentleman — well read, and sensible. I am persuaded, in short, that if I had had the choice of all England where to fix my abode, I could not have chosen better for myself, and most likely I should not have chosen so well. "You say, you hope it is not necessary for salvation to undergo the same afflictions that I have undergone. No, my dear cousin, God deals with his children as a merciful father ; he does not, as he himself tells us, afflict willingly the sons of men. Doubtless there are many who, having been placed by his good providence out of the reach of any great evil and the influence of bad example, have, from their very infancy, been partakers of the grace of his Holy Spirit, in sucli a manner as never to have allowed themselves in any grievous offence against him. May you love him more and more, day by day ; as every clay, while you think upon him, you will find him more worthy of your love ; and may you be finally accepted by him for his sake, whose intercession for all his faithful servants cannot but prevail ! " Yours ever, " ^Y. c." And again, a month later : — " Himtbicidon, Oct. 1ft, 17G5. " I wish you joy, my dear cousin, of being safely arrived in port from the storms of Southampton. For my own part, who am but as a Thames wherry in a world full of tempest and commotion, I know so well the value of the creek I have put into, and the snugness it affords me, that I have a sensible sympathy with you in the jileasure you find in being once more blown to Droxford. I know enough of ]\Iiss Morley to send her my comj^liments, to wliich if I had never seen her, her affection for you would sufficiently entitle her. If I neglected to do it sooner, it is only because I am naturally apt to neglect what I ought to do ; and if I was as genteel as I am negligent, I sliould be • the most delightful creature in the universe. I am glad you think so favourably of my Huntingdon acquaintance ; BECOVERY AND RETIREMENT. S7 tliey arc, indeed, a nice set of folks, and suit me exactly. I should have been more particular in my account of Miss Unwin, if I had had materials for a minute description. She is about eighteen years of age, rather handsome and genteel. In her mother's company she says little ; not because her mother requires it of her, but because she seems glad of that excuse for not talking, being somewhat inclined to bashfulness. There is the most remarkable cordiality between all the pai-ts of the family, and the mother and daughter seem to doat upon each other. The first time I went to the house I was introduced to the daughter alone, and sat with her near half-an-hour before her brother came in, who had appointed me to call upon him. Talking is necessary in a iete-a-tete, to distinguish the persons of the drama from the chairs they sit on : accordingly, she talked a great deal, and extremely well ; and, like the rest of the family, behaved with as much ease and address as if we had been old acquaintance. She resembles her mother in her great piety, who is one of the most remarkable instances of it I have ever seen. They are altogether the eheerfullcst and most engaging family- piece it is possible to conceive. Since I wrote the above, I met Mrs. Unwin in the street, and went home with her. She and I walked together near two hours in the garden, and had a conversation which did me more good than I should have received from an audience of the first prince in Europe. That woman is a blessing to me, and I never see her without being the better for her company. I am treated in the family as if I was a near relation, and have been repeatedly invited to call upon them at all times. You know what a shy fellow I am ; I cannot prevail with myself to make so much use of this privilege as I am sure they intend I should : but, perhaps, this awkwardness will wear oif hereafter. It was my earnest rcciuest, before I left St. Alban's, that, wherever it might please Providence to dispose of me, I might meet with such an acquaintance as I find in ]\Irs. Unwin. How happy it is to believe, with a stedfast assurance, tliat our petitions are heard, even while we are making them ! and how delightful to meet with a proof of it in the eUcctual and actual grant of 38 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. them ! Sui'ely it is a gracious finishiag given to those means which the Almighty has been pleased to make use of for my conversion. After having been deservedly ren- dered unfit for any society, to be again qualified for it, and admitted at once into the fellowship of those whom God regards as the excellent of the earth, and whom, in the emphatical language of Scripture, he preserves as the apple of his eye, is a blessing, which carries with it the stamp and visible superscription of divine boimty — a grace un- limited as undeserved ; and, like its glorious author, free in its course, and blessed in its operation. " ]My dear cousin, health and happiness, and, above all, the favour of our great and gracious Lord attend you ! While we seek it in spirit and in truth, we are infinitely more secure of it than of the next breach we expect to draw. Heaven and earth have their destined periods ; ten thousand worlds will A'anish at the consummation of all things ; but the word of God standeth fast, and they who trust in him shall never be confounded. "My love to all who inquire after me. " Yours affectionately, " ^Y. c." One of his few remaining friends was Joseph Hill, Esq., of Great Queen Street, and afterwards of Saville Row, who became secretary to Lord-Chancellor Thurlow. His attach- ment to the poet knew no change or variation ; and it must be reckoned one of the peculiar circumstances in Cowper's lot, that a friend so faithful and so wise was pi'eserved to him through his whole life, to watch over all his pecuniary affairs. He vrrites to Mr. Hill at this period as follows : — " Oct. 2.). 1765. "Dear Joe, — I am afraid the month of October has proved rather unfavourable to the belle assemhUe at South- ampton, high winds and continual rains being l)itter ene- mies to that agreeable lounge which you and I are equally fond of. I have very cordially betaken myself to my books and my fireside, and seldom leave them unless for exercise. I have added another family to the number of those I was RECOVERY AND RETIREMEXT, 39 acquainted with when you were here. Their name is Unwiu — the most agreeable people imaginable ; quite soci- able, and as free from the ceremonious civility of country gentlefolks as any I ever met with. They treat me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their house is always open to me. The old gentleman carries me to Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of learning and good sense, and as simple as Parson Adams. His wife has a very uncommon understanding, has read much, to excellent purpose, and is more polite than a duchess. The son, who belongs to Cambridge, is a most amiable young man, and the daughter quite of a piece with the rest of the family. They see but httle company, which suits me exactly ; go when I will, I hnd a house full of peace and cordiality in all its parts, and am sure to hear no scandal, but such discourse instead of it as we are aU better for. You remember Rousseau's description of an EngUsh morning ; such are the mornings I spend with these good people, and the evenings differ from them in nothing, except that they are still more snug and quieter. Now I know them, I wonder that I hked Huntingdon so weU before I knew them, and am apt to think I should find every place dis- agi'eeable that had not an Unwin belonging to it. "This incident convinces me of the truth of an obsei-va- tion I have often made, that when we circumscribe our estimate of all that is clever within the limits of our own acquaintance (which I, at least, have been always apt to do) we arc guilty of a very uncharitable censure upon the rest of the world, and of a narro^vness of thinking disgraceful to ourselves. Wapping and RedrifF may contain some of the most amiable persons living, and such as one would go to Wapping and RedrifF to make acquaintance with. You remember Gray's stanza, — ' Full many a gem of purest ray serene, The dai-k imlathom'd caves of ocean Lear; Full many a rose is torn to blush unseen, Anil waste its fragrance on the desert air.' " Yours, dear Joe, «W. C." 40 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER, We have spoken of Mrs. Unwin as being selected, by the special providence of God, to be Cowper's guardian for more than thirty years. Tliis is indicated, beyond the possibility of error, iu her history. The Rev. Morley Unwin, her husband, had been Master of the Free School, and Lecturer of the two churches in Huntingdon, for several years. He married Mary Caw- thorne, the daughter of a draper in Ely. Her history, and the admiration expressed for her by such persons as Lady Hesketh and Lady Austen, prove that she must have been endowed with many excellencies. Natural talent must have been improved by cultivation to have attracted such a mind as that of Cowper. The solid qualities of her mind were evinced by her long devotion to the most painful of all duties as his watchful guardian. Her two children, a son and a daughter, reflected back her virtues, and be- came the beloved friends of the poet. The son, William Ca^vthorne Unwin, had been pleased with Cowper's countenance, and had felt a strong incli- nation to call on him ; but the father dissuaded him from this, because it was said that the stranger rather declined society than sought it. One day, however, as they came out of church after the morning prayers, young Unwin, seeing him take a solitary walk under a row of trees, accosted and joined him there, and, finding that his advances were gladly received, engaged himself to drink tea with him that afternoon. ' To my inexpressible joy,' says Cowper, in his Memoir, 'I found him one whose notions of religion were spiritual and lively ; one whom the Lord had been training from his infancy to the service of the Temjjle. We opened our hearts to each other at the first interview ; and when we parted I immediately retired to my chamber, and prayed the Lord, who had been the author, to be the guardian of our friendship ; to give it fervency and perpetuity even unto death ; and I doubt not that my gracious Father has heard this prayer also." Veiy shortly afterwards circumstances drew them still nearer together. Cow23er's income was narrow, — being jjartly derived from son)c remains of his small inheritance, RECOVERY AXD RETIREMENT. 41 and partly from an annual allowance remitted to liim hj some of his relatives. His faithful friend Hill was his agent and counsellor in all pecuniary matters ; and con- tinued his kind services in this matter to the end of Cow- per's life. At this period his means were not equal to his wants, while living alone. " Suddenly," he says, " it occurred to me that I might, probably, find a place in ]\Ir. Unwin's family as a boarder. A young gentleman, who had lived with him as a pupil, was the day before gone to Cambridge. It appeared to mc, at least, possible that I might be allowed to succeed him. From the moment this thought struck me, such a tumult of anxious solicitude seized me, that for two or three days I could not divert my mind to any other sub- ject. I blamed and condemned myself for want of sub- mission to the Lord's will ; but still the language of my mutinous and disobedient heart was, ' Give me the blessing, or else I die ! ' " About the third evening after I had determined upon this measure, I, at length, made shift to fosten my thoughts upon a theme which had no manner of connexion with it. While I was pursuing my meditations, Mr. Unwin and family quite out of sight, my attention was suddenly called home again by the words which had been continually play- ing in my mind, and were, at length, repeated with such importunity that I could not help regarding them, — ' The Lord God of truth will do this.' I was effectually con- vinced that they were not of my own production, and, accordingly, I received from them some assurance of suc- cess : but my unbelief and fearfulness robbed me of much of the comfort they were intended to convey ; though I have since had many a blessed experience of the same kind, for which I can never be sutticiently thankful. I immediately began to negotiate the aftair, and in a few days it was entirely concludeil." Some months now passed away without any continuance of the correspondence with Ltidy Heskcth. One cause of his cousin's silence is, no doubt, correctly surmised in the first sentence of the following letter, which is dated March 6 ; but, besides this, the tone and spirit of his letters must 42 LIFE OF WILLIAJI COWPER, have been, to a lady moving in the world of pleasure and fashion, such as she found it difficult to respond to : — "Huntingdon, March 6, 1766. " My dear Cousin, — I have for some time past imputed your silence to the cause which you yourself assign for it, viz. to my change of situation ; and was even sagacious enough to account for the frequency of your letters to me while I lived alone, from your attention to me in a state of such sohtude, as seemed to make it an act of particular charity to write to me. I bless God for it — I was happy even then ; sohtude has nothing gloomy in it if the soul points upwards. St. Paul tells his Hebrew converts, ' Ye are come (already come) to Mount Siou, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly of the first- born, which are written in heaven, and to Jesus the medi- ator of the new covenant.' When this is the case, as surely it was with them, or the Spirit of Truth had never spoken it, there is an end of the melancholy and dulness of life at once. You will not suspect me, my dear cousin, of a design to understand this passage literally. But this, however, it certainly means ; that a lively faith is able to anticipate, in some measure, the joys of that heavenly society which the soul shall actually possess hereafter. " Since I have changed my situation, I have found still greater cause of thanksgiving to the Father of all mercies. The family with whom I live are Christians ; and it has pleased the Almighty to bring me to the knowledge of them, that I may want no means of improvement in that temper and conduct which he is pleased to require in all his servants. "My dear cousin, one half of the Christian world would call this madness, fanaticism, and folly : but are not these things warranted by the word of God, not only in the pas- sages I have cited, but in many others ? If we have no communion v/ith God here, surely we can expect none hereafter. A faith that does not place our conversation in ■ heaven — that does not warm the heart and purify it too — that docs not, in short, govern our thought, word, and deed, is no faith, nor will it obtain for us any spiritual RECOVERY AND RETIREMENT. 43 blessing here or hereafter. Let us see, therefore, my dear cousin, that v/e do not deceive ourselves in a matter of such infinite moment. The world will be ever telling us that we are good enough ; and the world will vilify us behind our backs. ]jut it is not the world which tries the heart, — that is the prerogative of God alone. ]\fy dear cousin, I have often prayed for you behind your back, and now I pray for you to your face. Tliere are many who would not forgive me this wrong ; but I have known you so long, and so well, that I am not afraid of telling you how sincerely I wish for your growth in every Christian grace, — in everything that may promote and secure your everlasting welfare. " I am obliged to Mrs. Cowper for the book, which, }ou l^erceive, arrived safe. I am willing to consider it as an intimation on her part that she would wish me to write to her, and shall do it accordingly. My circumstances arc rather particular, such as call upon my friends — those, I mean, who are truly such — to take some little notice of me ; and will naturally make those, who are not such in sincerity, rather shy of doing it. To this I impute the silence of many with regaril to me, who, before the aflflic- tion that befel mc, were ready enough to converse with me. " Yours ever, "W. C." Once more he addressed this beloved cousin in the same strain ; but it soon became evident that she was unable to take her part in such a correspondence. He thus writes : — "Jan. ,']0, 1707. "My dear Lady Hesketh, — I am glad you spent yoin- summer in a place so agreeable to you. As to me, my lot is cast in a country where we have neither woods, nor com- mons, nor pleasant prospects — all flat and insipid; in the summer adorned only with blue willows, and in the winter covered with a flood. Such it is at present : our bridges shaken almost in pieces, our poor willows torn away by the roots, and our haycocks almost afloat. Yet even hero wc 44 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. are happy — at least, I am so ; and if I have no groves with benches conveniently disposed, nor commons overgrown with thyme to regale me, neither do I want them. You thought to make my mouth water at the charms of Tap- low, but you see you are disappointed. " My dear cousin, I am a living man ; and I can never reflect that I am so, without recollecting at the same time that I have infinite cause of thanksgiving and joy. This makes every place delightful to me where I can have leisure to meditate upon those mercies by which I live, and in- dulge a vein of gratitude to that gracious God who has snatched me like a brand out of the burning. Where had I ])een but for his forbearance and long-suffering 1 even with those who shall never see his face in hoj^e, to whom the name of Jesus, by the just judgment of God, is become a torment instead of a remedy. Thoughtless and incon- siderate wretch that I was ! I lived as if I had been my o^\•n creator, and could continue my existence to what length and in what state I pleased ; as if dissipation was the narrow way which leads to life, and a neglect of the blessed God would certainly end in the enjoyment of Him. ;^ :tt * :i5 * " Would I were the only one that had ever dreamed this dream of foUy and wickedness ! but the world is filled with such, who furnish a continual proof of God's almost unprovokable mercy ; who set up for themselves in a spirit of independence upon him who made them, and yet enjoy that life l)y his boiuity which they abuse to his dis- honour. You remember me, my dear cousin, one of this trifling and deluded multitude. Great and grievous afflic- tions were applied to awaken me out of this deep sleep, and, under tlie influence of divine grace, have, I trust, pro- duced the effect for which they were intended. * * * * This is no fable, but it is our life. If we stand at the loft hand of Christ wliile we live, we shall stand there, too, in the judgment. The separation must be begun in this world, which in that day shall be made for ever. My dear cousin, may the Son of God, who shall then assign to each his everlasting station, direct and settle all your thouglits ujjon this important subject." IIECOVERY AND RETIREMENT, 46 liady Ilcskcth .soon afterwards went abroad with Sir Thomas, and remained there for several years. Her cor- rcsiiondence with Cowpcr was not renewed until eighteen years had elapsed. But while he lost one cousin as a correspondent, he gained, about the same period, another, and one who could iniderstand and sympathize with him. The wife of his relative, Ma.jor Cowper, was the sister of the Rev. Martin l\Iadan, the minister of the Lock Chapel, one of the most l)rominent of the Evangelical clergy of that day. Mrs. Cowpcr would naturally learn from her husband the re- storation of their relative to mental health and peace ; and she soon sent to him a book which. she judged suitable to his present state. He thus acknowledges it : — " Huntingdon, March 11, 1766. "My dear Cousin, — I am much obliged to you for PcarsaU's JMeditations, especially as it furnishes mc with an occasion of writing to you, which is all I have waited for. I\[y friends must excuse me if I write to none but those who lay it fairly in my way to do so. The inference 1 am apt to draw from their silence is, that they wish me to be silent too. " I have great reason, my dear cousin, to be thankful to the gracious Providence that conducted me to this place. The lady in whose house I live is so excellent a person, and regards me with a friendship so truly Christian, that I could almost fancy my own mother restored to life again, to compensate to me for all the friends I have lost, and all my connexions broken. She has a son at Cam- bridge in all respects worthy of such a mother ; the most amiable young man I ever knew. His natural and ac- quired endowments are very considerable ; and as to his virtues, I need only say that he is a Christian. It ought to be a matter of daily thanksgiving to me that I am admitted into the society of such persons, and I pray God to make me and keep me worthy of them. " Your brother Martin has been very kind to me, having written to me twice in a style which, though it was once irksome to me, to say the least, I now know how to value. 46 LIFE or WILLIAM COWPER. I pray God to forgive me the many light things I have both said and thought of him and his labours. Hereafter I shall consider him as a burning and a shining light ; and as one of those who, having turned many to righteousness, shall sliine hereafter as tlie stars for ever and ever. " So much for the state of my heart : as to my spirits, I am cheerful and hapi:)y, and, having peace with God, have peace with myself. For the continuance of this bless- ing I trust to him who gives it, and they who trust iu him shall never be confounded. " Yours afFectiouately, «W. C." This intercourse, once begun, was naturally frequent. The foUowiiig letters foUow in the same year : — " HiinHngchii, April 4, 1766. " My dear Cousin, — I agree with you that letters are not essential to friendship, but they seem to be a natural fruit of it, when they are the only intercourse that can be had. And a friendship producing no sensible effects is so like indifference, that the appearance may easily deceive even an acute discerner. I retract, however, all that I said in my last upon this subject, having reason to suspect that it proceeded from a principle which I v^'ould discourage in myself upon all occasions, even a pride that felt itself hurt upon a mere suspicion of neglect. I have so much cause for humility, and so much need of it, too ; and every little sneaking resentment is such an enemy to it, that I hope I shall never give quarter to anything that aj^pears in the shape of suUenness or self- consequence hereafter. Alas ! if my best Friend, who laid down his life for me, were to remember all the instances in which I have neglected him, ;md to plead them against me in judgment, where should I ]iide my guilty head in the day of recompense 1 I will pray, therefore, for blessings upon my friends, though they cease to be so ; and iqion my enemies, though they con- tinue such. The deceitfulncss of the natural heart is incon- ceivable ; I know well that I j^assed among my friends for a person at least religiously inclined, if not actually religious ; RECOVERY AND RETIRESIENT. 47 and, what is more ^Yonderful, I thought myself a Christian, when I had no faith in Clirist, when I saw no beauty in him that I should desire him ; in short, when I had neither faith, nor love, nor any Christian grace whatever, but a thousand seeds of rebellion instead, evermore springing up in enmity against him. But, blessed be God, even the God who is become my salvation, the hail of affliction and rebuke for sin has swept away the refuge of lies. It pleased the Almighty, in great mercy, to set all my mis- deeds before me. At length, the storm being past, a quiet and peaceful serenity of soul succeeded, such as ever attends the gift of hving faith in the all-sufficient atonement, and the sweet sense of mercy and pardon purchased by the l)lood of Christ. Thus did he break me, and bind me up ; thus did he wound me, and his hands made me whole. My dear cousin, I make no apology for entertaining you with the history of my conversion, because I know you to be a Christian in the sterhng import of the appellation. This is, however, but a very summary account of the matter, neither would a letter contain the astonishing par- ticulars of it. If we ever meet again in this world, I will relate them to you by word of mouth ; if not, they will serve for the subject of a conference in the next, where, I doubt not, I shall remenilier and record them with a grati- tude better suited to the subject. " Yours, my dear cousin, affectionately, "W. C." ^' Huiitini/don, Sept. 3, 17CG. " My dear Cousin, — It is reckoned, you know, a great achievement to silence an opponent in disputation, and your silence was of so long a contimiance, that I might well begin to please myself with the apprehension of having accomplished so arduous a matter. To be serious, how- ever, I am not sorry that what I have said concerning our knowledge of each other in a future state has a little inchned you to the affirmative. For though the redeemed of the Lord shall l)e sure of being as happy in that state as infinite power employed l)y infinite goodness can make them, — and, therefore, it may seem immaterial whether wc 48 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. shall or sliall not recollect each other hereafter ; yet our present happiness, at least, is a little interested in the question. A parent, a friend, a wife, must needs, I think, feel a little heart-ache at the thought of an eternal sejiara- tion from the objects of her regard : and not to know them when she meets them in another life, or never to meet them at all, amounts, though not altogether, yet nearly, to the same thing. Remember them, I think, she needs must. To hear that they are happy will, indeed, be no small addi- tion to her own felicity, but to see them so will surely be a greater. Thus, at least, it appears to our present human ajjprehension ; consequently, therefore, to think that, when we leave them, we lose them for ever, — that we must remain eternally ignorant whether they that were flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone, partake with us of celestial glory, or are disinherited of their heavenly portion, must shed a dismal gloom over all our present connexions. For my own part, this life is such a momentary thing, and all its interests have so shrunk in my estimation, since, by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I became attentive to the things of another, that, like a worm in the bud of all my friendships and afiections, this very thought would eat out the heart of them all, had I a thousand ; and were their date to terminate with this life, I think I should have no inclination to cultivate and improve such a fugi- tive business. Yet friendship is necessary to our happi- ness here, and, built upon Christian principles, upon which only it can stand, is a thing even of religious sanction. For what is that love which the Holy Spirit, speaking by St. John, so much inculcates, but friendship 1 — the only love which deserves the name — a love which can toil, and Avatch, and deny itself, and go to death for its brother. AVorldly friendships are a poor weed compared with this ; and even this luiion of spirit in the bond of peace would sufier — in my mind, at least, — could I think it were only coeval with our earthly mansions. It may, possibly, argiie great weakness in me, in this instance, to stand so much in need of future hopes to support me in the discharge of present duty. But so it is. I am far, I know, very far, from being perfect in Christian love, or any other divine RECOVERY AXD RETIREMENT. 49 attainment, and am, therefore, unwilling to forego whatever may help me in my progress. "You are so kind as to inquire after my health, for which reason I must tell you, Avhat otherwise would not be worth mentioning, that I have lately beeu just enough in- disposed to convince me that not only human life in general, but mine in particular, hangs by a slender thread. I am stout enough in appearance, yet a little illness demolishes me. I have had a severe shake, and the building is not so firm as it was. But I bless God for it, with all my heart. If the inner man be but strengthened day by day, as I hope, under the renewing influences of the Holy Ghost, it will be, no matter how soon the outward is dissolved. He who has, in a manner, raised me from the dead, in a literal sense, has given me the grace, I trust, to be ready at the shortest notice to surrender up to him that life which I have twice received from him. "Wliether I live or die, I desire it may be to his glory, and it must be to my happi- ness. I thank God that I have those amongst my kindred to whom I can write, without reserve, my sentiments upon this subject, as I do to you. A letter upon any other subject is more insipid to me than ever, my task was when a schoolboy ; and I say not this in vain-glory, God forbid ! but to show you what the Almighty, whose name I am im worthy to mention, has done for me, the chief of sinners. Once he was a terror to ine ; and his service, oh, Avhat a weariness it was ! Now I can say, I love him and his holy name, and am never so happy as when I speak of his mercies to me. " Yours, dear Cousin, «W.C." ''Huntingdon, Oct. 20, 17C6. " My dear Cousin, — I ani very sorry for poor Charles's illness, and hope you will soon have cause to thank God for his complete recovery. Wc have an epidemical fever in this country, likewise, which leaves behind it a con- tinual sighing, almost to suffocation : not that I have seen any instance of it, for, blessed be God ! oiu' family have E no LIFE OF VVlLUAir COWPER. hitherto escaped it, but such was the account I heard of it this morning. " I am obhgcd to you for the interest you take in my welfare, and for your inquiring so particularly after the manner in which my time i>ass:es here. As to amusements — I mean what the world calls such — we have none ; the place, indeed, swarms with them, and cards and dancing are the professed business of almost all the gentle inhabitants of Huntingdon. We refuse to take part in them, or to be accessories to this way of murdering our time, and by so doing have acquired the name of Methodists. Having told you how we do not spend our time, I will next say how we do. We breakfast commonly between eight and nine ; till eleven we read cither the Scrij^ture, or the sermons of some faithful preacher of those holy mysteries ; at eleven we attend divine service, which is performed here twice every day ; and from twelve to three we separate, and amuse ourselves as we please. During that interval I either read in my own apartment, or walk, or ride, or work in the garden. We seldom sit an hour after dinner, but, if the weather permits, adjourn to the garden, where, with Mrs. Unwin and her son, I have gererally the plcasm-e of religious conversation till tea-time. If it rains, or is too windy for walking, we either converse within doors, or sing some hymns of Martin's collection, and, by the help of Mrs. Unwin's harpsichord, make up a tolerable concert, in which our hearts, I hope, arc the best and most musical performers. After tea we sally forth to walk in good earnest. Mrs. Unwin is a good walker, and we have gene- rally travelled about four miles before we see home again. When the days are short, wc make this exciirsion in the former part of the day, between church-time and dinner. At night we read and converse, as before, till supper, and commonly finish the evening either with hymns or a ser- mon ; and, last of all, the family are called to prayers. I need not tell you that such a life as this is consistent with the utmost cheerfulness ; accordingly, we are all happy, and dwell together in unity as brethren. Mrs. Unwin has almost a maternal affection for me, and I have something RKCOVERY AND RETIREMENT. 51 very like a filial one for her, and her son and I are brothers. Blessed be the God of our salvation for such companions, and for such a life ; above all, for a heart to like it. " I have had many anxious thoughts about taking orders, and I believe every new convert is apt to think himself called upon for that purpose ; but it has pleased God, by means wluch there is no need to })articularize, to give me full satisfaction as to the propriety of declining it : indeed, they who have the least idea of what I have suf- fered from the dread of public exhibitions, will readily excuse my never attempting them hereafter. In the mean- time, if it please the Almighty, I may be an instrument of turning many to the truth, in a private way, and hope that my endeavours in this way have not been entirely unsuc- cessful. Had I the zeal of Moses, I should want an Aaron to be my spokesman. " Yours ever, my dear cousin, "W. C." Several other letters passed between him and Islrs. Cowper about this time ; but a few more months brought to a sudden termination this part of Cowper's history. Two short letters nan-ate the facts, which occasioned some impoi-tant changes. To Mrs. Cowper he writes : — ^^ Huntingdon, July 13, 17C7. , "My dear Cousin, — The newspaper has told you the truth. Poor Mr. Unwin, being flung from his horse as he was going to his church on Sunday morning, received a dreadful fracture on the back part of the skull, under which he languished till Thursday evening, and then died. This awful dispensation has left an impression upon our spirits, which will not be presently worn oft". He died in a poor cottage, to which he was carried immediately after his fall, about a mile from home, and his body could not be brought to his house till the spirit was gone to him who gave it. May it be a lesson to us to watch, since we know not the day nor the hour when our Lord comcth. " The effect of it upon my circumstances will only be a change of the place of my abode. For I shall still, by 52 LIFE or WILLIAM COWPER. God's leave, continue with jMvs. Unwin, whose beha\'iour to me has always been tliat of a motlier to a son. We know not where we shall settle ; but we trust that the Lord, whom we seek, will go before us and prepare a rest for us. "We have employed our friend Haweis, Dr. Con- yers of Helmsley in Yorkshire, and Mr. Newton of Olney, to look out a place for us, but at present are entirely ignorant under which of the three we shall settle, or whether under either. I have written to my aunt ]Madan, to desire Martin to assist us with his inquiries. It is pro- bable we shall stay here till Michaelmas. • " W. C." And to Mr. Hill :— '' Huntunjdon, July 16, 17G7, " Dear Joe, — Your wishes that the newspaper may have misinformed you are vain. Llr. Unwin is dead, and died in the manner there mentioned. At nine o'clock on Sunday morning he was in perfect health, and as likely to live twenty years as either of us, and before ten was stretched speechless and senseless upon a flock bed, in a poor cottage, where (it being impossible to remove him) he died on Thursday evening. I heai'd his dying groans, the eifect of great agony, for he was a strong man, and much convulsed in his last moments. The few short intervals of sense that were granted him he spent in earnest praj'tr, and in expressions of a firm trust and confidence in the only Saviour. To that stronghold we must all resort at last, if we would have hope in our death ; when every other refuge fails, we are glad to fly to the only shelter to which we can repair to any purpose ; and happy is it for us when, the false ground we have chosen for ourselves being broken under us, we find ourselves obliged to have recourse to the rock which can never be shaken : when this is our lot, we receive great and undeserved mercy. " Our society will not break \\\), but we shall settle in some other place ; where, is at present uncertain. " Yours, «W. C." KECOVERY AND IlETIREME^'T. 53 The first and immediate result ofMr. Unwin's death. was a rcsohitiou to leave Huutingdoii. This, probably, was the iiistunt desire of both his widow and the poet. Mr. Unwiu's son was entering the ministry, and would be no longer resident in that town. A[iss Unwin was married to a clergyman in Yorkshire. The family circle was broken up. Ko feeling could be more natural than that which prompted the two sui'vivors, the widow and her friend, to leave a place which could never more be to them what it had been, and to find out a new abode in some other spot. Alexander Knox, who will not be charged with enthu- siasm, while he observes how extremely difficult it is to find genuine specimens of providential superintendence, mentions Cowper's case as one in which the proofs of such divine care are evident and uncjuestionable. "I grant," he says, " that there was something awfully obscure ; but through that obscurity such rays of pi'ovidential light dart forth, as to make the special designation not less clear than the singular sufferings were mysterious." "We have remarked that John Co^vl3er, when seeking lodgings for his brother, could not find them near Cam- bridge, wliere they abound ; but found them at Huntingdon with ease. At Huntingdon there dwelt, equally unknown to both the brothers, the destined guardian of the poet's I'emaining years. But with her, there was no apparent likelihood of his ever becoming acquainted. A medium was wanted, and it was ready. Young Unwin voluntarily accosts Cowj^er, and brings hmi to his mother's house, where he soon becomes an inmate. But the son leaves Huntingdon for college, and a curacy. His sister marries. Cowper, then, is left with ]\Ir. and Mrs. Unwin. The messenger of death suddenly calls aAvay the husband. By what is called an accident, he is quickly taken to heaven. And thus the two persons, who were to spend thirty years of their remaining hves togetlier, were stripped of all the other members of tlieir family, and left to be every- thing to each other. 54 LIFE OF WILLIAM COW TLK. All eminent clergyman, Dr. Conyers, had met the younger Mr. Unwin at Cambridge some months before this, and had learned his state of mind, and his mother'.^ religious character. He named both to the Eev. John Ne\\i;on of Olney, requesting him, when passing through Huntingdon, to call on I\lrs. Unwin. That visit took place a few days after Mr. Uuwin's death. The result was, a determination on their part to leave Huntingdon at once, and to fix their future abode at Olney. i'lliiil PERIOD <)F IJIS RESIDEXCE AT OLMiY. 6ii IV. FIEST PERIOD OF HIS EESIDENCE AT OLNEY. A.D. i;07— 1773. The brief portion of Cowj^er's life on which we are now entering must be regarded by every one, who cahiily con- siders the subject, as the only really haj)py period of his earthly existence. After spending more than thirty years in a careless youth, and an idle, purposeless manhood, he was suddenly plunged into the depths of melancholy mad- ness. Emerging gradually from this state, he at last, in one moment, received Divine hght, and was enabled to perceive and to "lay hold on the hope set before him." He could now rejoice ; although, looking back on wasted years and upon months of insanity, he could only " rejoice with trembling." His letters to his faithful friend, Mr, Hill, at this period, exhibit most clearly the solemn but peaceful state of mind he then enjoyed. Mr. Newton had engaged for them a house at Olney, where Cowpcr and j\Irs. Unwin arrived on the 14th of October, 1707. He very soon Avrites to his friend Hill : — " Olnrr/, Ocloher 20, 1767. "I have no map to consult at present, but, by what remembrance I have of the situation of this place in tho la.st I saw, it lies at the northernmost point of the county, "We are just five miles beyond Newport Pagnell. I am willing to suspect that you make this inquiry with a view to an intervieiv, when time shall serve. We may possibly be settled in our house in about a month, where so good a friend of mine will be extremely welcome to Mrs. Umvin. "\Vc shall havo a bed and a warm fire-side at your service, 66 LIFE OF WnXIAM COWPEE. if you can come before next summer ; and if not, a parlour that looks tlie north wind full in the face, where you may be as cool as in the groves of Valombrosa. " Yours, my dear Sephus, " Affectionately ever, " W. C." A few short notes are all that remain to us of the occurrences of the next eight months. We leai-n from other sources than his own correspondence, that he entered heartily into all Mr. Newton's plans and proceedings. A letter given a few pages back acquaints us with the fact, that thoughts of entering into the ministry had passed through his mind. From I\Ir. Bull's* correspondence we gather that, in the weekly meetings for reading the Scrip- tures and prayer, held by Mr. Ne^vton in a large room rented by him for the purpose, Cowper was accustomed to take a part. The editor says, — " I have a Ust, in the hand- writing of I\rr. Bull, of the j)ersons who engaged in prayer at these meetings, and it is interesting to observe among them the frequent recurrence of the name of Cowper." Mr. Newton himself, in a letter dated 1774, says, — "The Lord evidently sent him to Olney, where he has been a blessing to many, a great blessing to myself." In the summer Cowper thus writes : — " Olncy, June IC, 1708, "Dear Joe, — I thank jou for so full an answer to so empty an epistle. If Olney furnished anything for your amusement, you should have it in return ; but occurrences here are as scarce as cucumbers at Christmas. " I visited St. Albau's about a fortnight since in person, and I visit it every day in thought. The recollection of what passed there, and the consequences that followed it, fill my mind continually, and make the circumstances of a poor, transient, half-spent life, so insipid, and unafFecting, that I have no heart to think or write much about them. * The Uov. W. Bull, of Nc\vi)ovt Pa^iioU, whose connexion and inter- coxxrse with Cowper will presently come under our notice. to FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY. 57 Whether the nation is worshipping ]\[r. Wilkes, or any- other idol, is of little moment to one who hopes and ])elieves that he shall shortly stand in the presence of the jreat and blessed God. I thank him, that he has given me such a deep, impressed, persuasion of this awful truth as a thousand worlds would not purchase from mc. It gives me a relish to every blessing, and makes every trouble light. " Affectionately yours, " W. C." In the following winter i\[r. Hill was visited by dan- gerous illness, and his recovery elicited fi'om Cowper the following friendly epistles : — "Oliiey,Ja>i. 21, 1700. "Dear Joe, — I rejoice with you in your recovery, and that you have escaped from the hands of one from whose hands you will not always escape. Death is either the most formidable, or the most comfortable thing we have in prospect, on this side of eternity. To be brought near to him, and to discern neither of these features in his face, would argue a degree of insensibility, of which I will not suspect my friend, whom I know to be a thinking man. You have been brought down to the side of tiie grave, and you have been raised again by him who has the keys of the invisible world ; who opens and none can shut, who shuts and none can open. I do not forget to return thanks to him on your behalf, and to pray that your life, which he has spared, may be devoted to his service. ' Behold ! I stand at the door and knock,' is the word of him, on whom both our mortal and immortal life depend, and, blessed be his name, it is the word of one who wounds only that he may heal, and who waits to be gracious. Tlie language of every such dispensation is, ' Prepare to meet thy God.' It speaks with the voice of mercy and goodness, for, without such notices, whatever preparation we might make for other events, we sliould make none for this. ]\ry dear friend, I desire and pray that, when this last enemy shall come to execute an iinlimited commission upon us, we may be found ready, being established and rooted in a well- 58 Lli''E OF WILLIAJI COWPER. grouuded faith in His name, wlio conquered and triumphed over him upon hiy cros«. " Yours ever, " W. C." " Olneij, Jan. 29, 17G9. " My tlear Joe, — I have a moment to spare, to tell you that your letter is just come to hand, and to thank you for it. I do assure you, the gentleness and candour of your manner engages my afiectiou to you very much. You answer with mildness to an admonition, which would have provoked many to anger. I ha\'e not time to add more, except just to hint that, if I am ever enabled to look for- ward to death with comfort, which, I thank God, is some- times the case with me, I do not take my view of it from the top of my own works and deservings ; though God is witness that the labour of my life is to keep a conscience void of offence towards him. He is always formidable to me, but when I see him disarmed of his sting, by having sheathed it in the body of Christ Jesus. " Yours, my dear friend, " W. C." In the summer of that year, Hill again pressingly in- vited him to revisit London ; but the idea was evidently most distasteful. He replies : — " Olney, Jiihj 31, 1709. " Dear Joe, — Sir Thomas crosses the Alps, and Sir Cow|)er, for that is his title at Oluey, prefers his home to any other spot of earth in the world. Horace, observing this difference of temper in different persons, cried out a good many years ago, in the true spirit of poetry, ' How much one man dift'ers from another ! ' Tliis does not seem a very sublime exclamation in English, but I re- member we were taught to admire it in the original. " I\Iy dear friend, I am obliged to you for your in- vitation : but being long accustomed to retirement, which I was always fond of, I am now more than ever unwilling to revisit those noisy and crowded scenes, wliicli I never loved, and v>hich I i(uw ubiior. I remember you with all FlILSX I'EIUUD OF 1118 lUiSIUKNCK AT ULNEV. 59 the fricnrlship I ever professed, which is as nnich as I ever eutcrtaiiicd fur any man. But tlie strange and uncommon incidents of my Hfe have given an entire new turn to my whole character and conduct, and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure from the same employments and amuse- ments of wjiich I cuulil readily partake in former days. " I love you and yours ; I thank you for your continued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to be their and your " Affectionate friend and servant, "W. C." A month after this his relative, Mrs. Cowper, was involved in deep family affliction, which drew from him the following letter : — " Ohinj, August 31, 17G9. "]\ry dear Cousin, — A letter from your brother Frederic brought me j'cstcrday the most afilicting intelligence that has reached me these many years. I pray to God to com- fort you, and to enable you to sustain this hea\'7 stroke with that resignation to his will which none but Himself can give, and which he gives to none but his own children. How blessed and happy is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the common lot of the greater part of mankind ; that you know what it is to draw near to God in prayer, and are acquainted with a throne of grace ! You have resources in the infinite love of a dear Redeemer which are withheld from millions : and the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Jesus, are sufficient to answer all your neces- sities, and to sweeten the bitterest cup which your heavenly Father will ever put into your hand. May He now give you liberty to drink at these wells of salvation, till you are filled witli consolation and peace in tlie midst of trouble. He has said, ' When thou passcst through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee.' You have need of such a word as this, and he knows your need of it, and the time of necessity is the time when he will be sure to appear in behalf of those who trust in him. I bear you and yours upon my heart before him uight and day, for I ucvgr expect to hear of 60 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. distress wliicli shall call upon me witla a louder voice to pray for ihe suflferer. I know the Lord hears me for my- self, vile and sinful as I am, and believe, and am sure, that he will hear me for you also. He is the friend of the widow, and the father of the fatherless, even God in his holy habitation ; in aU our afflictions he is afflicted, and chastens us in mercy. Surely he wiU sanctify this dis- pensation to you, do you great and everlasting good by it, make the world appear like dust and vanity in your sight, as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of a better country, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor i^ain ; but God shall wipe away aU tears from your eyes for ever. Oh, that comfortable word ! ' I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction ;' so that our very sorrows are evidences of our calling, and he chastens us because we are his children. " My dear cousin, I commit you to the word of his grace, and to the comforts of his Holy Spirit. Your life is needful for your family. May God, in mercy to them, pro- long it, and may he preserve you from the dangerous eflfects which a stroke like this might have upon a frame so tender as yours. I grieve with you, I pray for you ; could I do more I would, but God must comfort you. " Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus, " W. C." But now a heavy affliction was at liand for himself. Shortly after the date of the last letter, he was summoned to Cambridge to attend the bedside of his only brother, then dangerously ill. An apparent recovery, for a short j)eriod, took place ; but in the following March, Cowper ■wi'ites his cousin, as follows : — " March 5, 1770. " My brother continues much as he was. His case is a very dangerous one — an imijosthume of the liver, attended by an asthma and dropsy. The physician has little hope of his recovery, I believe I might say none at all, only, being a friend, he docs not formally give him over by ceasing to visit him, lest it should sink his spirits. For my own part, I have no expectation of his recovery, except FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLXEY. 61 by a signal interposition of Providence in answer to prayer. His case is clearly beyond the reach of medicine ; but I have seen many a sickness healed, where the danger has been equally threatening, by the only Physician of value. I doubt not he will have an interest in your prayers, as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord incline his ear and give an answer of peace. T know it is good to be afflicted. I trust that you have found it so, and that under the teaching of God's own Spirit we shall both be purified. It is the desire of my soul to seek a better country, where God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people ; and where, looking back upon the ways by which he has led us, we shall be filled with everlasting wonder, love, and praise. " I must add no more. " Yours ever, "W. C." Two months later, he thus relates to Hill the close of his brother's life : — " Olney, May 8, 1770. " Dear Joe, — Your letter did not reach me till the last post, when I had not time to answer it. I left Cambridge immediately after my brother's death. " I am obliged to you for the particular account you have sent me. ****** jjg^ ^q whom I have sur- rendered myself and all my concerns, has otherwise ap- pointed, and let his will be done. He gives me much, which he withholds from others, and if he was pleased to withhold all that makes an outward diftercnce between me and the poor mendicant in the street, it would still become me to say. His will be done. " It pleased God to cut short my brother's connexions and expectations here, yet not without giving him lively and glorious views of a better happiness than any he could propose to himself in such a world as this. Notwithstand- ing his great learning (for he was one of the chief men in the university in that respect), he was candid and sincere in his inquiries after truth. Though he could not come into my sentiments when I first acquainted him with them, 62 LIFE OF WILLIAir COWPER. nor, in the many conversations wliicli I afterward had with him upon the subject, could he be brought to acquiesce in them as scriptural and true, yet I had no sooner left St. Alban's than he began to study, with the deepest attention, those points in which we differed, and to furnish himself with the best writers upon them. His mind was kept open to conviction for five years, diu-ing all which time he la- boured in this pursuit with unwearied diligence, as leisure and opportunity were afforded. Amongst his dying words were these : ' Brother, I thought you wrong, yet wanted to believe as you did. I found myself not able to believe, yet always thought I should be one day ];)rought to do so.' From the study of books he was brought, upon his death- bed, to the study of himself, and there learnt to renounce his righteousness and his own most amiable character, and to submit himself to the righteousness which is of God by faith. With these views he was desirous of death. Satis- fied of his interest in the blessing purchased by the blood of Christ, he prayed for death with earnestness, felt the approach of it with joy, and died in peace. " Yours, mv dear friend, " W. C." But the circumstances of Mr. John Cowj^ier's death were so remarkable as to merit, and, indeed, to demand, a more detailed and accurate record than could be given in an ordinary letter. The following brief sketch was written liy his brother at the time, and was published by Mr. Newton after Cowper's own death. It could not, with propriety, be omitted in a memoir of the poet ; inasmuch as it exhibits nuich of his mind, as well as of his brother's. *j " As soon as it had pleased God, after a long and sharp season of conviction, to visit me with the consolations of his grace, it became one of my chief concerns, that my relations might be made partakers of the same mercy. In the first letter I wrote to my brother, I took occasion to declare what God had done for my soul ; and am not con- scious, that from that period down to his last illness I wilfully neglected an opportunity of engaging him, if it FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RFilTDF.XCK \T OI.XF.V. Cli Verc possible, in conversation of a spiritual kind. "When I left St. Alban's, and went to visit him at Cambridge, my heart being full of the subject, I poured it out before him withoiit reserve ; and in all my subsequent dealings with him, so far as I was enabled, took care to .show that I had received, not merely a set of notions, but a real impression of the truths of the Gospel. "At first I found him ready enough to talk with me upon these subjects ; sometimes he would di.spute, but always without heat or animosity, and sometimes would endeavour to reconcile the difierence of our sentiments, by supposing that, at the bottom, we were both of a mind, and meant the same thing. " He was a man of a most candid and ingenuous spirit ; his temper remarkably sweet, and in his behaviour to me he had always manifested an uncommon affection. His outward conduct, so far as it fell under my notice, or I could learn it by the report of others, was perfectly decent and unblamable. There was nothing vicious in any part of his practice ; but, being of a studious, thoughtful turn, he placed his chief delight in the acquisitit)n of learning, and made such acquisitions in it, that he had but few rivals in that a classical kind. He was critically skilled in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages ; was beginning to make himself master of the Syriac, and perfectly under- stood the French and Italian, the latter of which he coidd speak fluently. These attainments, however, and many others in a literary way, he lived heartily to despise ; not as useless when sanctified and employed in the service of God, but when sought after for their own sake, and with a view to the praise of men. Learned, however, as he was, he was easy and cheerful in his convei-sation, and entirely free from the stiffness which is generally contracted by men devoted to siich pursuits. " Thus we spent about two j'ears, conversing as occasion offered (and we generally visited each other once or twice a week, as long as I continued at Huntingdon), upon the leading truths of the Gospel. By this time, however, he began to be more reserved ; he would hear me patiently, but never reply ; and this I found, upon his own confession 64 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. afterward, was the effect of a resolution he had taken, iu order to avoid disputes, and to secure the continuance of that peace which had always subsisted between us. AVhen our family removed to OIney, our intercourse became less frequent. We exchanged an annual A'isit, and, whenever he came amongst us, he observed the same conduct, con- forming to all our customs, attending family worship witli us, and heard the preaching, received civilly whatever passed in conversation upon the subject, but adhered strictly to the rule he had prescribed to himself, ne\'er remarking upon or objecting to anything he heard or saw. This, through the goodness of his natural temper, he was en- abled to carry so far, that, though some things unavoidably happened, which we feared would give him offence, he never took any ; for it was not possible to offer him the pulpit ; nor, when Mr. Ne'wton was with us once at the time of family prayer, could we ask my brother to officiate, though being himself a minister, and one of our own family for the time, the office seemed naturally to fall into his hands. "In September 1769, I learned by letters from Cam- bridge that he was dangerously ill. I set out for that place the day after I received them, and found him as ill as I expected. He had taken cold on his return from a journey in Wales ; and, lest he should be laid up at a distance from home, had pushed forward as fast as he could from Bath with a fever upon him. Soon after his arrival at Cambridge he discharged, imknown to himself, such a prodigious quantity of blood, that the physician ascribed it only to the strength of his constitution that he was still alive ; and assured me, that, if the discharge should be repeated, he must inevitably die upon the spot. In this state of imminent danger, he seemed to have no more con- cern about his spiritual interests than when in perfect health. His couch was strewed with volumes of plays, to which he had frequent recourse for amusement. I learned, indeed, afterwards, that even at this time the thoughts of God and eternity would often force themselves upon his mind ; but not apprehending his life to be iu danger, and trusting in the morality of his past ci)uduct, he found it no difficult matter to thrust thcni out again. FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDI;NCE AT OLNEY. 65 " As it pleased God that he had no relapse, he presently began to recover strength, and in ten days' time I left him so far restored, that he coiUd ride many miles witliout fatigue, and had every symptom of returning health. It is probable, however, that, though his recovery seemed per- fect, this iUness was the means which God had appointed to bring down his strength in the niidst of his journey, and to hasten on the malady which proved his last. " On the 16th of February, 1770, 1 was again summoned to attend him, by letters which represented him as so ill, that the physician entei'taiued but little hopes of his recovery. I found him afflicted with the asthma and dropsy, supposed to be the effect of an imposthume in his liver. He was, however, cheerful when I first arrived, expressed great joy at seeing me, thought himself much better than he had been, and seemed to flatter himself with hopes that he should be well again. My situation at this time was truly distressfid. I learned from the physician, that, in this instance as in the last, he was in much greater danger than he suspected. He did not seem to lay his illness at aU to heai't, nor could I find by his conversation that he had one serious thought. As often as a suitable occasion offered, when we were free from company and interruption, I endeavoured to give a spiritual turn to the discourse ; and the day after my an-ival, asked his permission to jiray with him, to which he readily consented. I renewed my attempts in this way as often as I could, though without any apparent success : still he seemed as cai-eless and un- concerned as ever : yet I could not but consider his willing- ness in this instance as a token for good, and observed with pleasure, that though at other times he discovered no mark of seriousness, yet when I spoke to him of the Lord's deal- ings with myself, he received what I said with affection, would press my hand, and look kindly at me, and seemed to love me the better for it. " On the 21st of the same month he had a violent fit of asthma, which seized him when he rose, about an hour before noon, and lasted aU the day. His agony was dread- ful. Having never seen any person afflicted in the same way, I could not help fearing that he would be suffocated ; F 66 ' LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. nor was the physician himself without fears of the same kind. This day the Lord was very present with me, and enabled me, as I sat l)y the poor sufferer's side, to wrestle for a blessing upon him. I observed to him, that though it had pleased God to visit him with great afflictions, yet mercy was mingled with the dispensation. I said, 'You have many friends who love you, and are willing to do all they can to serve you ; and so perhaps have others in the like circumstances ; but it is not the lot of every sick man, how much soever he may be beloved, to have a friend that can pray for him.' He replied, ' That is true, and I hope God will have mercy upon me.' His love for me from this time became very remarkable ; there was a tenderness in it more than was merely natural ; and he generally expressed it by calling for blessings upon me in the most affectionate terms, and with a look and manner not to be described. " At night, when he was quite worn out with the fatigue of labouring for breath, and could get no rest, his asthma still continuing, he turiaed to me, and said, with a melan- choly air, ' Brother, I seem to be marked out for misery ; you know some people are so.' That moment I felt my heart enlarged, and such a persuasion of the love of God towards him was wrought in my soul, that I rephed with confidence, and as if I had authority given me to say it, ' But that is not your case ; you are marked out for mercy.' " Through the whole of this most painful dispensation, he was blest with a degree of patience and resignation to the will of God, not always seen in the behaviour of esta- blished Christians under sufferings so great as his. I never heard a murmuring word escape him ; on the contrary, he would often say, when his pains were most acute, ' I only wish it may please God to enable me to suffer without com- plaining ; I have no right to complain.' Once he said, with a loud voice, ' Let thy rod and thy staff support and comfort me :' and, ' O that it were with me as in times past, when the candle of the Lord shone upon my tabernacle !' One evening, when I had been expressing my hope that the Lord would show him mercy, he replied : ' I hope he will ; I am sure I pretend to nothing.' Many times he spoke of himself in terms of the greatest self-abasement, FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNET. 67 which I cannot now particularly remember. I thought I could discern, in these expressions, the glimpses of ap- proaching day ; and have no doubt at present but that the Spirit of God was gradually preparing him, in a way of true humiliation, for that bright display of gospel grace which he was soon after pleased to aftbrd him. " On Saturday, the 10th of ]\Iarch, about three in the afternoon, he suddenly burst into tears, and said, with a loud cry, 'Oh, forsake me not !' I went to his bedside, when he grasped my hand, and presently, by his eyes and countenance, I found that he was in prayer. Then turning to me, he said, ' Oh, brother, I am full of what I could say to you.' The nurse asked him if he would have any harts- horn or lavender. He replied, ' None of these things will serve my purpose.' I said, ' But I know what would, my dear, don't I ?" He answered, ' You do, brother.' "Having continued some time silent, he said, ' Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,' — then after a pause, ' Aye, and he is able to do it, too.' " I left him for about an hour, fearing lest he should fatigue himself with talking, and because my surprise and joy were so great, that I could hardly bear them. "When I returned, he threw his arms about my neck, and leaning his head against mine, he said, ' Brother, if I live, you and I shall be more like one another than we have been. But, whether I live or hve not, all is well, and will be so ; I know it will ; I have felt that which I never felt before, and am sure that God has visited me with this sickness, to teach me what I was too proud to learn in health. I never had satisfaction till now. The doctrines I had been used to, referred me to myself for the foundation of my hopes, and there I could find nothing to rest upon. The sheet-anchor of the soul was wanting. I thouglit you wrong, yet wished to believe as you did. I found myself unable to believe, yet always thought that I should one day be brought to do so. You suffered more than I have done before you believed these truths ; but our suflferings, though different in their kind and measure, were directed to the same end. I hope he has taught me that which he teaches none but his own. I hope so. These things were 68 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. foolishness to me once, but now I have a firm foundation, and am satisfied.' "In the evening, when I went to bid him good night, he looked stedfastly in my face, and with great solemnity in his air and manner, taking me by the hand, resumed the discourse in these very words. 'As empty, and yet full ; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things ; — I see the rock upon which I once split, and I see the rock of my salvation. I have peace in myself ; and, if I live, I hope it will be that I may be made a messenger of peace to others. I have learned that in a moment, which I could not have learned by reading many books for many years. I have often studied these points, and studied them with great attention, but was blinded by prejudice ; and, unless He who alone is worthy to unloose the seals, had opened the book to me, I had been blinded still. Now they appear so plain, that, though I am convinced no comment could ever have made me understand them, I wonder I did not see them before. Yet, great as my doubts and difficulties were, they have only served to pave the way ; and, being solved, they make it plainer. The light I have received comes late : but it is a comfort to me that I never made Gospel- truths a subject of ridicule. Though I dissented from the persuasion and the ways of God's people, I ever thought them respectable, and therefore not proper to be made a jest of The evil I suffer is the consequence of my descent from the corrupt original stock, and of my own personal transgressions ; the good I enjoy comes to me as the overflowing of his bounty ; but the crown of all his mercies is this, that he has given me a Saviour, and not only the Saviour of mankind, brother, but my Saviour.' " ' I should delight to sec the peoj^le at Olney, hut am not worthy to appear amongst them.' He wept at speaking these words, and repeated them with emphasis, ' I should rejoice in an hour's conversation with Mr. Newton, and, if I live, shall have much discourse with him upon these sub- jects, but am so weak in body, that at present I could not bear it.' " At the same time he gave me to understand that he had been five years inquiring after the truth, that is, from FIEST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDE^X'E AT OLNEY. 09 the time of my first visit to him after I left St. Alban's ; and that, from the very day of his ordination, which was ten years ago, he had been dissatisfied with his own views of the Gospel, and sensible of defect and obscurity ; that he had always had a sense of the importance of the minis- terial charge, and had used to consider himself accountable for his doctrine no less than his practice ; that he could appeal to the Lord for his sincerity in all that time, and had never wilfully erred, but always been desirous of coming to the knowledge of the truth. He added, that the moment when he sent forth that cry, was the moment when hght was darted into his soul ; that he had thought much about these things in the course of his illness, but never till that instant was able to understand them. " It was remarkable, that, from the very instant when he was first enlightened, he was also wonderfully strength- ened in body, so that from the 10th to the 14th of March we all entertained hopes of his recovery. He was himself very sanguine in his expectations of it, but frequently said, that his desire of recovery extended no farther than his hopes of usefulness ; adding, ' Unless I may live to be an instrument of good to othere, it were better for me to die now.' " As his assurance was clear and unshaken, so he was very sensible of the goodness of the Lord to him in that respect. On the day when his eyes were opened, he turned to me, and in a low voice said, ' What a mercy it is for a man in my condition to knoio his acceptance ! I am com- pletely satisfied of mine.' On another occasion, speaking to the same purpose, he said, ' This bed would be a bed of misery, and it is so ; but it is likewise a bed of joy and a bed of discipline. Were I to die this night, I know I shoiUd be happy. This assurance, I hope, is quite consistent with the word of God. It is built upon a sense of my own utter insufficiency, and the all-sufficiency of Chi-ist.' At the same time, he said, ' Brother, I have been buildingmy glory upon a sandy foimdation ; I have laboured night and day to per- fect myself in things of no profit ; I have sacrificed my health to these pursuits, and am now suft'ering the conse- quences of my mis-spent labour. But how contemptible do 70 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. the wi-iters I once highly valued now appear to me ! ' Yea, doubtless, I count all things loss and dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord.' I must go to a new school. I have many things to learn. I succeeded in my former pursuits. I wanted to be highly applauded, and I was so. I was flattered up to the height of my wishes : now, I must learn a new lesson.' " On the evening of the thirteenth he said, ' What com- fort have I in this bed, miserable as I seem to be ! Brother, I love to look at you. I see now who was right, and who was mistaken. But it seems wonderful that such a dis- pensation should be necessary to enforce what seems so very jjlain. I wish myself at Olney ; you have a good river there, better than all the rivers of Damascus. What a scene is passing before me ! Ideas upon these subjects crowd upon me faster than I can give them utterance. How plain do many texts appear, to which, after con- sulting aU the commentators, I could hardly affix a mean- ing. Now I have their true meaning, Avithout any comment at all. There is but one key to the New Testament ; there is but one interpreter. I cannot describe to you, nor shall ever be able to describe, what I felt in the moment when it was given to me. May I make a good use of it. How I shudder when I tliink of the danger I have just escaped ! I had made up my mind upon these subjects, and was determined to hazard all upon the justness oif my own opinions.' " Speaking of his illness, he said he had been followed night and day, from the very beginning of it, with this text, / shall not die, hut live, and declare the ivorks of the Lord. This notice was fulfilled to him, though not in such a sense as my desires of his recovery prompted me to put upon it. " His remarkable amendment soon appeared to be no more than a present supply of strength and spirits, that he might be able to speak of the better hfe which God had given him ; which was no sooner done, than he re- lapsed as suddenly as he had revived. About this time he formed the purpose of receiving the sacrament, induced to it principally by a desire of setting his seal to the truth, in FIRST rERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY. 71 presence of those who were strangei's to the change which had taken place in his sentiments. It must have been administered to him by the Master of the College, to whom he designed to have made this short declaration : ' If I die, I the ili the belief of the doctrines of the Reformation, and of the Church of England as it was at the time of the Reformation.' But his strength declining apace, and his pains becoming more severe, he could never find a proper opportunity of doing it. His experience was rather peace than joy,— if a distinction may be made between joy and that heart-felt peace which he often spoke of in the most comfortable terms, and which he expressed by a heavenly smile upon his countenance under the bitterest bodily distress. His words uj^on this subject once were these, — ' How wonderful is it that God should look upon man, especially that he should look upon vie ! Yet he sees me, and takes notice of all that I suffer. I see him, too : he is present before me, and I hear him say. Come unto me, aU ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.' (Matt. xi. 28.) On the fourteenth, in the afternoon, I perceived that the strength and spirits which had been afforded him were suddenly withdrawn, so that by the next day his mind became weak, and his speech roving and faltering. But still, at intervals, he was enabled to speak of divine things with great force and clearness. On the evening of the fifteenth he said, ' There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. That text has been sadly misunderstood by me, as well as by others. Where is that just person to be found % Alas, what must have become of me, if I had died this day se'n-night ? What should I have had to plead ? j\Iy own righteous- ness ] That would have been of great service to me, to be sure ! Well, whither next % Why, to the mountains to fall upon us, and to the hills to cover us ! I am not duly thankful for the mercy I have received. Pei'haps I may ascribe some part of my insensibility to my great weakness of body. I hope, at least, that, if I was better in health, it would be better with me in these respects also.' " The next day, perceiving that his understanding began 72 LIFE OF WILLIAM CO^\TER. to suffer by the extreme weakness of his body, he said, ' I have been vain of my understanding and of my acquire- ments in this place ; and now God has made me Httle better than an idiot, as much as to say, ' Now be proud if you can.' Well, while I have any senses left, my thoughts will be poured out in the praise of God. I have an interest in Christ, in his blood and sufferings, and my sins are forgiven me. Have I not cause to praise him ? "When my understanding fails me quite, as I think it wiU soon, then he will pity my weakness.' " Though the Lord intended that his warfare should be short, yet a warfare he was to have, and to be exposed to a measure of conflict with his own corruptions. His pain being extreme, his powers of recoUectiou much impaired, and the Comforter withholding for a season his sensible support, he was betrayed into a fretfulness and impatience of sj^irit which had never been permitted to show itself before. This ap])earance alarmed me ; and, having an op23ortunity afforded me by everybody's absence, I said to him, ' You were happier last Saturday than you are to-day. Are you entirely destitute of the consolations you then spoke of ? And do you not sometimes feel comfort flowing into your heart from a sense of your acceptance with God ? ' He replied, ' Sometimes I do, but sometimes I am left to desperation.' The same day, in the evening, he said, ' Brother, I believe you are often uneasy, lest what lately passed should come to nothing.' I replied by asking him whether, when he found his patience and his temper fail, he endeavoured to pray for power against his cor- ruptions ? He answered, ' Yes, a thousand times in a day. But I see myself odiously vile and wicked. If I die in this ilhiess, I beg you will place no other inscription over me than such as may just mention my name, and the parish where I was minister ; for that I ever had a being, and what sort of a being I had, cannot be too soon forgot. I was just beginning to be a deist, and had long desired to be so ; and I will own to you, what I never confessed before, that my function, and the duties of it, were a weariness to me which I could not bear. Yet, wretched creature and beast as I was, I was esteemed religious, nRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY. / -i thougli I lived ^\dthoiit God in the world.' About this time, I reminded him of the account of Janeway, which he once read at my desire. He said he had laughed at it in his own mind, and accounted it mere madness and folly : ' Yet, base as I am,' said he, ' I have no doubt now but God has accepted me, also, and forgiven me all my sins.' "I then asked him what he thought of my narrative ? He replied, ' I thought it strange, and ascribed much of it to the state which you had been in. AVhen I came to visit you in London, and found you in that deep distress, I would have given the universe to have administered some comfort to you. You may remember that I tried every method of doing it. When I found that all my attempts were vain, I was shocked to the greatest degree. I began to consider your sufferings as a judgment upon you, and my inability to alleviate them as a judgment upon myself. When Mr. Madan came, he succeeded in a moment. This surprised me ; but it does not surprise me now. He had the key to your heart, which I had not. That which filled me with disgust against my office as a minister was, the same ill success which attended me in my own parish. There I endeavoured to soothe the afflicted, and to refoi-m the unruly by warning and reproof ; but all that I could say in either case was spoken to the wind, and attended with no eftect.' "There is that in the nature of salvation by grace, when it is truly and experimentally known, which prompts every person to think himself the most extraordinary instance of its power. Accordingly, my brother insisted upon the precetlence in this respect ; and, upon comparing his case with mine, would by no means allow my deUver- ance to have been so wonderful as his own. He observed that, ' from the beginning, both his manner of life and his connexions had been such as had a natural tendency to bhnd his eyes, and to confirm and rivet his prejudices against the truth. Blameless in his outward conduct, and having no open immorality to charge himself with, his acquaintance had been with men of the same stamp, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and des- pised the doctrines of the cross. Such were aU who, from 74 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. his earliest days, he had been used to propose to himself as patterns for his imitation.' Not to go further back, such was the clergyman under whom he received the first rudiments of his education ; such was the schoolmaster under whom he was prepared for the university ; and such were all the most admired characters there with whom he was most ambitious of being connected. He lamented the dark and Chiustless condition of the place, where learning and morality were all in all, and where, if a man was possessed of these qualifications, he neither doubted him- self, nor did anybody else question, the safety of his state. He concluded, therefore, that to show the fallacy of such appearances, and to root out the prejudices which long familiarity with them had fastened upon his mind, re- quired a more than ordinary exertion of divine power ; and that the grace of God was more clearly manifested in such a work than in the conversion of one like me, who had no outside righteousness to boast of, and who, if I was ignorant of the truth, was not, however, so desperately prejudiced against it. " His thoughts, I suppose, had been led to this subject, when one afternoon, w^hile I was writing by the fireside, he thus addressed himself to the nurse, who sat at his bolster, — ' Nurse, I have lived three-and-thirty years, and I will tell you how I have spent them. "WTien I was a boy, they taught me Latin ; and because I was the son of a gentle- man, they taught me Greek. These I learned under a sort of private tutor. At the age of fourteen, or thereabouts, they sent me to a public school, where I learned more Latin and Greek ; and, last of all, to this place, where I have been learning more Latin and Greek still. Now has not this been a blessed life, and much to the glory of God V Then directing his sj^eech to me, he said, ' Brother, I was going to say I was born in such a year, but I correct my- self ; I would i-ather stxy, in such a year I came mto the world. You know when I was born.' "As long as he expected to recover, the souls com- mitted to his care were much vqion his mind. One day, when none were present but myself, he prayed thus : ' O Lord, thou art good, goodness is thy very essence, and thou FIEST PERIOD OP HLS RESIDENCE AT OLNET. 75 art the fountain of wisdom. I am a poor worm, weak and foolish as a child. Thou hast intrusted many souls unto me ; and I have not been able to teach them, because I knew thee not myself. Grant me ability, O Lord, for I can do nothing without thee, and give me grace to be faithful' " In a time of severe and continual pain he smiled in my face, and said, ' Brother, I am as happy as a king.' And the day before he died, when I asked him what sort of a night he had had, he replied, ' A sad night, not a wink of sleep.' I said, ' Perhaps, though, your mind has been composed, and you have been enabled to pray 1 ' ' Yes,' said he, ' I have endeavoured to spend the hours in the thoughts of God and prayer ; I have been much com- forted, and all the comfort I got came to me in this way.' " The next morning I was called up to be witness of his last moments. I found him in a deep sleep, lying per- fectly stiU, and seemingly free from pain. I stayed with him till they pressed ine to quit the room, and in about five minutes after I left him he died ; sooner, indeed, than I expected, though for some days there had been no hopes of his recoveiy. His death at that time was rather extra- ordinary — at least, I thought it so ; for when I took leave of him the night before, he did not seem worse or weaker than he had been, and, for aught that appeared, might have lasted many days ; but the Lord, in whose sight the death of his saints is precious, cut short his sufferings, and gave him a speedy and peaceful departure. "He died at seven in the morning, on the 20th of March, 1770." The value of this record of the death-bed of a scholar and a professing Christian, who, till within a lev/ days of his departure, was practically " without God, and without hope in the world," will surely be admitted ; — more especially when the writer is William Cowper. Cowper's correspondence with his friends, at this period, seems to have been very trivial in amount. His most valued companions, INlrs. Unwin and Mr. Newton, were ever in his sight. His occupations, as an unwearied assistant to his 76 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. friend Mr. Newton, were abundant. He was an active visitor of the poor, having the assistance of Mr. Thornton's purse. He was, also, in every other way, a help to his friend, with the single exception of the public services of the Church. Mr. Newton says of him, — " He loved the poor. He often visited them in their cottages, conversed with them in the most condescending manner, sympathized with them, counselled and comforted them in their distresses ; and those who were seriously disposed, were often cheered and animated by his prayers." Meanwhile, Lady Hesketh was abroad, and with his other relatives he had little inter- course. His attached friend and adviser, Mr. Hill, seems never to have lost sight of him ; but Cowjier's notes to him at this period are very brief The following may be given without remark : — " Okicy, Sept. 25, ] 770. " Dear Joe, — I have not done conversing with terrestrial objects, though I should be happy were I able to hold more continual converse with a Friend above the skies. He has my heart, but he allows a corner in it for all who show me kindness, and therefore one for you. The storm of sixty- three made a wreck of the friendships I had contracted in the course of many years, yours excepted, which has sur- vived the tempest. " I thank you for your repeated invitation. Singular thanks are due to you for so singular an instance of your regard. I could not leave Olney, unless in a case of abso- lute necessity, without much inconvenience to myself and others. " W. C." " Olneij, August 27, 1771. " Dear Joe, — I take a friend's share in all your concerns, so far as they come to my knowledge, and consequently did not receive the news of your marriage with indifference. I wish you and your bride all the happiness that belongs to the state ; and the still greater felicity of that state which marriage is only a type of All those connexions shall be dissolved ; but there is an indissoluble bond between Christ FIRST PERIOD OF IILS RESIDENCE AT OLNICY. / 7 and his Church, the subject of derision to an unthinkmg world, but the gloiy and happiness of all his j^eople. " I join with your mother and sisters in their joy upon the present occasion, and beg my affectionate respects to them, and to IMrs. Hill, unkno-WTi. " Yours ever, " W. C." " Oliwy, June 27, 1772. " I^Iy dear Friend, — I only wi-ite to return you thanks for your kind offer — Agnosco veteris vestigia fiammce. But I will endeavour to go on without troubling you. Excuse an expression that dishonours your friendship ; I should rather say, it would be a trouble to myself, and I know you will be generous enough to give me credit for the assertion. I had rather want many things, anything, indeed, that this world could afford me, than abuse the affection of a friend. I suppose you are sometimes troubled upon my account. But you need not. I have no doubt it will be seen, when my days are closed, that I served a Master who would not suffer me to want anything that was good for me. He said to Jacob, * I will surely do thee good ;' and this he said, not for his sake only, but for ours also, if we trust in him. This thought relieves me from the greatest jjart of the distress I should else suffer in my present circumstances, and enables me to sit down peacefully upon the wreck of my fortune. " Yours ever, my dear friend, " W. C." " Olney, Nov. 5, 1772. " Believe me, my dear friend, truly sensible of your in- vitation, though I do not accept it. My peace of mind is of so delicate a constitution that the air of London will not agree with it. You have my pi-aycrs, the only return I can make you for your many acts of still-continued friendship. " If you shovdd smile or even laugh at my conclusion, and I were near enough to see it, I should not be angiy, though I shoidd be grieved. It is not long since I should 78 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. have laughed at such a recompence myself. But, glory be to the name of Jesus, those days are past, and, I trust, never to return ! " I am yours, and ]\Irs. Hill's, " With much sincerity, " W. C." But we are now brought to the close of this brief period of sunshine and peace. About the time at which we have now arrived, Cowjier had been induced to join Mr. Ne^^i^on in " a literary undertaking, congenial with his taste, and suited to his admirable talents." Mr. N. had felt the want, more pressing in that day than now, of a book of hymns, suited both to pubhc worship and to private de- votional meetings. He proposed to Cowper to join him in the production of such a volume, and it was not difficult to gain the poet's assent. The volume was not completed until 1779 : but we must assume that Co\\-per's part in it was completed before his renewed attack of mental disease, which took place in 1773. The nature of the attack was generally similar to those under which he had formerly suffered. Of his depression at the age of twenty-one, soon after his settlement in the Temple, he says — " I was struck with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least con- cei>tion of. Day and night I was on the rack, lying down in horror, and rising up in despair^ And this was at a time when " hfe was young," and when hopes and pleasures of every kind were opening before him. Of his more serious illness, in 1763, he says, — " The accuser of the brethren was ever busy with me, night and day, bringing to my recollection in dreams the commission of long-forgotten sins, and charging upon my conscience things of an indifferent nature as atrocious crimes." Thus, mental delusion constituted the basis of his disease, in the two attacks which he had suffered before he knew FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY. 79 anything of religion. But altliough he was fully aware of this, it furnished no safeguard against his falling under the power of mental delusion again. A dozen years afterwards he himself describes, in a letter to Lady Heskcth, the nature of the present attack : — " Knt)w, then, that in the year 1773, the same scene that was acted at St. Alban's opened upon me again at Olney, only covered with a still deeper shade of melan- choly, and ordained to be of longer duration. I was sud- denly reduced from my wonted rate of understanding to an almost childish imbecility. I did, not, indeed, lose my senses, but I lost the power to exercise them. I could return a rational answer, even to a difficult question ; but a question was necessary, or I never spoke at all. This state of mind was accompanied, as I suppose it to be in most instances of the kind, with misappi-ehensions of things and persons, which made me a very untractable patient. I believed that everybody hated me, and that ]\Irs.Unwin hated me most of all ; — was convinced that my food was poisoned, together with ten thousand meagrims of the same stamp." The nature of the illness, then, was sul^stantially the same as in the former cases. It was but the return of a disease to which, from his youth, he had been liable. Still, most persons who have dealt with the subject have thought it needful to assign some cause for the recurrence of the disorder. The most usually assigned cause is that of "Methodism ;" — of the gloomy character of his religious associates and habits, and especially the particular work, the Olney Hymns, which he then had in hand. Now we cannot admit that a biographer of Co^^1)er is called upon to aesign any cause at all for this particular instance of his mental disorder. No one has attempted to account for the deep dejection of 1752 — an attack far more destitute of any apparent cause than those in later life. And when in the heyday of youth, and with all the hopes and joys of opening manhood before hiui, this dis- order is seen to take possession of his mind, what necessity can there be to attempt to assign a distinct cause for its re- turn in after years, when blighted hopes and failing health evidently aided its approaches ? 80 LIFE OF WILLIAM! COWPER. AVith reference to the cause most commonly assigned — his religious views and occupations — or to another which has been recently advanced with much confidence, the de- pressing character of the Olney scenery — we would not deny to either of these circumstances some share in pro- ducing the melancholy under w^hich the poet suffered ; but we deem it most irrational to treat either of them as the sole or the principal cause. Ohiey and its vicinity ought neither to be described as among the best nor the worst specimens of the rural scenery of England. Co\A'j>er's o\vn writings abound Avith proofs that much natural beauty is to be found on the banks of the Ouse. As to the com- plaint of being confined to the house for seven months in the year, it is plainly the language of a mind not in a healthy tone. On the banks of a small meandering stream there must often be damps, and fogs, and marshy places. But in England there always occur, even in the most unwhole- some seasons, weeks and mouths of dry and open weather, when, in March or in October, or even in .January, the frosty air renders exercise both pleasant and health-giving. To say that Cowper, although only in his forty-second year, shrank from these winterly breezes, is merely to say that his health was not properly attended to. But, then, let not the sj)ot in which he had chosen to reside be blamed for a seclusion which was more a choice thaii a necessity. As to the cause which is more frequently assigned, we can only admit its truth to this extent ; — that being pre- disposed to mental delusion, and self-accasation, it might have been indiscreet to encourage the poet to ponder much on his own personal experience. One of the Olney Hymns betrays the nature of the danger. " The Lord will happiness di\'ine On contrite hearts bestow : Then tell me, gracious God, is mine A contrite heai't, or no ? I hear, but seem to hear in vain, Insensible as steel : If aught is felt, 'tis only pain To tiud I cannot feel. FIRST PERIOD OF HIS RESIDENCE AT OLNEY. 81 I sometimes think myself inclin'd To love thee if I coiild ; But often feel another mind, Averse to all that's good. My hest desires are faint and few, I fain would strive for more ; But when I cry, ' My strength renew,' Seem weaker than before. Thy saints are comfoi'ted, I know. And love thy house of prayer ; I therefore go where others go, But find no comfortthere. O make this heart rejoice or ache ! Decide this doubt for me ; And if it be not broken, break ; And heal it, if it be ! " It is the almost universal testimony of earnest Christians that the Tempter is ever on the watch to found, on a con • sciousness of unworthiness, arguments tending to despair. And if this be a real peril to men of sound and healthy minds, how much greater must have been the danger to one who, at two former periods of his life, had been fiUed with " horror and despair." We can therefore agree with Southey just so far as this ! — that " in composing the Olney Hymns he was led to brood over his own sensations in a way which rendered him peculiarly liable to be deluded by them." Hence, on the whole, while we neither believe that his iUness was caused by Olney damps, nor by his " re- ligious views," we are still quite ready to admit, that the flatness and monotony of u viUage life, and the pecu- liar sort of contemplations which the Olney Hymns sug- gested, might conduce to help on an attack of hypochon- di'iasis which it is absurd to adduce them as causing. 82 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. SECOND ATTACK OF MENTAL ABERRATION — GRADUAL RECOVERY— HIS POEMS. A.D. 1773—1785. Cowper's last letter to his faithful friend Hill, before the outburst of his second, and, perhaps, the worst of aU his mental illnesses, was dated in November, 1772. It turns chiefly upon pecuniary afiFairs — debt, and the means of clearing off debt. Few of his biographers have attached any importance to this circumstance. Yet it is probable that anxieties of this kind, both now and in 1763, had no inconsiderable share in bringing the disorder to a crisis. A single circumstance, occurring in his correspondence with Mr. Hill, shows to what an extent these anxieties had reached. He actually proposes, in one of these letters, to increase his income by taking pupils. To many men this would have been nothing ; but to Cowper it must have been an unendurable drudgery. The idea was quickly abandoned. We mean not that his straitened circumstances were the sole or the chief cause of his illness ; but that, other things tending to the same result, pecuniary cares conduced to bring on actual insanity. We believe that any one who has had any experience in similar cases, will readily admit the probability of our supposition. We apprehend that if the circumstances of all the patients in our lunatic asylums were carefully investigated, it would be found that a very large proportion might be traced to pecuniary anxieties. A tendency to melancholy was, probably, in such cases, a constitutional weakness. Some degree of ill health in- SECOND ATTxVCR OF MENTAL ABERRATION. 83 creased this tendency ; and when alarms as to the means of subsistence came to be added to these previous bur- dens, the system gave way, and the mind became dis- ordered. It was at the commencement of 1773 that the mind of Cowper entirely succumbed to disease, and gloomy fancies began to possess him, some of which must be regarded as direct suggestions of the Tempter. Such, for instance, as the notion which at one time possessed him, that it was the Divine will that he should imitate Abraiam's faith, and offer up a sacrifice, and that that sacrifice should be him- self. And when the Divine Providence overruled this temptation, and frustrated the attempt which he made to obey the supposed command, the Evil One immediately injected into his mind the fresh falsehood, that, having failed to obey the wiU of God, he was now sentenced to a state of desertion and perpetual misery, of a kind pecuUar to himself. He sank, says Mr. Greatheed, into a state of utter hopelessness, — " an unalterable persuasion, that the Lord, after having renewed him in holiness, had doomed him to everlasting perdition. The doctrines in which he had been established directly opposed such a conclusion, and he remained stiU equally convinced of this general truth ; but he supposed himself to be the only person that ever believed with the heart vmto righteousness, and was notwithstanding excluded from salvation. In this state of mind, with a deplorable consistency, he ceased not only from attendance vipon public and domestic worship, but likewise from every attempt at private prayer ; apprehend- ing that for him to implore mercy, would be opposing the determinate counsel of God." Under this impression, writing to Mr. Bull, of Newport Pagnel, some years after this, Cowper says, in answer to Mr. Bull's entreaties, that he would again join with the people of God in acts of worship and of praise : — " Both your advice, and your manner of giving it, are gentle and friendly, and like yourself. I thank you for them, and do not refuse your counsel because I dislike it, but because it is not for me. There is not a vian upon earth that might not be the better for it — myself ordy exce'pted. 84 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Prove to me that I have a right to pray, and I will pray without ceasing ; yes, and praise too, even in the belly of this hell, compared with which Jonah's was a palace, a temple of the living God. But let me add, there is no encouragement in the Scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so eftectual as to reach it. I do not relate it to you, because you could not beheve it ; you would agree with me if you could ; and yet the sin by which I am excluded from the privileges I once enjoyed, you would account no sin. You would even tell me it was my duty. This is strange ; you wiU think me mad — but I am not mad, most noble Festus, I am only in desjiair ; and those powers of mind which I possess are only permitted me for my amusement sometimes, and to acuminate and enhance my misery at others." In March, 1773, he was prevailed upon to leave his own dwelling, and to spend a day at the vicarage. While there he suddenly determined to stay ; and actually remained in Mr. Newton's house, an uninvited, undesii'ed guest, for more than fourteen months. During this long period this faithful friend most sedulously watched over him, although naturally feeling the charge a most onerous one ; the state of his mind, for the greater part of this period, rendering it undesirable that his host should be much absent from his side. Writing to Mr. Thornton, Mr. N. says : — " Mr. Co-\vpei-'s long stay at the vicarage, in his present uncomfoi-table state, has been, upon many accounts, incon- venient and tr}nng. His choice of being here was quite unexpected ; and his continuance is uuavoidaljle, unless he was to be removed by force. Mrs. Unwin has often tried to persuade him to return to their own house, but he can- not bear to hear of it. He sometimes begs, and weeps, and pleads to stay with such earnestness, that it must be sub- mitted to. I make myself easy by reflecting that the Lord's hand is concerned, and I am hoping weekly for his deliverance. His health is better ; he works almost inces- santly in the garden, and while employed is tolerably easy ; but as soon as he leaves off he is instantly swallowed up by the most gloomy apprehensions ; though in everything that does not concern his own peace he is as sensible, and dis- GRADUAI; RECOVERY. 85 covers as quick a judgment, as ever. The Lord evidently sent him to Ohiey, where he has been a blessing to many, a great blessing to myself. The Lord has numbered the days in which I am appointed to wait upon him in this dark valley, and he has given us siich a love to him, both as a believei- and as a friend, that I am not weary ; but, to be sure, his deliverance would be to me one of the greatest blessings my thoughts can conceive." In the course of a fortnight after this letter was written, the first symptom of amendment w^as perceived. " Yesterday, as he was feeding the chickens," ISIr. New- ton says — " for he is always busy if he can get out of doors — some little incident made him smile ; I am pretty sure it was the first smile that has been seen upon his face for more than sixteen months. I hope the continuance of air and exercise will, by the Lord's blessing, gradually lighten the cloud which hangs upon his mind. I have no right to comi^lain ; my mercies are many and great, my trials com- paratively few ; yet surely this affair, taken in all its cir- cumstances, has been such a heavy trial to me, that had not I seen the Lord's hand in it, and had not his hand been with me likewise, I surely should have laboured to shake it ofi" before now. But when it first began, I prayed the Lord that I might not be weary. Hitherto he has helped ; and however dark the path may grow, so long as it appears to me to be the path of duty, I dare not decline it." At last, about the end of ]May, 1774, with the same suddenness and precipitation which marked his first resolve to take up his abode at the vicarage, he hastily determined to return to his own house. He now began, also, to amuse himself occasionally with scraps of desultory composition. But a chief means of obtaining relief was found in the possession of two or three hai'es, which were sent to him by compassionate neighbours about this time, with a view to afford him amusement and occupation. In a letter subsequently written by him, and which appeared in the " Gentleman's Magazine," he thus described this interest- ing, though tri%nal, incident in his singular life : — " In the year 1774, being much indisposed both in mind and body, incapable of diverting myself either with com- 86 LIFE OF WILUAM COWPER. pany or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of anything that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbour of mine had a leveret given them for a plaything ; it was at that time about three months old. Understanding better how to tease the poor creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their charge, they readily consented that their father, who saw it pining and growing leaner every day, should offer it to my acceptance. I was willing enough to take the prisoner under my pro- tection, perceiving that, in the management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should find just that sort of employment which my case required. It was soon known among the neighbours that I was pleased with the present, and the consequence was, that in a short time I had as many leverets offered to me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which it is necessary that I should here distinguish by the names I gave them — Riss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwithstanding the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you that they were all males. Immediately commencing carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in ; each had a separate apart- ment, so contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it ; an earthen pan placed under each re- ceived whatsoever fell, which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept perfectly sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, and at night re- tired each to his own bed, never intruding into that of another. " Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer me to take him up, and to carry him about in my arms, and has more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows, that they might not molest him, (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute one of their own species that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with a variety of horbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery ; GRADUAL RECOVERY. 87 a sentiment which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately, then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it iinsalutcd ; a ceremony which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden, where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a cucumber-vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening ; in the leaves also of that vine he found a favourite repast. I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such ex- pression, as it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull it with all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly tamed, the shyness of his nature was done away, and on the whole it was visible, by many symptoms which I have not room to enumerate, that he was happier in human society than when shut vip with his natural companions. " Not so Tiney ; upon him the kindest treatment had not the least effect. He too was sick, and in his sickness had an equal share of my attention ; but if after his re- covery I took the liberty to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore feet, spring forward, and bite. He was however, very entertaining in his way ; even his surliness was matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with such a solem- nity of manner, that in him too I had an agreeable com- panion. " Bess, who died soon after he was fuU grown, and whose death was occasioned by his being turned into his box, which had been washed, while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humour and drollery. Puss was tamed by gentle usage ; Tiney was not to be tamed at all ; and Bess had a courage and confidence that made him tame from the beginning. I always admitted them into the parlour 88 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. after supper, when, the carpet affording their feet a firm hold, they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fear- less, was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party. One evening, the cat being in the room, had the hardiness to pat Bess upon the cheek ; an indignity which he resented by drumming upon her back with such violence that the cat was happy to escape from under his paws, and hide herself. " I describe these animals as having each a character of his own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances were so expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that a shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar with their features, that he can, by that indication only, distinguish each from all the rest ; and yet, to a common observer, the difference is hardly perceptible. I doubt not that the same discrimina- tion in the cast of countenances would be discoverable in hares, and am persuaded that among a thousand of them no two could be found exactly similar ; a circumstance little suspected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it. These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest alteration that is made in the i^lace to which they arc accustomed, and instantly apply their nose to the examination of a new object. A small hole being burnt in the carpet, it was mended with a patch, and that patch in a moment underwent the strictest scrutiny. They seem, too, to be very much directed by the smell in the choice of their favourites : to some persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be reconciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch them ; but a miller coming in engaged their affections at once ; his powdered coat had charms that were irresistible. It is no wonder that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens of the kind has taught me to hold the sportsman's amuse- ment in abhorrence ; he little knows what amiable crea- tures he persecutes, of what gratitude they are capable, how cheerful they arc in their spirits, what enjoyment they GRADUAL RECOVERY. 89 have of life, and that, impressed as they seem with a pecu- liar dread of man, it is only because man gives them pecu- liar cause for it. ***** " Bess, I have said, died young ; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and died, at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a fall ; Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no signs of decay, nor even of age, except that he has grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude with- out observing, that I have lately introduced a dog to his acquaintance, — a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least symptom of hos- tihty. There is therefore, it should seem, no natural an- tipathy between dog and hare ; but the pursuit of the one occasions the flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it ; they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all respects sociable and friendly. " I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add, that they have no ill scent belonging to them ; that they are indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature has furnished them with a brush under each foot ; and that they are never infested by any vermin." Still, months and years passed away, and Cowper's silence, as to his friends and correspondents, remained unbroken. His friend Hill continued to supply his wants ; but, between November 1772 and May 1776, we find no trace of a single line written to his old schoolfellow by Cowper. At last the pen is once more resumed, and we again meet with his frequent acknowledgments of frequent kindnesses. We give one or two of these brief notes : — " Olney, Nov. Vl, 1776. " Dear Friend, — One to whom fish is so welcome as it is to me can have no great occasion to distinguish the sorts. 90 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. In general, therefore, whatever fish are likely to think a jaunt into the country agreeable, will be sure to find me ready to receive them. " Having suffered so much by nervous fevers myself, I know how to congratulate Ashley upon his recovery. Other distempers only batter the walls ; but they creep silently into the citadel and put the garrison to the sword. " You perceive I have not made a squeamish use of your obliging offer. The remembrance of past years, and of the sentiments formerly exchanged in our evening walks, convinces me still that an unreserved acceptance of what is graciously offered is the handsomest way of dealing with one of your character. " Believe me yours, " W. C." « Olney, May 25, 1777. " My dear Friend, — "We differ not much in our opinion of Gray. When I wrote last, I was in the middle of the book. His later Epistles, I think, are worth little, as such, but might be turned to excellent account by a young student of taste and judgment. As to West's Letters, I think I could easily bring your opinion of them to square with mine. They are elegant and sensible, but have nothing in them that is characteristic, or that discriminates them from the letters of any other yoimg man of taste and learning. As to the book you mention, I am in doubt whether to read it or not. I should like the philosophical part of it, but the political, which, I suppose, is a detail of intrigues carried on by the Company and their servants, a history of rising and falling nabobs, I should have no appetite to at all. I will not, therefore, give you the trouble of sending it at present. " Yours affectionately, "W. C." ''Olney, Jan. 1, 1778. " My dear Friend, — ^Your last packet was doubly wel- come, and Mrs. Hill's kindness gives me peculiar pleasure, not as coming from a stranger to me, for I do not accoxmt her so, though I never saw her, but as coming from one so HIS POEMS. 91 nearly connected with yourself. I shall take care to ac- knowledge the receipt of her obliging letter, when I return the books. Assure yourself, in the mean time, that I read as if the librarian was at my elbow, continually jogging it, and growling out, 'Make haste.' But, as I read aloud, I shall not have finished before the end of the week, and will return them by the diligence next Monday. " I shall be glad if you will let me know whether I am to understand by the sorrow you express that any part of my former supplies is actually cut off, or whether they are only more tardy in coming in than usual. It is useful, even to the rich, to know, as nearly as may be, the exact amount of their income ; but how much more so to a man of my small dimensions ! If the former should be the case, I shall have less reason to be surprised than I have to wonder at the continuance of them so long. Favours are favours indeed, when laid out upon so barren a soil, where the expense of sowing is never accompanied by the smallest hope of return. What pain there is in gratitude, I have often felt ; but the pleasure of requiting an obh- gation has always been out of my reach. " Afi'ectionately yours, «W. C." " Olney, April 11, 1778. " My dear Friend, — Poor Sir Tliomas ! I knew that I had a place in his affections, and, from his own information many years ago, a place in his will ; but little thought that after the lapse of so many years I should retain it. His remembrance of me, after so long a season of separa- tion, has done me much honour, and leaves me the more reason to regret his decease. " I am reading the AT)be with great satisfaction, and think him the most intelligent writer upon so extensive a subject I ever met with ; in every respect superior to the Abbe in Scotland. " Yours afi'ectionately, " W. C." In 1779 Mr. Newton published the Olney Hymns, of which collection Cowper's contributions amounted in num- 92 LITE OF WILLIAM COWPER. ber to sixty-eight. This may be said to have been his first introduction to the public in the character of a poet. The next year, 1780, Mr. Thornton presented Mr. Newton to the rectory of St. Mary Woolnoth, in the city of London, and Cow|ier lost the friend whose presence had been his chief attraction to Olney, and with whom he had Uved in the closest intercourse for more than twelve years. Writing to Mrs. Newton shortly after this, he says : — " The Adcarage-house became a melancholy object as soon as Mr. Newton had left it ; when you left it, it became more melancholy : now it is actually occupied by another family, I cannot even look at it without being shocked. As I walked in the garden this evening I saw the smoke issue from the study-chimney, and said to myself, That used to be a sign that Mr. Newton was there, but it is so no longer. The walls of the house know nothing of the change that has taken place ; the bolt of the chamber-door sounds just as it used to do ; and when Mr. P goes up-stairs, for aught I know, or ever shall know, the fall of his foot could hardly, perhaps, be distinguished from that of Mr. Newton. But Mr. Newton's foot will never be heard upon that stair- case again. These reflections, and such as these, occurred to me upon the occasion. ***** jf j were in a condition to leave Olney too, I certainly would not stay in it. It is no attachment to the place that binds me here, but an unfitness for every other. I lived in it once, but now I am buried in it, and have no business with the world on the outside of my sepulchre ; my appearance woidd startle them, and theirs would be shocking to me." The death of Sir Thomas Hesketh a little before this, — one of the friends who contributed to his small income, — and some other circumstances, had renewed Cowper's anxious fears as to his means of support. His friend Unwin, the young man who had first sought his acquaintance at Huntingdon, and who was now a clergyman, suggested his reminding his old schoolfellow Thurlow, now Lord Chan- cellor, of certain conversations in days jjast ; but Cowper could not reconcile himself to the idea. He rephcs : — "June 18, 1778. " Dear Unwin, — I feel myself much obliged to you for HIS POEMS. 93 your kind intimation, and have given the subject of it all my best attention, both before I received your letter and since. The result is, that I am persuaded it will ])e better not to write. I know the man and his disposition well ; he is very liberal in his way of thinking, generous and dis- cerning. He is well aware of the tricks that are played upon such occasions ; and, after fifteen years' interruption of all intercourse between us, would translate my letter into this language — Pray remember the poor. This would disgust him, because he would think our former intimacy disgraced by such an oblique application. He has not forgotten me ; and if he had, there are those about him who cannot come into his presence without reminding him of me ; and he is also perfectly acquainted with my cir- cumstances. It would, perhaps, give him pleasure to sur- prise me with a benefit ; and if he means me such a favour, I should disappoint him by asking it. Thus he dealt with my friend Mr. Hill, to whom, by the way, I introduced him, and to all my family connexions in town. He sent for him the week before last, and, without any solicitation, freely gave him one of his secretaryships. I know not the income ; but as Mr. Hill is in good circumstances, and the gift was unasked, I dare say it is no trifle. " I repeat my thanks for your suggestion ; you see a part of my reasons for thus conducting myself ; if we were together, I could give you more. " Yours aflfectionately, " W. C." He began now to amuse himself occasionally with the pencil ; l)ut gardening was still his chief employment. To Mr. Newton he writes : — " Olney, July 30, 1780. "My dear Sir, — You may think, perhaps, that I deal more liberally with Mr. Unwin, in the way of poetical export, than 1 do with you, and I believe you have reason : the truth is this — if I walked the streets with a fiddle under my arm, I should never think of performing before the window of a privy councillor or a chief justice, but should rather make free with ears more likely to be open 94 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. to such amusement. The trifles I produce in this way are, indeed, such trifles that I cannot think them seasonable presents for you. Mr. Unwin himself would not be of- fended if I was to tell him that there is this difference between him and Mr. Newi;on, — that the latter is already an apostle, while he himself is only undergoing the busi- ness of incubation, with a hope that he may be 'hatched in time. When my Muse comes forth arrayed in sables, at least in a robe of graver cast, I make no scruple to direct her to my friend at Hoxton. This has been one reason why I have so long delayed the riddle. But, lest I should seem to set a value upon it that I do not, by making it an object of still further inquiry, here it comes : — " I am just two and two, I am warm, I am cold, And the parent of numbers that cannot be told. I am lawful, unlawful, — a duty, a fault. I am often sold dear, good for nothing when bought. An extraordinary boon, and a matter of course, And yielded with pleasure — when taken by force. " W. C." But now, in this year, 1780, his history as a poet really commences. Mrs. Unwin, perceiving the necessity of em- ployment to keep his mind from feeding upon itself, encouraged him to commence a poem of more importance than a hymn or a ballad. The Progress of Error was soon chosen as a subject, and the work was commenced. Cowper seems to have feared that Mr. Newton would be alarmed at the idea of such an undertaking, and he writes to him thus : — " ' Don't be alarmed,' he says to him ; ' I ride Pegasus with a curb. He will never run away with me again. I have even convinced Mrs. Unwin that I can manage him, and make him stop when I please.' In the same letter he says, 'If human nature may be compared to a piece of tapestry (and why not ?), then human nature, as it subsists in me, though it is sadly faded on the right side, retains all its colour on the wrong. I am pleased with commendation, and though not passionately desirous of indiscriminate praise, or what is generally called popularity, yet when a HIS POEMS. 95 judicious friend claps me on the back, I own I find it an encouragement. At this season of the year, and in this gloomy, uncomfortable climate, it is no easy matter for the owner of a mind like mine to divert it from sad subjects, and fix it upon such as may administer to its amusement. Poetry, above all things, is useful to me in this respect. While I am held in pursuit of pretty images, or a pretty way of expressing them, I forget everything that is irk- some, and, like a boy that plays the truant, determine to avail myself of the present opportunity to be amused, and to put by the disagreeable recollection that I must, after all, go home and be whipt again.' " It is often found that when an old amusement or occu- pation, long discontinued, is again resorted to, and enjoy- ment found in it, the mind receives a sudden bent, and becomes absorbed in the new-found delight. Cowper had nearly forgotten that love of Uterature which, at "West- minster and in the Temple, had been a chief object of his existence. His illness had first banished the very thought from his mind. His revival, and his renewal to a better life, filled his thoughts with higher and nobler objects. From 1773 to 1780, his pen had produced nothing but his portion of the Olney Ilymm. But now, — the Tempter having succeeded in fastening a delusion on his mind, that between God and his soul all communion was forbidden, — life became, at first, almost insupportable ; and, when despair had somewhat abated, amusement and literary occupation seemed absolutely necessary. Mrs. Unwin, perceiving his state of suffering, said, " Write." He began, and now it was difficult to stop. In December, the Progress of Error was completed ; and, before the end of March, Truth, Table Talk, and Expostulation, were all written. Transmitting Table Talk to Mr. Newton, Cowper said to him, " It is a medley of many things ; some that may be useful, and some that, for aught I know, may be very diverting. I am merry that I may decoy people into my company, and grave that they may be the better for it. Now and then I put on the garb of a philosopher, and take the opportunity that disguise procures me, to drop a word in favour of rehgion. In short, there is some froth, and 96 LIFE OP WTT.T.TAM COWPER. here and there a bit of sweetmeat, which seems to entitle it justly to the name of a certain dish the ladies call a trifle. I did not choose to be more facetious, lest I should consult the taste of my readers at the expense of my own approbation ; nor more serious than I have been, lest I should forfeit theirs. A poet in my circumstances has a difficult part to act ; one minute obliged to bridle his humour, if he has any, and the next, to clap a spur to the sides of it : now ready to weep from a sense of the im- portance of his subject, and on a sudden constrained to laugh, lest his gi-avity should be mistaken for dulness. If this be not violent exercise for the mind, I know not what is ; and if any man doubt it, let him try. Whether all this management and contrivance be necessary, I do not know, but am incliued to suspect that if my Muse was to go forth clad in Quaker colour, without one bit of riband to enhven her appearance, she might walk from one end of London to the other, as little noticed as if she were one of the sisterhood indeed." * A volume of the ordinary size having been thus rapidly constructed, Mr. Newton was allowed to seek a publisher. Johnson, of St. Paul's Churchyard, in those days one of the most eminent of the Loudon booksellers, and who had printed one or two volumes for Mr. Newton, was selected. He undertook the risk of the publication, but desired that the author's name should be affixed to the work. Cowper replies : — " Since writing is become one of my principal amuse- ments, and I have already produced so many verses on subjects that entitle them to a hojse that they may pos- sibly be useful, I should be sorry to suppress them entirely, or to publish them to no purpose, for want of that chief ingredient, the name of the author. If my name, therefore, wiU serve them in any degree, as a passport into pubhc notice, they are welcome to it ; and Mr. Johnson will, if he pleases, announce me to the world by the style and title of William Cowper, Esq. Of the Inner Temple."! * Feb. IS, 17S1. t March 5, 1781. HIS POEMS. 97 Cowper now began to experience the pleasing flutterings of an author's expectation. He writes, — " I am in the middle of an affair called ' Conversation,' which, as Table Talk serves in the present volume by way of introductoiy fiddle to the band that follows, I design shall perfoim the same office in a second." — " It is not a dialogue, as the title would lead you to surmise, nor does it bear the least resemblance to Table Talk, except that it ' is serio-comic hke all the rest. My design in it is to convince the world that they make"but an indifferent use of their tongues, considering the intention of Providence when he endued them with the faculty of speech ; to point out the abuses, which is the jocular part of the business ; and to prescribe the remedy, which is the grave and sober." Upon Johnson's expressing a wish to him that his pen might still be employed, he offered hini this then unfinished poem, which he estimated at eight hundred lines, if he chose to swell the volume ; he was told, in reply, not to be afraid of making the volume too large, which Cowper interpreted to mean, that if had still another piece there would be room for it. Another was upon the stocks. " I have already," said he, " begun, and proceeded a little way, in a poem called Retirement. My view in choosing that subject is to direct to the proper use of the opportunities it affords for the cultivation of a man's best interests ; to censure the vices and the follies which people carry with them into their retreats, where they make no other use of their leisure than to gratify themselves with the indulgence of their favourite appetites, and to pay themselves by a life of pleasure for a life of business. In conclusion, I would enlarge upoi\ the happiness of that state, when dis- creetly enjoyed, and religiously improved. But all this is at present in embryo. I generally despair of my progress when I begin ; but if, like my travelling 'Squire, I should kindle as I go, this likewise may make a part of the volume, for I have time enoiigh before me." * This summer produced an event which exerted, for a considerable period, a powerful influence on Cowper's mind. * Aug. 25, 17S1. 98 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. In such a place as Olney, a dull sameness and monotony of occurrence prevailed, especially to such as, like the poet, shrank from society, and felt incapable of useful exertion. But one day, at the commencement of July, two ladies entered a shop near to IVlrs. Un win's house ; one of whom was Mrs. Jones, the wife of a clergyman, who resided at Clifton, near Olney ; the other, her sister, the widow of a baronet, of the name of Austen. From her portrait we can see at a glance that she must have interested any person of taste and sensibihty. Cowper's usual shyness was overcome, and he begged IVIrs. Unwin to invite these ladies to tea. Yet, when this had been done, and the invitation accepted, his natural timidity returned to such an extent as to make it difficult for him to join the party. Nevertheless, " having forced himself," says Hayley, "to engage in conversation with Lady Austen, he was so reanimated by her colloquial talents that he attended the ladies on their return to Clifton, and from that time continued to cultivate the regard of his new acquaintance with such assiduous atten- tion, that she soon received from him the familiar and endearing title of Sister Ann." This was shortly after Mr. Newton's first visit to Olney, since his removal from that cure, a visit which Cowi^er had greatly enjoyed during its continuance, but which, hke all such visits, left an aching in his heart. " My sensations at your departure," he says to him, " were far from pleasant, and Mrs. Unwin suffered more upon the occasion than when you first took leave of Olney. When we shall meet again, and in what circumstances, or whether wc shall meei or not, is an event to be found nowhere but in tb.at volume of Providence which belongs to the current year, and wiU not be understood till it is accomplished. This, I know, that your visit was most agreeable here. It was so even to me, who, though I live in the midst of many agreeables, am but little sensible of their charms. But when you came, I determined, as much as possible, to be deaf to the suggestions of despair ; that if I could contribute but little to the pleasure of the opportunity, I might not dash it with unseasonable melancholy, and, like an instrument with a broken string, interrupt the harmony of the concert." HIS POEMS. 99 In the same letter which began in this melancholy strain, Cowper mentioned Lady Austen's fiist visit, and that they had returned it ; and he thus described her to his friend : " She is a lively agreeable woman ; has seen much of the world, and accounts it a great simpleton, as it is. She laughs and makes laugh ; and keeps up a conversation without seeming to labour at it." To Mr. Unwin he says, " She is a most agi-eeable woman, and has fallen in love with your mother and me ; insomuch, that I do not know but she may settle at Olney. Yesterday se'nniglit we all dined together in the Spinnie — a most delightful retire- ment, belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton of Weston. Lady Austen's lackey, and a lad that waits on me in the garden, drove a wheelbarrow full of eatables and drinkables to the scene of our fete champitre. A board, laid over the top of the wheelbarrow, served us for a table ; our dining-room was a root-house, lined with moss and ivy. At six o'clock, the servants, who had dined under the great elm upon the ground, at a little distance, boiled the kettle, and the said wheelbarrow served us for a tea-table. We then took a walk into the wilderness, about half a mile off, and were at home again a little after eight, having spent the day together, from noon till evening, without one cross occur- rence, or the least weariness of each other. A hapjjiness few parties of pleasure can boast of" In October, Lady Austen returned to town. Cowi^er told hei- to expect a visit there from ]\[r. Unwin ; " an en- terprise," said he to his friend, " which you may engage in with the more alacrity, because as she loves anything that has any connexion with your mother, she is sure to feel a sufficient partiality for her son. She has many features in her character which you will admire ; but one in particular, on account of the rarity of it, will engage your attention and esteem. She has a degree of gratitude in her com- position, so quick a sense of obligation, as is hardly to be found in any rank of life ; and, if report says true, is scarce indeed in the superior. Discover but a wish to please her, and she never forgets it ; not only thanks you, but the tears will start into her eyes at the recollection of the smallest service. With these fine feelings she has the 100 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. most, and the most harmless, vivacity you can imagine. In short, she is what you will find her to be upon half an hour's conversation with her." But Cowper's sensibility and delight in what is at- tractive in a female character, had led him to overlook the want of solid Christian principle. This friendship was human, and it had but a short duration. In February 1782 the poet wrote to his friend Unwin, as follows : — "I have a piece of secret histoiy to communicate, which I would have imparted sooner, but that I thought it possible there might be no occasion to mention it at all. When persons for whom I have felt a friendship disappoint and mortify me by their conduct, or act un- justly towards me, though I no longer esteem them friends, I still feel that tenderness for their character, that I would conceal the blemish if I could. But in making known the following anecdote to you, I run no risk of a publication, assured that when I have once en- joined you to secrecy, you will observe it. My letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne Street and us. Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement. She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the same house, and educated together. At her departure she herself proposed a correspondence, and, because WTiting does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me. This soit of inter- course had not been long maintained, before I discovered, by some slight intimation of it, that she had conceiYed displeasure at something I had written, though I cannot now recollect it. Conscious of none but the most upright and inoffensive intentions, I yet apologised for the passage in question, and the flaw was healed again. Our cor- respondence, after this, proceeded smoothly for a con- siderable time ; but, at length, having had repeated occa- sion to observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and built sucli expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were surd that nothing human could jiossibly answer, I wrote to remind her that we were HIS POEMS. 101 mortal, to recommend it to her not to think more highly of us than the subject would warrant ; and intimating, that when we embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and, so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its real merits, wc make it an idol, and have nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes, and that we shall derive nothing from it but a painful conviction of our error. Your mother heard me read the letter ; she read it herself, and honoured it with her warm a2J})robation. But it gave mortal offence. It received, indeed, an answer, but such a one as I could by no means reply to : and thus ended (for it is impossible it should ever be renewed) a friendship that bade fair to be lasting, — being formed with a woman whose seeming stability of temper, whose know^- ledge of the world, and great expei'ience of its folly, but above all, whose sense of religion and seriousness of mind (for with aU that gaiety she is a great thinker), induced us both, in spite of that cautious reserve that marks our cha- racter, to trust her, to love and value her, and to open our hearts for her reception. It may be necessary to add that, by her own desire, I wrote to her under the assumed rela- tion of a brother, and she to me as a sister — ceu fumus in auras .... We have recovered from the concein we suf- fered on account of the fracas abovementioned, tkough for some days it made us imhappy. Not knowing but that she might possibly become sensible in a few daj'S that she had acted hastily and unreasonaJbly, and I'enew the cor- respondence herself, I could not in justice apprise you of this quarrel sooner ; but some weeks having passed with- out any proposals of accommodation, I am now persuaded that none are intended, and in justice to you, am obliged to caution you against a repetition of your visit." Cow|>cr, however, soon had to communicate that the advances of which he despaired had been made. " Having," he says, " imparted to you an account oit\\Qfraccts between us and Lady Austen, it is necessary that you shoidd be made acquainted with every event that bears any relation to that incident. The day before yesterday she sent us by her brother-in-law, ]Mr. Jones, three pair of worked ruffles, with advice that I should soon receive a fourth. I knew 102 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER, they were begun before we quarrelled. I begged Mr. Jones to tell her, when he wrote next, how much I thought my- self obliged ; and gave him to understand that I should make her a very inadequate, though the only return in my power, by laying my volume at her feet : this, likewise, she had previous reason given her to expect. Thus stands the affair at present. Whether anything in the shape of a reconciliation is to take place hereafter, I know not ; but this I know, that when an amicable freedom of intercourse, and that vinreserved confidence which belongs only to true friendsliip, has been once unrooted, plant it again with what care you may, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to make it grow." Shortly after, however, we hear, — " We are reconciled. She (Lady Austen) seized the first opportunity to embrace your mother with tears of the tendei'est affection. We were all a httle awkward at first, but now are as easy as ever." It is to Lady Austen that we owe the ballad of " John Gilpin" — a versification of a story which she narrated to Cowper one evening — and which, having deprived him of sleep nearly the whole of that night, he presented to her in the morning in its present form. This ballad, read by a comic actor of the name of Henderson at Freemasons' Hall, became one of the marvels of the day, and greatly assisted the rapid sale of the author s more solid productions. About this same period, too, at the request of Mr. Bull, Cowper employed himself in translating the poems of Madame Guion. Mr. B. had succeeded Mr. Newton in the difiicult office of nearest male friend and counsellor. Cowper's frequent appeUation for him was Carissime Taurorum : — He was, indeed, a man after his own heart. " You are not acquainted with him," he says to Mr. Unwin ; " perhaps it i;: as well for you that you are not. You would regret, stiU more than you do, that there are so many miles inter- posed between us. He spends part of the day with us to-morrow. A Dissenter, but a liberal one ; a man of letters and of genius ; a master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it, — an imagination which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs HK P0E3IS. 103 away witli him into such fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happi- ness to be of the party ; at other times he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for com- panions, in such a world as this, than men of such a tem- perament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the con- templation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection. Such a man is Mr. Bull. But — he smokes tobacco — nothing is perfect ! Nihil est ah omni Parte bcatum." Some time before the period at which we are now arrived, Mr. Bull put into Cowper's hands Madame Guion's poetical woi-ks, and requested him to translate a few of them ; " partly," he says, " to amuse a solitary hour, partly to keep in exercise the genius of this incomparable nian." A month's leisure was devoted to them, and they were presented to Mr. Bull to make what use of them he pleased. This friend some time afterwards suggested that they should be printed ; Co\^^Der undertook to revise them for this purpose, but various circumstances prevented him from ever carrying the intention into eff'ect. Mr. Bull probably thought that the sti'ain of her poetry would rather soothe his mintl than agitate it, and induce a sane state of religious feeling. But, perhaps, the passages on which Cowper brooded most wei-e those that he could apply, when taken apart from the context, to his own imaginary condition ; — such as the following : — " My claim to fife, though sought ■s\ith earnest care, No light within me, or -vvithout me, shows ; Once I hail faith; hut now in self-despair Find my chief cordial, and my best repose. My soul is a forgotten thing ; she sinks, Sinks and is lost, without a wish to rise ; Feels an indiffei-ence she abhors, and thinks Her name erased for ever from the akies." 104 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Cowper, however, explained to Mr. Newton how it was that he could treat upon subjects in vei'se which he trem- bled to approach in. prose. " There is a difference," said he. " The search after poetical expi'ession, the rhyme, and the numbers, are all affairs of some difhculty ; they amuse, indeed, but are not to be attained without study, and en- gross, perhaps, a larger share of the attention than the subject itself. Persons fond of music will sometimes find pleasure in the tune, when the words afford them none." But now the birth of his volume was at hand. At this period he writes to Mr. Newton as follows : — " Nov. 7, 1781. " My dear Friend, — So far as Johnson is to be depended on, and I begin to hope that he is now in earnest, I think myself warranted to furnish you with an answer to the question which you say so often meets you. Mr. Uuwin made the same inquiry at his shop in his way to Stock from Brighthelmstone ; when he assured him that the book would be printed off in a month, and ready for publication after the holidays. For some time past the business has IDroceeded glibly, and if he perseveres at the same rate, it is probable his answer will prove a true one. " Having discontinued the practice of verse-making for some weeks, I now feel quite incapable of resuming it ; and can only wonder at it, as one of the most extraordinary incidents in m.j life, that I should have composed a volume. Had it been suggested to me as a practicable thing, in better days, though I should have been glad to have found it so, many hindrances would have conspired to withhold me from such an enterprise. I should not have dared, at that time of day, to have committed my name to the public, and my reputation to the hazard of their opinion. But it is otherwise with me now. I am more indifferent about what may touch me in that point than ever I was in my life. The stake that would then have seemed im- portant now seems trivial ; and it is of little consequence to me, who no longer feel myself possessed of what I ac- counted infinitely more valuable, whether the world's verdict shall pronounce me a poet, or an empty pretender HIS POEMS. 105 to the title. This liappy coldness towards a matter so generally interesting to all rhymers, left me quite at lil)crty for the undertaking, unfettered by fear, and under no restraints of that diffidence, which is my natural temper, and which would either have made it impossible for me to commence an author by name, or would have insured my miscarriage if I had." "A French author," he observes to I\[r. Unwin, says, "There is something very bewitching in authorship, and he that has written will write again. If the critics do not set their foot upon this first egg that I have laid, and crush it, I shall probalily verify his observation ; and when I feel my spirits rise, and that I am armed with industry suf- ficient for the purpose, undertake the production of an- other volume." Three mouths afterwards he repeated this saying to Mr. Newton, and commented upon it thus : " It may be so. I can subscribe to the former part of his assertion from my own experience, having never found an amusement, among the many I have been obliged to have recourse to, that so well answered the i^urpose for which I used it. The quieting and composing effect of it was such, and so totally absorbed have I sometimes been in my rhyming occupation, that neither the past nor the future, — (those themes which to me are so fruitful in regret at other times) — had any longer a share in my contemplation. For this reason I wish, and have often wished since the fit left me, that it would seize me again ; but hitherto I have wished it in vain. I see no want of subjects, but I feel a total disability to discuss them. "Whether it is thus with other writers, or not, I am ignorant, but I should suppose my case in this respect a little peculiar. The voluminous writers, at least, whose ^'ein of fancj^ seems always to have been rich in proportion to their occasions, cannot have been so urdike, and so unequal to themselves. There is this difference between my poetship and the generality of them, they have been ignorant how much they have stood indebted to an Almighty power for the exercise of those talents they have supposed their own ; whereas I know, and know most perfectly, and am, perhaps, to be taught it to the lastj that my power to think, whatever it be, and 106 UFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. consequently my power to compose, is, as much as my outward form, afforded to me by the same hand that makes me in any respect to differ from a brute. This lesson, if not constantly inculcated, might perhaps be forgotten, or, at least, too slightly remembered." The volume, when, at last, it made its aj^pearance, pleased those persons whom its author was most desirous of pleasing ; Mrs. Unwin, who saw the poems in their pro- gress ; I\Ir. Newton, by whom they were criticised on their way to the press ; and IMr. Unwin, with whom he corre- sponded as with a friend and brother. Nothing, he said, had given him so much pleasure as his favourable opinion. " The circumstance, however, in your letter, which pleased me most, was, that you wrote in high spirits, and though you said much, suppressed more, lest you should hurt my delicacy. My delicacy is obhged to you ; but you observe it is not so squeamish but that after it has feasted i:pon l^raise expressed, it can find a comfortable dessert iia the contemplation of praise implied. I now feel as if I should be glad to begin another volume ; but from the will to the power is a step too wide for me to take at present ; and the season of the year brings with it so many avocations into the garden, where I am my ovm factotum, that I have little or no leisure for the quill."* To the same friend he wi'ites, — " Before I had published, I said to myself — You and I, Mr. Cowper, will not concern ourselves much about what the critics may say of our book ! But having once sent my wits for a venture, I soon became anxious about the issue, and foimd that I could not be satisfied with a warm l^lace in my own good graces, unless my friends were pleased Avith me as much as I pleased myself. Meeting with their approbation, I began to feel the workings of ambition. It is well, said I, that my friends are pleased ; but friends are sometimes partial, and mine, I have reason to think, are not altogether free from bias. Methinks I should like to hear a stranger or two speak well of me. I was presently gratified by the approbation of the London • March 18, 1782. HIS POEMS. 107 Magazine, and the Gcntlemai^s, particularly by that of the former, and by the plaudit of Dr. Franklin. By the way, magazines are publications we have but little respect for, till we ourselves are chronicled in them, and then they assume an importance in our esteem which before we could not allow them. But the Monthhj Review, the most for- midable of all my judges, is still behind. What will that critical Rhadamanthus say, when my shivering genius shall appear before him ] Still he keeps me in hot water, and I must wait another month for his award. Alas ! when I wish for a favourable sentence from that quarter (to coii- fess a weakness that I should not confess to all), I feel luy- self not a little influenced by a tender regard to my repu- tation here, even among my neighbours at Oluey. Here are watchmakers, who themselves are wits, and who at present, perhaps, think me one. Here is a carpenter, and a baker, and not to mention others, here is your idol, Mr. Teedon, whose smile is fame. All these read the Monthly Review, and all these will set me down for a dunce, if those terrible critics should show them the example. But, oh ! wherever else I am accounted dull, dear Mr. Griffiths, let me pass for a genius at Olney ! " * The volume had made its appearance in the beginning of 1782. Its reception was not very flattering. The author transmitted copies to some of his old friends ; among others, to Thurlow and to Colman. His feelings were evi- dently ii-ritated, when months elapsed, and he received no reply from either. As for the critics, their verdict was a divided one. But the poet had now tried his pinions, and a second flight was soon taken. In the following spring Lady Austen pressed him to try his powers in blank vei-se. He pleaded the want of a subject. " Oh ! " she exclaimed, " you can never be in want of a subject ; you can write upon any — write upon this Sofa." The lively suggestion was taken, and Cowper began, in 1783, The I'usic, — " the work which made him the most popular poet of his age, and raised him to a rank in English poetiy," says Southey, " from which no revolution of taste can de- trude him." * June 12, 1782. 108 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. This frieudship, however, which had given rise to, did not endure long enough to witness the completion of. The Task. In the next year, 1784, the intimacy with Lady Austen ceased. Co\\'i)er writes to Mr. Unwin as follows : — " You are going to Bristol. A lady, not long since our very near neighbour, is probably there ; she was there very lately. If you should chance to fall into lier company, remember, if you please, that we found the connexion, on some accounts, an inconvenient one ; that we do not wish to renew it ; and conduct yourself accordingly. A cha- racter with which we spend aU our time should be made on purpose for us : too much or too httle of any single in- gredient spoils all. In the instance in question, the dis- simihtude was too great not to be felt continually, and consequently made our intercourse unpleasant. AVe have reason, however, to believe that she has given up all thoughts of a return to Olney." Many conjectures have been hazarded as to the cause of the cessation of this seemingly warm and cordial friend- ship, and secret reasons have been surmised. We appre- hend that there was nothing more in the case than that which meets the eye. Mrs. Unwin had for twenty years devoted herself to the care of Cowper ; had watched over him w4th a maternal solicitude, and hoped for no return but that of being first among his earthly friends. The near proximity and close intimacy of a younger and more fascinating woman, although pleasing for the time, must have produced luomeuts when the aged and tried friend perceived herself eclipsed by the new-comer. Uneasy feel- ings, leading to sadness, would thus be generated in the mind of that admirable person, to w^hom Cowper owed more than to any other human being. He could not be blind to this, nor could he hesitate as to the path of duty. He wrote a farewell letter to Lady Austen, explaining and lamenting the circumstances which led to the resolution he had formed. This letter Lady A., in a moment of vexation, destroyed ; but any man of delicate feelings can trace for himself its outlines. Nor should we overlook the further grounds which Cow- per himself describes for this discontinuance of the acquaint- HIS POEMS. 109 ancc. Although L.ady Austen was an agreeable woman, and a passionate admirer of the poet, yet her whole cha- racter and tone of mind differed in many points of first-rate importance from those of Cowper and his dearest friends. There can be no doubt that his heart and conscience told him, that in the brilliant and f;iscinating conversation of this lady of fashion there was much that was unsafe, if not positively wrong. Other motives have been surmised, for which no basis of facts can be adduced. It has been said that Lady Austen desired a still nearer connexion than that of friend- ship. It has also been said that an engagement actually subsisted between Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, though his mental illnesses prevented its fulfilment. But no proof can be adduced in support of either of these surmises. That such an engagement as that with ^Mrs. Unwin should have existed for more than twenty years, and that no kind of allusion should ever have been made to it in any of the hundreds of letters written to Mr. Newton and to IMrs. Unwin's son, is in the highest degree improbable. jSTor could such a position of affairs have escaped the scruti- nizing eye of Lady Hesketh, who thus describes ]\[rs. Unwin in one of her letters to her sister Theodora : — " She is very far from grave ; on the contrary, she is cheerful and gay, and laughs de bon cceur upon the smallest provocation. Amidst all the little puritanical words which fall from her de terns en terns, she seems to have by nature a great fund of gaiety : — great indeed must it have been, not to have been totally overcome by the close confinement in which she has hved, and the anxiety she must have undergone for one whom she certainly loves as well as one human being can love another. I will not say she idolizes him, because that she would think wrong ; but she cer- tainly seems to possess the truest regard and afiection for this excellent creature, and, as I before said, has, in the most hteral sense of those words, no will, or shadow of inclination, but what is his. My account of Mrs. Unwin may seem, perhaps, to you, on comparing my letters, con- tradictory ; but when you consider that I began to wi*ite at the moment, and at the first moment that I saw her, 110 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. you will not wonder. Her character developes itself by degrees ; and though I might lead you to suppose her grave and melancholy, she is not so by any means. When she speaks upon grave subjects, she does express herself with a puritanical tone, and in puritanical expressions, but on all other subjects she seems to have a great disposition to cheerfulness and mirth ; and, indeed, had she not, she could not have gone through all she has. I must say, too, that she seems to be very well read in the Enghsh poets, as appears by several httle quotations which she makes from time to time, and has a true taste for what is excel- lent in that way. There is something truly affectionate and sincere in her manner. No one can express more heartily than she does her joy to have me at Olney ; and as this must be for his sake, it is an additional proof of her regard and esteem for him." Such was the state of things at Olney in 1784-85. Still, though Lady Austen departed, The Task which she had imposed uiaon the poet was performed. The work proceeded without delay, while its originator had passed to other chmes. In October 1784 it was offered to Johnson, and accepted. In the spring of 1785 it came forth, to exercise, probably, as powerful an influence on the English mind as any volume that ever appeared in that language. The Task became a general favourite, even before the re- views could pronounce a f;ivourable verdict ; and the former volume, hitherto of moderate sale, was floated down the rapid current caused by the popularity of its suc- cessor. New echtions of both volumes were quickly called for, and from that day to the present, the printing-presses of Great Britain have seldom rested from the labour of producing innumerable copies of " CcnTER's Poems." RENEWED rSITERCOURSE WITH HIS F^VJIILY. Ill VI. EENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. A.D. 1785—1786. One very natural consequence of Cowper's altered position, and of his favourable reception by the public, was the re- opening of an intercourse with his own family. We have seen that Lady Heskcth, his old ijlaymate in Southampton Row, had discontinued her correspondence in 1767 ; partly from absence from England, but partly, no doubt, from a want of sympathy with the religious tone of the poet's letters. His other relatives — Mr. Ashley Cowper, General Cowper, and a few more, — continued to afford him, through Mr. Hill, a small annual income ; but, doubtless, believed that "much religion had made him mad." And the apparent alienation was mutual. Cowper, wi'iting to Mr. Un-svin at this period, says, — " I have had more comfort, far more comfort, in the connexions that I have formed within the last twenty years, than in the more numerous ones that I had before. Memorandiim. — The latter are almost all Unwins, or Unwinisms." And thus, as his relatives did not maintain any intercourse with him, so neither did he seek any with them. Yet no one's heart was ever more formed for friendship. It was necessary to his very existence. With what pleasure, then, must he have received, after a silence of eighteen years, a letter from his cousin Harriet — now a widow — Lady Hesketh. No doubt his volumes, which were be- coming the town-talk, showed her, by their varied character and depth of feeling, that ho was fully worthy of an effort directed to the restoration of their former friendship. His reply eagerly reciprocated her feelings. He writes : — 112 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. " Olney, Oct. 12, 1785. "My dear Cousin, — It is no new tiling with you to give pleasure ; but I will venture to say, that you do not often give more than you gave me this morning. When I came down to breakfast, and found upon the table a letter franked by my uncle, and, when, on opening that fi-ank, I found that it contained a letter from you, I said within myself, ' This is just as it should be. We are all grown voung again, and the days that I thought I should see no more are actually returned.' You perceive, there- fore, that you judged well when you conjectured that a line from you would not be disagreeable to me. It could not be otherwise than, as in fact it proved, a most agree- able surprise ; for I can truly boast of an affection for you that neither years, nor interrupted intercourse, have at aU abated. I need only recollect how much I valued you once, and with how much cause, immediately to feel a revival of the same value ; if that can be said to revive which, at the most, has only been dormant for want of employment, biit I slander it when I say that it has slept. A thousand times have I recollected a thousand scenes, in which our two selves have formed the whole of the drama, with the greatest pleasure ; at times, too, when I had no reason to suppose that I .should ever hear from you again. I have laughed with you at the xirahian Nights^ Entertain- ment, which afforded u.s, as you well know, a fund of merri- ment that deserves never to be forgot. I have walked with you to Netley Abbey, and have scrambled with yon over hedges in every direction ; and many other feats we have performed together, upon the field of my remem- brance, and all within these few years. Should I say within this twelvemonth, I should not transgress the truth. The hours that I have spent with you were among the plea- santest of my former days, and are, therefore, chronicled in my mind so deeply as to feel no erasure. Neither do I forget my poor friend Sir Thomas. I should remember him, indeed, at any rate, on account of his personal kind- ness to myself ; but the last testimony that he gave of his regard for you endears him to me still more. With his uncommon understanding (for with many peculiarities he REXEWED rXTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAiin.Y. 113 had more sense than any of his acquaintance), and with his generous sensibihties, it was hardly possible that he should not distinguish you as he has done. As it was the last, so it was the best proof that he could give of a judg- ment that never deceived him, when he would allow him- self leisure to consult it. " You say that you have often heard of me ; that puzzles me. I cannot imagine from what quarter, but it is uo matter. I must tell you, however, my cousin, that your information has been a little defective. That I am happy in my situation, is true ; I live, and have lived these twenty years, with Mrs. Unwin, to whose affectionate care of me, during the far gi-eater part of that time, it is, under Provi- dence, o%\ang that I live at all. But I do not account myself happy in having been for thirteen of those years in a state of mind that has made all that care and atten- tion necessary ; an attention and a care that have injured her health, and which, had she not been uncommonly sup- ported, must have brought her to the grave. But I will pass to another subject ; it would be cruel to particularise only to give pain, neither would I, by any means, give a sable hue to the first letter of a correspondence so unex- pectedly renewed. " I am delighted with what you tell me of my uncle's good health. To enjoy any measure of cheerfulness at so late a day is much ; but to have that late day enlivened with the vivacity of youth is much more, and, in these postdiluvian times, a rarity indeed. Happy, for the most part, are parents who have daughters. Daughters are not apt to outlive their natural affections, which a son has generally suiwived, even before his boyish years are ex- pired. I rejoice particularly in my uncle's felicity, who has three female descendants from his little person, who leave him nothing to wish for upon that head. "My dear cousin, dejection of spirits, which, I suppose, may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made me one. I find constant employment necessary, and, therefore, take care to be constantly employed. Manual occupations do not engage the mind sufiiciently, as I know by experience, having tried many. But composition, espe- I 114 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. cially of verse, absorbs it wholly. I write, therefore, gene- rally, three hours in a morning, and in an evening I transcribe. I read, also, but less than I write ; for I must have bodily exercise, and, therefore, never pass a day without it. " You ask me where I have been this summer. I answer, at Olney. Should you ask me where I spent the last seventeen summers, I should still answer, at Olney. Aye, and the winters also ; I have seldom left it, and, except when I attended my brother in his last illness, never, I believe, for a fortnight together. " Adieu, my beloved cousin ; I shall not always be thus nimble in reply, but shall always have great pleasure in answering you when I can. " Yours, my dear friend and cousin, "W. C." In another letter Lady Hesketh inquired into the state of his finances, apprehending that his income must needs be a straitened one, and oftering him such assistance as she was able to afford. He replied thus : — " Olney, Nov. 9, 1785. "My dearest Cousin, — Whose last most affectionate letter has run in my head ever since I received it, and which I now sit down to answer two days sooner than the post will serve me ; I thank you for it, and with a warmth for which I am sure you will give me credit, though I do not spend many words in describing it. I do not seek new friends, not being altogether sure that I should find them, but have unspeakable pleasure in being still beloved by an old one. I hope that now our correspondence has suffered its last interruption, and that we shall go down together to the grave, chatting and chirping as merrily as such a scene of things as this will permit. " I am happy that my poems have pleased you. My volume has afforded me no such pleasure at any time, either while I was writing it, or since its publication, as I have derived from yours and my uncle's opinion of it. I make certain allowances for partiality, and for that pecu- RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 115 liar quickness of taste with which you both relish what you like, and, after all drawbacks upon those accounts duly made, find myself rich in the measure of your appro- bation that still remains. But, above all, I honour John Gilpin, since it was he who first encouraged you to write. I made him on puri)ose to laugh at, and he served his purpose well ; but I am now in debt to him for a more valuable acquisition than all the laughter in the world amounts to, — the recovery of my intercourse with you, which is to me inestimable. My benevolent and generous cousin, when I was once asked if I wanted anything, and given delicately to understand that the inquirer was ready to supply all my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, declined the favour. I neither suffer, nor have suffered, any such inconveniences as I had not much rather endure than come under obligations of that sort to a person comparatively with yourself a stranger to me. But to you I answer otherwise. I know you thoi-oughly, and the li- berality of your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To yoUj therefore, I reply, Yes. Whensoever, and whatsoevei', and in what manner soever you please ; and add, moreover, that my affection for the giver is such as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction that I shall have in receiving. It is necessary, however, that I should let you a little into the state of my finances, that you may not suppose them more narrowly circumscribed than they are. Since Mrs. Unwin and I have lived at Olney we have had but one purse, although during the whole of that time, till lately, her income was nearly double mine. Her revenues, indeed, are now in some measure reduced, and do not much exceed my own ; the worst consequence of this is, that we are forced to deny ourselves some things which hitherto we have been better able to afford, but they are such things as neither hfe, nor the well-being of life, depend upon. My own income has been better than it is ; but when it was best, it would not have enabled me to live as my connexions demanded that I should, had it not been combined with a 116 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. better than itself, at least at this end of the kingdom. Of this I had full proof during three months that I spent in lodgings at Huntingdon ; in which time, by the help of good management, and a clear notion of economical mat- ters, I contrived to spend the income of a twelvemonth. Now, my beloved cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as it stands. Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there is no need of it ; but indulge yourself in communicating (no matter what) that you can spare without missing it, since by so doing you will be sure to add to the comforts of my hfe one of the sweetest that I can enjoy — a token and proof of your affection. " I cannot believe but that I should know you, notwith- standing all that time may have done ; there is not a feature of your face, could I meet it upon the road by itself, that I should not instantly recollect. I should say, That is my cousin's nose, or those are her hps and her chin, and no woman vipon earth can claim them but her- self. As for me, I am a very smart youth of my years ; I am not, indeed, gi'own grey, so much as I am grown bald. No matter : there was more hair in the world than ever had the honour to belong to me ; accordingly, having found just enough to curl a little at my ears, and to inter- mix with a little of my own that still hangs behind, I appear, if you see me of an afternoon, to have a very decent head-dress, not easily distinguished from my natural growth, which being worn with a smaU bag, and a black riband about my neck, continues to me the charms of my youth, even on the verge of age. Away with the fear of writing too often ! "W. C. «P.S. — That the view I give you of myself may be complete, I add the two following items — That I am in debt to nobody, and that I grow fat." The ice having been thus broken, the two cousins became frequent correspondents, and other members of the family followed Lady Heskcth's example. General Cowper ten- RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 117 dered counsel as to tlie projected translation of Homer ; and even promised a visit to Olncy, which his infirmities, however, prevented. A minor circumstance throws hght upon the past years of silence and distance. Lady Hesketh gave Cowper a hint to be careful of obtruding religious conversation on the General in his expected visit to Olney. Cowper replies as follows : — " As to the affair of religious conversation, fear me not, lest I should trespass upon his peace in that way. Your views, my dear, upon the subject of a proper conduct in that particular, are mine also. When I left St. Alban's, I Icffit under impressions of the existence of a God, and of the truth of scripture, that I had never felt before. I had unspeakable delight in the discovery, and was impatient to communicate a pleasure to others that I found so superior to everything that bears the name. This eagerness of spirit, natural to persons newly informed, and the less to be wondered at in me, who had just emerged from the horrors of despair, made me imprudent, and, I doubt not, troublesome to many. Forgetting that I had not those blessings at my command which it is God's peculiar prero- gative to impart, — spiritual light and affections, I required in effect of all with whom I conversed, that they should see with my eyes ; and stood amazed that the Gospel, which with me was all in all, should meet with opposition, or should occasion disgust in any. But the Gospel could not be the word of God if it did not ; for it foretells its own reception among men, and describes it as exactly such. Good is intended, but harm is done, too often, by the zeal with which I was at that time animated. But, as in affairs of this life, so in religious concerns likewise, experience begets some wisdom in all who are not incapable of being taught. I do not now, neither have I for a long time, made it my practice to force the subject of evangelical truth on any. I received it not from man myself, neither can any man receive it from me. God is light, and from him all light must come ; to his teaching, therefore, I leave those whom I was once so alert to instruct myself. If a man asks my opinion, or calls for an account of my faith, he shall have it ; otherwise I trouble him not. Pulpits for 118 LIFE OF ■^ILLIAJVI COWPER. preaching ; and the parlour, the garden, and the walk abroad for friendly and agreeable conversation." This change in the poet's habits and mode of thinking naturally pleases Southey. "We shall pronounce no opinion on the matter, but shaU merely offer one remark. When at Huntingdon, in full possession of his senses, and rejoicing in the light of God's countenance, he could not write to his dearest friends. Lady Hesketh and Mr. Hill, without " communicating the pleasure which he felt," and wishing them "to see with his eyes." After- wards, at Olney, as he teUs us above, his views and his practice wei'e wholly changed. But it should be remem- bered that this change took place when his own views as to himself were wholly changed also, — when he groaned under the mental delusion that he was an unpardoned sinner, and that his end must be perdition. Whether his judgment while in the latter state can reasonably be pre- ferred to his judgment while in the former, we shall leave to our readers to decide. But another correspondent now appeared, and one of a peculiar character. Just at this 2^enod, when, through Lady Hesketh, other relatives coiUd hear of his state and of his circumstances, letters reached him from an anonymous cor- respondent, who spoke of " having been lately present in a company where his intended publication (of Homer) was mentioned ;" and this, as his intentions were not yet pub- licly announced, must have been a circle of his own relatives and connexions. " Anonymous" then went on to say, that " when shut up in his chamber an apprehension seized him, that the work might fall short of its expected success, and that the mortification might affect his health." Pro- ceeding to ofler motives for encouragement, the writer ended by " lamenting the poet's narrow circumstances, and pre- senting him with an annuity of 5(¥., wishing it were 500Z." And if any doubt could exist as to this anonymous correspondent, that doubt must be dispelled ; for soon after followed various packets, each containing, as Southey remarks, some " womanly present." To Lady Hesketh, Cowper acknowledges one of these packages, saying, — " It is very pleasant, my dearest cousin, to receive a RENEWED rNTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 119 present so delicately conveyed as that which I received so lately from 'Anonymous;' but it is also very painful to have nobody to thank for it. I find myself, therefore, driven by stress of necessity to the following resolution, viz. that I will constitute you my Thanks-receiver-general for whatsoever gift I shall receive hereafter, as well as for those that I have already received from a nameless bene- factor. I therefore thank you, my cousin, for a most elegant present, including the most elegant compliment that ever poet was honoured with ; for a snufi'-box of tortoise-shell, with a beautiful landscape on the lid of it, glazed with crystal, having the figures of three hares in the foreground, and inscribed above with these words — The Peasant's Nest, and below with these — Tiney, Ptcss, and Bess. For all and every of these I thank you, and also for standing proxy on this occasion. Nor must I forget to thank you that, so soon after that I sent you the first letter of Anonymous, I received another in the same hand. — There ! Now I am a little easier." StiU fui-ther demonstration was given on another occa- sion, when " Anonymous," in a letter, alluded to a httle piece entitled " The Drop of Ink," of which Cowper re- marks — " The only copy I ever gave of that piece, I gave to yourself (Lady Hesketh). It is possible, therefore, that between you and Anonymous there may be some com- munication." It is curious to see how, in all these communications to Lady Hesketh, the name of her sister is never mentioned, or in the slightest degree alluded to. Yet, as Southey remarks, " who but Theodora could it have been, who was thus intimate with Lady Hesketh, and felt tiiis deep and lively regard for Cowper ? " Lady Hesketh herself had frankly offered her purse, and her offer, as we have seen, had been willingly embraced by Cow]^)er. His relatives in town, without concealment and without ostentation, made up for him an annual in- come. Mere friends often, without any shyness or prudery, sometimes made him presents. But icho, except Theodora, could have felt so deep and constant an interest in him, and yet have felt obliged to use a mask ] 120 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Yet Theodora could not but use a mask. Though the cousins were now both in middle age, and had not met for nearly thirty years, still natural feeling would not allow a woman avowedly to seek a man who did not seek her. To indulge her inmost feeling, therefore, she must of necessity shroud herself from sight. As to Cowper, while his studied avoidance of all allusion to his once-loved cousin shows of itself his perfect con- sciousness of the source whence these gifts came, it is quite clear that he could not possibly take any other course than that which he did take. Had he lifted the veil — had he even hinted a suspicion that Theodora was the bene- factor — the natural feeling of a man would have forced him to decline these gifts. But how could he do tliis 1 — how could he inflict the deepest of all wounds on a heart whose sorrows must have penetrated his own ? What could he do, but feign wonderment and an ignorant curiosity, and to beg Lady Hesketh, at one time, " to signify the safe arrival of a most acceptable present, and my most grateful sense of it ; " and at another, " to make my acknowledgments of gi-atitude and love ? " And here we close this little "romance of domestic life." The cousins never met, — never had any other inter- course than that which we have described above. Miss Cowper long survived the object of her ceaseless attach- ment ; djdng, at a very advanced age, at Richmond, in Surrey, and being inten-ed in the quiet little church of Petei'sham, in the year 1824. Her long-cherished relics of her youthful admirer she had committed to the care of the daughter of her sister, Lady Croft, a year or two before her decease. But now commences a new stage in the poet's life. We have seen him recovered from the depths of insanity, and placed, for a few years, in circumstances peculiarly favourable to his spiritual peace and earthly comfort. But, after a short space of time, he is permitted once more to fall under the dominion of mental disease, and to be- come subject to a delusion from which he never again becomes entirely free. REXEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 121 The Tempter impresses strongly upon his mind the conviction that he has sinned the unpardonable sin, and is now finally sentenced to everlasting perdition. All reason- ing is rendered futile by the artful plea, that " his is a special case, and that the general laws of the universe, and the various invitations of the Gospel, have no bearing upon his circumstances." Then follow the natural conse- quences of such a temptation. He holds himself unworthy to approach God, and as prohibited from the very attempt. Prayer, whether in pubUc or private, is held to be forbidden to him. " Even at table," says Mr. Bull, " when a blessing was asked, he would sit down, denoting that he could not ask a blessing." Thus all communication between God and his soul, of the ordinary kind, was terminated ; and it only remained for his Saviour to break these fearful chains, if he pleased, in this life, — if not, in the life to come. It does not appear that this delusion of Satan was destroyed in this life. From his forty-second year till his seventieth he seems to have remained in this bondage. Why this was so, none in this life can tell. The Ruler of all things " giveth no account of any of his matters." Why one Christian is left to groan in agony for years together, on a bed of hopeless suffering ; or why another is cast down from comfort or opulence to poverty and wretched- ness, we know not. But " the Day shall declare it." At present it is night over our globe, and we see only " through a glass, darkly P Many things, the form and reality of which we cannot now understand, will then be seen in their true hght. Meanwhile we need not wonder greatly at Cowper's sufferings, " as though some strange thing had happened unto him ;" for " the cave of Giant Despair" lies hard by the road to the heavenly city, and many Christians fall into the monster's hands. The same cala- mity does not befal the devotee of this world, for he enters not even on the first steps of that road which leads near the giant's demesne. "They are not plagued like other men ;" " there are no bands in their death ;" against them Satan shoots no such arrows. But while Cowper thus remained under this fearful 122 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. delusion for almost thirty years, there were various stages and degrees of severity in the affliction. At the worst, it was "horror and despair." But this was only for short l^eriods — a few months at a time, in 1773, in 1787, and in 1794. At other times he could be cheerful, — could enjoy the society of Lady Austen, of Lady Hesketh, and of his neighbours the Throckmortons, and give no sign, by word or action, of the despondency that reigned within. The intercourse with his cousin Harriet having been renewed, it soon became one main object with him to draw her to Oluey. This he accomplished in the following year. In May, 1786, he writes to her : — " Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that both for your sake, since you make a point of it, and for my own, I will be as j)hilosophically careful as possible, that these fine nerves of mine shall not be beyond measure agitated when you arrive. In truth, there is much greater proba- biUty that they will be benefited, and greatly, too. Joy of heart, from whatever occasion it may arise, is the best of all nervous medicines ; and T should not wonder if such a turn given to my spirits should have even a lasting effect of the most advantageous kind upon them. You must not imagine, either, that I am, on the whole, in any great degree subject to nervous affections. Occasionally I am, and have been these many years, much liable to dejection ; but at intervals, and sometimes for an interval of weeks, no crea- ture would suspect it. For I have not that which com- monly is a symptom of such a case, belonging to me, — I mean, extraordinary elevation in the absence of Mr. Blue- devil. When I am in the best health, my tide of animal sprightliness flows with great equality ; so that I am never, at any time, exalted in proportion as I am some- times depressed. My depression has a cause, and if that cause were to cease, I should be as cheerful thenceforth — and, perhaps, for ever — as any man need be. But, as I have often said, Mrs. Unwin shall be my expositor. " Adieu, my beloved cousin. God grant that our friend- ship, which, while we could see each other, never suffered a moment's interruption, and which so long a separation has not in the least abated, may glow in us to our last RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FASHLY. 123 hour, and be renewed in a better world, there to be per- petuated for ever. " For you must know, that I should not love you half so well, if I did not believe you would be my friend to eternity, There is not roona enough for friendship to unfold itself in full bloom in such a nook of life as this. Thei'ofore I am, and must, and will be, " Yours for ever, "W. C." "When this passage was written, it is evident that his mind was not under the power of that idea which charac- terised his insanity. And at this time, even in his darker moods, he spoke of his own state hopefully : — " I have made your heart ache too often," said he, " my poor, dear cousin, with talking about my fits of dejection. Something has happened that has led me to the subject, or I would have mentioned them more sparingly. Do not suppose, or suspect, that I treat you with reserve ; there is nothing in which I am concerned that you shall not be made acquainted with : but the tale is too long for a letter. I wiU only add, for your present satisfaction, that the cause is not exterior, that it is not within the reach of human aid, and that yet I have a hope myself, and Mrs. Unwin a strong persuasion, of its removal. I am, indeed, even now, and have been for a considerable time, sensible of a change for the better, and expect, with good reason, a comfortable lift from you. Guess then, my beloved cousin, with what wishes I look forward to the time of your arrival, from whose coming I promise myself, not only pleasure, but peace of mind, — at least, an additional share of it. At present it is an uncertain and transient guest with me, but the joy with which I shall see and converse with you at Olney, may, perhaps, make it an abiding one." We must not, however, leave the portrait unfinished, by neglecting to give the reader a letter, wa-itten about the same period, to another friend, Mr. Newton, to whom Cowjier could more fvdly explain his inmost feelings. To Mr. N. he writes thus : — 124 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. " Olney, 3Iay 20, 1786. " My clear Friend, — Within this hour arrived three sets of your new publication, for which we sincerely thank you. We have breakfasted since they came, and consequently, as you may suppose, have neither of us had yet an opportu- nity to make ourselves acquainted with the contents. I shall be happy (and when I say that, I mean to be under- stood in the fullest and most emphatical sense of the word) if my frame of mind shall be such as may permit me to study them. But Adam's approach to the tree of life, after he had sinned, was not more effectually prohibited by the flaming sword that turned every way, than mine to its great Antitype has been now almost these thirteen years ; a short interval of three or four days, which passed about this time twelvemonth, alone excepted. For what reason it is that I am thus long excluded, if I am ever again to be admitted, is known to God only. I can say but this : that if he is still my Father, this paternal severity has toward me been such as that I have reason to account it unex- ampled. For though others have suffered desertion, yet few, I believe, for so long a time, and perhaps none a desertion accompanied with such experiences. But they have this belonging to them, that, as they are not fit for recital, being made up merely of infernal iugi-edients, so neither are they susceptible of it ; for I know no language in which they could be expressed. They are as truly things which it is not possible for man to utter, as those were which Paul heard and saw in the third heaven. If the ladder of Christian experience reaches, as I suppose it does, to the very presence of God, it has, nevertheless, its foot in the abyss. And if Paul stood, as no doubt he did, in that experience of his to which I have just alluded, on the top- most round of it, I have been standing, and still stand, on the lowest, in this thirteenth year that has passed since I descended. In such a situation of mind, encompassed by the midnight of absolute despair, and a thousand times filled with unspeakable horror, I first commenced an author. Distress drove me to it, and the impossibility of subsisting without some emjiloyment still recommends it. I am not, indeed, so perfectly hopeless as I was; but I am RE^'EWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAiHLT. 125 equally in need of an occupation, being often as much, and sometimes even more, worried than ever. I cannot amuse myself as I once could, with carpenters' or with gardeners' tools, or with squirrels and guinea-pigs. At that time I was a child. But since it has pleased God, whatever else he withholds, to restore to me a man's mind, I have put away childish things. Thus far, therefore, it is plain that I have not chosen or prescribed to myself my own way, but have been providentially led to it ; perhaps I might say, wnth equal propriety, compelled and scourged into it : for certainly, could I have made my choice, or were I per- mitted to make it even now, those hours which I spend in poetry I would spend \vith God. But it is evidently his will that I should spend them as I do, because every other way of employing them he himself continues to make im- possible. If, in the course of such an occupation, or by inevitable consequence of it, either my former connexions are revived or new ones occur, these things are as much a part of the dispensation as the leading points of it them- selves ; the effect as much as the cause. If his purposes in thus directing me are gracious, he will take care to prove them such in the issue ; and in the meantime will preserve me (for he is able to do that in one condition of life as in another) from all mistakes in conduct that might prove pernicious to myself, or give reasonable offence to others. I can say it as truly as it was ever spoken — ' Here I am : let him do with me as seemeth him good.' "At present, however, I have no connexions at which either you, I trust, or any who love me and wish me well, have occasion to conceive alarm. Much kindness, indeed, I have experienced at the hands of several, some of them near relations, others not related to me at all; but I do not know that there is among them a single person from whom I am likely to catch contamination. I can say of them all, with more truth than Jacob uttered when he called kid venison, ' The Lord thy God brought them unto me.' I could show you among them two men, whose lives, though they have but httle of what we call evangelical light, are ornaments to a Christian country ; men who fear God more than some who even profess to love him. But I 126 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. will not particularise fai'ther on sucli a subject. Be they what they may, our situations are so distant, and we are likely to meet so seldom, that were they, as they are not, persons of even exceptionable manners, their manners would have little to do with me. We correspond at present only on the subject of what passed at Troy three thousand years ago ; and they are matters that, if they can do no good, will, at least, hurt nobody. " Your friendship for me, and the proof that I see of it in your friendly concern for my welfare on this occasion, demanded that I should be expUcit. Assure yourself that I love and honour you, as upon all accounts, so especially for the interest that you take, and have ever taken, in my welfare, most sincerely. I wish you all happiness in your new abode, all possible success in your ministry, and much fruit of your newly-published labours, and am, with Mrs. Unwin's love to yourself and Mrs. Newton, " Most affectionately yours, " My dear friend, "W. C." Lady Hesketh arrived at Olney about the middle of June. "I am fond of the sound of bells," says Cowper, "but was never more pleased with those of Olney, than when they rang her into her new habitation. It is a compli- ment that our performers upon those instruments have never paid to any other personage (Lord Dartmouth ex- cepted) since we knew the town. In short, she is, as she ever was, my pride and my joy, and I am delighted at everything that means to do her honour. Her first ap- pearance was too nuich for me ; my spirits, instead of being greatly raised, as I had inadvertently supposed they would be, broke down with me, under the pressure of too much joy, and left me flat — or, rather, melancholy — through- out the day, to a degree that was mortifying to myself, and alarming to her. But I have made amends for this failure since, and, in point of cheerfulness, have far exceeded her expectations, for she knew that sable had been my suit for many years." RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 127 To Hill he said that his dear cousin's arrival had made them happier than they ever were before at Olney, and that her company was a cordial of which he should feel the effect, not only while she remained there, but as long as he lived. He wrote cheerfully, also, to Mr. Newton : — " It was an observation," said he, " of a sensible man whom I knew well in ancient days (I mean when I was very young), that people are never in reality happy when they boast much of being so. I feel myself, accordingly, well content to say, without any enlargement on the sub- ject, that an inquirer after happiness might travel far, and not find a happier trio than meet every day either in our I^arlour, or in the parlour of the vicarage. I wiU not say that mine is not occasionally somewhat dashed with the sable hue of those notions concerning myself and my situation that have occupied — or, rather, possessed — me so long ; but, on the other hand, I can also affirm that my cousin's affectionate behaviour to us both, the sweetness of her tempei-, and the sprightliuess of her conversation, re- lieve me in no small degree from the presence of them." Once more in the society of her cousin, whom she had not seen for twenty-three years, it was natural that Lady Hesketh should give her sister Theodora some account of his circumstances, condition, and employments. A frag- ment of one or two of these letters has been presei-ved, and we shall here introduce them : — " He delights in the place, and likes the inhabitants much ; and as they would greatly relieve the cruel solitude he lives in, I wish he could, with ease to himself, see as much of them as possible, for I am sure a little variety of company and a little cheerful society is necessary to him. j\rrs. Unwin seems quite to think so, and expresses the gi-eatest satisfaction that he has within the last year con- sented to mix a little more with human creatures. As to her, she does seem in real truth to have no will left on earth but for his good, and literally no will but his. How she has supported herself (as she has done !), the constant attendance day and night, which she has gone through for the last thii'teen years, is to me, I confess, incredible. And in justice to her, I must say, she does it all with an ease 128 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. that relieves you from any idea of its being a state of suffering. She speaks of him in the highest terms ; and by her astonishing management, he is never mentioned in Olney but with the highest respect and veneration." " Our friend," says Lady Hesketh in another fragment, " delights in a large table and a large chair. There are two of the latter comforts in my parlour. I am sorry to say, that he and I always spread ourselves out on them, leaving poor Mrs. Unwin to find all the comfort she can in a small one, half as high again as ours, and considerably harder than marble. However, she protests it is what she likes, that she prefers a high chair to a low one, and a hard to a soft one ; and I hope she is sincere : indeed, I am per- suaded she is. Her constant employment is knitting stockings, which she does with the finest needles I ever saw ; and very nice they are, — the stockings, I mean. Our cousin has not for many years worn any other than those of her manufacture. She knits silk, cotton, and worsted. She sits knitting on one side of the table in her spectacles and he on the other reading to her (when he is not em- ployed in wi-iting) in his. In winter, his morning studies are always carried on in a room by himself; but as his evenings are spent in the winter in transcribing, he usually, I find, does them vis-d-vis Mrs. Unwin. At this time of the year he writes always in the morning, in what he calls his boudoir; this is in the garden: it has a door and a window ; just holds a small table with a desk and two chairs ; but though there are two chairs, and two persons might be contained therein, it would be with a degree of difficulty. For this cause, — as I make a point of not disturbing a poet in his retreat, I go not there.'' Lady Hesketh was not slow in discovering the faults and discomforts of Cowper's abode in the middle of the town of Olney, and she soon determined on removing him to a more suitable residence. This presented itself in the neighbouring village of Weston, where the vicarage, a pleasant abode, happened to be vacant. On this subject Cowpcr thus writes to his friend Unwin : — RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 129 " Olneji, .hihj 3, 1786. " My dear William — After a long silence I begin again. A day given to my friends is a day taken from Homer, but to such an interruption now and then occurring I have no objection. Lady Hesketh is, as you observe, arrived, and has been with us nearly a fortnight. She pleases everybody, and is pleased, in her turn, with everything she finds at Olney; is always cheerful and sweet-tempered, and knows no pleasure equal to that of communicating pleasure to us and to all around her. This disposition in her is the more comfortiible, because it is not the humour of the day ; a sudden Hash of benevolence and good spirits occasioned merely by a change of scene, but it is her natural turn, and has governed all her conduct ever since I knew her first. We are consequently happy in her society, and shall be happier still to have you partake with us in our joy. ***** " And now I shall communicate news that will give you pleasure. When you first contemplated the front of our abode, you were shocked. In your eyes it had the ap- pearance of a prison, and you sighed at the thought that your mother lived in it. Your view of it was not only just ])ut prophetic. It had not only the aspect of a place built for the purposes of incarceration, but has actually served that purpose through a long, long period, and we have been the prisoners. But a gaol-delivery is at hand. The bolts and bars are to be loosed, and we shall escape. A very dif- ferent mansion, both in point of ajipearance and accommo- dation, expects us, and the expense of living in it is not greater than we are subjected. to in this. It is situated at Weston, one of the prettiest villages in England, and be- longs to Mr. Throckmorton. AVe all three dine with him tc-day by invitation, and shall survey it in the afternoon, point out the necessary repairs, and finally adjust the treaty. I have my cousin's promise that she will never let another year pass without a visit to us, and the house is large enough to take us and our suite, and her also, with as many of hers as she shall choose to bring. The change will, I hope, prove advantageous both to your mother and mc in all respects. Here we have no neighbourhood, there K 130 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. we shall have most agreeable neighbours in the Throck- mortons. Here we have a bad air in winter, impregnated with the fishy-smelling fumes of the marsh miasma ; there we shall breathe in an atmosphere untainted. Here we are confined from September to March, and sometimes longer ; there we shall be upon the very verge of pleasure-grounds in which we can always ramble, and sliall not wade through almost impassable dirt to get at them. Both your mothei-'s constitution and mine have suffered materially by such close and long confinement ; and it is high time, unless we intend to retreat into the grave, that we should seek out a more wholesome residence. So far is well, the rest is left to Heaven. " Yours ever, " W. C." To Mr. Newton he makes known his purpose in the fol- lowing letter : — " Avg. .5, 1786. " My dear Friend, — You have heard of our intended removal. The house that is to receive us is in a state of preparation, and, when finished, will be both smarter and more commodious than our present abode. But the cir- cumstance that recommends it chiefly is its situation. Long confinement in the winter, and indeed for the most part in the autumn too, has hurt us both. A gravel-walk, thirty yards long, affords but indifferent scope to the loco- motive faculty ; yet it is all that we have had to move in for eight months in the year, during thirteen years that I have been a prisoner. Had I been confined in the Tower, the battlements of it would have furnished me with a larger space. You say well, that there was a time when I was happy at Olney ; and I am now as happy at Olney as I expect to be anywhere without the presence of God. Change of situation is with me no otherwise an object, than as both Mrs. Un win's health and mine may happen to be concerned in it. A fever of the slow and spirit- oppressing kind seems to belong to all, except the natives, who have dwelt in Olney many years ; and the natives have putrid fevers. Both they and we, I believe, are imme- RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 131 (liately indebted for our respective maladies to an atmo- sphere encumbered with raw vapours issuing from flooded meadows : and we in particular, perhaps, have fared the worse, for sitting so often, and sometimes for months, over a cellar filled with water. These ills we shall escape in the uplands : and as we may reasonably hope, of course, their consequences. But as for happiness, he that has once had communion with his Maker must be more frantic than I ever was yet, if he can dream of finding it at a distance from Him. I no more expect happiness at Weston than here, or than I should expect it in company with felons and outlaws in the hold of a ballast-lighter. Animal spirits, however, have their value, and are especially desirable to him who is condemned to carry a burthen, which at any rate will tire him, but which, without their aid, cannot fail to crush him. The dealings of God with me are to myself utterly unintelligible. I have never met, either in books or in conversation, with an experience at all similar to my own. More than a twelvemonth has passed since I began to hope that, having walked the whole breadth of the bottom of this Red Sea, I was beginning to climb the ojjposite shore ; and I jirepared to sing the song of Moses. But I have been disapi^ointed : those hopes have been blasted ; those com- forts have been wrested from me. I could not be so duped, even by the arch-enemy himself, as to be made to question the divine nature of them : but I have been made to be- lieve (which, you will say, is being duped still more) that God gave them to me in derision, and took them away in vengeance. Such, however, is, and has been my per- suasion, many a long day ; and when I shall think on that subject more comfortably, or, as you will be inclined to tell me, more rationally and scripturally, I know not. In the meantime I embrace with alacrity every alleviation of my case ; and with the more alacrity, because, what- soever proves a relief of my distress, is a cordial to Mrs. Unwin, whose sympathy with me, through the whole of it, has been such, that, despair excepted, her burthen has been as heavy as mine. Lady Hesketh, by her aftectionate behaviour, the cheerfulness of her conversation, and the constant sweetness of her temper, has cheered us both ; 132 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. and Mrs. Unwin not less than me. By her help we get change of air and of scene, though still resident at Ohiey ; and by her means have uitercourse with some families in this country, with whom, bvit for her, we could never have been acquainted. Her presence here would, at any time, even in my happiest days, have been a comfort to me ; but in the present day, I am doubly sensible of its value. She leaves nothing unsaid, nothing undone, that she thinks will be conducive to our well-being ; and, so far as she is concerned, I have nothing to wish, but that I could be- lieve her sent hither in mercy to myself — then I should be thankful " Yours as ever, "W. C." Lady Hesketh\s presence, and the intimacy now gi'o-unng up between Cowper and the Throckmortons, soon pro- duced one result, which will surprise no one who is ac- quainted with the love of scandal which is sure to exist in the society of a small market-town. A communication was made to Mr. Newton, by some person or persons in Olney, to the effect that both Cowj^er and Mrs. Unwin wei-e straying into forbidden paths, and were leading a life unbecoming the Gospel ; that friends were grieved, and the simple people of Olney astonished, &c. &c. We have not Llr. Newton's letter on the siibject, but it appears pro- bable, from Cowjier's reply, that Mr. N. gave too entire a credence to these reports, and wrote to the poet with alarm and grief. The reply we can give ; from which the tone of ]\Ir. Newton's reproof may be gathered : — " Olney, Sejit. 30, 178G. "My dear Friend, — No length of separation will ever make us indifferent either to your pleasures or your pains. We rejoice that you have had so agreeable a jaunt, and (excepting Mrs. Newton's terrible fall, from which, how- ever, we are happy to find that she received so little injury) a safe return. We, who live always encompassed by rural scenery, can afford to be stationary ; though we ourselves, were I not too closely engaged with Homer, should, per- haps, foUow your examj)le, and seek a little refreshment RENEWED INTERCOURSE WITH HIS FAMILY. 133 from variety and change of place, — a course that we might find not only agreeable, but, after a sameness of thirteen years, perhaps usefiU. You must, midoubtedly, have found your excursion beneficial, who at all other times endure, if not so close a confinement as we, yet a more unhealthy one, in city air, and in the centre of continual engagements. "Yovir letter to Mrs. Uuwin concerning our conduct, and the ofifence taken at it in our neighbourhood, gave us both a great deal of concern ; and she is still deeply aflPected by it. Of this you may assure yourself, that if our friends in Loudon have been grieved, they have been mis- informed ; which is the more probable, because the bearers of intelligence hence to London are not always very scrupu- lous concerning the truth of their reports ; and that if any of our serious neighbours have been astonished, they have been so without the smallest real occasion. Poor people are never weU employed even when they judge one an- other ; but when they undertake to scan the motives and estimate the behaviour of those whom Providence has exalted a little above them, they are utterly out of their province and their depth. They often see- us get into Lady Hesketh's carriage, and rather uncharitably suppose that it always carries us into a scene of dissipation ; which, in fact, it never does. We visit, indeed, at Mr. Throck- morton's, and at Gayhurst ; rarely, however, at Gayhurst, on account of the gi-eater distance : more frequently, though not very frequently, at Weston, both becaujse it is nearer, and because our business in the house that is making ready for us often calls us that way. The rest of our journeys are to Bozeat turnpike and back again ; or, per- haps, to the cabinet-maker's at Newport. As Othello says, — ' The very head and front of my oifending Hath tliis extent, no more.' What good we can get or can do in these visits is another question, which they, I am sure, are not at aU qualified to solve. Of this we are both sure, that under the guidance of Providence we have formed these connexions ; that we should have hurt the Christian cause, rather than have served it, by a prudish abstinence from them ; and that 134 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. St. Paul himself, conducted to them as we have been, would have found it expedient to have done as we have done. It is always impossible to conjecture, to much purpose, from the beginnings of a providence, in what it will terminate. If we have neither received nor communicated any spi- ritual good at present, while conversant with our new ac- quaintance, at least no harm has befallen on either side ; and it were too hazardous an assertion even for our cen- sorious neighbours to make, that, because the cause of the Gospel does not appear to have been served at present, therefore it never can be in any future intercourse that we may have with them. In the meantime I speak a strict truth, and as in the sight of God, when I say that we are neither of us at all more addicted to gadding than hereto- fore. We both naturaUy love seclusion from company, and never go into it without putting a force upon our disposi- tion ; at the same time I wiU confess, and you will easily conceive, that the melancholy incident to such close confine- ment as we have so long endured, finds itself a Uttle re- lieved by such amusement as a society so innocent affords. You may look round the Christian world, and find few, I believe, of our station who have so little iutercourse as we with the world that is not Christian. " We place all the uneasiness that you have felt for us upon this subject, to the account of that cordial friendship of which you have long given us proof. But you may be assured that, notwithstanding all rumours to the contraiy, we are exactly what we were when you saw us last. I, miserable on account of God's departure from me, which I believe to be final ; and she, seeking his return to me in the path of duty, and by continual prayer. " Yours, my dear friend, " W. C." Lady Hesketh did not leave Olney till she had arranged everything for her cousin's desired removal to Weston. About the middle of November, 1786, all things were com- pleted ; Lady Hesketh returned to town, and Cowper and Mrs. Unwin finally quitted Olney as a place of abode. COWPER AT WESTON. 135 YII. COWPER AT WESTON— TRANSLATION OF HOMER- NEW FRIENDSHIPS. A.D. 17S6— 1792. From his tliii-ty-second year till his fifty-fourth, Cowper had lived iu almost entire seclusion. Mrs. Unwin and Mr. Newton constituted almost his whole circle of acquaintance. When Mr. Newton left Olncy he introduced to the poet Mr. Bull, a dissenting minister of Newport-Pagnell, who thenceforward became a weekly visitant. A year or two later, Lady Austen, like some brilliant meteoi", crossed the poet's path. But, until Lady Hesketh's renewal of their intimacy, and Cowper's removal to Weston, the poet and his friend and guardian lived for each other ; and, beyond an occasional letter to Mr. Newton or Mr. Unwin, had scarcely any intercourse with human society. From 1785 or 1786, however, a great change is discernible. This was chiefly owing to the growing fame of the author of The Task. Beside which, the fact, now noised abroad, that he was engaged on a new translation of Homer, had a natural tendency to bring him into larger intercourse with men of letters. In one of his letters to Lady Hesketh, in 1785, he thus introduces the subject : — " Now, my dear, I am going to tell you a secret. It is a great secret, that you must not whisper even to your cat. No creature is at this moment apprised of it but Mrs. Unwin and her son. 1 am making a new translation of Homer, and am on the point of finishing the twenty-first book of the Iliad. The reasons upon which I undertake this herculean labour, and by which I justify an enterprise 136 LIFE OF WnXIAM COWPER. in wliich I seem so effectually anticipated by Pope — al- though, in fact, he has not anticipated me at all — I may possibly give you, if you wish for them, when I can find nothing more interesting to say. " It will be a large work, consisting, I should imagine, of six volumes at least. The 1 2th of this month I shall have spent a year upon it, and it A\dll cost me more than another. I do not love the booksellers well enough to make them a present of such a labour, but intend to pub- lish by subscription. Your vote and interest, my dear cousin, upon the occasion, if you please, but nothing more. I will trouble you with some papers of proposals when the time shall come, and am sure that you will circulate as many for me as you can." To Mr. Ne\vton he thus accounts for his adopting this undertaking in preference to original composition : — " Employment, and, with the pen, is, through habit, be- come essential to my well-being ; and to produce always original poems, especially of considerable length, is not so easy. For some weeks after I had finished The Task, and sent away the last sheet corrected, I was, through necessity, idle, and suffered not a little in my spirits for being so. One day, being in such distress of mind as was hardly supportable, I took up the Iliad; and merely to divert attention, and with no more preconception of what I was then entering upon, than I have at this moment of what I shall be doing this day twenty years hence, trans- lated the twelve first lines of it. The same necessity pressing me again, I had recourse to the same expedient, and translated more. Every day bringing its occasion for employment with it, every day, consequently, added some- thing to the work ; till at last I began to reflect thus : — The Iliad and the Odyssey together consist of about forty thousand verses. To translate these forty thousand verses will furnish me with occupation for a considerable time. I have already made some progress, and I find it a most agreeable amusement. Homer, in point of purity, is a most blameless writer ; and, though he was not an enlightened man, has interspersed many great and valuable truths throughout both his poems. In short, he is in all respects TRANSLATION OF HOMER. 137 a most venerable old gentleman, by an acquaintance with wliom no man can disgrace himself. The literati are all agreed to a man, that although Pope has given us two pretty poems under Homer's titles, there is not to be found in them the least portion of Homer's spirit, nor the least resemblance of his manner. I will try, therefore, whether I cannot copy him somewhat more happily myself. I have at least the advantage of Pope's faults and failings ; which, like so many buoys upon a dangerous coast, will serve me to steer by, and will make my chance for success more probable. These, and many other considerations, but especially a mind that abhorred a vacuum as its chief bane, impelled me so effectually to the work, that ere long I mean to publish proposals for a subscription to it, having advanced so far as to be warranted in doing so." As this undertaking gradually transpired, various men of taste sought him out ; Bagot, Hayley, Rose, Johnson, and many others, came around him ; and it was, in many respects, a kind providence that they did. He soon needed their help, and they eagerly gave it. Few men have owed more to private fi-iendship than William Cowper. Mr. Bagot, a brother of Lord Bagot, was an old West- minster school-fellow of Cow|jer's. " It happened," says the poet, " that soon after the publication of my first volume, he came into this country on a visit to his brother. Having read my book, and liking it, he took that opportunity to renew his acquaintance with me. I felt much affection for him ; and the more, because it was plain that, after so long a time, he still re- tained his for me. He is now at his brother s : twice he visited me in the course of last week, and this morning he brought Mrs. Bagot with him. He is a good and amiable man, and she is a most agreeable woman. At this second visit I made him acquainted with my translation of Homer ; he was highly pleased to find me so occupied, and with all that glow of friendship that would make it criminal in me to doubt his sincerity for a moment, insisted upon being employed in promoting the subscription, and en- gaged himself and all his connexions, which are exten- sive, and many of them of high rank, in my service. His chariot put up at an inu in the town while he was here? 138 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. and I rather wondered that at his departure he chose to walk to his chariot, and not to be taken up at the door. But when he had been gone about a quarter of an hour his servant came with a letter, which his master had written at the inn, and which, he said, required no answer. I opened it, and found as follows : — • * My good Friend, — You will oblige me liy accepting this early subscription to your Homer, even before you have fixed your plan and price ; which, when you have done, if you will send me a parcel of your subscrijjtion-papers, T will endeavour to circulate them among my friends and acquaintance as far as I can. Health and happiness attend you. ' Yours ever, ' Walter Bagot.' " Tliis letter contained a draft for twenty pounds. A friendship which had slept for more than thirty years was thus most earnestly revived. Cowper was now at Weston. On the 17th Nov. 1786, he announced his removal to Mr. Newton : — " When God speaks to a chaos," said he, " it becomes a scene of order and harmony in a moment ; but when his creatures have thrown one house into confusion by leaving it, and another by tumbling themselves and their goods into it, not less than many days' labour and contrivance is necessary to give them their proper places. And it belongs to furniture of all kinds, however convenient it may be in its place, to be a nuisance out of it. We find ourselves here in a comfoi'table dwelling. Such it is in itself ; and my cousin, who has spared no expense in dressing it up for us, has made it a genteel one. Such, at least, it will be when its contents are a little harmonised. She left us on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, in the evening, Mrs. Unwin and I took possession. I could not help giving a last look to my old prison and its precincts ; and though I cannot easily account for it, having beeii miserable there so many years, felt something like a heart-ache when I took my last leave of a scene, that certainly in itself had nothing to engage affection. But I recollected that I had once been happy there, and could not. without tears in uiy TRANSLATION OF HOMKR. 139 eyes, bid adieu to a place in which God had so often found me. The human mind is a groat mystery ; mine, at least, appeared to me to be such upon this occasion. I found that I not only had a tenderness for that ruinous abode, because it had once known me happy in the pre- sence of God ; but that oven the distress I had suffered for so long a time, on account of his absence, had endeared it to me as much. I was weary of every object, had long wished for a change, yet could not take leave without a pang at parting. What consequences are to attend our removal, God only knows. I know well that it is not in situation to effect a cure of melancholy like mine. The change, howevei', has been entirely a jirovidential one ; for much as I wished it, I never littered that wish, except to Mrs. Unwin. When I learned that the house was to be let, and had seen it, I had a strong desire that Lady Hesketh should take it for herself, if she should happen to like the country. That desire, indeed, is not exactly ful- filled, yet, upon the whole, is exceeded. We are the tenants ; but she assures us that we shall often have her for a guest ; and here is room enough for us all. You, I hope, my dear friend, and Mrs. Newton, will want no assurances to convince you that you will always be re- ceived here with the sincerest welcome. More welcome than you have been, you cannot be ; but better accom- modated you may and will be." But "clouds return after the rain." A new and real affliction awaited those who were rejoicing in their im- proved circumstances. Just at this moment, Cowper's friend, Mrs. Unwin's son, now a clergyman, of talents, piety, and highly-valued judgment, was seized, in the prime of life, with typhus-fever, and died. To his cousin. Lady Hesketh, Cowper thus writes on this painful subject : — " The Lculfje, Bee. 4, 1786. " I sent you, my dear, a melancholy letter, and I do not know that I shall now send you one very unlike it. Not that anything occurs in consequence of our late loss more afflictive than was to be expected, but the mind does not 140 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. perfectly recover its tone after a shock like that which has been felt so lately. This I observe, that, though my expe rience has long since taught me that this world is a world of shadows, and that it is the more prudent as well as the more Christian course to possess the comforts that we find in it as if we possessed them not, it is no easy matter to reduce this doctrine into practice. We forget that that God who gave them may, when he pleases, take them away ; and that, perhaps, it may please him to take them at a time when we least expect, or are least disposed to part from them. Thus it has happened in the present case. There never was a moment in Unwin's Kfe when there seemed to be more urgent want of him than the moment in which he died. He had attained to an age when, if they are at any time useful, men become more useful to their famihcs, their friends, and the world. His parish began to feel and to be sensible of the advantages of his ministry. Tlie clergy around him were many of them awed by his example. His children were thriving under his own tuition and management, and his eldest boy is hkely to feel his loss severely, being by his years, in some respect, qualified to understand the value of such a parent ; by his literary proficiency too clever for a schoolboy, and too young, at the same time, for the uni- versity. The removal of a man in the prime of life,— of such a character and with such connexious,— seems to make a void in society that can never be filled. God seemed to have made him just what he was, that he might be a blessing to others ; and when the influence of his character and abilities began to be felt, removed him. These are mysteries, my dear, that we cannot contemplate without astonishment, but which will, nevertheless, be explained hereafter, and must, in the meantime, be revered in silence. It is well for his mother that she has spent her life in the practice of an habitual acquiescence in the dis- pensations of Providence, else I know that this stroke would have been heavier, after all that she has suffered upon another account, than she could have borne. She derives, as she well may, great consolation from the thought that he lived the life and died the death of a Christian. TRANSLATION OF HOMER. 141 The consequence is, if possible, more unavoidable than the most mathematical conclusion, that therefore he is happy. So farewell, my friend Unwin ! the first man for whom I conceived a friendship after my removal from St. Alban's, and for whom I cannot but still continue to feel a fi-ieud- shiix thougli I shall see thee with these eyes no more ! " W. C." And to Mr. Newton lie thus touches on the same sub- I'ect : — « Westou, Dec. 10, 1786. " My dear Friend, — The death of one whom I valued as I did Mr. Unwin is a subject on which I could say much, and with much feeling. But, habituated as my mind has been these many years to melancholy themes, I am glad to excuse myself the contemplation of them as much as pos- sible. I will only observe, that the death of so young a man, whom I so lately saw in good health, and whose life was so desirable on every account, ,has something in it peculiarly distressing. I cannot think of the widow and the children that he has left, without an heart-ache that I remember not to have felt before. We may well say, that the ways of God are mysterious : in truth they are so, and to a degree that only such events can give us any concep- tion of. Mrs. Unwin begs me to give her love to you, with thanks for your kind letter. Hers has been so much a life of affliction, that whatever occurs to her in that shape has not, at least, the terrors of novelty to embitter it. She is supported under this, as she has been under a thousand others, with a submission of which I never saw her de- prived for a moment." The year 1787 was lamentably divided between his purposed translation of Homer, and a nen'ous fever, which, for seven or eight months, hung about him. To Mr. New- ton he thus apologises for taking up a task which many of his friends thought beneath the scope of a Christian poet ; — " Westou, Jan. 18, 1787. " My dear Friend, — It gave me pleasure, such as it was, to learn by a letter from Mr. H. Thornton, that the 142 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. inscription for the tomb of poor Unwin has been approved of. The dead have nothing to do with human praises, but, if they died in the Lord, they have abundant praises to render to him, which is far better. The dead, whatever they leave behind them, have nothing to regret. Good Christians are the only creatures in the world that are truly good, and them they will see again, and see them improved ; therefore them they regret not. Regret is for the living : what we get we soon lose, and what we lose we regret. The most obvious consolation in this case seems to be, that we who regret others shall quickly become objects of regret ourselves ; for mankind are continually passing oif in a rapid succession. " I have many kind friends who, like yourself, vnsh. that instead of turning my endeavours to a translation of Homer, I had proceeded in the way of original poetry. But I can truly say, that it was ordered otherwise, not by me, but by the Providence that governs aU my thoughts, and directs my intentions as He pleases. It may seem strange, but it is true, that, after having written a volume, in general with great ease to myself, I found it impossible to write another page. The mind of man is not a fountain, but a cistern ; and mine, God knows, a broken one. li is my creed, that the intellect depends as much, both for the energy and the rntdtitude of its exertions, upon the operations of God's agency upon it, as the heart, for the exercise of its graces, upon the influence of the Holy Spirit. According to this persuasion, I may very reasonably affirm, that it was not God's pleasure that I should pi-oceed in the same track, because he did not enable me to do it. A whole year I waited, and waited in circumstances of mind that made a state of non-employment peculiarly irksome to me. I longed for the pen, as the only remedy, but I could find no subject : extreme distress of spirit at last drove me, as, if I mistake not, I told you some time since, to lay Homer before me, and translate for amusement. Why it pleased God that I should be hunted into such a business, of such enormous length and labour, by miseries for which He did not see good to aftbrd me any other remedy, I know not. But so it was : and jejune as the consolation may be, and HIS FAILING HEALTH. 143 unsuited to the exigencies of a mind that once was spiri- tual, yet a thousand times have I been glad of it ; for a thousand times it has served at least to divert my attention, in some degree, from such terrible tempests as I believe have seldom been permitted to beat upon a human mind. Let my friends, therefore, who wish me some little measure of tranquillity in the performance of the most turbulent voyage that ever Christian mariner made, be contented, that, having Homer's mountains and forests to windward, I escape, under their shelter, from the force of many a gust that would almost overset me ; especially when they consider that, not by choice, but by necessity, I make them my refuge. As to fame, and honour, and glory, that may be acquired by poetical feats of any sort : God knows, that if I could lay me down in my grave with hope at my side, or sit with hope at my side in a dungeon all the residue of my days, I would cheerfully wave them all. For the little fame that I have already earned has never saved me from one distressing night, or from one despairing day, since I first acquired it. For what I am reserved, or to what, is a mystery : I would fain hope, not merely that I may amuse others, or only to be a translator of Homer. " Sally Perry's case has given us much concern. I have no doubt that it is distemper. But distresses of mind, that are occasioned by distemper, are the most difficult of all to deal with. They refuse all consolation ; they will hear no reason. God only, by his own immediate im- pressions, can remove them : as, after an experience of thirteen years' misery, I can abundantly testify. " Yours, " W. C." To Lady Hesketh he, at this period, describes the faiUng state of his health : — " The Lo(l;;e, Jon. 18, 1787. " I have been so much indisposed with the fever that I told you had seized me, my nights during the whole week may be said to have been almost sleepless. The conse- (pience has been, that, except the translation of about thirty lines at the conclusion of the thirteenth book, I have 1 44 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. been forced to abandon Homer entirely. Tliis was a sen- sible mortification to me, as you may suppose, and felt the more, because, my spirits of course failing with my strength, I seemed to have peculiar need of my old amuse- ment. It seemed hard, therefore, to be forced to resign it just when I wanted it most. But Homer's battles can- not be fought by a man who does not sleep well, and who has not some httle degree of animation in the daytime. Last night, however, quite contrary to my expectations, the fever left me entirely, and I slept quietly, soundly, and long. If it please God that it return not, I shall soon find myself in a condition to proceed. I walk constantly, that is to say, Mrs. Unwin and I together ; for at these times I keep her continually employed, and never suffer her to be absent from me many minutes. She gives me aU her time and all her attention, and forgets that there is another object in the world. " ]\lrs. Carter thinks on the subject of dreams as every- body else does, that is to say, according to her own ex- perience. She has had no extraordinary ones, and therefore accounts them only the ordinary operations of the fancy. ]Mine are of a texture that wall not suffer me to ascribe them to so inadequate a cause, or to any cause but the operation of an exterior agency. I have a mind, my dear, (and to you I will venture to boast of it,) as free from superstition as any man living, neither do I give heed to dreams in general as predictive, though particular dreams I believe to be so. Some very sensible persons, and, I sup- pose, Mrs. Carter among them, will acknowledge that in old times God spoke by dreams, but affirm with much boldness that he has since ceased to do so. If you ask them Why, they answer, Because he has now revealed his will in the Scripture, and there is no longer any need that he should instruct or admonish us by dreams. I grant that with respect to doctrines and precepts he has left us in want of nothing, but has he thereby precluded himself jn any of the operations of his providence ? Surely not. It is perfectly a different consideration ; and the same need that there ever was of his interference in this way there is still, and ever must be, while man continues bUnd KEW FRIENDSHIPS. 145 and fallible, aufl a creature beset with dangers, which he can neither foresee nor obviate. His operations, however, of this kind are, I allow, very rare ; and as to the gene- rality of dreams, they are made of such stuff, and are in themselves so insignificant, that, though I believe them all to be the manufacture of others, not our own, I account it not a farthing matter who manufactures them. So much for dreams ! " My fever is not yet gone, but sometimes seems to leave me. It is altogether of the nervous kind, and at- tended now and then with much dejection. " A young gentleman called here yesterday who came six miles out of his way to see me. He was on a journey to London from Glasgow, having just left the University there. He came, I suppose, partly to satisfy his own curiosity, but chiefly, as it seemed, to bring me the thanks of some of the Scotch professors for my two volumes. His name is Rose, an Englishman. Your spirits being good, you will derive more pleasure from this incident than I can at present, therefore I send it. " Adieu, very aflfectionatelv, " W. C." Towards the close of this year he acquaints Mr. Newton with the cause of a long-continued silence : — " Oct. 1787. " My dear Friend, — My indisposition could not be of a worse kind. Had I been afflicted with a fever, or con- fined by a broken bone, neither of these cases would have made it impossible that we should meet. I am truly sorry that the impediment was insurmountable while it lasted, for such, in fact, it was. The sight of any face, except Mrs. Unwin's, was to me an insupportable grievance ; and when it has happened that, by forcing himself into my hiding-place, some friend has found me out, he has had no gi'eat cause to exult in his success, as Mr. Bull can tell you. From this dreadful condition of mind I emerged suddenly ; so suddenly, that Mrs. Unwin, having no notice of such a change herself, could give none to anybody ; and when it obtained, how long it might last, or how far it was to be L 146 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. depended on, was a matter of the greatest uncertainty. It affects me on tlie recollection with the more concern, because I learn from your last, that I have not only lost an interview with you myself, but have stood in the way of visits that you would have gladly paid to others, and who would have been happy to have seen you. You should have forgotten (but you are not good at forgetting your friends) that such a creatm^e as myself existed." It was at this period that several earnest and even enthusiastic friends were given to Cowper. Just before his illness he had received a visit from Mr. Samuel Rose, a youth of twenty, the son of Dr. William Rose, who kept a school at Chiswick, and was connected with the Monthly Review. The circumstance is noticed in the letter to Lady Hesketh, just given. As soon as he began to rise out of his state of depression, he writes to JMr. Rose as follows : — " Weston, Aug. 27, 1797. "Dear Sir, — I have not yet taken up the pen again, except to write to you. The little taste that I have had of yoiu' company, and your kindness in finding me out, make me wish that we were nearer neighbours, and that there were not so great a disparity in our years ; that is to say, not that you were older, but that I were younger. Could we have met in early hfe, I flatter myself that we might have been more intimate than now we are likely to be. But you shall not find me slow to cultivate such a measure of your regard, as your friends of your own age can spare me. When your route shall lie through this country, I shall hope that the same kindness which has prompted you twice to call on me, will prompt you again ; and I shall be happy if, on a future occasion, I may be able to give you a more cheerful reception than can be expected from an invalid. My health and spirits are considera.bly improved, and I once more associate with my neighbours. My head, however, has been the worst part of me, and still continues so, — is subject to giddiness and pain, maladies very unfavourable to poetical employment ; but a prepa- ration of the bark, which I take regularly, has so far been HIS FEELINGS AND CONDITION. 147 of service to me in those respects, as to encourage in me a hope that, by perseverance in the use of it, I may jjos- sibly find myself qualified to resume the translation of Homer. " When I cannot walk, I read, — and read, perhaps, more than is good for me. But I cannot be idle. The only mercy that I show myself in this respect is, that I read nothing that requires much closeness of appUcation. I lately finished the 2>erusal of a book, which in former years I have more than once attacked, but never till- now con- quered ; some otlier book always interfered befoi'e I could finish it. The work I mean is Barclay's Argents ; and if ever you allow yourself to read for mere amusement, I can recommend it to you (provided you have not already pe- rused it), as the most amusing romance that ever was written. It is the only one, indeed, of an old dato that I ever had the patience to go through with. It is inter- esting in a high degree ; richer in incident than can be imagined, full of surprises, which the reader never fore- stalls, and yet free from all entanglement and confusion. The style, too, appears to me to be such as would not dis- honour Tacitus himself. "Poor Burns loses much of his deserved^ praise in this country, through our ignorance of his language. I despair of meeting with any Englishman who will take the pains that I have taken to understand him. His candle is bright, liut shut up in a dark lantern. I lent him to a very sen- sible neighbour of mine, but his uncouth dialect spoiled all ; and before he had half read him through, he was quite ram-feezled, "W. C." A month later a letter to Mr. Newton gives us, as usual, the wmbre view of his feelings and condition : — "Weston Underwood, Oct. 2, 1787. "My dear Friend, — After a long but necessary inter- ruption of our correspondence, I return to it again, in one respect, at least, better qualified for it than before ; I mean, by a behef of your identity, which for thirteen years I did not believe. The acquisition of this light — if light it may 148 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. be called which leaves me as much in the dark as ever on the most interesting subjects — releases me, however, from the disagreeable suspicion that I am addressing myself to you as the friend whom I loved and valued so highly in my better days, while, in fact, you are not that friend, but a sti'anger. I can now write to vou without seeming to act a part, and without having any need to charge myself with dissimulation ; a charge from which, in that state of mind, and under such an uncomfortable persuasion, I knew not how to exculpate myself, and which, as you will easily conceive, not seldom made my correspondence with you a burthen. Still, indeed, it wants, and is hkely to want, that best ingredient which can alone make it truly pleasant either to myself or you — that spirituahty which once en- livened all our intercourse. You will tell me, no doubt, that the knowledge I have gained is an earnest of more and more valuable information, and that the dispersion of the clouds in part, promises, in due time, their complete dispersion. I should be happy to believe it ; but the power to do so is at present far from me. Never was the mind of man benighted to the degree that mine has been. The storms that have assailed me would have overset the faith of every man that ever had any ; and the very remem- brance of them, even after they have been long passed by, makes hope impossible. " Mrs. Unwin, whose poor bark is still held together, though shattered by being tossed and agitated so long at the side of mine, does not forget yours and Mrs. Newton's kindness on this last occasion. Mrs. Newton's oiFer to come to her assistance, and your readiness to have ren- dered us the same service, could you have hoped for any salutary efiect of your presence, neither Mrs. Unwin nor myself undervalue, nor shall presently forget. But you judged right when you supposed that even your comjjany would have been no relief to me ; the company of my father or my brother, could they have returned from the dead to visit me, would have been none to me. "We are busied in preparing for tlie reception of Lady Hesketh, whom we e.vpect here shortly. We have beds to put up, and furniture for beds to make ; workmen, and HIS RECOVERY. 149 scouring, and Imstle. Mrs. Unvvin's time has, of course, been lately occupied to a degree that made writing to her impracticable ; and she excused herself the rather, knowing my intentions to take her office. It does not, however, suit me to write much at a time. This last tem- pest has left my nerves in a worse condition than it found them ; my head especially, though better informed, is more infirm than ever. I will, therefore, only add our joint love to yourself and Mrs. Newton, and that I am, my dear friend, " Your affectionate, " Wm. Cowper." Six weeks later he writes to Lady Hesketh, in a far gayer tone ; — "r/ie Lodge, Nov. 27, 1787. "It is the part of wisdom, my dearest cousin, to sit down contented under the demands of necessity, because they are such. I am sensible that you cannot, in my uncle's present infirm state, and of which it is not possible to expect any considerable amendment, indulge either us, or yourself, with a journey to Weston. Yourself, I say, both because I know it will give you pleasure to see Causidice mi once more, especially in the comfortable abode where you have placed him, and bedause, after so long an impri- sonment in London, you who love the country, and have a taste for it, would, of course, be glad to return to it. For my own part, to me it is ever new ; and though I have now been an inhabitant of this village a twelvemonth, and have during the half of that time been at liberty to ex- patiate and to make discoveries, I am daily finding out fresh scenes and walks, which you would never be satisfied with enjoying ; some of them are unapproachable by you, either on foot or in your carriage. Had you twenty toes (whereas I suppose you have but ten) you could not reach them ; and coach-wheels have never been seen there since the flood. Before it, indeed (as Burnet says that the earth was then perfectly free from all inequalities in its surface), they might have been seen there every day. AVe have other walks, both upon hill-tops and in valleys beneath, 150 LIFE OF WILLIAM CO WPER. some of wliicli, by the help of your carriage, and many of them without its help, would be always at your command. " On Monday morning last Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure, made its appearance, and, being desired to sit, spoke as follows : ' Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All-Saints, in Northampton ; brother of Mr. Cox, the upholsterer. It is customary for the person in my office to annex to a bill of mortaUty, which he publishes at Christmas, a copy of verses. You would do me a great favour, sir, if you would furnish me with one.' To this I replied, — ' Mr. Cox, you have several men of genius in your town, why have you not applied to some of them 1 There is a namesake of yours, in particular — Cox, the statuary — who, everybody knows, is a first-rate maker of verses. He surely is the man, of all the world, for your purpose.' ' Alas, sir, I have heretofore borrowed help from him ; but he is a gentlenmn of so much reading, that the people of our town cannot understand him.' I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was almost ready to answer, 'Perhaps, my good friend, they may find me unintelligible, too, for the same reason.' But on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston on purpose to imjjlore the assistance of my muse, and on his replying in the affirmative, I felt my mortified vanity a little consoled, and, pitying the poor man's distress, which appeared to be considerable, promised to supply him. The waggon has, accordinglj', gone this day to Northamp- ton, loaded, in part, with my eff"usions in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs upon indi\'iduals ! I have written one that serves tico hundred persons. " A few (lays since I received a second very obliging letter from Mr. ]\Iackenzie. He tells me that his own papers — which are by far, he is sorry to say it, the most numerous — are marked V. I. Z. Accordingly, my dear, I am happy to find that I am engaged in a correspondence with Mr. Viz, a gentleman for whom I have always enter- tained the profoundcst veneration. But the serious fact is, that the papers distinguished by those signatures have ACCIDENT TO MRS. UXAVIN. 151 ever pleased me most, and struck me as the work of a sensible man, who knows' the world well, and has more of Addison's delicate humour than anybody. " A poor man begged food at the hall lately. The cook gave him some vermicelli soup. He ladled it about some time with the spoon, and then returned it to her, saying, — ' I am a poor man, it is true, and I am very hungry, but yet I cannot eat broth with maggots in it.' Once more, my dear, a thousand thanks for your box full of good things, useful things, and beautiful things. " Yours ever, " W. C." A month later an event occurred, which, but for the presei-ving mercy of God, would have taken from Cowper his dearest friend, and would, unquestionably, have short- ened his own existence. He describes the circumstance to Lady Hesketh as follows : — " The Lodge, Dec. 24, 1787. " This morning had very near been a tragical one to me, beyond all that have ever risen upon me. Mrs. Unwin rose as usual at seven o'clock ; at eight she came to me, and showed me her bed-gown with a great piece burnt out of it. Having lighted her fire, which she alwa^ lights herself, she placed the candle upon the hearth. In a few moments it occurred to her that, if it continued there, it might, possibly, set fire to her clothes, therefore she put it out. But, in fact, though she had not the least sus- picion of it, her clothes were on fire at that very time. She found herself uncommonly annoyed by smoke, such as brought the water into her eyes ; supposing that some of the billets might lie too forward, she disposed them differ- ently ; but finding the smoke increase, and gi-ow more troublesome (for by this time the room was filled with it), she cast her eye downward, and perceived not only her bed-gown, but her petticoat on fire. She had the presence of mind to gather them in her hand, and plunge them imme- diately into the basin, by which means the general con- flagration of her person, which must have probably ensued in a few moments, was effectually i^revented. Thus was 152 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. that which I have often heard from the pulpit, and have often had occasion myself to observe, most clearly illus- trated, — that, secure as we may sometimes seem to our- selves, we are, in reality, never so safe as to have no need of a superintending Providence. Danger can never be at a distance from creatures who dwell in houses of clay. Therefore take care of thyself, gentle Yahoo ! and may a more vigilant than thou care for thee." To a friend in Ireland, Mr. Rowley, he gives, in the following February, the account of his progress with Homer : — " So much for my situation. Now, what am I doing ? Translating Homer. Is not this, you will say, actum agere ? But if you think again, you will find that it is not. At least, for my own part, I can assure you that I have never seen him translated yet, except in the Dog- Latin, which you remember to have apphed to for illumi- nation when you were a school-boy. We are strange creatures, my little friend ; everything that we do is in reality important, though half that we do seems to be push-pin. Not much less than thirty years since, Alston and I read Homer through together. We compared Pope with his original all the way. The result was a discovery, that there is hardly the thing in the world of which Pope was so entirely destitute, as a taste for Homer. After the publication of my last volume, I found myself without employment. Employment is essential to me ; I have neither health nor spirits without it. After some time, the recollection of what had passed between Alston and myself in the course of this business struck me forcibly ; I remembered how we had been disgusted ; how often we had sought the simplicity and majesty of Homer in his English representative, and had found instead of them, puerile conceits, extravagant metaphors, and the tinsel of modern embellishment in every possible position. Neither did I forget how often we were on the point of burning Pope, as we burnt Bertram Montfitchet in your chambers, I laid a Homer before me. I translated a few lines into blank verse ; the day following, a few more ; and proceed- DEATH OF MR. ASHLEY COWPER. 153 ing thus till I had finished the first book, was convinced that I could render an acceptable service to the literary woi'ld, should I be favoured with health to enable me to translate the whole. The Iliad I translated without in- terruption. That done, T published Proposals for a sub- scription, and can boast of a very good one. Soon after, I was taken ill, and was hindered nearly a twelvemonth. But I have now resumed the work, and have proceeded in it as far as the end of the fifteenth Ihad, altering and aiucnding my first copy with all the diligence I am master of. For this I will be answerable, that it shall be found a close translation : in that respect, as faithful as our language, not always a match for the Greek, will give me leave to make it. For its other qualifications, I must refer myself to the judgment of the public, when it shall appear. Thus I have fulfilled my promise, and have told you not only how I am at present occupied, but how I am likely to be for some time to come. The Odyssey I have not yet touched, I need not, T am confident, use any extraordinary arts of persuasion to secure to myself your influence, as far as it extends. If you mention that there is such a work on the anvil in this country, in yours, perhaps, you will meet somebody now and then not disinclined to favour it. I would order you a parcel of printed proposals, if I knew how to send it. But they are not indispensably necessary. The terms are, two large volumes, quarto, royal paper, three guineas ; common, two." The year 1788 removed by death IVIr. Ashley Cowper, Lady Hesketh's father, at the age of eighty-six. His gradual decline had detained Lady H. many months from a purposed visit to Weston. But in the autumn she arrived. Previously Mr. and Mrs. Newton had paid Cowper a visit. Cowper alludes to this visit, and to his feelings and state of mind, in the following language, in his next letter : — " I found," said he, " those comforts in your visit which have formerly sweetened all our interviews, in part re- stored. I knew you ; knew you for the same shepherd who was sent to lead me out of the wilderness into the pasture where the chief Shepherd feeds his flock, and felt 154 LITE OF WILLIAM COWPER. my sentiments of affectionate friendship for you the same as ever. But one thing was still wanting, and that thing the crown of aU. I shall find it in God's time, if it be not lost for ever. When I say this, I say it trembling ; for at what time soever comfort shall come, it will not come with- out its attendant evil ; and whatever good thing may occur in the interval, I have sad forebodings of the event, having learned by experience that I was born to be persecuted with jjeculiar fury, and assuredly believing that, such as my lot has been, it will be to the end. This belief is connected in my mind with an observation I have often made, and is perhaps founded, in great part, upon it : that there is a certain style of dispensations maintained by Pro'vadence in the dealings of God with every man, which, however the in- cidents of his life may vary, and though he may be thrown into many different situations, is never exchanged for an- other. The style of dispensation, peculiar to myself, has hitherto been that of sudden, violent, unlooked-for change. When I have thought myself falling into the abyss, I have been caught up again ; when I have thought myself on the threshold of a happy eternity, I have been thrust down to hell. The I'ough and the smooth of such a lot, taken to- gether, should perhaps have taught me never to despair ; but, through an unhappy propensity in my nature to fore- bode the worst, they have, on the contrary, operated as an admonition to me never to hope. A firm persuasion that I can never durably enjoj' a comfortable state of mind, but must be depressed in proportion as I have been elevated, withers my joys in the bud, and, in a manner, entombs them before they are born : for I have no expectation but of sad vicissitude, and ever believe that the last shock of aU will be fatal." But though those were his feelings when driven to speak of himself, a visitor, writing of what he found at Weston Underwood, presents a less dreary view. Mr. Rose paid Cowper another visit in the autumn of 1788, which he thus describes : — " I came here on Thursday ; and here I found Lady Hesketh, a very agreeable, good-tempered, sensible woman, polite without ceremony, and sufficiently well-bred to NEW FRIENDSHIPS. 155 make others bappy in her company. I here feel no re- straint, and none is wished to be inspired. The ' noiseless tenor' of our lives would much please and gi-atify you. An account of one day will furnish you with a tolerably accu- rate idea of the manner in which aU our time is passed. We rise at whatever hour we choose ; breakfast at half after nine, take about an hour to satisfy the sentiment, not the appetite, — for we talk — ' good Heavens, how we talk ! ' and enjoy ourselves most wonderfully. Then we separate, and dispose of ourselves as our different inclinations point. Mr. Cowj:)er to Homer. ]\Ir. E. to transcribing what is already translated. Lady Hesketh to work, and to books alternately ; and ]\Irs. Un^vin, who in everything but her face is like a kind angel sent from heaven to guard the health of our poet, is busy in domestic concerns. At one, our labours finished, the poet and I walk for two hours. I then drink most ])lentiful draughts of instruction which flow from his lips, instruction so sweet, and goodness so exquisite, that one loves it for its flavour. At three we return and dress, and the succeeding hour brings dinner upon the table, and collects again the smiling counte- nances of the family to partake of the neat and elegant meal. Conversation continues till tea-time, when an enter- taining volume engi'osses our thoughts till the last meal is announced. Conversation again, and then rest before twelve, to enable us to rise again to the same round of in- nocent, virtuous pleasure. Can you wonder that I should feel melancholy at the thought of lea\nng such a family ; or rather, wiU you not be surprised at my resolution to depart from this quiet scene on Thursday next 1 " Just at this time, too, Loi'd Thurlow, who had not found time to acknowledge the receipt of the first volume of his Poems, was moved by the growing fame of the author of The Task, and by a personal application from Lady Hes- keth, to send his name as a subscriber to the translation of Homer, and even to enter into a correspondence with Cowper as to the comparative merits of rhyme and blank verse. About the same period, too, an attempt was made to enlist Cowper's pen in the seiwice of the Anti-Slavery cause. He complied with the request, so far as to produce five short 156 Ln^ OF WILLIAM COWPER. pieces, whicli were largely circulated, and gave important aid to the movement. But now, in that kind Providence which constantly watched over him, a new and younger friend was sent to his aid, whose natural and ardent attachment was one main support of the last ten years of his life. His mother, as we have seen, was a Donne, of the Norfolk family of that name. Her brother, Roger Donne, rector of Catfield in Norfolk, left a grandson, John Johnson, now a student at Cambridge. This youth took advantage of the vacation to open a personal acquaintance with his relative, by a visit to Weston. He brought with him some poetical attempts of his own, and at once won the heart of his kinsman. Two letters to Lady Hesketh will at once develope the nature of this new attachment ; an attachment which was to prove, in its results, of the greatest importance to the few remaining years of Cowper's life : — " Tlie Lodge, Jan. 23, 1790. "My dearest Coz, — 1 had a letter yesterday from the wild boy Johnson, for whom I have conceived a great affection. It was just such a letter as I like, of the true helter-skelter kind ; and though he writes a remarkably good hand, scribbled with such rapidity that it was barely legible. He gave me a droll account of the adventures of Lord Howard's note, and of his own in pursuit of it. The poem he brought me came as from Lord Howard, with his lordship's request that I would revise it. It is in the form of a pastoral, and is entitled, The Tale of the Lute; or, the Beauties of Audley End. I read it attentively ; was much pleased with part of it, and part of it I equally dis- liked. I told him so, and in such terms as one naturally uses when there seems to be no occasion to qualify or to alleviate censure. I observed him afterwards somewhat more thoughtful and silent, but occasionally as pleasant as usual ; and in Kilwick wood, where we walked the next day, the truth came out, that he was himself the author ; and that Lord Howard, not approving it altogether, and several friends of his own age to whom he had shown it, differing from his lordship in opinion, and being highly JOHN JOHXSOX. 157 pleased with it, he had come at last to a resolution to abide by my judgment ; a measure to which Lord Howard, by all means, advised him. He accordingly brought it, and will bring it again in the summer, when we shall lay our heads together, and try to mend it. " I have lately had a letter, also, from Mrs. King, to whom I had written to inquire whether she were living or dead. She tells me the critics expect from my Homer everything in some parts, and that in others I shall fall short. These are the Cambridge critics ; and she has her intelligence from the botanical professor, Martyn. That gentleman, in rej^ly, answers them that I shall fall short in nothing, but shall disappoint them all. It shall be my endeavour to do so, and I am not without hope of suc- ceeding. "W. C." " The Lodcje, Jan. 20, 1790. "My blunder in thanking thee, my dearest coz, for a basket instead of a box, seems to have had something prophetic in it, for in the evening a basket sent from you, and filled with excellent fishes, actually arrived ; with some of them we have compensated our neighbours for pigs presented to us in times past, and on the remainder we have chiefly subsisted ever since, nor is our stock even now exhausted. Many thanks are due to thee for this supply, and we pay them with much sincerity. " Could I blunder as I did in the instance of my Nor- folk cousin — always, I mean, with such ludicrous conse- quences — I should be tempted to do it daily. I have not laughed so much many a long day as at your and his droll account of the strange and unimaginable distresses that ensued on the mere omission of those two imj)ortant syl- lables that compose the name of Johnson. "It gives me great pleasure that you are so much pleased with him, because I was much pleased with him myself. There is a simplicity in his character that charms me, and the more because it is so great a rarity. Humour he certainly has, and of the most agreeable kind. His letter to you proves it, and so does his poem ; and that he 158 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. has many other talents, which, at present, his shyness too much suppresses, I doubt not. He has a countenance which, with all the sweetness of temper that it expresses, expresses also a miud much given to reflection, and an understanding that in due time will know how to show itself to advantage. " An indisposition, from which Mrs. Frog* was not suffi- ciently recovered to see company, and especially a stranger, was the reason of our not being invited while he was with me. She is now, however, perfectly restored ; I dined there the day after he went, and dine there again to-morrow. " The yoimg man begged that he might carry away with him eight or ten books of Homer, which he would tran- scribe for me, he said, at Cambridge ; but I feared to trust them in that pestilent place, where some of his wild young Trigri/mates might have snatched them from him, and have done with them I know not what. " I wish you to read Adriano ; or, the First of Jwne, and tell me what you think of it. Johnson has sent it to me for my opinion, and I must return it soon. It is rather a thin octavo, and will not occupy much of thy time. " Our friends at the hall are all pretty well at present ; but the lord of the mansion has not perfectly recovered his foot again. Mrs. Unwin still has her fever, which chiefly attacks her in the night. Beau is well, as are the two cats, and the three birds, whose cages I am going to clean, and aU send their love to you. " Yours, my dear, " Wm. C." Yoimg Johnson took with him some portions of Homer to transcribe, having eagerly offered his services in this way. He also, having observed with what affection Cowper spoke of his mother, took means, on his return mto Norfolk, to induce her niece, Mrs. Bodham, to send to Cowper the only portrait in existence of this beloved relative. This pre- cious gift was immediately acknowledged in the following letter : — * Mrs. Tlirockmorton. HIS mother's picture. 159 " Weston, Feb. 27, 1 7'JO. " My dearest Rose, — Whom I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I find still alive : nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to learn it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so. Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her : I love you, there- fore, and love you much, both for her sake and for your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits some- what akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and of course the first on which I open my eyes in the morn- ing. She died when I completed my sixth year ; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expres- sion. There is in me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowjier ; and though I love all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to your side. I was thought in the days of my childhood much to resemble my mother ; and in my natural temper, of which, at the age of fifty-eight, I must be supposed to be a competent judge, can trace both her and my late uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability ; and a little, I would hope, both of his and of her , I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but speaking to _yoM, I will even speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at all points. The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all. 160 LIPE OF WILTJAM COWPER. " I account it a happy event that brought' the dear boy, your nephew, to my knowledge ; and that, breaking through all the restraints which his natural bashfulness imposed on him, he determined to find me out. He is amiable to a degree that I have seldom seen, and I often long with impatience to see him again. " My dearest cousin, what shall I say in answer to yoiir affectionate invitation ? I must say this — I cannot come now, nor soon, and I wish with all my heart I could. But I will tell you what may be done, perhaps, and it will answer to us just as well : you and Mr. Bodham can come to "Weston, can you not ? The summer is at hand, there are roads and wheels to bring you, and you are neither of you translating Homer. I am crazed that I cannot ask you altogether, for want of house-room ; but for Mr. Bod- ham and yourself we have good room ; and equally good for any third in the shape of a Donne, whether named Hewitt, Bodham, Balls, or Johnson, or by whatever name distinguished. Mrs. Hewitt has particular claims upon me ; she was my playfelldV at Berkhampstead, and has a share in my warmest affections. Pray tell her so. Neither do I at all forget my cousin Harriet. She and I have been many a time merry at Catfield, and have made the par- sonage ring with laughter. Give my love to her. Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that I shall receive you as if you were my sister, and Mrs. Unwin is, for my sake, pre- pared to do the same. When she has seen you, she will love you for your own. " I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham for his kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you all, and with Mrs. Unwin's kijid respects, am, " My dear, dear Rose, ever yours, "W. C." The beautiful piece to which this little incident gave birth, must not be omitted in this place, familiar as it will be to most of our readers. Not until the English language shall have perished from the memory of mankind, will the following lines be forgotten : — LINES ON HIS mother's PICTURE. IGl " On the Keceipt of my Mothek's Picture. " Oh, that those lips had language ! Life has pass'd With me but roughly since I heard thee last. Those lips ai'e thine — thy own sweet smile I see, The same that oft in childhood solaced me; Voice only fails, else how distinct they say, ' Grieve not, my child, chase all thy feai's away ! ' The meek intelligence of those dear eyes (Bless'd be the art that can immortalize, The art that baffle's Time's tyrannic claim To quench it) here shines on me still the same. Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, welcome guest, though unexpected here ! Who bidd'st me honoru" with an ai'tless song, Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 1 will obey, not wiDingly alone, But gladly, as the precept were her own : And, while that face renews my fiUal grief, Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, A momentary dream that thou art she. My mother ! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed '! Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son. Wretch even then, life's journey just begun '.' Perhaps thou gavest me, though unfelt, a kiss : Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss — Ah, that maternal smile ! It answers — Yes. I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away. And, turning from my nurserj' window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu ! But was it such? — It was. Where thou ait gone, Adieus and fai-eweUs are a sound unknown. May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The pai'ting word shidl pass my lips no more ! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern. Oft gave me promise of thy quick return. What ardently I wished, I long believed. And, disappointed still, was still deceived, M r 162 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. By expectation every day beguiled, Dupe oitomorroiv even from a child. Thus many a sad to-moiTow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learn'd at last submission to my lot ; But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot. Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor ; And where the gardener Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapp'd In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap, 'Tia now become a history little known. That once we call'd the pastoral house our own. Short-lived possession ! but the record fair. That memory keeps of all thy kindness there, Still outlives many a storm, that has effaced A thousand other themes less deeply traced. Thy nightly visits to my chamber made. That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid ; Thy morning bounties ere I left my home, The biscuit or confectionary plum ; The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd By thy own hand, tiU fresh they shone and glow'd ; All tins, and more endearing still than aU, Thy constant tiow of love, that knew no fall, Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks, That humom* interposed too often makes ; All this still legible in memory's page. And still to be so to my latest age, Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay Such honours to thee as my numbers may ; Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere, Not scorn'd in heaven, though little noticed here. Could Time, his flight reversed, restore the hours. When, playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers. The violet, the pink, and jessamine, I prick'd them into paper with a pin, (And thou wast happier than myself the while, Wouldst softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile), Could those few pleasant days again appear. Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here ? LINES ON HIS mother's PICTURE. IfiS I would not trust my heart — the dear delight Seems so to be desired, i>erhaps I might, — But no — what here we call our life is suuh, So little to be loved, and thou so much, That T should ill requite thee, to constrain Thy unbound spii-it into bonds again, Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast (The storms all weather'd and the ocean cross'd), Shoots into port at some well-haven'd isle, Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile. There sits quiescent on the floods that show Her beauteous form reflected clear below, Wliile airs impregnated with incense play Around her, fanning light her streamers gay ; So thou, with sails how swift ! hast reached the shore, ' ^Miere tempests never beat nor billows roai*,' * And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide Of life long since has anchor'd by thy side. But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest. Always from port withheld, always distress'd — Me howling blasts di'ive devious, tempest-toss'd, Sails ripp'd, seams opening wide, and compass lost, And day by day some current's thwarting force Sets me more distant from a prosperous course. Yet tlie thought, that thou art safe, and he ; That thought is joy, arrive what may to me! My boast is not, that I deduce my birth From loins enthroned, and rulers of the earth : But higher far my proud pretensions rise — The son of pai-ents pass'd into the skies. And now, farewell — Time unrevoked has run His wonted course, yet what I -wish'd is done. By contemplation's help, not sought in vain, I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again ; To have renew'd the joys that once were mine, Without the sin of violating thine : And while the wings of Fancy still are free, And I can view this mimic show of tliee, Time has but half succeeded in his theft — Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left." Garth. 164 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. We have noticed the gathering of new friends around Cowper in the decline of his life, and we shall soon have to notice the painful circumstances which rendered this fresh aid so essential to him. That admirable woman, who had been, for more than twenty years, more than mother and more than wife to him, was now in her sixty-fourth year, and each succeeding winter made a visible impression on her frame. The brief remainder of her life was passed in circumstances tending rather to depress Cowper's spirits, and burden his mind, than, as heretofore, when she was the stay and prop on which he constantly leaned. But the All-wise and All-merciful had already prepared those who were, for the remaining few years of Cowper's life, to be the successors and substitutes for Mary Unwin. In January, 1789, Cowper thus writes : — "I have more items than one by which to remember the late frost — it has cost me the bitterest uneasiness. ]\lrs. Unwin got a fall on the gravel-walk, covered with ice, which has confined her to an upper chamber ever since. She neither broke nor dislocated any bones, but received such a contusion below the hip as crippled her completely. She now begins to recover, after having been as helpless as a child for a whole fortnight ; but so slowly at present, that her amendment is even now almost imperceptible." In December of the same year he thus describes to Mr. Newton Mrs. Unwin's condition : — " Her case is, at present, my only subject of uneasiness that is not immediately personal, and properly my own. She has almost constant headaches, almost a constant pain in her side, which nobody understands, and her lameness within the last half year is very little amended. But her spirits are good, because supported by comforts which depend not on the state of the body, and I do not know that with all these pains her looks are at all altered." Similar reports continue to appear in many of his letters for the next year or two, till, towards the close of "^1, the stroke which had so long impended over him "■^ fell. Cowper narrates it to Mr. Rose in the fol- 'ile and touching words : — CONDITION OP MRS. UNA^'IN. 165 « The Lodge, Dec. 21, 1791. " My dear Friend, — It grieves rue, after having indulged a little hope that I might sec you in the holidays, to be obliged to disappoint myself. The occasion, too, is such as will insure me your sympathy. " On Saturday last, while I was at my desk near the window, and Mrs. Unwin at the fireside opposite to it, I heard her suddenly exclaim, ' Oh ! Mr. Cowper, don't let me fall ! ' I turned and saw her actually falling, together with her chair, and started to her side just in time to prevent her. She was seized with a violent giddiness, which lasted, though with some abatement, the whole day, and was attended, too, with some other very, very alarming symptoms. At present, however, she is relieved from the vertigo, and seems in all respects better. " She has been my faithful and affectionate nurse for many years, and consequently has a claim on all my attentions. She has them, and will have them as long as she wants them ; which will pi'obably be, at the best, a considerable time to come. I feel the shock, as you may suppose, in every nerve. God grant that there may be no repetition of it. Another such a stroke upon her would, I think, overset me completely ; but at present I hold up bravely. "W. C." Thus, at one blow, Cowper's prop was struck from him ; and we need not wonder that every remaining step of the way to the grave became increasingly gloomy and painful. Meanwhile, however, he had relieved himself of one great burden ; his largest, though not most valuable, labour, was completed. In the autumn of 1790 he thus wrote to his Norfolk cousin, Mrs. Bodham : — " Weston, Sept. 9, 1790. " My dearest Cousin, — T am truly aovvy to be forced after all to resign the hope of seeing you and Mr. Bodham at Weston this year ; the next may, possibly, be more propitious, and I heartily wish it may. Poor Catherine's unseasonable indisposition has also cost us a disappoint- ment which we much regi'ct ; and, were it not that Johimy 1G6 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. has made shift to reach us, we should think ourselves completely unfortunate. But him we have, and him we will hold as long as we can, so expect not very soon to see him in Norfolk. He is so harmless, cheerful, gentle, and good-tempered, and T am so entirely at my ease with him, that I cannot surrender him without a needs must, even to those who have a superior claim upon him. He left \is yesterday morning ; and whither do you think he is gone, and on what errand ? Gone, as sure as you are alive, to London, and to convey my Homer to the bookseller's. But he will return the day after to-morrow, and I mean to part with him no more till necessity shall force us asunder. Suspect me not, my cousin, of being such a monster as to have imposed this task myself on your kind nephew, or even to have thought of doing it. It happened that one day, as we chatted by the fire-side, I expressed a wish that I could hear of some trusty body going to London, to whose care I might consign my voluminous labours, the work of five years. For I purpose never to visit that city again myself, and should have been uneasy to have left a charge, of so much importance to me, altogether to the care of a stage-coachman. Johnny had no sooner heard my wish than, off"ering himself to the service, he fulfilled it ; and his offer was made in s-uch terms, and accompanied with a countenance and manner expressive of so much alacrity, that, unreasonable as I thought it at first to give him so much trouble, I soon found that I should mortify him by a refusal. He is gone, therefore, with a box full of poetry, of which I think nobody will plunder him. He has only to say what it i.s, and there is no commodity I think a freebooter would covet less. " W. C." The subscription-list for Homer, thanks to the zeal of Lady Hcsketh, Mr. Hill, and Mr. Johnson, was well filled, and the publisher agreed to pay him a thousand pounds for the edition, leaving the copyright in his hands. A little before this, the laureateship had become vacant by the death of Warton. Lady Hesketh wished to procure it for him, and had she made the attempt her success DECLINES TO ASK FOR THE LAUREATESHIP. T67 would have been more than probable. But Cowper's answer to the suggestion was as follows : — " The Lodge, May 28, 1790. "My dearest Coz, — I thank thee for the offer of thy best services on this occasion. But Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever wreath beside may hereafter adorn them ! It would be a leaden extinguisher clapped on all the fire of my genius, and I should never more produce a line worth reading. To speak seriously, it would make me miserable, and therefore I am sure that thou, of all my friends, would least wish me to wear it. " Adieu, ever thine — in Homer-hurry, "W. C." A short time before this Cowper had, at Mr. Newton's request, translated a narrative of a Dutch minister of the name of Van Lier, originally written in Latin ; and this translation appeared shortly before the publication of Homer. It was entitled. The Power of Grace illustrated. Cowper says, writing to Mr. Newton : — " I have no objection to be known as the translator of Van Lier's Letters, when they shall be published. Rather I am ambitious of it, as an honour. It wiU serve to prove that, if I have spent much time to little purpose in the translation of Homer, some small portion of my time has, however, been weU disposed of." Shortly after his refusal to permit his friend to apply for the laureateship, we find the following intei-esting letter to Mr. Johnson : — " Weston, June 7, 1790. " My dear John, — You know my engagements, and are consequently able to account for my silence. I will not therefore waste time and paper in mentioning them, but wiU only say that, added to those with which you are acquainted, I have had other hindrances, such as business, and a disorder of my spirits, to which I have been aU my life subject. At present I am, thank God ! perfectly well, both in mind and body. Of you I am always mindful, whether I write or not, and very desirous to sec you. You 168 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. will remember, I hope, that you are under engagements to us, and as soon as your Norfolk friends can spare you, will fulfil them. Give us all the time you can, and all that they can spare to us ! " You never pleased me more than when you told me you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think that you were wasting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame not worth having. I cannot be con- tented that your renown should thrive nowhere but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and never let your honour be circumscribed by the paltry dimensions of a university ! It is well that you have already, as you observe, acquired sufficient information in that science to enable you to pass creditably such examinations as I sup- pose you must hereafter undergo. Keep what you have gotten, and be content. ]\Iore is needless. " You could not apply to a worse than I am to advise you concerning your studies. I was never a regiilar student myself, but lost the most valuable years of my life in an attorney's office, and in the Temple. I will not therefore give myself airs, and affect to know what I know not. The affair is of great importance to you, and you should be directed in it by a wiser than I. To speak, however, in very general terms on the subject, it seems to me that your chief concern is with history, natural philosophy, logic, and divinity. As to metaphysics, I know little about them. But the very little that I do know has not taught me to admire them. Life is too short to afford time even for serious trifles. Pursue what you know to be attainable, make truth your object, and your studies will make you a wise man ! Let your divinity, if I may advise, be the divinity of the glorious Reformation : I mean in contradis- tinction to Ai'minianism, and all the isms that were ever broached in this world of error and ignorance. " The divinitj" of the lieformation is called Calvinism, but injuriously. It has been that of the Church of Christ in all ages. It is the divinity of St. Paul, and of St. Paul's Master, who met him in his way to Damascus. " I have written in great haste, that I might finish if possible before breakfast. Adieu ! Let us see you soon ; CONSENTS TO EDIT MILTON. 169 the sooner the better. Give my love to the silent lady, the Rose, and all my friends around you. "W. C." Homer -was published in the summer of 1791. In August, Cowper thus wrote to Johnson : — " Weston, Aug. 9, 1791. " My dearest Johnny, — The httle that I have heard about Homer myself has been equally, or more flattering than Dr. 's intelligence, so that I have good reason to hope that I have not studied the old Grecian, and how to dress him, so long and so intensely, to no purpose. At present I am idle, both on account of my eyes, and be- cause I know not to what to attach myself in particular. Many different plans and projects are recommended to me. Some call aloud for original verse, othera for more transla- tion, and others for other things. Pro\adeuce, I hope, will direct me in my choice ; for other guide I have none, nor wish for another. God bless you, my dearest Johnny. " W. C." In fact scarcely a month had elapsed, after the completion of his Homer, before the publisher induced him to enter upon a fresh engagement, to wit, the editing a new and splendid edition of Milton. " My business (he says) wiU be to select notes from others, and to write original notes ; to translate the Latin and Itahan poems, and to give a correct text. I shall have years allowed me to do it in." This undertaking proved a burden to his declining years. Yet his faithful counsellor, Mrs. Unwin, earnestly wished him to engage in it. She writes to a friend : — " Ever since the close of his translation I have had many anxious thoughts how he would spend the advancing winter ; but a gracious Providence has dissipated all my fears on that head." This was in October, 1791. In three months after- wards, Haylcy, another of those fi-iends who were raised up and gathered round him in the last eight or nine years of his life, addressed to Cowper a letter, arising out of a reported rivalry between publishers and editors, concerning the production of Milton's works. A correspondence en- 1 70 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPEH. sued, which produced an invitation to Weston ; and, while Hayley was staying there, in May 1792, Mrs. Unwin's second paralytic seizure took place. Two brief letters to Lady Hesketh describe the aflQiction, and Cowper's feelings under it : — " Weston, May 24, 1792. " I wish with all my heart, my dearest coz, that I had not ill news for the subject of the present letter. My friend, my Mary, has again been attacked by the same disorder that threatened me last year with the loss of her, and of which you were yourself a witness. Gregson would not allow that first stroke to be paralytic, but this he acknowledges to be so ; and with respect to the former, I never had myself any doubt that it was : but this has been much the severest. Her speech has been almost unin- telligible from the moment that she was struck ; it is with difficulty that she opens her eyes, and she cannot keep them open, the muscles necessary to the purpose being contracted ; and as to self-moving powers, from place to place, and the use of her I'ight hand and arm, she has entirely lost them. " It has happened well that, of all men living, the man most qualified to assist and comfort me is here, though till within these few days I never saw him, and a few weeks since had no expectation that I ever should. You have already guessed that I mean Hayley. Hayley, who loves me as if he had known me from my cradle. When he returns to town, as he must, alas ! too soon, he will pay his respects to you. " I will not conclude without adding that our poor patient is beginning, I hope, to recover from this stroke also ; but her amendment is slow, as must be expected at her time of life, and in such a disorder. I am as well myself as you have ever known me in a time of much trouble, and even better. " It was not possible to prevail on Mrs. Unwin to let me send for Dr. Kerr, but Hayley has written to his friend, Dr. Austin, a representation of her case, and we expect his opinion and advice to-morrow. In the meantime, we have borrowed an electrical machine from our neighbour Socket ILLNESS OF MRS. UN WIN. 171 the effect of which she tried yesterday, and the day before, and we tliiiik it has been of material service. " She was seized while Hayley and I were walking, and Mr. Greatheed, who called while we were absent, was with her. " I forgot in my last to thank thee for the proposed amendments of thy friend. Whoever he is, make my com- pliments to him, and thank him. The passages to which he objects have been all altered ; and when he shall see them new dressed, I hope he will hke them better. " W. C." " The Lodge, May 2fi, 1792. " My dearest Cousin, — Knowing that you will be anxious to learn how we go on, I write a few lines to inform you that Mrs. Unwin daily recovers a little strength, and a little power of utterance ; but she seems strongest, and her speech is more distinct, in a morning. Hayley has been all in all to us on this very afflictive occasion. Love him, I charge you, dearly for my sake. Where could I have found a man, except himself, who could have made him- self so necessary to me in so short a time, that I absolutely know not how to live without him ? " Adieu, my dear sweet coz. Mrs. Unwin, as plainly as her poor lips can speak, sends her best love, and Hayley threatens in a few days to lay close siege to your affections in person. " W. C." With this event seems to close the active part of the life of Cowper. All that remains is gloom and suffering. His life had been, for so long a period, interwoven with that of Mrs. Unwin, that the stroke which prostrated the one, deprived of all remaining vital energy the other. Tlie brief remainder of our narrative will be one of almost unbroken gloom. 172 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWrER. VIII. DECLINING YEARS AND DEATH. A.D. 1792-1800. We now approach the close of the poet's life, and find his later days " labour and sorrow." Yet it is impossible to overlook the merciful kindness of his Heavenly Father, who raised up, in his hour of need, more and younger friends, to watch over his most helpless state. Southey — not apt to recognize anything supernatural save on the clearest evidence — frankly admits it here. He says : — " From the time when, in the prime of manhood, he was rendered heli^less, he was provided for by others ; that Providence, which feeds the ravens, raised up one person after another to minister unto him. ]\Irs. Unwin was to him as a mother ; Lady Hesketh as a sister ; and when he lost in Unwin one who had been to him as a brother, young men, as has already been seen in the instance of Rose, supplied that loss with almost filial affection. Sad as his story is, it is not altogether moiiniful : he had never to complain of injustice, nor of injuries, nor even of neglect. Man had no part in bringing on his calamity ; and to that very calamity, which made him " leave the herd" like " a stricken deer," it was owing that the genius which has consecrated his name, which has made him the most popu- lar poet of his age, and secures that popularity from fading away, was developed in retirement ; it would have been blighted had he continued in the course for which he was trained up. He would not have found the way to fame, unless he had missed the way to fortune. He miglit have been happier in his generation ; but he could never have DKCLINING YEARS. 173 been so useful ; with that generation his memory wovild have passed away, and he would have slept ■ft-ith his fathers, instead of living with those who are the glory of their country and the benefactors of their kind." In the summer of 1792, partly to gratify Hayley, but chiefly in the hope of reviving Mrs. Unwin's health, Cowper visited Sussex. He thus announces his intention to Mr. Bull. " We ai'e on the eve of a journey, and a long one. On this very day se'unight we set out for Eartham, the seat of my brother bard, Mr. Hayley, on the other side of London, nobody knows where, a hundred and twenty miles of!'. Pray for us, my friend, that we may have a safe going and return. It is a tremendous exploit, and I feel a thousand anxieties when I think of it. But a promise, made to him when he was here, that we would go if we could, and a sort of persuasion that we can if we will, oblige us to it. The journey, and the change of air, together with the novelty to us of the scene to which we are going, may, I hope, be useful to us both ; especially to Airs. Unwin, who has most need of restoratives." And on his arrival be thus writes : — " Here we are at Eartham, in the most elegant mansion that I ever inhabited, and surrounded by the most beauti- ful pleasure-gi-ounds that I have ever seen ; but which, dissipated as my powers of thought arc at present, I will not undertake to describe. It shall suffice me to say that they occupy three sides of a hill, which in Buckingham- shire might well pass for a mountain, and from the summit of which is beheld a most magnificent landscape, bounded by the sea, and in one part by the Isle of Wight, which may also be seen plainly from the window of the libraiy in which I am writing. It pleased God to carry us both through the journey with far less difficulty and incon- venience than I expected ; I began it, indeed, with a thou- sand fears, and when we arrived the first evening at Barnet, found myself oppressed in spirit to a degree that could hardly be exceeded. I saw Mrs. Unwin weary, as well she might be, and heard such noises, both \vithin the house and without, that I concluded she would get no rest. But 174 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. I was mercifully disappointed. She rested, though not well, yet sufficiently. Here we found our friend Rose, who had walked from his house in Chancery Lane to meet us, and to greet us ^vith his best wishes. At Kingston, where we dined the second day, I found my old and much-valued friend, General Cowper, whom I had not seen for thirty years, and but for this journey should never have seen again ; and when we arrived at Eipley, where we slept the second night, we were both in a better condition of body and of mind than on the day preceding. Here we found a quiet inn, that housed, as it happened, that night no com- pany but ourselves ; we slept well, and rose perfectly re- freshed, and, except some terrors that I felt at passing over the Sussex Hills at moonlight, met with little to complain of till we arrived about ten o'clock at Eartliam. Here we are as happy as it is in the power of earthly good to make us. It is almost a paradise in which we dweU ; and our reception has been the kindest that it was possible for friendship and hospitality to contrive." But no external circumstances could compensate for the loss of Mrs, Unv\an's long-accustomed support ; she who for twenty years had been his prop and guard, now- had to lean upon him. Arriving at home in September, he thus writes to Hayley : — " Chaos himself, even the chaos of Milton, is not sur- rounded more with confusion, nor has a mind more com- pletely in a hubbub, than I experience at the present moment. A bad night, succeeded by an east wind, and a sky all in sables, have such an effect on my spirits, that if I did not consult my own comfort more than yours, I should not write to-day, for I shall not entertain you much ; yet your letter, though containing no very pleasant tidings, has afforded me some relief. It tells me, indeed, that you have been dispirited yourself ; all this grieves me, but then there is warmth of heart and a kindness in it that do me good. I will endeavour not to repay you in notes of sorrow and despondence, though all my sprightly chords seem broken. In truth, one day excepted, I have not seen the day when I have been cheerful since I left you. ily spirits, I think, are almost constantly lower than they DECLINING TEARS. 17 J were ; the approach of winter is, perhaps, the cause, and if it be, I have nothing better to expect for a long time to come. I began a long letter to you yestei'day, and proceeded through two sides of the sheet, but so much of my nei'vous fever found its way into it, that, on looking over it this morning, I determined not to send it. Your wishes to disperse my melancholy would, I am sure, prevail, did that event depend on the warmth and sincerity with which you frame them ; but it has baffled both wishes and prayers, and those the most fervent that could be made, so many yeai-s, that the case seems hopeless." These frequent, and, indeed, almost continual attacks of depression, combined with the attention which Cowper paid to promote the comfort and facilitate the recovery of Mrs. Unwin, prevented him entirely from persevering in his literary imdertaking. In his letters he makes this a subject of particular regret. The benefits he had derived from his regular habits of study during his translation of Homer, made him anxious to be again regularly employed. To his friend Mr. Rose he thus describes the state of his mind in this respect : — "I wish that I were as industrious and as much occupied as you, though in a different way ; but it is not so with me. Mrs. Uu^\^n's great debility is of itself a hindrance, such as would eftectually disable me. Till she can work and read, and fill up her time as usual (aU of which is at present entirely out of her power), I may now and then find time to write a letter, but I shall write nothing more. I cannot sit with my pen in my hand and my books before me, while she is in effect in solitude, silent, and looking at the fire. To this hindrance that other has been added, of which you are aware, a want of spirits, such as I have never known when I was not absolutely laid by, since I commenced an author. How long I shall be continued in these uncomfortable circumstances is known only to Him who, as He will, disposes of us aU." It was about this period, when, with a mind torn ^vith grief and anxiety for ]\Irs. Unwin, and weakened by repeated attacks of hypochondria, Cowper began to lean with piti- able credulity on the supposed "second sight," or second hearing of an Olney schoolmaster, of the name of Teedon. 176 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. His early history, even from childhood, shows him to have been at all times liable to attach an irrational importance to thoughts, or fancied words, which passed through his brain. One of his notes to Teedon (October 16, 1792), will show how far these fancies were now beginning to possess his mind : — " Dear Sir, — On Saturday you saw me a little better than I had been when I wrote last ; but the night foUow- ing brought with it an uncommon deluge of distress, such as entirely overwhelmed and astonished me. My horrors were not to be described. But on Sunday, while I walked with Mrs. Unwin and my cousin in the orchard, it pleased God to enable me once more to approach him in prayer, and I prayed silently for every thing that lay nearest my heart with a considerable degree of hberty. Nor did I let slip the occasion of praying for you. " This experience I take to be a fulfilment of those words : — " ' The ear of the Lordis open to them that fear him, and he will hear their cry.'' " The next morning, at my waking, I heard these : — " ' Fidfil thy promise to me^ "And ever since I was favoured with that spiritual freedom to make my requests known to God, I have en- joyed some quiet, though not uninterruj)ted by threaten- ings of the enemy. " JMrs. Unwin has had a good night, and is in tolei'able spirits this morning." And again, in May, 1793, he wi-ites to the same Teedon thus : — " You receive assurances almost as often as you pray, of spiritual good things intended for me ; and I feel in the mean time every thing that denotes a man an outcast and a reprobate. I dream in the night that God has rejected me finally, and that all promises and all answers to prayer made for me are mere delusions. I wake under a strong and clear conviction that these communications are from God, and in the course of the day nothing occurs to in- vahdate that persuasion. As I have said before, there is a mystery in this matter that I am not able to explain. I DECLINING YEARS. 177 believe myself the only instance of a uian to whom God wall i)romise everything, and perform nothing." This Avas a notion over which he had brooded for the last seven years, and he reasoned upon it thus to the poor simple man whom he had chosen, not for his philosopher, but in a certain sense for his guide and friend. " I have already told you that I heard a word in the year '86, which has been a stone of stumbhng to me ever since. It was this : — " ' / icill promise you anything? "This word, taken in connexion with my experience, such as it has been ever since, seems so exactly accom- plished, that it leaves me no power at all to believe the promises made to you. You will tell me that it was not from God. By what token am I to prove that % My expe- rience verifies it. In the day I am occupied with my studies, which, whatever they are, are certainly not of a spiritual kind. In the night I generally sleep well, but wake always under a terrible impression of the wrath of God, and for the most part with w^ords that fill me with alarm, and with the dread of woes to come. What is there in all this that in the least impeaches the truth of the threatening I have mentioned ? / will promise you any thing : that is to say, much as I hate you, and miserable as I design to make you, I will yet bid you be of good cheer and expect the best, at the same time that I will show you no favour. This, you will say, is unworthy of God. Alas ! He is the fittest to judge what is worthy of him, and what is otherwise. I can say but this, that his conduct and dealings are totally changed toward me. Once he pi'omised me much, and was so kind to me at the same time, that I most confidently expected the performance. Now he pro- mises me as much, but holds me always at an immense distance, and, so far as I know, never deigns to speak to me. What conclusions can I draw from these premises, but that he who once loved now hates me, and is con- stantly emi)loyed in verifying the notice of '86 ; that is to say, in working distinctly contrary to his promises ? " This is the labyrinth in which I am always be- N 178 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. wildered, and from wliicli I have hardly any hope of de- hverauce." To Mr. Newton, however, he could not reveal these weaknesses. To him he writes in a more rational, though equally mournful strain. Thus, on ''Nov. 11, 1792. " My dear Friend, — I am not so insensible of your kind- ness in making me an exception from the number of your correspondents, to whom you forbid the hope of hearing from you till your present labours are ended, as to make you wait longer for an answer to your last ; which, indeed, would have had its answer before this time, had it been possible for me to write. But so many have demands upon me of a similar kind, and while Mrs. Unwin continues an invalid, my opportunities of writing are so few, that I am constrained to incur a long arrear to some, with whom I would wish to be punctual. She can at present neither work nor read ; and till she can do both, and amuse her- self as usual, my own amusements of the pen must be suspended. " I, like you, have a work before me, and a work to which I should be glad to address myself in earnest, but cannot do it at present. When the opportunity comes, I shall, like you, be under a necessity of interdicting some of my usual correspondents, and of shortening my letters to the excepted few. Many letters and much company are incomjiatible with authorship, and the one as much as the other. It will be long, I hope, before the world is put in possession of a publication, which you design shoidd be posthumous. " Oh, for the day when your expectations of my com- plete deUverance shall be verified ! At present it seems very remote : so distant, indeed, that hardly the faintest streak of it is visible in my horizon. The glimpse with which I was favoured about a month since, has never been repeated ; and the depression of my spirits has. The future appears gloomy as ever ; and I seem to myself to be scrambling always in the dark, among rocks and precipices, without a guide, but with an enemy ever at my heels, pre- DECLmmo TEABS. 179 pared to piish me headlong. Thus I have spent twenty years, but thus I shall not spend twenty years more. Long ere that period arrives, the grand question concerning my everlasting weal or woe wiU be decided. A question that seems to have interested the enemy of mankind peculiarly, for against none, so far as I have learned by reading or otherwise, has he ever manifested such fury as I have experienced at his hands ; yet all that I have felt is little in comparison with what he often threatens me, so that even God's omnipotence to save is a consideration that affords me no comfort, while I seem to have a foe omnipotent to destroy. This may appear to you a strange language, yet it is not altogether unwarranted by Scripture. Tell me, who are the Principalities and Powers in heavenly places spoken of by Saint Paul ? Against them we have to war ; and they cannot be the angels who have fallen from their first estate, for they are said to have been long since thrust down into perdition, and to be bound in chains of darkness until the judgment of the great day. I recollect, and so do you, perhaps, what was the opinion of Dr. Conyers on this subject, and it will be a pleasure to me to know yours. If my enemy's testimony could weigh with you as much as it does sometimes with me, you would not hesitate long in your answer, for he has a thousand times in my hearing boasted himself supreme. " Adieu, my dear friend, I have exhausted my time, though not filled my paper. With our united affectionate remembrances to yourself and IVIiss Catlctt, I remain, " Truly yours, " Wm. Cowper." Hayley about this time, indulging somewhat of a selfish vanity, had formed a scheme for a poem, to be entitled The Four Ages, in which he and Cowper were each to take a part, and Romney and Flaxman were to contribute their artistic aid. Well planned, assuredly, for binding up the contriver \vith Cowper's endless fame ; but we can feel no disappointment, that so manifestly selfish a project never was realised. It was now the last struggle with Cowper for a real and 180 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. endurable existence. His loving supporter, for more than eight-and-twenty years, had been whoUy prostrated, and her state of weakness and suffering inci'eased his own distress and mental indisposition. His correspondence now became brief and hurried, not from any alteration of feeling, but from his needful atten- tion to Mrs. Unwin, and her growing demands upon him. " You win not judge me," he says to Mr. Newton, " by the unfrequency of my letters ; nor suppose that my thoughts about you are equally unfrequent. In truth they are not. No day passes in which you are excluded from them. I am so busy that I do not expect even now to fiU my paper. While I write, my poor invalid, who is still unable to amuse herself either with book or needle, sits silent at my side ; which makes me, in all my letters, hasten to a conclusion. My only time for study is now before breakfast, and I lengthen it as much as I can by early rising." He regarded it as a good effect of study, that it made him an early riser, who might otherwise, he said, perhaps be as much given to dozing as his readers. Yet surely it must have been injurious to him to curtail that natural sleep which is the best of all restoratives. " I know not," he tells ]\Ir. Newton, " that with respect to our health, we are either better or worse than when you saw us. Mrs. Unwin perhaps has gained a little strength, and the advancing spring, I hope, will add to it. As to myself, I am in body, soul, and spirit, semper idem. Prayer I know is made for me, and sometimes with great enlarge- ment of heart by those who offer it ; and in this circum- stance consists the only evidence I can find, that God is still favourably mindful of me, and has not cast me off for ever." This was in April. In the June following, he says of Mrs. Unwin, " in her I cannot perceive any alteration for the l)etter ; and must be satisfied, I believe, as indeed I have great reason to be, if she does not alter for the worse. She uses the orchard-walk daily, but always supported between two, and is still unable to employ herself as for- merly. But she is cheerful, seldom in much pain, and has always strong confidence in the mercy and faithfulness of Ood. LINES " TO MARY." 181 " As to myself, I have always the same song to sing, — Well in body, but sick in spirit : sick, nigh unto death. ' Seasons return, but not to me returns God, or the sweet approach of heavenly day. Or sight of cheering truth, or pardon seal'd, Or joy, or hope, or Jesus' face divine ; But cloud, &c.' I could easily set my complaint to Milton's tone, and ac- company him through the whole passage, on the subject of a blindness more deplorable than his ; but time fails me." He sought relief in employment, in exercise, in garden- ing, in correspondence, and sometimes, it would seem, even in prayer. But advancing age was telling upon his frame ; and the burden which he could not support in the prime of life, even with the help of such friends as Newton and Mrs. Unwin, crushed him to the earth at last. It must have been in the year 1793 that he wrote the last original piece which his pen produced at Weston, a piece which, of its kind, is unrivalled by any similar production : — " To Maey. " The twentieth year is well-nigh past Since first our sky was overcast; Ah, would that this might be the last ! My Mary ! Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow ; 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Maiy ! Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused, and shine no more ; My Mai-y For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still, Thy sight now seconds not thy will ! My Mary 182 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. But well thou play'dst the housewife's part ; And all thy threads, with magic art, Have wouud themselves ahout this heart, My Mary ! Thy indistinct expressions seem Lilie language utter'd in a dream ; Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme, My Mary ! Thy silver locks, once auburn bright. Are still more lovely in my sight Than golden beams of orient light. My Mary ! For could I \'iew nor them nor thee, "What sight worth seeing could I see? The sun would rise in vain for me. My Mary! Partakers of thy sad decline. Thy hands their httle force resign ; Yet gently prest, press gently mine, My Mary ! Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st, That now at every step thou mov'st Upheld by two ; — yet still thou lov'st. My Mary ! And still to love, though prest with ill, In wintry age to feel no chill, With me is to be lovely still. My Mai-y ! But ah ! by constant heed I know. How oft the sadness that I show Ti'ansforms thy smiles to looks of woe. My Mary ! And should my future lot be cast With much resembhuice of the past, Tliy worn-out heart will break at last. My aiary!" The autumn of this year assembled some of his warmest and best friends arouud liim. Hayley, and Johnson, and DESPONDENCY. 183 Eose, all visited "Weston ; aud with the latter came Law- rence, whose pencil bequeathed to us the portrait which is prefixed to the present volume. If society could have changed the melancholy state of things, there was enough to do it. But what could alter the sadness of the mind depicted in the following note ? " Friday morning. " Dear Sir, — I am not well, but far from being so. I wake almost constantly under the influence of a nervous fever ; by which my spirits are affected to such a degree that the oppression is almost insupportable. Since I wrote last I have been plunged in deeps, unvisited I am con- vinced by any human soul but mine : aud though the day in its progress bears away with it some part of this melan- choly, I am never cheerful because I can never hope, and I am so bounded in my prospects, that to look forward to another year to me seems m^adness. " In this state of mind, how can I write 1 It is in vain to attempt it. I have neither spirits for it, as I have often said, nor leisure. Yet, vain as I know the attempt must prove, I purpose in a few days to renew it. " Mrs. Unwin is as weU as when I wrote last, but, like myself, dejected. Dejected both on my account and on her own. Unable to amuse herself either with work or reading, she looks forward to a new day with despondence, weary of it before it begins, and longing for the return of night. " Thus it is with us both. If I endeavour to pray, I get my answer in a double portion of misery. My petitions, therefore, are reduced to three words, and those not very often repeated — ' God have mercy ! ' " Adieu ! Yours, " Wm. Cowper." " Imagination (says Hayley^can hardly devise any human condition more truly affecting than the state of the jjoet at this period. His generous and faithful guanUau, Mrs. Unwin, who had pi'eserved him through seasons of the severest calamity, was now, with her faculties and fortune impaired, sinking fast into second childhood. The distress of heart 184 UFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. that he felt in beholding the cruel change in a companion so justly dear to him, conspiring with his constitutional melancholy, was gradually undermining the exquisite facul- ties of his mind. But, depressed as he was by these com- Jilicated afflictions. Providence was far from deserting this excellent man. His female relation, whose regard he had cultivated as his favourite correspondent, now devoted herself very nobly to the su]5erintendence of a house, whose two iutercsting inhabitants were rendered, by age and trouble, almost incapable of attending to the ordinary oflSces of life." Lady Hesketh arrived at Weston in November, intend- ing to remain with Cowper till Febi'uary. But before this period had arrived his malady reappeared, and in its worst form. Among other illusions which possessed him was that of a notion "that it was his duty to inflict upon himself severe penance for his sins ; such, at least, is the tradition which Mackintosh and Mr. Basil JVIontagu heard at Olney seven years afterwards ; and this, if it were so, was a state of comparative happiness to the more abiding character of his madness, for in the performance of penance the belief in a consequent remission of sins is implied. Six days he sat ' still and silent as death,' and took no other food during that time than a small piece of bread dipped in wine and water. After every attempt to rouse him had failed, his medical attendant suggested, as the only re- maining hope, that Mrs. Unwiu should indirectly invite him to go out with her, if she could be induced to do this, for her state of mind now required almost as much management as his. She, however, perceived the necessity of making the experiment, and observing that it was a fine morning, said she should like to try to walk. Cowper inamediately rose, took her by the arm, — and the spell which had fixed him to his chair was broken. This appears to have been the last instance in which her influence over him was exerted for his good." Soon after this, Mr. .Johnson came from Norfolk, and assisted Lady Hesketh in her arduous task. But when he HA.YLEY SENT FOR. 185 had departed, Mr. Grcatheed, one of his nearest friends, felt it incumbent on hiui to apprize Hayley of the lament- able state of the poet. He wrote as follows : — " Newport Pagnel, April 8, 1794. " Dear Sir, — Lady Hesketh's correspondence acquainted you with the melancholy relapse of our dear friend at Weston ; but I am uncertain whether you know, that in the last fortniglit he has refused food of every kind, except now and then a very small piece of toasted bread, dipped generally in water, sometimes mixed with a little wine. This, her ladyshijj informs me, was the case till last Satur- day, since when he has eat a little at each family meal. He persists in refusing such medicines as are indispen- sable to his state of body. In such circumstances, his long continuance in life cannot be expected. How de- voutly to be wished is the alleviation of his danger and distress ! You, dear Sir, who know so well the worth of our beloved and admii-ed friend, sympathize with his affliction, and deprecate his loss doubtless in no ordinary degree ; you have already most eifectually expressed and proved the warmth of your friendship. I cannot think that anything but your society would have been sufficient, during the infirmity under which his mind has long been oppressed, to have supported him against the shock of Mrs. Uuwin's paralytic attack. I am certain that nothing else could have prevailed upon him to undertake the journey to Eartham. You have succeeded where his other friends knew they could not, and where they apprehended no one could. How natural, therefore, nay, how reasonable, it is for them to look to you, as most likely to be instrumental, under the blessing of God, for relief in the present dis- tressing and alarming crisis! It is, indeed, scarcely at- temptable to ask any person to take such a journey, and involve himself in so melancholy a scene, with an uncer- tainty of the desired success : increased as the apparent difficulty is, by dear Mr. Cowper's aversion to aU company, and by poor Mrs. Unwin's mental and bo, lily infirmities. On these accounts Lady Hesketh dares not ask it of you, rejoiced as she would be at your arrival. Am not I, dear 186 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. sir, a very presumptuous person, who, in the face of all opposition, clave do this ? I am emboldened by those two powerful supporters, conscience and experience. Was I at Eartham, I would certainly undertake the labour I presume to recommend, for the bare possibility of restoring Mr. Cowper to himself, to his friends, to the public, and to God." Hayley immediately repaired to "Weston, and Lady Hesketh seized the opportunity to quit her post for a few hours, in order to have an inter-view with Dr. Willis, the highest medical authority at that time in cases of that character. Dr. W. prescribed for the poet, and afterwards visited him at Weston ; but medicine had no power over a disease so long dominant. It was on the 23d of April, 1794, in one of those melan- choly mornings, when his kind and affectionate relative, Lady Hesketh, and Hayley, were watching together over this dejected sufferer, that a letter from Lord Spencer arrived at Weston, to announce the intended grant of a pension from his majesty to Cowper of 300^. per annum, rendered payable to his friend Mr. Rose, as the trustee of Cowper. This intelligence produced in the friends of the poet very lively emotions of delight, yet blended with pain almost as powerful ; for it was painful, in no trifling de- gree, to reflect that these desirable smiles of good fortune could not impart even a faint glimmering of joy to the dejected poet. From the time when Hayley left his unhappy friend at Weston, in the spring of the year 1794, he remained there, under the tender vigilance of Lady Hesketh, till the latter end of July 1 795 — a long season of the darkest depression ! in which the best medical advice and the influence of time appeared equally unable to hghten that afflictive burden which pressed incessantly on his spirits. It was iinder these circumstances that ]\Ir. Johnson, with a disinterestedness and affection that must ever endear him to the admirers of Cowper, determined, with Lady Hesketh's concurrence, to remove the poet and his afflicted companion into Norfolk. In adopting this plan he did not contemplate more than a year's absence from COWPER LEAVES WESTON. 187 Weston. But what was intended to be only temporary, proved, in the sei|uel, to be a final removal. Few events could have been more painful to Cowi3er than a separation from his beloved Weston. Every object was familiar to his eye, and had long engaged the affections of his heart. Its beautiful scenery had been traced with all the minuteness of description, and the glow of poetic fancy. The slow- win ding Ouse, " bashful, yet impatient to be seen," was henceforth to glide "in its sinuous course" unperccived. The spacious meads, the lengthened colon- nade, the proud alcove, and the sound of the sweet village bells, — these memorials of past happy days were to be seen and heard no more. All have felt the pang excited by the separation or loss of friends ; but who has not also experienced that even trees have tongues, and that every object in nature knows how to plead its empire over the heart ? What Cowper's sensations were on this occasion, may be collected from the following little incident. On the morning of his departure from Weston, he wrote the following lines in pencil on the back of the shutter in his bedroom : — "Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me ! Oil, for what sorrows must I now exchange you! " These lines have been carefully preserved as the expres- sive memorial of his feelings on leaving Weston. On Tuesday, the 28th of July, 1795, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin removed, under the care and guidance of INIr. John- son, from Weston to N orth-Tuddenham, in Norfolk, by a journey of three days, passing through Cambridge without stopping there. In the evening of the first day they rested at the village of Eaton, near St. Neot's. Cowper walked with his young kinsman in the churchyard by moonlight, and spoke with much composure on the subject of Thom- son's jSeasoiis, and the circumstances under which they were probably written. This conversation was almost his last glimmering of cheerfulness. At North-Tuddenham the travellers were accommodated with a commodious, untenanted parsonage-house, by the 188 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWrER. kindness of the Rev. Leonard Shelford. Here ttey resided till the 19th of August. It was the considerate intention of Mr. Johnson not to remove them immediately to his own house, in the town of East Dereham, lest the situation in a market-place should be distressing to the tender spirits of Cowper. In their new temporary residence they were received by Miss Johnson and Miss Perowne, whose gentle and sympathising spirit peculiarly qualified them to discharge so delicate an of&ce, and to alleviate the sufferings of the dejected poet. Severe as his depressive malady appeared at this period, he was still able to bear considerable exercise, and,, before he left Tuddenham, he walked with Mr. Johnson to the neighboui'ing village of Mattishall, on a visit to his cousin, Mrs. Bodham. On surveying his own portrait, by Abbot, in the house of that lady, he clasped his hands in a paroxysm of pain, and uttered a vehement wish, that his present sensations might be such as they were when that picture was painted. In August, 1795, Mr. Johnson conducted his two invalids to Mundesley, a village on the Norfolk coast, in the hope that a situation by the sea- side might prove salutary and amusing to Cowper. They continued to reside there tiU October, but without any apparent benefit to the health of the interesting sufferer. He had long relinquished epistolary intercourse with his most intimate friends, but his tender solicitude to hear some tidings of his favourite Weston induced him, in Sep- tember, to write a letter to Mr. Buchanan. It shows the severity of his depression, but proves, also, that transient gleams of pleasure could occasionally break through the brooding darkness of melancholy. , He begins with a poetical quotation : — " To interpose a little ease, Let my frail thoughts daily with false surmise ! " " I will foi'get, for a moment, that to whomsoever I may address myself, a letter from me can no otherwise be wel- come than as a curiosity. To you, sir, I address this ; urged IN NORFOLK. 189 to it by extreme penury of employment, and the desire 1 feel to learn something of what is doing, and has been done, at Weston (my beloved Weston !), since I left it. " The coldness of these blasts, even in the hottest days, has been such, that, added to the irritation of the salt- spray with which they arc always charged, they have occa- sioned me an inflammation in the eyelids, which threatened a few days since to confine me entirely, but, by absenting myself as much as possible from the beach, and guarding my face with an umbrella, that inconvenience is in some degree abated. My chamber commands a very near view of the ocean, and the ships at high water approach the coast so closely, tliat a man furnished with better eyes than mine might, I doubt not, discern the sailors from the window. No situation, at least when the weather is clear and bright, can be pleasanter ; which you will easily credit, , when I add, that it imparts something a little resembling pleasure even to me. Gratify me with news of Weston ! If Mr. Gregson and yovir neighbours the Courtenays are there, mention me to them in svich terms as you see good. Tell me if my poor birds are living. I never see the herbs I used to give them, without a recollection of them, and sometimes am reaciy to gather them, forgetting that I am not at home. Pardon this intrusion ! " Mrs. Unwin continues much as usual. '' Mundeslcy, Sept. 5, 1795." Mr. Buchanan endeavoured, with great tenderness and ingenviity, to allure his dejected friend to prolong a corre- spondence that seemed to promise some little alleviation to his melancholy ; but his distressing malady baffled all the various expedients that could be devised to counteract its overwhelming influence. Much hope was entertained from air and exei'cise, with a frequent change of scene. In September Mr. Johnson conducted his kinsman (to the promotion of whose re- covery he devoted his most unwearied efforts) to take a survey of Dunham Lodge, a seat at that time vacant ; it is situated on high ground, in a park, about four miles from SwafFliam. Cowper spoke of it as a house rather too spacious 190 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. for liim, yet such as he was not unwilling to inhabit ; a remark which induced Mr. Johnson, at a subsequent period, to become the tenant of this mansion, as a scene more eligible for Cowper than the town of Dereham. This town they also surveyed in their excursion ; and, after passing a night there, returned to Mundesley, where they remained till the seventh of October : they then removed to Dereham ; but left it in the course of a month for Dunham Lodge, which now became their settled residence. The spirits of Cowper were not sufficiently revived to allow him to resume either his pen or his books ; but the kindness of Mr. Johnson continued to furnish him with in- exhaustible amusement, by reading to him almost inces- santly ; and although he was not led to converse on what he heard, yet it occupied his attention, and so prevented his afflicted mind from preying on itself. In April, 1796, Mrs. Unwin, whose infirmities continued to engage the tender attention of Cowper, even in his darkest periods of depression, received a visit from her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Powley. On their departure, Mr. Johnson assumed the office which ISIrs. Powley had tenderly performed for her venerable parent, and regularly read a chapter in the Bible every morning to Mrs. Unwin before she rose. It was the invariable custom of Cowper to visit his poor old friend the moment he had finished his breakfast, and to remain in her apartment while the chapter was read. In June the pressure of his melancholy appeared in some degree alleviated, for, on Mr. Johnson's receiving the edition of Pope's Homer, published by AYakefield, Cowper eagerly seized the book, and began to read the notes to himself with \'isible interest. They awakened his atten- tion to his own version of Homer. In August he deh- berately engaged in a revisal of the whole, and for some time produced almost sixty new lines a day. This mental occupation animated all his intimate friends with a most lively hope of his progressive recovery. But autumn repressed the hope that summer had excited. In September the family removed from Dunham Lodge to try again the influence of the sea-side, in their favourite DEATH OF MRS. UNAVTN. 191 village of Mundesley. Here Cowper walked frequently by the sea ; but no apparent benefit arose, no relief from the incessant pressure of melancholy. He had relin- quished his Homer again, and could not yet be induced to resume it. Towards the end of October the whole party retired from the coast to the house of IMr. Johnson, in Dereham ; a house now chosen for their winter residence, as Dunham Lodge appeared to them too dreary. The life of ]\Irs. Unwin was drawing towards a close : the powers of nature were gradually exhausted, and on the seventeenth of December she ended a troubled existence, distinguished by a friendship which will never be forgotten. Her death Avas calm and tranquil. Cowper saw her about half an hour before the moment of her death, which took place about one o'clock in the afternoon. On the morning of that day he said to the servant who opened the window of his chamber, " Sally, is there life above-stairs ?" A proof of his incessant attention to the sufferings of his aged friend, although he had long appeared almost totally absorbed in his own. In the dusk of the evening he attended Mr. Johnson to survey the corpse ; and after looking at it a few moments he started suddenly away, with a vehement but unfinished exclamation of passionate sorrow. He spoke of her no more. She was buried by torch-light, on the twenty-third of December, in the north aisle of Dereham Church ; where two of her friends raised a marble tablet to her memory with the following inscription : — IN MEMOKY OF MARY, WIDOW OF THE EEV. MORLEY UNWIN, AND MOTHER OF THE EEV. -mLLIAM CAWTHORN UNWIN, BOKN AT ELY, 1724, BURIED IN THIS CHURCH, 179G. 192 LIFE OF WILLIAM COAVPER. Trusting in God, with all lier heart and mind, This woman prov'd magnanimously kind; Endui''d affliction's desolating hail, And watch'd a poet thro' misfortune's vale. Her spotless drist, angelic guards, defend ! It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper's friend ! That single title in itself is fame, For all who read his verse revere her name. It might have been anticipated that the death of Mrs. Unwin, in Cowper's enfeebled state, would have proved too severe a shock to his agitated nerves. But it is mercifully ordained that, while declining years incapacitate us for trials, they, at the same time, weaken the sensibility to sufteriug, and thereby render us less accessible to the in- fluence of sorrow. It may be regarded as an instance of providential mercy to this afflicted poet, that his aged friend, whose life he had so long considered as essential to his own, was taken from him at a time when the pressure of his malady, a perpetual low fever, both of body and mind, had, in a great degree, diminished the native energy of his faculties and affections. Owing to these causes, Covrper was so far preserved in this season of trial, that, instead of mourning the loss of a person in whose life he had seemed to hve, all perception of that loss was mercifully taken from him ; and, from the moment when he hurried away from the inanimate object of his filial attachment, he appeared to have no memory of her having existed, for he never asked a question concern- ing her funeral, nor ever mentioned her name. Towards the summer of 1797 his bodily health appeared to improve, but not to such a degree as to restore any comfortable activity to his mind. In June he wrote a brief letter to Hayley, but such as too forcibly expressed the cruelty of his distemper. The process of digestion never passed regularly in his frame during the years that he resided in Norfolk. Medicine appeared to have little or no influence on his complaint, and his aversion at the sight of it was extreme. From asses' itiilk, of whicli he began a course on the twenty-first of June in this year, he gained a consider- GRADUAL DECLINE, 193 able acquisition of bodily strength, and was enabled to bear an airing in an open carriage, before breakfast, with Mr, Johnson. A depression of mind, which suspended the studies of a ■writer so eminently endeared to the public, was considered by men of piety and learning as a national misfortune, and several individuals of this description, though personally unknown to Cowper, wrote to him in the benevolent hope that expressions of friendly praise, from persons who could be influenced only by the most laudable mo1>ives in bestow- ing it, might re-animate his dejected spirit. Among these might be enumerated Dr. Watson, the Bishop of LlandaflF, who kindly addressed him in the language of encourage- ment and of soothing consolation ; but the pressure of his malady had now made him utterly deaf to the most honourable praise. He had long discontinued the revisal of his Homer, when his kinsman, dreading the effect of the cessation of bodily exercise upon his mind during a long winter, resolved, if possible, to engage him in the revisal of this work. One moi'niug, therefoi'e, after breakfast, in the month of Sep- tember, he placed the commentators on the table, one by one ; namely, Villoison, Barnes, and Clarke, opening them all, together with the poet's translation, at the place where he had left off a twelvemonth before, but talking with him, as he paced the room, upon a very different subject, namely, the impossibility of the things befalling him which his imagination had represented ; when, as his companion had wished, he said to him, " And are you sure that I shall be here till the book you are reading is finished ?" " Quite sure," replied his kinsman ; " and that you wiU also be here to complete the revisal of your Homer," pointing to the books, " if you will resume it to-day." As he repeated these words he left the room, rejoicing in the well-knovm token of their having sunk into the poet's mind, namely, his seating himself on the sofix, taking up one of the books, and saying in a low and plaintive voice, " I may as well do this, for I can do nothing else." In this labour he persevered, oppressed as he was by indisposition, till ISIarch 1799, On Friday evening, the 194 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPEK. eighth of that month, he completed his revisal of the Odyssey, and next morning wrote part of a new preface. To watch over the disordered health of afflicted genius, and to lead a powerful, but oppressed, spirit by gentle encouragement, to exert itself in salutary occupation, is an office that requires a very rare union of tenderness, intelh- gence, and fortitude. To contemplate and minister to a great mind, in a state that borders on mental desolation, is like surveying, in the midst of a desert, the tottering ruins of palaces and temples, where the faculties of the spectator are almost absorbed in wonder and regret, and where every step is taken with awful apiDrehension. Hayley, in alluding to Mr. Johnson's kind and affec- tionate offices, at this period, bears the following honour- able testimony to his merits, which we are haj^py in transcribing : — " It seemed as if Providence had expressly formed the young kinsman of Cowper to prove exactly such a guardian to his declining years as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. I never saw the human being that could, I think, have sustained the delicate and arduous office (in which the inexhaustible virtues of Mr. Johnson persevered to the last) through a period so long, vdth an equal portion of unvaried tenderness and unshaken fidelity. A man who wanted sensibility would have renounced the duty ; and a man endowed with a particle too much of that valuable, though perilous, quality, must have felt his own health vitterly undermined, by an excess of sympathy with the sufferings perpetually in his sight. Mr. Johnson has completely discharged, perhaps, the most trj'ing of human duties ; and I trust he will forgive me for this public decla- ration, that, in his mode of discharging it, he has merited the most cordial esteem from all who love the memory of Cowi^er. Even a stranger may consider it as a strong proof of his tender dexterity in soothing and guiding the afiiicted poet, that he was able to engage him steadily to pursue and finish the revisal and correction of his Homer, during a long period of bodily and mental sufferings, when his troubled mind recoiled from all intercourse with his most intimate friends, and laboured under a morbid abhorrence of all cheerful exertion." GRADUAL DECLINE. 195 In the summer of 1798, IVlr. Johnson was induced to vary his plan of remaining for some months in the marine village of Mundeslcy, and thought it more eligible to make fi-eiiueut visits from Dereham to the coast, passing a week at a time by the seaside. Cowpcr, ill his poem on Retirement, seems to inform us what his own sentiments were, in a season of health, con- cerning the regimen most proper for melancholy : — " Virtuous and faithful Heberclen, whose skill Attempts no task it cannot well fulfil, Gives melancholy up to Nature's care, And sends the patient into pvirer air." The frequent change of place, and the magnificence of marine scenery, produced at times a little relief to his de- pressed spirits. On the seventh of June, 1798, he surveyed the light-house at Happisburgh, and expressed some plea- sure on beholding, through a telescope, several ships at a distance, ifet, in his usual walk with his companion by the sea-side, he exemplified, but too forcibly, his o\\ti affecting description of melancholy silence : — " That silent tongue Could give ad\4ce, could censure or commend, Or charm the sorrows of a drooping fiiond. Eenounced alike its otfice and its sport, Its brisker and its graver strains fall short: Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, And like a summer brook are jiass'd away." On the twenty-fourth of July, Cowper had the honour of a visit from the Dowager Lady Spencer ; and it was rather remarkable, that on the very morning she called upon him he had begun his revisal of the OJ>/ssey, which was originally inscribed to her. Such an incident in a hapjjior season would have produced a very enlivening effect on his spirits ; but, in his present state, it had not even the power to lead him into any free conversation with his distinguished visitor. A few days after this he wrote the following brief but mournful letter to Mr. Newton : — 196 LITE OF WILLIAM COWPER. " July 29, 1798. " Dear Sir, — Few letters have passed between us, and I was never so incapable of writing as now, nor ever so destitute of a subject. It is long since I received your last, to which. I have as yet retiu-ned no answer ; nor is it possible that, though I write, I should even now reply to it. It contained, I remember, many kind expressions, which would have encouraged, perhaps, and consoled any other than myself ; but I was, even then, out of the reach of all such favourable impressions, and am at present less susceptible of them than at any time since I saw you last. I once little thought to see such days as these, for almost in the moment when they found me, there was not a man in the world who seemed to himself to have less reason to expect them. This you know ; and what can I say of my- self that you do not know ? "I will only add, therefore, that we are going to the sea-side to-morrow, where we are to stay a fortnight ; at the end of which time may I expect to find a letter from you directed to me at Dereham ? " I remain, in the meantime, " Yours, as usual, "Wm. CoWPER." The only amusement that he appeared to admit with- out reluctance was the reading of Mr. Johnson, who, having exhausted a series of works of fiction, at this period began reading to the poet his own works. To these he listened in silence, and heard all his poems recited in order, till the reader arrived at the history of John Gilpin, which he begged not to hear. Mr. Johnson proceeded to his manuscript poems ; to these he wilhugly listened, but made not a single remark on any. In October, 1798, the pressure of his melancholy seemed to be mitigated in some httle degree, for he exerted himself so far as to write the following letter, without soUcitation, to Lady Hesketh : — " Dear Cousin, — You describe delightful scenes, but you describe them to one, who, if he even saw them, could GRADUAL DECLINE. 197 receive no delight from them : who has a faint recollection, and so faint, as to be like an almost forgotten dream, that once he was susceptible of pleasure from such causes. The country that you have had in prospect has been always famed for its beauties ; but the wretch who can derive no gratification from a view of nature, even under the disad- vantage of her most ordinary dress, will have no eyes to admire her in any. " In one day, in one minute, I should rather have said, she became a universal blank to me, and though from a diflferent cause, yet with an effect as difficult to remove as blindness itself. In this country, if there are not moun- tains, there are hills ; if not broad and deep rivers, yet, such as are sufficient to embellish a prospect : and an object still more magnificent than any river, the ocean itself, is almost immediately under the window. Why is scenery like this, I had almost said, why is the very scene, which many years since I could not contemplate without rapture, now become, at the best, an insipid wilderness to me ? It neighbours nearly, and as nearly resembles the scenery of Catfield ; but with what diffei'ent perceptions does it present me ! The reason is obvious. My state of mind is a medium through which the beauties of Paradise itself could not be communicated with any effect but a painful one. " There is a wide interval between us, which it would be far easier for you than for me to pass. Yet I should in vain invite you. "We shall meet no more. I know not what Mr. Johnson said of me in the long letter he ad- dressed to you yesterday, but nothing, I am sure, that could make such an event seem probable. " I remain, as usual, dear cousin, " Yours, " Wm. Cowper. " Mundesley, October 13, 1798." On his return from Mundesley to Dereham, in an evening towards the end of October, Cowper. with Miss Perowne and Mr. .lohnson, was overturned in a post-chaise : he disco- vered no terror on the occasion, and escaped without injury 1£!(8 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. from the accident. In December he received a visit from his highly esteemed friend, Sir John Throckmorton, but his malady was at that time so oppressive that it rendered him almost insensible to the kind solicitude of friendship. He still continued to exercise his mental powers, and, upon his finishing the revisal of his Homer, in March 1799, his kinsman endeavoured in the gentlest manner to lead him into new hterary occupation. For this purpose, on the eleventh of March, he laid before him the paper containing the commencement of his poem on The Four Ages. Cowper altered a few lines ; he also added a few, but soon observed to his kind attendant — " that it was too great a work for him to attempt in his present situation." At supper Mr. Johnson suggested to him several hterary projects that he might execute more easily. He replied — " that he had j iist thought of six Latin verses, and if he could do anything it must be in pursuing that composition." The next morning he wrote the six verses he had mentioned, and subsequently added the remainder, entitling the poem, Monies Glaciales. It proved a versification of a circumstance recorded in a newspaper, which had been read to him a few weeks before, without his appearing to notice it. This jjoem he translated into EngHsh verse, on the nineteenth of March, to oblige Miss Perowne. Both the original and the transla- tion appear in his Poems. On tlie twentieth of March he wrote the stanzas entitled The Cast-away, founded on an anecdote in Anson's Voyage which his memory suggested to him, although he had not looked into the book for many years. As this poem is the last original production from the pen of Cowper, we shall introduce it here, persuaded that it will be read with an interest proportioned to the extra- ordinary pathos of the subject, and the still more extra- ordinary powers of the poet, whose lyre could sound so forcibly, unsilenced by the gloom of the darkest distemper, which was now conducting him, by slow gradations, to the shadow of death : — GRADUAL DECLINE. 199 The Cast-away. " Obscurest night involved the sky, The Atlantic billows roar'd, Wlien such a destiii'J wretch as I, Wash'd headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left. No braver chief could Albion boast, Than he, with whom he went. Nor ever ship left Albion's coast, With wanner -nTshes sent. He loved tliem both, but both in vain, Nor him beheld nor her again. Not long beneath the whelming brine, Expert to swim, he lay ; Nor soon he felt his strength decline, ,0r courage die away ; But waged with death a lasting strife, Sujjported by despair of life. He shouted : nor his friends had fail'd To check the vessel's coui-se. But so the furious blast prevail'd, Thiit, jjitiless perforce, They left their outcast mate behind. And scudded stiU before the wind. Some succour yet they could afford, And such as storms allow. The cask, the coop, the floated cord, Delay'd not to bestow ; But he (they knew) nor ship nor shore, "NVhate'er they gave, should visit more. Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he Their haste himself condemn. Aware tliat flight, in such a sea, Alone could rescue them ; Yet bitter felt it still to die Deserted, and his friends so nigli. 200 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. He long survives, who lives an hour In ocean, self-npheld : And so long he, with unspent power, His destiny repell'd ; And ever, as the minutes flew, Entreated helji, or cried — ' Adieu ! ' At length, his transient respite past. His comrades, who hefore Had heard his voice in every blast, Could catch the sound no more. For then, by toil subdixed, he drank The stifling wave, and tlien he sank. No poet wept him : but the page Of narrative sincere. That tells his name, his worth, his age, Is wet with Anson's tear. And tears by bards or heroes shed, AHke immortahiie the dead. I therefore purpose not, nor di'eam, Descanting on his fate. To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date : But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case. No voice dirine the storm allay' d, No light propitious shone ; When, snatch'd from all effectual aid, We perish'd, each alone : But I beneath a rougher sea. And whelm'd in deexier gulphs than he." In August he translated this i)oem into Latin verse. In October he went with Miss Perowne and Mr. Johnson to survey a larger house in Dereham, which he preferred to their present residence, and in which the family were settled in the following December. His latest letter to Mr. Newton appears to have been written in April of this year. It sadly concurs with the conclusion of the preceding verses : — GRADUAL DECLINE. 201 " Dereham, April 11, 1799. " Deal- Sir, — Your last letter, so long unanswered, may, and indeed must, have proved sufficiently that my state of mind is not now more favourable to the purpose of writing than it was when I received it ; for had any alteration in that respect taken place, I should certainly have acknow- ledged it long since, or at whatsoever time the change had happened, and should not have waited for the present call upon me to return you my thanks at the same time for the letter, and for the book which you have been so kind as to send me. I\Ir. Johnson has read it to me. If it afforded me any amusement, or suggested to me any re- flections, they were only such as served to embitter, if possible, still more the present moment, by a sad retrospect of those days when I thought mj'self secure of an eternity to be spent with the spirits of such men as he whose life afforded the subject of it. But I was Uttle aware of what I had to expect, and that a storm was at hand which in one terrible moment would darken, and in another, still more terrible, blot out, that prospect for ever. " Adieu, dear sir, whom in those days I called dear friend, with feelings that justified the appellation. " I remain, yours, "Wm. COWPER." Though his corporeal strength was now evidently de- clining, the urgent persuasion of ]SIr. Johnson induced him to amuse his mind with frequent composition. Between August and December he wrote various translations from various Latin and Greek epigrams. In his new residence, he amused himself with translating a few of Gay's fables into Latin verse. The fable which he used to recite when a child — The Hare and many Friends — became one of his latest amusements. These Latin fables were all written in January 1800. Towards the end of that month, liaylcy requested him to new-model a passage in his Homer, relating to the curious monument of ancient sculpture, so gracefully described by Homer, called tlic Cretan Dance. This being the last effort of his pen, we here insert it : — 202 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. " To these the glorious artist added next A varied dance, resembling that of old In Crete's broad isle, by Dtedalus, compos'd For bright-hair'd Ariadne. There the youths And youth-alluring maidens, hand in hand, Danc'd jocund, ev'ry maiden neat attir'd In finest hnen, and the youths in vests Well-woven, glossy as the glaze of oil. These all wore garlands, and bright falchions those Of bumish'd gold, in silver trappings hung ; — They, with well-tutor"d step, now, nimbly ran Tlie circle, swift, as when, before his wheel Seated, the potter t\virls it with both hands For trial of its speed ; now, crossing quick, They pass'd at once into each other's place, A circling crowd survey'd the lovely dance, Deliglited ; two, the leading pair, tlieir head With graceful inclination boAving oft, Pass'd swift between them, and began the song." On the very day that this endearing mark of his kind- ness reached Hayley, a dropsical appearance in Co^vper's legs induced Mr. Johnson to have recourse to fresh medical assistance. Cowper was with gi-eat difficulty persuaded to take the remedies prescribed, and to try the exercise of a post-chaise, an exercise which he could not bear beyond the twenty-second of February. In March, when his decline became more and more visible, he was visited by Mr. Rose. He hardly expressed any pleasure on the arrival of a friend whom he had so long and so tenderly regarded, yet he showed evident signs of regret at his departure, on the sixth of April. The illness and impending death of his son, pre- cluded Hayley from sharing with Mr. Rose in these last marks of affectionate attention towards the man, whose genius and virtues they had once contemi)lated together, with mutual veneration and delight ; whose approaching dissolution they felt, not only as an irreparable loss to themselves, but as a national misfortune. On the nine- teenth of April, the weakness of this truly pitiable sufferer had so much increased, that Mr. Johnson apprehended his death to be near. Adverting, therefore, to the afflic- HIS DEATH. 203 tiou, as well of body as of mind, which his beloved inmate was then enduring, he ventured to speak of his approach- ing dissolution as the signal of his deliverance from both these miseries. After a pause of a few moments, which was less interrupted by the objections of liis despond- ing relative than he had dared to ho[)e, he proceeded to an observation more consolatory still ; namely, that, in the world to which he was hastening, a merciful Redeemer had prepared unspeakable happiness for all his children — and therefore for him. To the first part of this sentence he had listened with composure, but the concluding words were no sooner uttered, than his jiassionately-e.xpressed entreaties, that his companion would desist from any further observations of a similar kind, clearly proved that, though it was on the eve of being invested mth angelic light, the darkness of delusion still veiled his spirit. On Sunday, the twentieth, he seemed a little revived. On ]\Iouday he appeared dying, but recovered so much as to eat a slight dinner. Tuesday and Wednesday he grew apparently weaker every hour. On Thursday he sat up as usual in the evening. In the course of the night, when exceedingly exhausted, Miss Perowne offered him some refreshment. He rejected it with these words, the last that he was heard to utter, " ^V'hat can it signify 1" Dr. Johnson closes the affecting account in the follow- ing words. " At five in the morning of Friday 25th, a deadly change in his features was observed to take place. He remained in an insensible state from that time till about five minutes before five in the aftei-nooii, when he ceased to breathe. And in so mild and gentle a mannei' did his spirit take its flight, that though the writer of this Memoir, his medical attendant IMr. AVoods, and tlu'ee other persons, were stand- ing at the foot and "side of the bed, with their eyes fixed upon his dying countenance, the precise moment of his (lL'2)arture was unobserved by any." From this mournful period, till the features of his tleceascd friend were closed from his view, the expression 204 LIFE OF "WTLLIAM COWPER. whicli the kinsman of Cowper observed in them, and which he was affectionately delighted to suppose " an index of the last thoughts and enjoyments of his soul, in its gradual escape from the depths of despondence, was that of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise." He was buried in St. Edmund's Chapel, in the church of East Dereham, on Saturday, May 2d, 1800, attended by several of his relations. And seldom, indeed, as Southey has remarked, could the beautiful language of our Burial Service be more fittingly employed, than when the mourners committed the dust of CowiDcr to the grave, " in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ," and in thanksgiving to Almighty God, " for that it had pleased him to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world." He died intestate. His affectionate relative, Lady Hes- keth, fulfilled the office of his administratrix, and raised a marble tablet to his memory, with the following inscription from the pen of Hayley : — IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER, Esq. BORN IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 1731, BURIED IN THIS CHURCH. Ye who, with warmth, the puLhc triumph feel Of talents, dignified by sacred zeal. Here, to devotion's bard devoutly just, Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust ! England, exulting in his spotless fame, Ranks with her dearest sous his favourite name. Sense, fancy, vnt, suffice not all to raise So clear a title to Affection's praise; His highest bonoiu's to the heart belong; His virtues form'd tlie magic of his song. PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS. 205 His biographers give the following description of his person, manners, and external characteristics : — " The person and mind of Cowper seem to have been formed with equal kindness by Nature, and it may be questioned if she ever bestowed on any man, with a fonder prodigality, all the requisites to conciliate affection and to inspire respect. " He is said to have been handsome in his youth. His features strongly expressed the powers of his mind and all the sensibility of his heart ; and even in his declining years time seemed to have spared much of its ravages, though his mind was harassed by unceasing nervous ex- citement. " He was of a middle stature, rather strong than deli- cate in the form of his limbs ; the colour of his hair was a light brown, that of his eyes a bluish grey, and his com- plexion ruddy. In his dress he was neat, but not finical ; in his diet temperate, and not dainty. " He had an air of pensive reserve in his deportment, and his extreme shyness sometimes produced in his man- ners an indescribable mixture of awkwardness and dignity; but no person could be more truly graceful, when he was in perfect health, and perfectly pleased with his society. Towards women, in particular, his behaviour and conver- sation were delicate and fascinating in the highest degi'ee. " There was a simplicity of manner and character in Cowper which always charms, and is often the attribute of real genius. He was singularly calculated to excite emotions of esteem and love by those qualities that win confidence and inspire sympathy. In friendship he was uniformly faithful ; and, if the events of life had not disappointed his fondest hopes, no man would have been more emi- nently adapted for the endearments of domestic life. " His daily habits of study and exercise are so minutely and agreeably delineated in his letters, that they present a perfect portrait of his domestic character. " His voice conspired with his features to announce to all who saw and heard him the extreme sensibility of his heart ; and iu reading aloud he furnished the chief delight 206 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. of those social, enchanting winter evenings, which he has described so happily in the fourth book of The Task. " Secluded from the world, as he had long been, he yet retained in advanced life singular talents for conversation ; and his remarks were uniformly distinguished by mild and benevolent pleasantry, by a strain of 'delicate humour, varied by solid and serious good sense, and those imited charms of a cultivated mind, which he has himself very happily described in drawing the character of a venerable friend : — " ' Grave -n-ithout dulness, learned without pride ; Exact, yet not precise : though meek, keen-eyed ; Who, when occasion justified its use, Had wit, as bright as ready, to produce; Could fetch from records of an earlier age, Or from philosophy's euhghtened page, His rich materials, and regale your ear With strains it was a privilege to hear. Yet, above all, his luxury supreme. And his chief glory, was the Gospel theme : Ambitious not to shine or to excel. But to treat justly what he lov'd so well.' " At a distance of nearly half a century, an humble admirer, and not unsuccessful follower of William Cowper, penned these lines, after a pilgrimage to the former haunts of the poet : — " Are these the trees ? is this the place ? These roses — did they bloom for him? Trod he these walks ^rith thoughtful pace ? Passed he amidst these borders ti-im ? Is this the bower ? — a humble shed, Methinks, it seems for such a guest ! Wliy rise not columns, dome-bespread, With Art's elaborate fingers ch-esf.' LnfES BY JAXE TAYLOR. 207 Art waits on wealth, — there let her roam, Her fahricsrear, her temples gild; But Genius, when she seeks a home, Must send for Nature's self to build. The quiet garden's humble bound, This humble roof, this rustic fane. With playful tendi-ils twining round, And woodbines peeping at the pane, — That tranquil tender sky of blue, Where clouds of golden radiance skim, — Those ranging trees of varied hue, — These were the sights that solaced him. We stept within : — at once on each A feeling steals, so luidefiued ; In vain we seek to give it speech — 'Tis silent homage paid to Mind. They tell us, here he thought and wi'ote, On this low seat, reclining thus ; Ye garden breezes, as ye float. Why bear ye no such thoughts to us ? Perhaps the balmy air was fraught With breath of heaven? — or did he toil In precious mines of sparkling thought, Concealed beneath the curious soil ? Did zephyrs bear, on golden wings. Rich treasures from the honied dew ? Or are there here celestial springs Of living waters whence he di'ew ? And here he suffered ! — this recess, Where even nature fail'd to cheer, Has witncss'd oft his deep distress ; And precious drops have fallen here I Here are no richly-scidptured ums. The consecrated dust to cover ; But Nature smiles and weeps by turns, In memory of her fondest lover." 208 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. IX. CONCLUSION. CowPER, then, descended to his grave under the burden of the same mental disorder, which had oppressed his spirits for almost thirty years. Of the character of that disorder we have already said something ; but we cannot close the present narrative without attempting to give a fuUer elucidation. "We have remarked that, viewed chronologically, this mental disorder is found to exist in Cowper before any outward circumstances could have caused it, and before any religious convictions could have helped to excite it. "While at "Westminster school, in what Southey deems " the happiest period of his life," and Avhile in the Temple, in the buoyancy of early manhood, he felt the power of this disease ; and hence, those who would ascribe his malady to those views of religion which he embraced several years after, are merely exhibiting that unreasonableness which is seldom absent from religious prejudice. Another remark which should be made — especially to the young and inexperienced — is, that although it may appear, from the peculiar tenor of Cowper's life, as if his case was a very extraordinary one, the fact is quite other- wise. Few who have seen much of human life can be ignorant, that although cases resembling Cowjjer's are not very common, yet neither are they very rare. To exem- plify this, we will allude to two cases of a similar kind which have fallen under our own notice during the last few years. In a principal town of the county in which Cowper spent more than half his life, lived a clergyman, whose CONCLUSION. 209 circumstances would be generally considered to be more than ordinarily felicitous. Possessing an abundant foi-tune, an amiable wife and family, good taste, and considerable leisure, most men would have regarded him as an indi- vidual of singularly fortunate lot. Yet, although left with- out control, and being not, in fact, insane, he was often, like Cowper, one of the most miserable of men. His dis- order was hj^jochondriasis ; and in his case "Methodism" could not be blamed, for his views resembled much more those of Southey, than those of Newton or Cowper. Nearer London, and not far from the latest abode of Cowper s cousin Theodora^ lived another clergyman. He, too, was not only a scholar and of blameless life, but also, like tlie former individual, amply provided for, and free from all pecuniary cares. When in health, and free from mental disorder, he was one of the happiest of men. Reconciled to God, and rejoicing in the light of his Re- deemer's countenance, his condition and state were, on the whole, such as an angel, if commanded to labour on earth, might have chosen. But he, too, was subject to hypo- chondriasis ; and for several years towards the close of his life he " walked in darkness, and saw no light." The per- petual sadness which dwelt on his fine countenance could be forgotten by none who had once contemplated it. A third instance of this kind was brought under Cowper's own notice, by his friend Mr. Newton, iu the hope that, in detecting the delusion in another mind, he might apply the remedy to his own. Simon Browne was bom about the year 1680, at Shepton Mallett, in Somersetshire, and in 1716 had been chosen minister of the Meeting in the Old Jewry ("one of the most respectable among the Dissenters") : He lost in the year 1723 his wife and only son, and fell into a deep melancholy, which ended in a settled per- suasion that " he had fallen under the sensible displeasure of God, who had caused his rational soul gradually to pei'ish, and left him only an animal life, in common with brutes ; so that, though he retained the faculty of sjjeaking in a manner that appeared rational to others, he had all. P 210 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. the while no more notion of what he said than a parrot, — being utterly divested of consciousness. It was, there- fore," he said, " profane for him to pray, and incongruous to be present at the jarayers of others." Resigning his minis- try under this delusion, he retired to his native place, and there amused himself with translating portions of the Greek and Latin poets into English verse, and writing little pieces for the use of children. Then he undertook to com- pile a dictionary, which, he observed, was doing nothing that required a reasonable soul : but towards the close of his life, he engaged earnestly in theological subjects, and published A sober and charitable Disquisition C07icerning the Importance of the Trinity ; a fit Rebuke to a ludicrous Infidel, in Reply to one of Woolston' s Discourses ; and A Defence of the Religion of Nature and of the Christian Revelation, in answer to TindaVs Christianity as old as the Creation. All these are said to be " well-reasoned and clearly-written pieces," and the latter " was allowed to be the best which that controversy produced." He had pre- pared a Dedication for this to Queen Caroline, as of all extraordinary things which had been tendered to her royal hands, the chief ; not in itself, " but on account of the author, who, said he, is the first being of the kind, and yet without a name. He was once a man, and of some little name, but of no worth, as his present unparalleled case makes but too manifest ; for by the immediate hand of an avenging God, his very thinking substance has for more than seven years been continually wasting away, till it is wholly perished out of him, if it be not utterly gone to nothing. None, no, not the least remembrance of its very ruins remains ; not the shadow of an idea is left ; nor any sense that so much as any one single one, perfect or im- perfect, whole or diminished, ever did appear to a mind within him, or was perceived by it." Those who have been personally acquainted with such oases — and they are not rare ones — will easily perceive that there was nothing so singular or strange in Cowper's ail- ment, as to require any particular apology or laboured investigation. CONCLUSION. 211 The disorder itself has been correctly described by an eminent Reviewer,* in very few words : — " Cowper's mind was undoubtedly predisposed to hyjio- chondria, from some iniijstery of its original organisation. It so happened that the particular form assumed by his complaint was the desperate behef in his eternal rejection ; but had religious ideas been less prevalent in his mind than they probably were, some other phantom would have been conjured up instead of this, the original propensity remaining the same." Two speaking portraits, by his own pen, describe both his melancholy mood, and his more peaceful hours, during his Olney life. Tlie nature of his disease is thus faithfully sketched in the piece entitled Retirement : — " Look where he coraes — in this embowered alcove Stand close concealed, and see a statue move. Lips busy, and eyes fixed, foot falling slow. Arms hanging icUy down, hands clasped below, Interpret to the marking eye distress Such as its symptoms can alone express. That tongue is silent now ; that silent tongue Could argue once, coidd jest or join the song, Could give advice, could censure or commend, Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend. Renounced alike its office and its sport, Its brisker and its graver strains fall short: Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway, And hke a summer brook are pass'd away." And his happier hours, the first eight years spent at Olney, are thus described : — " I was a stricken deer, that left the herd Long since ; with many an arrow deep enfLx'd My panting side was charged, when I withdrew To seek a tranquil death in distant shades. There was I found by One who had himself Been hurt by th' archers : in his sides he bore, And in his hands and feet, the cruel scars, "With gentle force soUciting the darts • Edinburgh Review, No. 123. 212 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live. Since then, ■with few associatey, in remote And silent woods I wander, far from those My former partners of the peopled scene ; "With few associates, and not wishing more, Here much I rmiiinate, as much I may, With other \-iews of men and manners now Than once ; and others of a life to come." Still, however, we shall doubtless be asked, how we can account for this long imprisoumeut, in the dungeons of despair, of a pilgrim who had for seven or eight years pre- viously been walking simply and peacefully with God, and living in the personal friendship of such a pastor as Mr. Newton. We reply, just as Cowper himself replied, when, called on to explain the removal of his friend Unwin, and writing to Lady Hesketh, he says, — " The removal of a man in the prime of life, of such a character, and with such connexions, seems to make a void in society which can never be fiUed. God seemed to have made him just what he was, that he might be a blessing to others ; and when the influence of his character and abilities began to be felt, removed him. These are mysteries that we cannot contemplate without astonishment; but which will, nevertheless, be explained hereafter, and must in the meantime be revered in silence." Treating of these mysteries in the dealings of Divine Providence, Bishop M'llvaine says : — " Consider how little we are capable of discerning the interior of anything ; how we are only as children in the ruirsery, looking out upon the boundless empire of God, through a veiy little window, and that very obscure ; that it is but just a corner of the map of his universal provi- dence that is unrolled to our insi^ection ; so that we see never but 'parts of his ways,' and cannot follow out a single line of the chart beyond our own position." " Every least event, the falling of a leaf, the passing of a shadow, the movement of a thought, the death of an insect, is connected, in the counsels of God, as really as the dowaa- fall of an empire, with one grand, holy, infinitely good and wise design, which, from the beginning, he has been carrying CONCLUSION. 213 on toward the final consummation, as steadily and surely as the sun ascends the skies ; involving infinite complexity of detail ; presenting to our feeble vision inextricable con- fusion and contradiction ; but going on in the continual progress of its vast orbit, with such harmony and per- fectness in the siglit of God, that all will be finally com- pleted precisely where, and when, and how, his will at first designed. " But what a world of darkness is all that movement to us, except as we see a little of its surface ! How much of it can we trace 1 How far can our sounding-line descend into its depths ? How many of its winding labyrinths are we able to follow ? Is there a single course on that chart that our eye can pursue ? Is there a single action of our own, or of any creature, the bearing of which on that move- ment we can see, or in any degree appreciate, knowing, as we do, all the while, that every action of every creature is part and parcel of that wondrous system 1 " A few things of God's providence we do know, but only because he has told us. We know that in the moving on of his great purposes he is present everywhere, and to us aU ; that his will controls, combines, subordinates all events to his final design ; that to each of us there is that freeness which makes us morally accountable for what we do, or leave undone ; that all things shall work together for eternal good to them that love God ; that the ultimate accomplishment of the perfect redemption and blessedness of the whole blessed communion of those who believe in his Son Jesus Christ, is the one end to which the whole movement is directed ; and that all will issue at last in most wonderfully displaying and glorifying the infinite riches of the wisdom, and goodness, and gi-ace of God to a sinful world. More than this, as to the providence of our Heavenly Father, we know not — more, we have no need, in this life, to know. It is our Father's hand that is guiding all ; and what need his children to inquire any further I ' His way is in the sea, and his path in the mighty waters, and his footsteps are not known.' We cannot follow them ; but we can trust and not be afi'aid. We may take the lamp of his word, and go forward in our daily obedience. 214 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. feeling that tlie path of life and salvation, and so of haj)- piness, here, as well as hereafter, is plain ; but stiU, — it is Night.* It is a circumstance which ought not to be overlooked, that, only a short time before his ilhiess of 1773, CowjDer's own thoughts were drawn to this very subject ; and, in something like a prophetic strain, he penned the following hymn : — " God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform ; He plants his footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill He treasures up his bright designs. And works his sovereign will. Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take ! The clouds ye so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on yoiu- head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. But trust him for his grace ; Behind a frowning pro\'idence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour ; The bud may have a bitter taste. But sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain ; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain." Yet, although our duty and our greatest wisdom is to adore in silence, when "God's ways are in the deep and his path in the great waters," still, in some cases, and possibly in this, a glimpse of the Divine purpose may be gained. • The Truth and the Life, by tho Kt- Rev. C. V. M'llvaiiie. CONCLUSION. 215 At the period when Cowper appeared, a work was carry- ing on, in which — .speaking after the manner of men — God required just such an instrument as it pleased him to raise up in Cowper. The upward progress of England towards that elevation which has latterly been given to her, had commenced. God had called and sent forth Whitfield and Wesley, Toplady and Berridge and Newton. By these, the rough and firm foundation of evangelical truth had been laid. Bvit still, what was called " Methodism " was held in low esteem by the educated and elevated classes. To alter this state of things required such a man as Cowper. And here we must distinguish between two dif- ferent operations, and two different kinds of labour. Individuals are converted and saved by a Divine change wrought in the heart : this is chiefly the office of the mmistry, and effected by means of the pulj^it. But, besides this, there is another, a lower, and less supernatural work, car- ried on in nations; softening, ameliorating, and "bringing them nigh." To explain what we mean, we will refer to one or two facts. The state of the people of England has been greatly changed for the better in the last sixty or eighty years ; and this, in many respects which cannot be directly traced to the public preaching of the Gospel. Myriads are now furthering the work of God, who, a century ago, would have been found among its furious opposers ; and this, without being themselves, in heart, renewed unto righteousness. At the beginning of the present century, in the metro- polis, the fashionable employment on the Sabbathrday of the higher classes was, after the morning service, to spend an hour or two in a drive in the Parks. The last five-aud- twenty years have witnessed the decay of this custom ; and few are now seen in the Parks on Sunday, except the "gentlemen of the turf," and laches of a still lower repu- tation. At the same period, Sunday was the favourite day for dinner-parties at the west end of the metropolis. Now, a large dinner-party is becoming an unusual and a di.sre- putable thing on that day. At the same period, the savage "bull-bait" was a com- 216 LIFE OF WnXIAM COWPER. mon amusement in our provincial toAvns ; and noblemen and gentlemen of reputation attended the pugilistic prize- fights which then occurred every two or three months. Now, all such amusements have nearly passed away ; and the magistrate who should hear of an intended bull-bait or pugilistic encounter in his neighbourhood, would be almost sure to issue his warrant to apprehend the parties as criminals. In a variety of other and similar respects a great change has taken place since the close of the last century. We owe it to the Divine Hand ; but by what means has that Hand worked 1 Not simply or chiefly by the pulpit ; for Sabbath-breakers and bull-tormentors are not found among those who come within hearing, even of a Scott or a Newton. The Unseen Hand uses many means to bring about such changes as these. But, most unquestionably, one of the most powerful means employed, for the amelioration of society in England, was, the raising up a Christian Poet. The saying has long been noted for its wisdom : " I care not who makes the laivs for a people, if you will let me make their songs.''' By means of the bard of Olney, " Me- thodism" — Le. Bible Christianity — was brought in a popu- lar and captivating form into every library in the kingdom, and into almost every drawing-room. The very truths of Scripture,c\oih.edi in fervid and poetic language, were sounded in every man's ears. Who, that reads at all in England, has not read Cowjier 1 And who, having read, forgets such pictui'es as those which were sketched by him 1 Now, for a wor'k of this peculiar nature, God rcqnirM an instrument of a peculiar kind. And to create such an instrument, peculiar means were, humanly speaking, neces- sary. He who seeks to produce a lancet or razor of the finest edge, selects a fitting piece of ore, and then exposes it to a special annealing in the fire. Let us present a few of the golden passages which are scattered about Cowper's writings ; and let us ask our readers to consider, what must be the natural effect of such appeals to the heart and understanding, carried, by the brilliancy of the author's genius, into every library and almost every drawing-room in the kingdom : — CONCXUSION. 21 7 " for a lodge in some vast wilderness, Some boundless contiguity of sliade, "Where rumour of oppression and deceit, Of unsuccessful or successful war, Might never reach ine more. My ear is pain'd. My soul is sick with every day's report Of wrong and outrage with wliich earth is fiU'tl. There is no flesh in man's obdurate heart ; It does not feel for man ; the natural bond Of brotherhood is sever'd as the flax, That falls asunder at the touch of fire. He finds his fellow guilty of a skin Not colour'd like his own ; and having power To enforce the ^\Tong, for such a worthy cause Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey. Lands intei'sected by a naiTow fnth Abhor each other. Mountains intei-posed Make enemies of nations, who had else. Like kindred drops, been mingled into one. Thus man devotes his brother and destroys ; And worse than all, and most to be deplored. As human nature's broadest, foulest blot. Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat With stripes, that Mercy witli a bleeding heart TVeeps, when she sees inflicted on a beast. Then, what is man ? And what man seeing this, And ha\'ing hiuiian feelings, does not blush. And hang his head, to think himself a man ? I would not have a slave to till my ground. To can'y me, to fan me while 1 sleep, And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever eam'd. No : dear as freedom is, and in my heart's Just estimation prized above all ijrice, I had much rather be myself the slave, And wear the bonds, tlian fasten them on him. We have no slaves at home — then why abroad? And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave That parts us, are emancipate and loosed. Slaves cannot breathe in England ; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment tliey are free ; They touch our country, and their shackles fall. That's uoble, and bespealis a nation proud 218 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. And jealous of the blessing. Spread it then, And let it circulate through every vein Of all your empire ; that, where Britain's power Is felt, mankind may feel her mercy too." "But there is yet a liberty, unsung By poets, and by senators unpraised, "Which mouarchs cannot grant, nor all the powers Of earth and hell confederate take away ; A liberty, which persecution, fraud, Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind ; "Which whoso tastes can be enslaved no more? 'Tis liberty of heart derived from Heaven, Bought with His blood who gave it to mankind, And seal'd with the same token. It is held By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure By the unimiDeachable and awful oath And promise of a God. His other gifts All bear the royal stamp, that speaks them his, And are august ; but this transcends them all. His other works, the \dsible display Of all-creating enei'gy and might. Are grand no doubt, and worthy of the word, That, fincUng an interminable space Unoccupied, has fiU'd the void so well. And made so sparkling what was dai'k before: But these are not his glory. Man, 'tis true, Smit ■n'ith the beauty of so fair a scene. Might well suppose the Artificer di^ine Meant it eternal, had he not himself Pronounced it transient, glorious as it is; And, still designing a more glorious far, Doom'd it as insufficient for his praise. These therefore are occasional, and pass : Form'd for the confutation of the fool. Whose lying heart disputes against a God; That office serv'd, they must be swept away. Not so the labours of his love : they shine In other heavens than these tliat we behold, And fade not. Tliere is Pai'adise that feai's No forfeiture, and of its fruits he sends Large prelibation oft to saints below. Of these the first in order, and the pledge, CONCLUSION. 219 And confident assurance of the rest, Is liberty ; a tliglit into his arms, Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way ; A clear escape from tyrannizing lust, And full immunity from penal woe." " He is the freeman, whom the truth makes free. And all are slaves besides. There's not a chain, That hellish foes, confederate for his harm, Can -vvind around him, but he casts it off "With as much ease as Samson his green withes. He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature, and though poor, perhaps, compared With those whose mansions glitter in Iiis sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers : his to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired. Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye. And smiling say—' My Father made them all ! ' Are they not his by a peculiar right. And by an emphasis of interest his, "Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy. Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love. That plann'd, and built, and still upholds a world So clothed with beauty for rebellious man ? Yes — ye may fill your gai-ners, ye that reap The loaded soil, and ye may waste much good In senseless riot ; but ye will not find In feast, or in the chase, in song or dance, A liberty like his, who unimpeach'd Of usurpation, and to no man's wrong, Appropriates nature as his Father's work, And has a richer use of yours than you. He is indeed a freeman. Free by birth Of no mean city; plann'd, or ere the hills Were built, the fountains open'd, or the sea. With all his roaiiug multitude of waves. His freedom is tlie same in every stage ; And no condition of this changeful hfe, So manifold in cares, whose eveiy day 220 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Brings its own evil with it, makes it less : For lie has wings, that neither sickness, pain, Nor penury, can cripi)le or confine. No nook so narrow, but he spreads them there With ease, and is at large. The oppressor holds His body hound, but knows not what a range His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ; And that to bind him is a vain attempt. Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells." " Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, eternal ^V'ord ! From thee departing they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace. From thee is all that soothes the life of man, His high endeavour, and his glad success, His strength to suffer, and his will to serve. But oh ! thou bounteous Giver of all good, Thou art of aU thy gifts thyself the crown ! Give what thou canst, -nithout thee we are poor : And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away." " Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet Not to be wrong'd by a mere mortal touch : Nor can the wonders it records be sung To meaner music, and not suffer loss. But when a poet, or when one like me, Happy to rove among poetic flowers, Though poor in skill to rear them, lights at last On some fair theme, some theme divinely fair, Such is the impulse and the spur he feels, To give it praise jjroportion'd to its wtirth, Tliat not to attempt it, arduous as he deems The labour, were a task more arduous still. scenes surjiassing fable, and yet true, Scenes of accomplish'd bliss ; whicli who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refresh'd ^vith foretaste of the joy ? Rivers of gladness water all the earth, And clothe all climes witli beauty; the i-eproach Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field Laughs witli abinidance ; and tlie land, once lean, Or fertile only in its own disgrace, CONCLUSIONS 221 Exults to see its thistly curse repealed. The various seasons woven into one, And that one season an eternal spring. The garden feaj's no blight, and needs no fence, For there is none to covet ; all are full. The lion, and the lihhard, and the bear, Graze with the fearless flocks ; all bask at noon Together, or all gambol in the shade Of the same grove, and drink one common stream. Antipathies are none. No foe to man Lurks in the serpent now : the mother sees. And smiles to see, her infant's plaj'ful hand Stretch'd forth to dally with the crested worm, To stroke his azure neck, or to receive The lambent homage of his arrowy tongue. All creatm-es worship man, and all mankind One Lord, one Father. Error has no place : That creeping pestilence is driven away ; The breath of lieaven has chased it. In the heart No passion touches a discordant string, But all is liarmoiiy and love. Disease Is not : the pure and uncontaminate blood Holds its due course, nor fears the frost of age. One song employs all nations ; and all cry, ' Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us ! ' The dwellers in the -vales and on the rocks Sliout to each other, and the mountain-tops From distant mountains catch the flying joy; Till nation after nation taught the strain. Earth rolls tlia rapturous Hosanna round." " Yon cottager who weaves at her own door. Pillow and bobbins all her little store ; Content though mean, and cheerful if not gay, Shuffling her threads about the livelong day, Just earns a scanty pittance, and at niglit Lies down secure, her heart and pocket light : She for her humble splicre by nature fit, Has little understanding, and no wit : Receives no praise ; but though lier lot be such (Toilsome and indigent), slie renders much ; Just knows, and knows no more, her Bilde time — A truth tlie brilHant Frenchman never knew ; 222 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. And in that charter reads with sparkling eyes Her title to a treasure in the skies. happy peasant ! O unhappy bard ! His the mere tinsel, hers the rich reward: He, praised, perhaps, for ages yet to come ; She, never heard of half a mile from home : He, lost in errors his vain heart prefers ; She, safe in the simphcity of hers." " When nations are to perish in their sins, 'Tis in the church the leprosy begins ; The priest, whose office is with zeal sincere To watch the fountain, and presei've it clear, Carelessly nods and sleeps upon the brink, While others poison what the flock must drink ; Or, waking at tlie call of lust alone, Infuses lies and errors of his own ; His unsuspecting sheep believe it pure ; And. tainted by the very means of cure. Catch from each other a contagious spot, The foul fore-runner of a general rot. Then Truth is hush'd, that Heresy may preach ; And all is trash, that Reason cannot reach : Then God's own image on the soul impress'd Becomes a mockery, and a standing jest; And faith, the root whence only can arise The graces of a life that wins the skies, Loses at once all value and esteem. Pronounced by greybeards a pernicious dream : Then Ceremony leads her bigots forth, Prepai'd to fight for shadows of no worth ; WhUe truths, on which eternal things depend, Find not, or hardly find, a single friend : As soldiers watch the signal of command. They learn to bow, to kneel, to sit, to stand ; Happy to fill religion's vacant place. With hollow form, and gesture, and grimace." " Leuconomus, (beneath well-sounding Greek I slur a name a poet must not speak) Stood pilloried on Infamy's high stage, And bore the pelting scorn of half an age ; The very butt of Slander, and the blot CONCLUSION. 223 For every dart that ^Malice ever shot. The mail that mention'd him at once dismiss'd All mercy from his lips, and sneer'd and hiss'd ; His crimes were such as Sodom never knew. And perjm-y stood up to swear all true ; His aim was mischief, and his zeal pretence, His speech rebellion against common sense ; A knave, when tried on honesty's plain rule ; And when by that of reason, a mere fool; The world's best comfort was, his doom was pass'd ; Die when he might, he must be damn'd at last. Now, Tiuth, perform thine office ; waft aside The curtain drawn by Prejudice and Pride, Reveal (the man is dead) to wondering eyes This more than monster, in his proper guise. He loved the world that hated him : the tear That dropp'd upon his Bible was sincere: Assail'd by scandal and the tongue of strife, His only answer was a blameless life ; And he that forged, and he that threw the dart, Had each a brother's interest in his heart. Paul's love of Christ, and steadiness unbribed, Were copied close in him, and well transcribed. He follow'd Paul ; his zeal a kindred flame, His apostolic charity the same. Like him, cross'd cheerfully tempestuous seas, Forsaking country, kindred, friends, and ease ; Like him he labour'd, and like him content To bear it, suffer'd shame, where'er he went. Blush, Calumny! and wTite uiion his tomb, If honest Eulogy can spare the room. Thy deep repentance of thy thousand lies. Which, aim'd at him, have i^ierced the offended skies ! And say. Blot out my sin, confess'd, deplored, Against thine image, in thy saint, Lord ! " " Stand now and judge thyself — Hast thou incurr'd His anger, who can waste thee witli a word, Who poises and proportions sea and land. Weighing them in the hollow of his hand, And in whose a^v'ful sight all nations seem As grasshoppers, as dust, a drop, a dream ? 224 LITE OF WILLIAM COWPER. Hast thou (a saciilege bis soul abhors) Claim'd all the glory of thy prosperous wars ? Proud of thy fleets and armies, stolen the gem Of his just praise, to lavish it on them ? Hast thou not learn'd, what thou art often told, A truth still sacred, and beUeved of old, That no success attends on spears and swords Unbless'd, and that the battle is the Lord's ? That courage is his creatiire ; and dismay The post, that at his bidding speeds away, Ghastly in feature, and liis stammering tongue With doleful humour and sad presage hung, To quell the valour of the stoutest heart. And teach the combatant a woman's part ? That he bids thousands fly when none pursue, Saves as he will by many or by few, And claims for ever, as his royal right. The event and sure decision of the fight ? Hast thou, though suckled at fair Freedom's breast. Exported slavery to the conquer'd East ? Pull'd down the tyrants India served with dread, And raised thyself a greater, in their stead ? Gone thither arm'd and hungry, retum'd full. Fed from the richest veins of the Mogul, A despot big with power obtained by wealth, And that obtain'd by rapine and by stealth ? With Asiatic \'ices stored thy mind. But left their vutues and thine own behind ? Hast thou, by statute, shoved from its design The Sa\-iour's feast, liis own bless'd bread and wine. And made the symbols of atoning grace An ofBce-key, a picklock to a place, That infidels may prove their title good By an oath dipp'd in sacramental blood ? A blot that will be still a blot, in spite Of all that grave apologists may write ; And though a bishop toil to cleanse the stain. He wipes and scoiu-s the silver cup in vain. And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence, Till perjuries are common as bad ijence, While tliousands, careless of the damning sin. Kiss the book's outside who ne'er looked within ?" CONCLUSION. 225 The first of these passages worked, iu course of time, the cleanshig of Britain from the guilt of slavery ; — the second, in even, a shorter period, destroyed the Test and Corporation Acts. But Southey, and the Edinburgh and Quarterly Review- ers, and all others who hate " Methodism," would fain have had the poet without his " gloom," and without his " peculiar views." In other words, they would have the effect without the cause. This unreasonable desire suggests a train of thought which may be not without its utility. These writers dislike greatly to hear of what is called Cowper's " conversion." He himself, in a private memoir, composed in his calmest and most i-ational hours, asserts the fart. They still persist in doubting it, and call in his insanity at other periods of his life to destroy the value of his testimony on this one point. They wish to discredit the supposition, that there was any such total change wrought iu him as the Apostles constantly describe, and as he himself avers to have taken place. Yet there is one "conversion," at least, which they can scarcely call in question, for the proofs of it are visible and tangible to the whole world. We mean his conversion from a Trifler into a ]\[an — from a drawing-room lounger into a mover of the nations — from a poor, weak, helpless thing, into a Power, " mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strongholds." We have just spoken of him as raised up, and espe- cially trained, by Divine Providence, for a special work. And this is a point which has been too lightly ])assed over in mo!^ of the biographies of him which have hitherto been written. We know the date of his conversion, almost to a day. It was in the spring of 17G4, when he was in his thirty-third year, that, as he tells us, " In a moment I be- lieved and received the Gospel." Now, let us contemplate him, for a few minutes, before and after this great change. He was always, from his childhood, i)Ossessedof talents, education, and refinement. But for more than thirty years he lived a vague, desultory, idle, and purposeless life. We have his " early j)roductions," — not the weak attempts of childhood, but poems written in his twenty-fifth and Q 226 LIFE OF WILUAM COWPER. twenty-sixth years. Generally, they possess no excelleuce or value. The whole fruits of his pen, for all these thiity years, are not above the average school-exercises of thou- sands of clever school-boys. Had not the great change of 17G4 taken place, all memory of William Cowjjer as an author would have been long since forgotten. To use the plain but accurate language of the Eclectic Review, — " Cowper was always amiable ; but it must not be dis- guised that, at the age of thirty, ho was but an elegant trifler, gay, wayward, restless, reckless, indolent ; — one of the most helpless and useless tribe of beings, a poor, fine gentleman." Such was the poet before what he calls his " conversion." "What was he afterwards 1 Let Campbell, another poet, and of kindred ideas with Southey, describe his character : — " Cowper's language has such a masculine, idiomatic strength, and his manner, whether he rises into grace or falls into negligence, has so much plain and familiar freedom, that we read no poetry with a deeper conviction of its having come from the writer's hcai-t ; and of the enthusiasm, in whatever he describes, having been unfeigned and un- exaggerated." " There is a gravity of long-felt conviction in his sentiments, which gives an uncommon ripeness of character to his poetry." " His verse abounds with opposite traits of severity and gentleness, of solemnity and mirth, which appear almost anomalous ; and there is, undoubt- edly, sometimes an air of moody versatility in the extreme contrasts of his feelings. But, looking to his poetry as an entire structure, it has a massive air of sincerity. It is founded on stedfast principles of belief." "Society is his debtor. Poetical expositions of the horrors of slavery may, indeed, seem very unlikely agents in contributing to destroy it ; but such appeals to the heart of the community are not lost. They fix themselves silently in the popular memory, and become, at last, a part of that public opinion which must, sooner or later, wrench the lash from the hand of the oppressor." * * This was ■written he/ore the passing of the West India Emancipation. Act. CONCLUSION. 227 Here is a transformation, the evidence of which is com- plete, — the reahty of which is beyond a doubt. A fact is also adduced, as the real basis, — the only apparent cause for so wonderful a change. It is sufficient in itself, and it is amply vouched for. Surely those who dislike* to credit it, should account for the phenomenon by some other tenable hypothesis. They offer us none ; but merely endeavour to evade the difficulty by factitiously elevating his character during his earlier life, and depreciating it during his later years. They dislike, and treat wdth disregard, his supposed " con- version." They wish to think that he was a Christian long before, when, as he tells us, he was "living in an uninterrupted course of sin," and when, liut for visiting his uncle's family, he would " never have seen the inside of a church." His strong impression, or whatever else it was, of which he was sensible while at Dr. Cotton's, they regard as a mere fancy or day-dream, — an impression made in a moment, and in a moment fading away. This evident and iinconcealed dislike to the fact of Cowper's " conversion," contrasts strongly with the readi- ness with which the most romantic fictions are credited and approved. Thus, in one of the most popular stories of our most popular novelist, a man of excessive pride, and of iron insensibility, is suddenly converted into a meek, humble, and affectionate being.* And this happens merely as a result of the loss of fortune ! Yet, no one remarks that this is " entirely out of nature ;" — that no instance of such a change, apart from the power of the Gospel, was ever known ; — and that if the writer had described Mr, Dombey as finding, on awaking one morning, a pair of wings growing from his shoulders, he would not have imagined a thing more romantic or incredible than he has done. But novel-readers do not detect, and are not of- fended at, the utter improbability of the narrative. It supposes a thorough conversion of a man's being, wholly by his own power or will ; or, rather, by the force of natural causes — adversity, or sohtude, or illness. This is believed, * Dombey and Son, by Charles Dickens. 228 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. because it is liked. But let a man narrate the truth as to his own experience, and let him sjaeak of a Divine power operating through the Gospel, and bringing him to Christ for salvation ; and at once a cry is I'aised of " Enthusiasm," " Methodism," or " Calvinism." The fiction is eagerly ap- plauded, because it agrees with men's wishes ; the fact is rejected, as incredible or exaggerated, because it makes salvation the gift of God, and not the work of man. So was it m our Lord's own day. When he, speaking to the men of his own city, Nazareth, said : — " I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land ; but unto none of them was Ehas sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet ; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." Then we are immediately told, that " aU they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong." * But we must return to the present history. The test of the reality of the total change which passed upon Cowper in 1 764, was its endurance. Those who would fain treat it as a dream, a fancy, a delusion, ought to hesitate when they see that the faith which Co^\'J^er received while at St. Alban's never changed or departed. Of himself, of his o-rni interest in the Gospel, he was allowed to doubt, and even to despair. But his convictions as to tlie great truths of Scripture, — as to sin, and as to salvation, never varied one iota. AYe may study his letters, his poems, his life, for more than thirty years, without detecting the least variation in his views of the Saviour or of the Gosiael. Examine these two letters, one written to his cousin, Mrs. Cowper, in 1769 ; the other to Mr. Newton, in 1792. More than twenty years had elajjscd, yet the letters speak t)ie same language, on aU points except one. He had learnt * Luke, iv. 25-29. CONCLUSIOX, 229 to doubt his own interest in the Gospel, just as he had learned to doubt whether his nearest friends loved him ; but in every other respect his belief remains the same : — "Olnetj, Auqiist .'31, ]TG!}. " My dear Cousin, — A letter from your brother Frederic brought me yesterday the most afflicting intelligence that has reached me these many years. I i)ray to God to comfort you, and to enable you to sustain this heavy stroke with that resignation to his will which none but himself can give, and which he gives to none but his own children. How blessed and happy is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the common lot of the greater part of mankind ; that you know what it is to draw near to God in prayer, and are acquainted with a throne of grace I You have resources in the infinite love of a dear Redeemer which are withheld from millions : and the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Jesus, are sufficient to answer all your neces- sities, and to sweeten the bitterest cup which your heavenly Father will ever put into your hand. May he now give you liberty to drink at these wells of salvation, till you are filled with consolation and \}Qa,ce in the midst of trouble. He has said, ' When thou jiassest through the waters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they shall not over- flow thee.' You have need of such a word as this, and he knows your need of it, and the time of necessity is the time when he will be sure to appear in behalf of those who trust in him. I bear you and yoiirs upon my heart before him night and day, for I never expect to hear of distress which shall call upon me with a louder voice to pray for the sufferer. I know the Lord hears me for myself, vile and sinful as I am, and believe, and am sure, that he will hear me for you also. He is the friend of the widow and the father of the fothcrless, even God in his holy habitation ; in all our afflictions he is afflicted, and chastens us in mercy. Surely he will sanctify this dispensation to you, do you gi'cat and everlasting good by it, make the world appear like dust and vanity in your sight, as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of a better country-, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor pain ; but God 230 LIFE OP WILLIAM COWPER. shall wipe away all tears from your eyes for ever. Oh, that comfortable word ! — ' I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction ;' so that our very sorrows are evidences of our calling, and he chastens us because we are his children. " ]My dear cousin, I commit you to the word of his grace, and to the comforts of his Holy Spirit. Your life is needful for your family. May God, in mercy to them, prolong it ; and may he preserve you from the dangerous effects which a stroke like this might have upon a frame so tender as yours. I gi'ieve with you, I pray for you ; could I do more I would, but God must comfort you. " Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus, " W. C." " July 30, 1792. "My dear Friend, — Like you, I am obliged to snatch short opportunities of corresponding with my friends ; and to write what I can, not what I would. Your kindness in giving me the first letter after your return claims my thanks ; and my tardiness to answer it would demand an apology, if, having been here, and witnessed how mucli my time is occupied in attendance on my poor patient, you could possibly want one. She proceeds, I trust, in her recovery ; but at so slow a rate, that the difference made in a week is hardly perceptible to me, who am always with her. This last night has been the worst she has known since her ilhiess — entirely sleepless till seven in the moruing. Such ill rest seems but an indifferent prepara- tion for a long journey, which we purpose to undertake on Wednesday, when we set out for Eartham, on a visit to Mr. Hayley. The journey itself will, I hope, be useful to her ; and the air of the sea, blowing over the South Downs, together with the novelty of the scene to us, will, I hope, be serviceable to us both. You may imagine that we, who have been resident on one spot so many years, do not engage in such an enterprise without some anxiety. Per- sons accustomed to travel would make themselves merry with mine ; it seems so disproportioned to the occasion. Once I have been on the point of determining not to go, and even since we fixed the day ; my troubles have been CONCLUSION. 231 SO insupportable. But it has been made a matter of much prayer, and at last it has pleased God to satisfy me, in some measure,, that his will corresponds with our purpose, and that he will aftbrd us his protection. You, I know, will not be unmindful of us during our absence from home ; but will obtain for us, if your prayers can do it, all that we would ask for ourselves — the presence and favour of God, a salutary effect of our journey, and a safe return. " I rejoiced, and had reason to do so, in your coming to Weston, for I think the Lord came with you. Not, indeed, to abide with me ; not to restore me to that intercourse with Him which I enjoyed twenty years ago ; but to awaken in me, however, more spiritual feeling than I have experienced, except in two instances, during all that time. The comforts that I had received under your ministry, in better days, all rushed upon my recollection ; and, during two or three transient moments, seemed to be in a degree renewed. You will teU me that, transient as they were, they were yet evidences of a love that is not so ; and I am desirous to believe it. " With Mrs. Unwin's warm remembrances, and my cousin Johnson's best compliments, I am, " Sincerely yours, " W. C." Here we have the same man, the same Christian ; with only this difference ; — that the same disease which had caused him to doubt Mr. Newton's identity, caused him also to doubt his own interest in the Christian covenant. This permanence is the best possible refutation of the supposition that his conversion was a dream, a momentary fancy or impression. Had it been so, its vanishing would have been as certain as the disappearance of a shadow, or a mist. This permanence is also a solid gi-ound of hope for Cowper himself. He was left to doubt /lis own safety, his own salvation. But what he believed of God in his first and most joyful hours, that he believed as firmly in his darkest and most gloomy condition. To the last he was loyal and obedient. He could not say, indeed, " Though he slay me, yet will I trust in hdn" — but he did say, day by 232 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. day, and hour by hour, " He will slay me, but he has the fullest right to do it." No rebellious feeling, no hatred to God, ever drops from his lips, or his pen. He regarded him- self as a child mysteriously cast off, but he questioned not the parent's right, or impugned the justice of his decision. His views of God were merely tinged with the same delusion which overclouded his views of his nearest friends. He himself, describing to Lady Hesketh his illness of 1773, says,— " This state of mind was accompanied with misappre- hensions of things and persons, which made me a very intractable patient. I believed that everybody hated me, and that Mrs. Unwin hated me most of all ; v,-as convinced that my food was poisoned ; together with ten thousand meagrims of the same stamp." And in 1787 he tells Mr. Newton, that, on recovering from his illness of that year, he finds that another delusion has vanished from his mind. He says, — " After a long but necessaiy interruption of our corre- spondence I return to it again, better qualified, in one respect, than before ; — I mean, by a behef oi your identity ; which, /or thirteen years, I did not believe. The acquisition of this light releases me from the disagreeable suspicion that T am addressing myself to you as the friend whom I loved and valued so highly in my better days, while in fact you are not that friend, but a stranger^' Thus was Cowper consistently in the dark, alike as to his earthly and his heavenly friend. He believed " that Mrs. Unwin hated him ;" — he believed " that Mr. Newton was not the friend whom he had known, but a stranger ;" —and he believed " that He who made him regretted that He had done so." And may we not reasonably hope, that as his earthly friends never once varied in their love for him, in consequence of his strange delusions with respect to them, so neither did his best Friend in heaven ? — for " like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." We have said that Cowper was submissive and obedient throughout. We detect no variation in his belief; — no repining, no rebelUous feeling. Two doubts only have been CONCLUSION, 233 started, as to the consistency of his course : Tlic first, as to his mingling too much, in the latter part of his hfe, in the society of fashionable and worldly people ; — the second, as to his lengthened labour upon Homer. We apprehend that the same apology applies to both. Deeming himself cut oft' from spiritual enjoyments and Christian occupations, and finding his mind agonized by melancholy thoughts, he was " driven," as he says, to the nearest occupation, not unlawful, in order to divert his mind from preying on itself. Thus he tells ]\Ir. Newton, " Being one day in such distress of raind as was hardly supjiortable, I took up the Iliad; and, merely to divert attention, translated the first twelve lines of it. The same necessity pressing me again, I translated more ; thus every day added something to the work." And one circumstance ought always to be borne in mind in connexion with this translation of the heathen poet, that its character, after all, proves that it was the real " Taskr While, in his own verses, he soared, mounted, and glowed, — in his translation he grovelled on the earth. " Whatever," says the Edinburgh Reviewer, " may be the fire and force of particular jjassages, they are separated by weary tracts of unenlivened prose, and a languor and sluggishness hang over gi'eat part of the performance." The failure, therefore, which is generally ascribed to this work, may reasonably be attribvited to the fact, that it was to him merely " an occupation," to which he felt himself " driven." The life, then, which we have just been reviewing may be thus described : — The first thirty years were passed in school employ- ments and amusements, and in literary idling. A gentle- man by birth and education, — amiable, but a triflcr, — almost half his life had glided away before he had seriously asked himself for what purpose he was living. Meanwhile, how- ever, two attacks of melancholy had shown that " his mind was predisposed to hypochondria, from some mystery of its original oi-ganisatiou." At last there came a crisis. His appointment to a high and responsible office threw a burden on him which he was 234 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. unable to bear. His mind gave way under the pressure, and a brain-fever consigned him to the care of a physician, in whose charge he remained for more than a year. In this retirement, he himself tells us that he first sufifered remorse and despair ; and after a while, in the use of God's word, he received a cure. He was enabled to repent and believe the Gospel, and soon became full of joy and peace in believing. For eight years after this we find him leading a calm and peaceful life. We may give his own description of it in these well-known lines : — " Far from the world, Lord, I flee, From stiife and tumult far ; From scenes where Satan wages still His most successful war. The calm retreat, the silent shade, With prayer and praise agree ; And seem, by thy sweet bounty, made For those who follow thee. There, if thy Spirit touch the soul, And grace her mean abode. Oh, with what peace, and joy, and love, She communes with her God! There like the nightingale she pours Her solitary lays ; Nor asks a witness of her song, Nor thirsts for human praise. Author and Guardian of my life, Sweet source of light divine. And (all harmonious names in one) My Saviour, thou art mine ! What thanks I owe thee, and what love ! A boundless, endless store, Shall echo througli tlie realms above When tune shall be no more." After this, we hear of no departure on his part from God ; although, had such declension taken place, his friend CONCLUSION. 235 Mr. Newton would have surely seen, and would have recorded it. Nor did God reject him. " llie Lord, the God of Israel, saith, that he hateth putting away''' " The gifts and calling of God are without repentanceV Still his mental ailment, such as he had thrice before experienced, rctui-ned upon him. Dreadful anguish seized him. " The fear of death came upon him, and an horrible dread overwhelmed him." For more than one year he suflfered intensely ; then his disease gradually abated, till, after a time, he became able to write, and was then in- duced to take up the pen. And now comes forth to light, the Christian Poet. Between December 1780 and August 1784 the great business of his life was accomplished. In about three years and a-half all his longer and more serious poems were written. In less than one year he composed The Task, — " that monument," says Southey, "which, though not loftier than the Pyra- mids, will more surely perpetuate its author's name than those eldest of human works have handed down the his- tory of their founders." So short a period did it require to fulfil the great business of his life ! Tlie first thirty years of his existence had been wasted ; the last fifteen •were to be passed in melancholy, and in unproductive translations. The work he was sent into the world to do, was done in this short portion of the middle of his existence. And, while this duty was before him, his life, though overclouded by fear, was not a life of suffering. " It is consolatory to believe," says Southey, " that, during this long stage of his malady, Cowper was rarely so miserable as he represented himself to be. Though his disease of mind settled at last into the deepest shade, and ended in the very blackness of darkness, it is not less certain that, before it reached that point, it allowed him many years of moral and intellectual enjoyment." Still, as advancing age told upon his frame, and as his dearest friends were removed by death, or disabled by infirmity, his malady took a firmer hold, and gradually gained the entire ascendancy. All this is merely the na- tural order of events, and adds nothing to the original mystery, — Why a once happy Christian should be left to 236 LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER. wander in such darkness ? And this is merely a single point of the great mystery of life ; the understanding of which, in our present state, is denied to us, and no doubt wisely denied, inasmuch as it is, in itself, beyond our powers. The most consolatory thought, however, connected with this mystery, is that which St. Paul so wonderfully con- denses into a few brief words : " Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory T How does the Apostle here strain human language to the uttermost, to express what, after all, is inexpressible, — the infinite discrepancy between a few brief years, spent on earth in pain or in sadness, — and the eternity which is to follow, at " His right hand, where ai'e pleasures for evermore ! " The connexion, indeed, the hovi it is, that this " light affliction" should " work out a weight of glory," is at present hidden from us. " Like children looking out from their nursery-window," we see but by portions, and under- stand but little of what we do see. This is a necessary consequence of our present condition. We cannot desire to be " as gods, knowing good and evil," without being in danger of the original temptation. But we may rest on a promise, explicit as language can make it, and firm as the foundations of the everlasting liilLs, — " All things shall work together for good to them that love God, to them irho are the called according to his purposed That Cowper was one of those who had been enabled, by Divine grace, to " love God," will be doubted by no candid reader of the narrative which wiU be given in the Appendix. And the conclusion is inevitable. His suf- ferings, even, must have been among the "all things;" and he himself would not, now, wish to have been without them. APPENDIX. I CAisTN'OT recollect that, till the month of December, in the thirty-second year of my life, I had ever any serious impressions of the religious kind, or at all bethought my- self of the things of my salvation, except in two or three instances. The first was of so transitory a natui'e, and passed when I was so very young, that, did I not intend what follows for a history of my heart, so far as religion has been its object, I should hardly mention it. At six years old I was taken from the nursery, and from the immediate cai'e of a most indulgent mother, and sent to a considerable school in Bedfordshire. Here I had hardships of difierent kinds to conflict with, which I felt more sensibly in proportion to the tenderness with which I had been treated at home. But my chief affliction con- sisted in my being singled out from ail the other boys, by a lad about fifteen years of age, as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the cruelty of his temper. I choose to forbear a particular recital of the many acts of barbarity with which he made it his business continually to persecute me : it will be sufficient to say that he had, by his savage treatment of me, impressed such a dread of his figiu'e upon my mind, that I well remember being afraid to lift up my eyes upon him higher than his knees, and that I knew him by his shoe-buckles better than any 238 APPENDIX. other part of his dress. May the Lord i^ardon him, and may we meet in glory ! One day, as I was sitting alone on a bench in the school, melancholy, and ahnost ready to weep at the recol- lection of what I had already suflfered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, these words of the Psalmist came into my mind, " I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me." I ai^plied this to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God, that would have been no disgrace to a much more experienced Christian. Instantly I perceived in myself a briskness of spirits, and a cheerfulness which I had never before ex- perienced ; and took several paces up and down the room with joyful alacrity, — his gift in whom I trusted. Happy had it been for me, if this early effort towards a dependence on the blessed God had been frequently repeated by me. But, alas ! it was the first and last instance of the kind between infancy and manhood. The cruelty of this boy, which he had long practised in so secret a manner that no creature suspected it, was at length discovered. He was expelled from the school, and I was taken from it. From hence, at eight years old, I was sent to Mr. D., an eminent surgeon and oculist, ha\'ing very weak eyes, and being in danger of losing one of them. I continued a year in this family, where religion was neither known nor prac- tised ; and from thence was dispatched to Westminster, Whatever seeds of religion I might carry thither, before my seven years' apprenticeship to the classics was expired they were all man-ed and corrupted ; the duty of the schoolboy swallowed up every other ; and I acquired Latin and Greek at the expense of a knowledge much more im- portant. Here occurred the second instance of serious considera- tion. As I was crossing St. Margaret's churchyard late one evening, I saw a glimmering light in the midst of it, which excited my curiosity. Just as I arrived at tlie spot, a gi'ave-digger, who was at work by the Ught of his lanthorn, threw up a skull, which struck me upon the leg. This little accident was an alarm to my conscience ; for that event may be numbered among the best rehgious docu- PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 239 ments which I received at Westminster. Tlie impression, however, presently went oft" ; and I became so forgetful of mortality, that, strange as it may seem, surveying my activity and strength, and observing the evenness of my pulse, I began to entertain, with no small complacency, a notion that, perhaps, I might never die ! This notion was, however, very short-lived ; for I loas soon after struck with a lowness of spirits uncommon at my age, and frequently had intimations of a consumptive habit. I had skill enough to understand their meaning, but could never pre- vail on myself to disclose them to any one ; for I thought any bodily infirmity a disgrace, especially a consumption. This messenger from the Lord, however, did his errand, and perfectly convinced me that I was mortal. That I may do justice to the place of my education, I must relate one mark of religious discipline, which, in my time, was observed at Westminster ; I mean, the pains which Dr. Nicholls took to prepare us for confirmation. The old man acquitted himself of his duty like one who had a deep sense of its importance ; and I believe most of us were struck by his manner, and affected by his exhort- ation. For my own part, I then, for the first time, at- tempted prayer in secret ; but being little accustomed to that exercise of the heart, and having very childish notions of religion, I found it a difiicult and painful task, and was even then frightened at my own insensibility. This difd- culty, though it did not subdue my good purposes till the ceremony of confirmation was past, soon after entirely conquered them ; I relapsed into a total forgetfulness of God, with the usual disadvantage of being more hardened, for having been softened to no purpose. At twelve or thirteen I was seized with the small-pox. I only mention this to show that, at that early age, my heart was become proof against the ordinaiy means which a gracious God employs for our chastisement. Though I was severely handled by the disease, and in imminent danger, yet neither in the course of it, nor during my recovery, had I any sentiment of contrition, any thought of God or eternity. On the contrary, I was scarcely raised from the bed of pain and sickness, before the emotions of .240 APPENDIX. sin became more violent in me than ever ; and Satan seemed rather to have gained than lost an advantage, so readily did I admit his suggestions, and so passive was I under them. By this time 1 became such an adept in falsehood, that I was seldom guilty of a fault for which I could not, at a very short notice, invent an apology, capable of deceiving the wisest. These, I know, are caUed schoolboys' tricks ; but a sad depravity of principle, and the work of the father of lies, are universally at the bottom of them. At the age of eighteen, being tolerably furnished with grammatical knowledge, but as ignorant in all points of religion as the satchel at my back, I was taken from West- minster ; and, having spent about nine months at home, was sent to acquire the practice of the law with an attorney. There I might have lived and died, without hearing or seeing anj-thing that might remind me of a single Christian duty, had it not been that I was at liberty to spend my leisure time (which was well-nigh all my time) at my uncle's, in Southampton Kow. By this means I had, indeed, an opportunity of seeing the inside of a church, whither I went with the family on Sundays, which, probably, I should otherwise never have seen. At the expiration of this term I became, in a manner, complete master of myself ; and took possession of a com- plete set of chambers in the Temple, at the age of twenty- one. This being a critical season of my life, and one upon which much depended, it pleased my all-merciful Father in Jesus Clirist to give a check to my rash and ruinous career of wickedness at the very onset. / u-as struck, not long after m_y settlement in the Temple, with such a dejection of spirits, as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack, lying doiim in horror, and rising up in despair. I presently lost all relish for those studies to which I had before been closely attached ; the classics had no longer any charms for me ; I had need of something more salutary than amusement, but I had no one to direct me where to fmd it. At length I met with Herbert's Poems ; and, gothic and PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 241 uncouth as they were, I yet found in them a strain of piety which I coukl not but admire. This was the only author I had any dehght in reading. I pored over him all day long ; and though I found not here, what I might have found, a cure for my malady, yet it never seemed so much alleviated as while I was reading him. At length I was advised by a very near and dear relative to lay him aside ; for he thought such an author more likely to nourish my disorder than to remove it. In this state of mind I continued near a twelvenaonth ; when, having experienced the inefficacy of all human means, I at length betook myself to God in prayer : such is the rank whicli our Redeemer holds in our esteem, never re- sorted to but in the last instance, when all creatures have failed to succour us. My hard heart was at length soft- ened, and my stubborn knees brought to bow. I composed a set of prayers, and made frequent use of them. Weak as my faith was, the Almighty, who will not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax, was graciously pleased to hear me. A change of scene was recommended to me ; and I embniced an opportunity of going with some friends to Southampton, where I spent several months. Soon after our arrival we walked to a place called Freemantle, about a mile from the town ; the morning was clear and calm, the sun shone bright upon the sea, and the country on the borders of it was the most beautiful I had ever seen. We sat down upon an eminence, at the end of the arm of the sea which nuis between Southampton and the New Forest. Here it was that, on a sudden, as if another sun had been kindled that instant in the heavens, on purpose to dispel sorrow and vexation of spirit, I felt the weight of aU my miser}' taken oft', my heart became light and joyfiU in a moment ; I could have wept with transport had I been alone. I must needs believe that nothing less than the Almighty fiat could have filled me with such inexpressible delight ; not by a gradual dawning of peace, but, as it were, with a flash of his life-giving countenance. I think I remember something like a glow of gi-atitude to the Father of mercies for this imexpccted blessing, and that I ascribed R 242 APPENDIX. it to his gracious acceptance of my prayers. But Satan and my own wicked heart quickly persuaded me that I was indebted for my deliverance to nothing but a change of scene and the amusing varieties of the place. By this means he turned the blessing into a poison ; teaching me to conclude that nothing but a continued circle of diver- sion, and indulgence of appetite, could secure me from a relapse. Upon this false principle, as soon as I returned to London I burnt my prayers, and away went all thoughts of devotion and dependence upon God my Saviour. Surely it was of his mercy that I was not consumed — glory be to his grace ! Two deliverances from danger not making any impression, having spent about twelve years in the Temple, in an uninterrupted course of sinful indulgence, and my associates and companions being either, like myself, pro- fessed Christians or professed infidels, I obtained, at length, so complete a victory over my conscience, that all remon- strances from that quarter were in vain, and, in a manner, silenced ; though sometimes, indeed, a question would arise in my mind, whether it were safe to proceed any farther in a course so j^lainly and utterly condemned in the word of God. I saw clearly that, if the Gospel Avere true, such a conduct must inevitably end in my destruc- tion ; but I saw not by what means I could change my Ethiopian comi)lexion, or overcome such an inveterate habit of rebelling against God. The next thing that occurred to me, was a doubt whether the Gospel were true or false. To this succeeded many an anxious wish for the decision of this important question ; for I foolishly thought that obedience would presently follow, were I but convinced that it was worth while to attempt it. Having no reason to expect a miracle, and not hoping to be satisfied with anything less, I acquiesced, at length, in the force of that devilish conclusion, that the only course I could take to secure my present peace was to wink hard against the prospect of future misery, and to resolve to banish all thoughts of a subject upon which I thought to so little purpose. Nevertheless, when I was in the com- pany of deists, and heard the Gospel blasphemed, I never PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 243 failed to assert the truth of it with much vehemence of disputation ; for which I was the better (jualitied, having been always an industrious and diligent inciuirer into the evidences by which it was externally supported. I think I once went so far into a controversy of this kind, as to assert that I would gladly submit to have my right hand cut off, so that I might but be enabled to live according to the Gospel. Thus have I been employed, when half intoxi- cated, in vindicating the truth of Scripture, while in the very act of rebellion against its dictates. Lamentable in- consistency of a convinced judgment with an unsanctified heart ! An inconsistency, indeed, evident to others as well as to myself ; inasmuch as a deistical friend of mine, witli whom I was disputing upon the subject, cut short the matter by alleging that, if wliat I said were true, I was cer- tainly lost by my own showing. By this time, my patrimony being well-nigh spent, and there being no appearance that I should ever repair the damage by a fortune of my own getting, I began to be a little aj^prehensive of approaching want. It was, I imagine, under some apprehensions of this kind, that I one day said to a friend of mine. If the clerk to the journals of the House of Lords should die, I had some hopes that my kinsman, who had the place in his disposal, would appoint me to succeed him. We both agreed that the business of that place, being transacted in private, would exactly suit me. Thus did I covet what God had commanded me not to covet. It pleased the Lord to gi^'e me my heart's desire, and with it an immediate punishment for my crime. The man died, and, by his death, not only the clerkship of the journals became vacant, but it became necessary to appoint officers to two other ])laces, jointly, as deputies to Mr. De Grey, who at this time resigned. These were the office of reading clerk, and the clerk.ship of the committees, of much greater value than that of the journals. The patentee of these appointments (whom I pray to God to bless foi- his benevolent intention to serve me) called on me at my chambers, and, having invited me to take a tvu'ii with him in the garden, there made me an offer of the two most pre fitable places ; intending the other for his friend Mr. A. 244 APPENDIX. Dazzled by so splendid a proposal, and not immediately reflecting upon my incapacity to execute a business of so public a nature, I at once accepted it ; but at the same time (such was the will of Him whose hand was in the whole matter) seemed to receive a dagger in my heart. The wound ivus given, and every moment added to the smart of it. All the considerations, by which I endeavoured to compose my mind to its former tranquillity, did but tor- ment me the more ; proving miserable comforters and counsellors of no value. I returned to my chambers thoughtful and unhappy ; my countenance fell ; and my friend was astonished, instead of that additional cheerful- ness he might so reasonably expect, to find an air of deep melancholy in all I said or did. Having been harassed in this manner by day and night for the space of a week, perplexed between the apparent folly of casting away the only visible chance I had of being well provided for and the impossibility of retaining it, I determined at length to write a letter to my friend, though he lodged in a manner at the next door, and we generally spent the day together. I did so, and therein begged him to accept my resignation, and to appoint Mr. A. to the places he had given me ; and permit me to succeed Mr. A. I was well aware of the dispro2:)oi"tion between the value of his appointment and mine ; but my peace was gone ; pecu- niary advantages were not equivalent to what I had lost ; and I flattered myself that the clerkship of the journals would fiill fairly and easily within the scope of my abilities. Like a man in fever, I thought a change of posture would relieve my pain ; and, as the event will show, was equally disappointed. At length I carried my point ; my friend, in this instance, preferring the gratification of my desires to his own interest : for nothing could be so likely to bring a suspicion of bargain and sale upon his nomination, which the Lords would not have endured, as his appointment of so near a relative to the least profitable office, while the most valuable was allotted to a stranger. The matter being thus settled, something like a calm took place in my mind. I was, indeed, not a little con- cerned about my character ; being aware that it must PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 245 needs suffer by the strange appearance of my proceeding. This, however, being but a small part of the anxiety I had laboured under, was hardly felt when the rest was taken off". I thought my path to an easy maintenance was now plain and open, and for a day or two was tolerably cheerful. But, behold, the storm was gathering all the while ; and the fury of it was not the less violent for this gleam of sunshine. In the beginning, a strong opposition to my friend's right of nomination began to show itself A poweiful party was formed among the Lords to thwart it, in favovir of an old enenij' of the family, though one much indebted to its bounty ; and it appeared plain that, if we succeeded at last, it would only be by fighting our ground by inches. Every advantage, I was told, would be sought for, and eagerly seized, to disconcert us. I was bid to expect an examination at the bar of the House, touching my sufficiency for the post I had taken. Being necessarily ignorant of the nature of that business, it became ex- pedient that I should \'isit the office daily, in order to qualify myself for the strictest scrutiny. All the horror of my fears and perplexities now returned. A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me as this iuteUigence. I knew, to demonstration, that upon these terms the clerk- ship of the journals was no place for me. To require my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might there publicly entitle myself to the office, was, in effect, to ex- clude me from it. In the meantime, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward ; all pressed me to ixndertake that which I saw to be impracticable. They vdiose spirits arc formed like mine, to whom a public exhi- bition of themselves, on any occasion, is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horrors of my situation ; others can have none. My continual misery at length brought on a nervous fever : quiet forsook me by day, and peace by night ; a finger raised against me was more than I could stand against. In this posture of mind, I attended regularly at the office ; where, instead of a soul upon the rack, the most 246 APPENDIX. active spirits were essentially necessary for my purpose. I expected no assistance from anybody there, all the inferior clerks being under the influence of my opponent ; and accordingly I received none. The journal books were indeed thrown open to me, — a thing which could not be refused ; and from which, perhaps, a man in health, and with a head turned to business, might have gained all the information he wanted ; but it was not so with me. I read without perception, and was so distressed, that, had every clerk in the office been my friend, it could have availed me little ; for I was not in a condition to receive instruction, much less to elicit it out of manuscripts, without direction. Many months went over me thus employed ; constant in the use of means, despairing as to the issue. The feelings of a man, when he arrives at the place of execution, are, probably, much like mine, every time I set my foot in the office, which was every day, for more than half a year together. At length, the vacation being pretty far advanced, I made a shift to get into the country, and repaired to Mar- gate. There, by the help of cheeiful company, a new scene, and the intermission of luy painful employment, I presently began to I'ecover my spirits ; though even here, for some time after my ai'rival (notwithstanding, perhaps, that the preceding day had lieen spent agreeably, and with- out any disturbing recollection of nay circumstances), my first reflections, when I awoke in the morning, were horrible and full of wretchedness. I looked forward to the ap- proaching winter, and regretted the flight of every moment which brought it nearer ; like a man borne away by a rapid torrent into a stormy sea, whence he sees no possibility of retui-ning, and where he knows he cannot subsist. At length, indeed, I acquired such a facility of turning away my thoughts from the ensuing crisis, that, for weeks to- gether, I haixlly adverted to it at all ; but the stress of the tempest was yet to come, and was not to be avoided by any resolution of mine to look another way. " How wonderful are the works of the Lord, and his ways past finding out !" Thus was he preparing me for an event, which I least of all expected, even the reception of PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 247 his blessed Gosjiel, working by means which, in all human contemplation, must needs seem directly opposite to that purpose, but which, in his wise and gracious dis^josal, have, I trust, effectually accomplished it. About the beginning of October, 1763, I was again required to attend the office and prepare for the push. This no sooner took place, than all my misery returned ; " again I visited the scene of ineffectual labours ; again I felt myself pressed by necessity on either side, with nothing but despair in prospect. To this dilemma was I reduced, either to keep possession of the office to the last extremity, and by so doing expose myself to a public rejection for insufficiency ; (for the little knowledge I had acquired would have quite forsaken me at the bar of the House) ; or else to fling it up at once, and by this means run the hazard of ruining my benefactor's right of appointment, by bringing his discretion into question. In this situation, such a fit of passion has sometimes seized me, when alone in my chambers, that I have cried out aloud, and cursed the hour of my birth ; lifting up my eyes to heaven, at the same time, not as a supplicant, but in the spirit of re- proach against my Maker. A thought would sometimes come across my mind, that my sins had perhaps brought this distress upon me, that the hand of Divine vengeance was in it ; but in the pride of my heart I presently ac- quitted myself, and thereby implicitly charged God with injustice, saying, " What sins have I committed to deserve this ?" I saw plainly that God alone could deliver me ; but was firmly persuaded that he would not, and therefore omitted to ask it. Indeed, at his hands, I would not ; but as Saul sought to the witch, so did I to the physician, Dr. Heberden ; and was as diligent in the use of drugs, as if they would have healed my wounded spirit, or have made the rough lilaces plain before me. I made, indeed, one effort of a devotional kind ; for, having found a prayer or two, I said them a few nights, but with so Uttle expectation of pi'e- vailiiig that way, that I soon laid aside the book, and with it all thoughts of God and hopes of a remedy. I now began to look upon madness as the only chance 248 APPEXDIX. remaining. I had a strong kind of foreboding that so it would one day fare with me ; and I wished for it earnestly, and looked forward to it with impatient expectation. My chief fear was, that my senses would not fail me time enough to excuse my appearance at the bar of the House of Lords, which was the only purpose I wanted it to answer. Accordingly, the day of decision drew near, and I was still in my senses ; though in my heart I had formed many wishes, and by word of mouth expressed many expectations to the contrary. ISTow came the grand temptation ; the point to which Satan had all the while been driving me. I grew more sullen and reserved, fled from all society, even from my most intimate friends, and shut myself up in my chambers. The ruin of my fortune, the contempt of my I'elations and acquaintance, the i^rejudice I should do my patron, were all urged on me with irresistible energy. Being reconciled to the apprehension of madness, I began to be reconciled to the apprehension of death. Though formerly, in my happiest hours, I had never been able to glance a single thought that way, without shuddering at the idea of disso- lution, I now wished for it, and found myself but little shocked at the idea of procuring it myself. I considered life as my property, and therefoi-e at my own disposal. Men of great name, I observed, had destroyed themselves ; and the world still retained the profoundest respect for their memories. But above all, I was persuaded to believe, that if the act were ever so unlawful, and even supposing Christianity to be true, my misery in hell itself would be more sup- portable. I well recollect, too, that when I was about eleven years of age, my father desired me to read a vindication of self-murder, and give him my sentiments upon the ques- tion : I did so, and argued against it. My father heard my reasons, and was silent, neither appro vi;ig nor disapproving ; from whence I inferred that he sided with the author against me : though all the time, I believe, the true motive for his conduct was, that he wanted, if he could, to think favourably of the state of a departed friend, who had some years before destroyed himself, and whose death had struck PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 249 him with the deepest affliction. But this sohition of the matter never once occurred to me, aud the cu'cumstance now weighed mightily with me. At this time I fell into company, at a chop-honse, with an elderly, well-looking gentleman, whom I had often seen there before, but had never spoken to. He began the dis- course, and talked much of the miseries he had suffered. This opened my heart to him ; I freely and readily took part in the conversation. At length, self-murder became the topic ; and in the result, we agreed, that the only reason why some men were content to drag on their sor- rows with them to the grave, and others were not, was that the latter were endued with a certain indignant forti- tude of spirit, teaching them to despise life, which the former wanted. Another person, whom I met at a tavern, told me that he had made up his mind about that matter, and had no doubt of his liberty to die as he saw con- venient ; though, by the way, the same person, who has suffered many and great afflictions since, is still alive. Thus were the emissaries of the throne of darkness let loose upon me. Blessed be the Lord, who has brought much good out of all this evil ! This concurrence of sentiment, in men of sense, unknown to each other, I cmsidered as a satisfactory decision of the question, and determined to proceed accordingly. One evening in November, 1763, as soon as it was dark, aff'ecting as cheerful and unconcerned an air as possible, I went into an apothecary's shop, and asked for an half- ounce phial of laudanum. The man seemed to observe me narrowly ; but if he did, I managed my voice and coun- tenance so as to deceive him. The day that I'equired my attendance at the bar of the House being not yet come, and about a week distant, I kept my bottle close in my side-pocket, resolved to use it when I should be convinced there was no other way of escaping. This, indeed, seemed evident already ; but I was willing to allow myself every possible chance of that sort, and to protract the horrid execution of my purpose till the last moment ; but Satan was impatient of delay. The day before the period above-mentioned arrived, 250 APPENDIX. being at Richai'ds' coffee-house at breakfast, I read the newspaper, and in it a lettei', wliich the further I perused itj the more closely engaged my attention. I cannot now recoUect the purport of it ; but before I had finished it, it appeared deraoustratively true to me that it was a libel or satire upon me. The author appeared to be acquainted with my purpose of self-destruction, and to have written that letter on purpose to secure and hasten the execution of it. My mind, probably, at this time, began to be dis- ordered ; however it was, I was certainly given up to a strong delusion. I said within myself, " Your cruelty shall be gratified ; you shall have your revenge ! " and, flinging down the paper, in a fit of strong passion, I rushed hastily out of the room ; directing my way towards the fields, where I intended to find some house to die in ; or if not, determined to poison myself in a ditch, when I could meet with one sufficiently retired. Before I had walked a mile in the fields, a thought struck that I might yet spare my life ; that I had nothing to do, but to sell what I had in the funds, (which might be done in an hour,) go on board a ship and transport myself to France. There, when every other way of maintenance should fail, I promised myself a comfortable asylum in some monastery, — an acquisition easily made by changing my religion. Not a little pleased with this expedient, I returned to my chambers to pack up all that I could at so short a notice ; but while I was looking over my port- manteau, my mind changed again ; and self-murder was recommended to me once more in all its advantages. Not knowing where to poison myself, for I was liable to continual interruption in my chambers, from my laun- dress and her husband, I laid aside that intention, and resolved upon drowning. For that purpose I imme- diately took a coach, and ordered the man to drive to Tower Wharf ; intending to throw myself into the river from the Custom House Quay. It would be strange, should I omit to observe here, how I was continually hurried away from such places as were most favourable to my design, to others, where .it must be almost impossible to execute it ; — from the fields, where it was improbable PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 261 that anytliiug should ha})pcn to prevent me, to the Custom House C^ua}', where everythiug of that kiud was to be expected ; and this by a sudden impulse, which lasted just long enough to call me back again to my chambers, and was innncdiately withdrawn. Nothing ever appeared more feasible than the project of going to Finance, till it had served its purpose, and then, in an instant, it ai)peared impi'acticable and absurd, even to a degree of ridicule. My life, which I had called my own, and claimed a right to dispose of, was kept for me by him whose property indeed it was, and who alone had a right to tlispose of it. This is not the only occasion on which it is proper to make this remark ; others will offer themselves, in the course of this narrative, so fairly, that the reader cannot overlook them. I left the coach upon the Tower Wharf, intending never to return to it ; but upon coming to the quay, I found the water low, and a porter seated upon some goods there, as if on purpose to prevent me. This passage to the bottomless pit being mercifully shut against me, I returned back to the coach, and ordered it to return to the Temple. I drew up the shutters, once more had recourse to the laudanum, and determined to drink it off directly ; but God had otherwise ordained. A conflict, that shook me to pieces, suddenly took place ; not properly a trcinbhug, but a con- \Tilsive agitation, which dejarived me in a manner of the use of my limbs : and my mind was as much shaken as my body. Distracted between the desire of death and the dread of it, twenty times I had the phial to my mouth, and as often received an irresistible check ; and even at the time it seemed to me that an invisible hand swayed the bottle downwards, as often as I set it against my lips. I well remember that I took notice of this cii'cumstance with some surprise, though it eftected no change in uiy purpose. Panting for breath, ami in an horrible agony, I tiung my- self back into the corner of the coach. A few drops of laudanum which had touched my li[).s, besides the fumes of it, began to have a stupifying effect uj^ou me. Re- gretting the loss of so fair an opportunity, yet utterly 252 APPENDIX, unable to avail myself of it, I determined not to live ; and, already half dead with anguish, I once more returned to the Temple. Instantly I repaired to my room, and having shut both the outer and inner door, prepared myself for the last scene of the tragedy. I poured the laudanum into a small basin, set it on a chair by the bedside, half un- dressed myself, and laid down between the blankets, shud- dering with horror at what I was about to perpetrate. I reproached myself bitterly with folly and rank cowardice, for having suffered the fear of death to influence me as it had done, and was filled with disdain at my own pitiful timidity : but still something seemed to overrule me, and to say, "Think what you are doing ! Consider, and live /" At length, however, with the most confirmed resolution, I reached forth my hand towards the basin, when the fingers of both hands were as closely contracted, as if bound with a cord, and became entirely useless. Still, in- deed, I could have made shift with both hands, dead and lifeless as they were, to have raised the basin to my mouth for my arms were not at all affected : but this new difficulty struck me with wonder ; it had the air of a Divine inter- position. I lay down in my bed again to muse xipon it, and while thus employed, heard the key turn in the outer door, and my laundress's husband came in. By this time the use of my fingers was restored to me : I started up hastily, dressed myself, hid the basin, and aflfecting as com- posed an air as I could, walked out into the dining-room. In a few minutes I was left alone ; and now, unless God had evidently interposed for my preservation, I should cei'tainly have done execution upon myself, having a whole afternoon before me. Both the man and his wife having gone out, outward obstructions were no sooner removed than new ones arose within. The man had just shut the door behind him, when the convincing Spirit came ujion me, and a total alteration in my sentiments took place. Tlie horror of the crime was immediately exhibited to me in so strong a light, that, being seized with a kind of furious indignation, I snatched up the basin, jjoured away the laudanum into a jiliial of foul water, and not content wth that, flung the PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 253 phial out of tlie window. Tliis impulse, having served the i)rescnt purpose, was withdrawn. I spent the rest of the day in a kind of stupid insensi- bility, undetermined as to the manner of dying, but still bent on self-murder, as the only possible deliverance. That sense of tlae enormity of the crime, which I had just experienced, had entirely left me ; and unless my Eternal Father in Christ Jesus had interposed to disannul my covenant with death, and my agreement with hell, that I might hereafter be admitted into the covenant of mercy, I had by this time been a companion with devils, and the just object of his boundless vengeance. In the evening, a most intimate friend called upon me, and felicitated me on a happy resolution, which he had heard I had taken, to stand the brunt and keep the office. I knew not whence this intelligence arose, but did not con- tradict it. We conversed awhile, with a real cheerfulness on his part and an affected one on mine ; and when he left me I said in my heart, I shaU see him no more ! Behold, into what extremities a good sort of man may fall ! Such was I in the estimation of those who knew me best : a decent outside is all a good-natured world requires. Thus equipped, though all within be rank atheism, rotten- ness of heart, and rebellion against the blessed God, we are said to be good enough ; and if we are damned, alas ! who shall be saved ? Reverse this charitable reflection, and say. If a good sort of man be saved, who then shall perish ? and it comes much nearer the truth : but this is a hard saying, and the world cannot bear it. I went to bed to take, as I thought, my last sleep in this world. The next mcn-iiing was to place me at the bar of the House, and I determined not to see it. I slept as usual, and awoke about three o'clock. Immediately I arose, and by the help of a rushlight, found my penknife, took it into bed with me, and lay with it for some hours directly pointed against my heart. Twice or thrice I placed it up- right under my left bi-east, leaning all my weiglit upon it ; but the point was broken off square, and it would not penetrate. In this manner the time passed till the day began to 254 APPENDIX. break. I heard the clock strike seven, and instantly it occurred to me there was no time to be lost : the chambers would soon be opened, and my friend would call upon me to take me with him to AVestminster. " Now is the time," thought I ; " this is the crisis ; no more dallying with the love of life." I arose, and, as I thought, bolted the inner door of my chambers, but was mistaken ; my touch deceived me, and I left it as I found it. My preservation, indeed, as it will appear, did not depend upon that incident ; but I mention it to show that the good providence of God watched over me, to keep open every way of deliverance, that nothing might be left to hazard. Not one hesitating thought now remained, but I fell greedily to the execution of my purpose. My garter was made of a broad piece of scarlet binding, with a sliding buckle, being sewn together at the ends : by the help of the buckle I formed a noose, and fixed it about my neck, straining it so tight that I hardly left a passage for my breath, or for the blood to circulate ; the tongue of the buckle held it fast. At each corner of the bed was placed a wreath of carved work, fastened by an iron pin, which bassed up through the midst of it : the other part of the garter, which made a loop, I slipped over one of these, and hung by it some seconds, drawing up my feet under me, that they might not touch the floor ; but the iron bent, and the carved work slipped of, and the garter with it. I then fastened it to the frame of the tester, winchng it round, and tying it in a strong knot. The frame broke short, and let me down again. The third effort was more likely to succeed. I set the door open, which reached within a foot of the ceiling ; by the help of a chair I could command the top of it, and the loop being large enough to admit a large angle of the door, was easily fixed so as not to slip off again. I pushed away the chair with my feet, and hung at my whole length. While I hung there, I distinctly heard a voice say three times, "'Ti.s over/" Though I am sure of the fact, and was so at the time, yet it did not at all alarm me, or affect my resolution. I hung so long that I lost all sense, all consciousness of existence. PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 255 "When I came to myself again, I tliought m3'self in hell ; the sound of my own dreadful groans was all that I heard, and a feeling like that produced by a flash of lightning just beginning to seize upon me, passed over my whole liody. lu a few seconds I found myself fallen on my face to the floor. In about half a minute I recovered my feet ; and, reeling and staggering, tumbled into bed again. By the blessed providence of God, the garter which had held me till the bitterness of temporal death was past, broke just before eternal death had taken place upon me. The stagnation of the blood under one eye, in a broad ci'imson spot, and a red circle round my neck, showed plainly that I had been on the brink of eternity. The latter, indeed, might have been occasioned by the pressure of the garter, but the former was certainly the effect of stran- gulation ; for it was not attended with the sensation of a bruise, as it must have been, had I, in my fall, received one in so tender a part. And I rather think the circle round my neck was owing to the same cause ; for the part was not excoriated, nor at all in pain. Soon after I got into bed, I was sur-prised to hear a noi.sc in the dining-room, where the laundress was lighting a fire ; she had found the door unbolted, notwithstanding my design to fasten it, and must have passed the bed- chamber door while I was hanging on it, and yet never perceived me. She heard me fall, and presently came to ask me if I was well ; adding, she feared I had been in a fit. I sent her to a friend, to whom I related the whole affair, and dispatched him to my kinsman at the coffee- house. As soon as the latter arrived, I pointed to the broken garter, which lay in the middle of the room ; and apprized him also of the attempt I had l)een making. His words were, " My dear Mr. Cowper, you terrify me ! To be sure you cannot hold the office at this rate, — where is the deputation ?" I gave him the key of the di-awer where it was deposited ; and his business requiring his immediate attendance, he took it away with him ; and thus ended all my connexion with the Parliament office. To tliis moment I had felt no concern of a sjjiritual kind. Ignorant of original sin, insensible of the guilt of 256 APPENDIX. actual transgression, I understood neither the law nor the gospel ; the condemning nature of the one, nor the restor- ing mercies of the other. I was as much unacquainted with Christ, in all his saving offices, as if his blessed name had never reached me. Now, therefore, a new scene opened upon me. Conviction of sin took place, especially of that just committed ; the meanness of it, as well as its atrocity, was exhibited to me in colours so inconceivably strong, that I despised myself, with a contempt not to be imagined or expressed, for having attempted it. This sense of it secured me from the repetition of a crime which I could not now reflect on without abhorrence. Before I arose from bed, it was suggested to me that there was nothing wanted but murder to fill up the measure of my iniquities ; and that, though I had failed in my design, yet I had all the guilt of that crime to answer for. A sense of God's wrath, and a deep despair of escaping it, instantly succeeded. The fear of death became much more prevalent in me than ever the desire of it had been. A frequent flashing, like that of fire, before my eyes, and an excessive pressure upon the brain, made me appre- hensive of an apoplexy; an event which I thought the more probable, as an extravasation in that part seemed likely enough to hapisen in so violent a struggle. By the advice of my dear friend and benefactor, who called upon me again at noon, I sent for a physician, and told him the fact, and the stroke I apprehended. He assured me there was no danger of it, and advised me by all means to retire into the country. Being made easy in that parti- cular, and not knowing where to better myself, I continued in my chambers, where the solitude of my situation left me at full lil^erty to attend to my spiritual state ; a matter I had till this day never sufficiently thought of. At this time I wrote to my brother, at Cambridge, to inform him of the distress I had been in, and the dreadful method I had taken to deliver myself from it ; assuring him, as I faithfully might, that I had laid aside all such horrid intentions, and was desirous to live as long as it would please the Almighty to joermit me. My sins were now set in array against me, and I began PERSOXAL NARRATIVE. 257 to see and feel that I had lived without God in the world. As I walked to and fro in my chamber, I said within my- self, " There never was so abandoiied a wretch, so great a sin- ner!" All my worldly sorrows seemed as though they had never been ; the terrors which succeeded them seemed so great and so much more afflicting. One moment I thought myself shut out from mercy by one chapter ; the next by another. The sword of the Spirit seemed to guard the tree of hfe from my touch, and to flame against me in every avenue by which I attempted to approach it. I particularly remember, that the parable of the barren fig-tree was to me an inconceivable source of anguish ; and I apphed it to myself, with a strong persuasion in my mind that, when the Saviour pronounced a curse upon it, he had me in his eye, and pointed that curse directly at me. I turned over all Archbishop Tillotson's sermons, in hopes to find one upon the subject, and consulted my brother upon the true meaning of it ; desirous, if possible, to obtain a diftercnt interpretation of the matter than my evil conscience would suffer me to fasten on it. " Lord, thou didst vex me with all thy storms, all thy billows went over me ; thou didst run upon me Uke a giant in the night season, thou didst scare me with visions in the night season." In every book I opened, I found something that struck me to the heart. I remember taking up a volume of Beau- mont and Fletcher, which lay vipon the table in my kins- man's lodgings, and the first sentence which I saw was this : "The justice of the gods is in it." My heart instantly re- plied, " It is a truth ;" and I cannot but observe, that as I found something in every author to condemn me, so it was the first sentence, in general, I pitched upon. Every thing preached to me, and every thing preached the curse of the law. I was now strongly tempted to use laudanum, not as a poison, but as an opiate, to coiapose my spirits ; to stupify my awakened and feeling mind, harassed with sleepless nights and days of uninterrupted misery. But God forbad it, who would have nothing to interfere with the quicken- ing work he had begun in me ; and neither the want of rest, S 258 APPENDIX. nor continued agony of mind, could bring me to the use of it : I hated and abhorred the very smell of it. I never went into the street, but I thought the people stared and laughed at me, and held me in contempt ; and I could hardly pereuade myself, but that the voice of my con- science was loud enough for every one to hear it. They who knew me seemed to avoid me ; and if they spoke to me, they seemed to do it in scorn. I bought a ballad of one who was singing it in the street, because I thought it was written on me. I dined alone, either at the tavern, where I went in the dark, or at the chop-house, where I always took care to hide myself in the darkest corner of the room. I slept generally an hour in the evening, but it was only to be terrified in dreams ; and when I awoke, it was some time before I coidd walk steadily through the jjassage into the dining-room. I reeled and staggered like a drunken man. The eyes of man I could not liear ; but when I thought that the eyes of God were upon me, (which I felt assured of,) it gave me the most intolerable anguish. If, for a moment, a book or a com- panion stole away my attention from myself, a flash from heU seemed to be thrown into my mind immediately ; and I said within myself, " What are these things to me, who am damned ?" In a word, I saw myself a sinner altogether, and every way a sinner ; but I saw not yet a glimj^se of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. The capital engine in all the artilleiy of Satan had not yet been employed against me. Already overwhelmed with despair, I was not yet sunk into the bottom of the gulf This was a fit season for the use of it : accordingly I was set to inquire, whether I had not been guilty of the unpar- donable sin ; and was presently persuaded that I had. A neglect to improve the mercies of God at Southamp- ton, on the occasion above mentioned, was represented to me as the sin against the Holy Ghost. No favourable con- struction of my conduct in that instance ; no argument of my brother's, who was now with me ; nothing he could suggest in extenuation of my offences, could gain a mo- ment's admission. Satan furnished me so readily with weapons against myself, that neither scrijjture nor reason PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 259 could undeceive mc. Life appeared to me now more eligible than death, only because it was a barrier between me and everlasting burnings. My thoughts in the day became still more gloomy, and my night visions more dreadful. One morning, as I lay between sleeping and waking, I seemed to myself to be walking in Westminster Abbey, waiting till prayers should begin ; presently I thought I heard the minister's voice, and hastened towards the choir : just I was upon the point of entering, the iron gate under the organ was flung in ray face, with a jar that made the Abbey ring ; the noise awoke me ; and a sentence of excommunication from all the churches uj^on the earth could not have been so dreadful to me, as the interpretation which I could not avoid put- ting upon this dream. Another time I seemed to pronounce to myself, " Evil, be thou my good." I verily thought that I had adopted that hellish sentiment, it seemed to come so directly from my heart. I arose from bed "to look for my praj^cr-book, and having found it, endeavoured to pray ; but immediately expei'ienced the impossibility of drawing nigh to God, unless he first draw nigh to us. I made many passionate attempts towards prayer, l>ut failed in all. Having an obscure notion about the efficacy of faith, I resolved upon an experiment to prove whether I had faith or not. For this purpose, I resolved to repeat the Creed : when I came to the second period of it, all traces of the for- mer were struck out of my memory, nor could I recollect one syllable of the matter. While I endeavoured to recover it, and when just upon the point, I perceived a sensation in my brain, like a ti'emulous vibration in all the fibres of it. By this means I lost the words in the very instant when I thought to have laid hold of them. This threw me into an agony ; but, growing a little calmer, I made an attempt for the third time : here, again, I failed, in the same manner as before. I considered it as a supernatural interposition to inform me, that, having sinned against the Holy Ghost, I had no longer any interest in Christ, or in the gifts of the Spirit. Being assured of this, with the most rooted conviction, I 260 APPENDIX. gave myself vip to despair. I felt a sense of burning in my heart, like that of real fire, and concluded it was an earnest of those eternal flames which would soon receive me. I laid myself down, howling with horror, while my knees smote against each other. In this condition my brother found me, and the first words I spoke to him were, " Oh ! brother, I am lost ! Think of eternity, and then think what it is to be lost !" I had, indeed, a sense of eternity impressed upon my mind, which seemed almost to amount to a full comprehension of it. My brother, pierced to the heart with the sight of my misery, tried to comfort me, but all to no jHirpose. I re- fused comfort, and my mind appeared to me in such colours, that to administer it to me was only to exasperate me, and to mock my fears. At length, I remembered my friend Martin Madan, and sent for him. T used to think him an enthusiast, but now seemed convinced that, if there was any balm in Gilead, he must administer it to me. On former occasions, when my spiritual concerns had at any time occurred to me, I thought likewise on the necessity of repentance. I knew that many persons had spoken of shedding tears for sin ; but, when I asked myself whether the time would ever come when I should weep for mine, it seemed to me that a stone might sooner do it. Not knowing that Christ was exalted to give repentance, I despaired of ever attaining to it. My friend came to me ; we sat on the bedside together, and he began to declare to me the Gospel. He spoke of original sin, and the corrup- tion of every man born into the world, wjiereby every one is a child of wrath. I perceived something like hope dawn- ing in my heart. This doctrine set me more on a level with the rest of mankind, and made my condition appear less desperate. Next he insisted on the all-atoning efficacy of the blood of Jesus, and his righteousness, for our justification. While I heard this part of his discourse, and the scriptures on which he founded it, my heart began to burn within me ; my soul was pierced with a sense of my bitter ingratitude to so merciful a Savioui' ; and those tears, which I thought PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 4. 201 impossible, burst forth freely. I saw clearly that my case lequired such a remedy, and had not the least doubt within me but that this was the gospel of salvation. Lastly, he urged the necessity of a lively faith in Jesus Christ ; not an assent only of the understanding, but a faith of application, an actually laying hold of it, and em- bracing it as a salvation wrought out for me personally. Here I failed, and deplored my want of such a faith. He told me it was the gift of God, which he trusted he would bestow u])on me. I could only reply, "I wish he would :" a very irreverent petition ; but a very sincere one, and such as the blessed God, in his due time, was pleased to answer. My brother, finding that I had received consolation from Mr. IMadan, was very anxious that I should take the earliest opportimity of conversing with him again ; and, for this purpose, pressed me to go to him immediately. I was for putting it oflf, but my brother seemed impatient of delay ; and, at length, ^''I'evailed on me to set out. I mention this to the honour of his candour and humanity; which would suffer no difference of sentiments to interfere with them. My welfare was his only object, and all pre- judices fled before his zeal to procure it. May he receive, for his recompense, all that happiness the gospel, which I then first became acquainted with, is alone able to impart ! Easier, indeed, I was, but far from easy. The wounded spirit within me was less in pain, l:)ut by no means healed. What I had experienced was but the l)eginning of sorrows, and a long train of still greater terrors was at hand. I slept my three hours well, and then awoke with ten times a stronger alienation from God than ever. At eleven o'clock, my brotlicr called upon me, and in about an hour after his arrival that distemper of mind, whicli I had so ardently wished for, actually seized me. AVhile I traversed the apartment, ex])ecting every mo- ment that the earth would open her mouth and swallow me, my conscience scaring me, and the city of refuge out of reach and out of sight, a strange and horrible darkness fell upon me. If it were possible that a heavy blow could light on the brain without touching the skull, such was the sensation 262 ^ APPENDIX. I felt. I clapped my hand to my forehead, and cried aloud, through the pain it gave me. At every stroke my thoughts and expressions became more wild and incoherent ; all that remained clear was the sense of sin, and the expectation of punishment. These kept undisturbed possession all through my illness, without interruption or abatement. My brother instantly observed the change, and con- sulted with my friends on the best manner to dispose of me. It was agreed among them, that I should be carried to St. Alban's, where Dr. Cotton kept a house for the re- ception of such patients, and with whom T was known to have a slight acquaintance. Not only his skill as a physi- cian recommended him to their choice, but his well-known humanity and sweetness of temper. It will be proper to draw a veil over the secrets of my prison-house : let it suf- fice to say, that the low state of body and mind to which I was reduced was perfectly well calculated to humble the natural vain-glory and pride of my heart. These are the efficacious means which Infinite "Wisdom thougkt meet to make use of for that purpose. A sense of self-loathing and abhorrence ran through all my in- sanity. Conviction of sin, and expectation of instant judg- ment, never left me, from the 7th of December, 1763, until the middle of July following. The accuser of the brethren was ever busy with me night and day, bringing to my recollection in dreams the commission of long-forgotten sins, and charging upon my conscience things of an in- different nature as atrocious crimes. All that passed in this long interval of eight months may be classed under two heads, conviction of sin, and despair of mercy. But, blessed be the God of my salvation for every sigh I drew, for every tear I shed ; since thus it pleased him to judge me here, that I might not be judged hereafter. After five months of continual expectation that the Divine vengeance would overtake me, I became so familiar with despair as to have contracted a sort of hardiness and indifFcreucc as to the event. I began to persuade myself that, while tlie execution of the sentence was suspended, it would be for my interest to indulge a less horrible train of PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 263 ideas than I had been accustomed to muse upon. By this means I entered into conversation with the Doctor, laughed at his stories, and told him some of my own to match them ; still, howcvci', carrying a sentence of irrevocable doom in my heart. He observed the seeming alteration with pleasure. Be- lieving, as well he might, that my smiles were sincere, he thought my recovery well-nigh completed ; but they were in reality like the green surface of a muorass, pleasant to the eye, but a cover for nothing but rottenness and filth. The only thing that could promote and effectuate my cure was yet wanting ; an experimental knowledge of the redemp- tion which is in CJirist Jesus. I remember, about this time, a diabolical species of regret that found harbour in my wretched heart. I was sincerely sorry that I had not seized every opportunity of giving scope to my wicked appetites ; and even envied those who, being departed to their own place before me, had the consolation to rctiect that they had well earned their miserable inheritance, by indulging their sensuality without restraint. Oh, merciful God ! what a Tophet of pollution is the human soul ! and wherein do we differ from the devils, unless thy grace prevent us ] In about three months more (July 25, 1764) my brother came from Cambridge to visit me. Dr. C. having told him that he thought me greatly amended, he was rather dis- appointed at finding me almost as silent and reserved as ever ; for the first sight of him struck me with many painful sensations, both of sorrow for ray own remediless condition and envy of his happiness. As soon as we were left alone, he asked me how I found myself ; I answered, " As much better as despair can make me." We went together into the garden. Here, on ex- pressing a settled assurance of sudden judgment, he pro- tested to me tliat it was all a delusion ; and protested so strongly, that I coukl not help gi\'ing some attention to him. I burst into tears, and cried out, " If it be a delusion, then am I the happiest of beings." Something like a ray of hope was shot into my heart ; but still I was afraid to indulge it. We dined together, and I spent the 264 APPENDIX. afternoon in a more cheerful manner. Something seemed to whisper to mc every moment, " Still there is mercy." Even after he left me, this change of sentiment ga- thered ground continually ; yet my mind was in such a fluctuating state, that I can only call it a vage presage of better things at hand, without being able to assign a reason for it. The servant observed a sudden alteration in me for the better : and the man, whom I have ever since retained in my service, expressed great joy on the occasion. I went to bed and slept well. In the morning, I dreamed that the sweetest boy I ever saw came dancing up to my bedside ; he seemed just out of leading-strings, yet I took particular notice of the firmness and steadiness of his tread. The sight aifected me with pleasure, and served at least to harmonise my sjiirits ; so that I awoke for the first time with a sensation of delight on my mind. Still, however, I knew not where to look for the establishment of the comfort I felt ; my joy was as much a mystery to myself as to those about me. The blessed God was pre- paring for me the clearer light of his countenance, by this first dawning of that light upon me. Within a few days of my first arrival at St. Alban's, I had thrown aside the word of God, as a book in which I had no longer any interest or portion. The only instance in which I can recollect reading a single chapter, was about two months before my recovery. Having found a Bible on the bench in the garden, I opened upon the 1 1th of St. John, where Lazarus is raised from the dead ; and saw so much benevolence, mercy, goodness, and sympathy, with mise- rable man, in our Saviour's conduct, that I almost shed tears even after the relation ; little thinking that it was an exact type of the mercy which Jesus was on the point of extending towards myself. I sighed, and said, " Oh, that I had not rejected so good a Redeemer, that. I had not forfeited all his favours ! " Thus was my heart softened, though not yet enlightened. I closed the book, without intending to open it again. Having risen with somewhat of a more cheerful feeling, I repaired to my room, where breakfast waited for me. "While I sat at table, I found the cloud of horror which PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 265 had SO long hung over me was every moment passing away ; and every moment came fraught with hope. I was continually more and more persuaded that I was not utterly doomed to destruction. The way of salvation was still, however, hid from my eyes ; nor did I see it at all clearer than before my illness. I only thought that, if it would please God to spare me, I would lead a better life ; and that I would yet escape hell, if a religious observance of my duty would secure me from it. Thus may the terror of the Lord make a pharisee; hut only the sweet voice of Tnercy in the Oospel can make a Christian. But the happy period which was to shake oiT my fetters, and afford me a clear opening of the free mercy of God in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and, seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw was the 2.5th of the 3d of Romans ; " Whom God hath set forth to be a pi-opitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remis- sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Immediately I received strength to believe it, and the full beams of the Sun of Righteousness shone uj^on mo. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement he had made, my pardon sealed in his blood, and all the fulness and com- pleteness of his justification. In a moment I believed, and received the Gospel. Whatever my friend Madan had said to me, long before, revived in all its clearness, with demon- stration of the Spirit and with power. Unless the almighty arm had been under me, I think I should have died with gratitude and joy. My eyes filled with tears, and my voice choked with transport, I could only look up to heaven in silent fear, overwhelmed with love and wonder. But the work of the Holy Ghost is best described in his own words, it is "joy \inspeakable, and full of glory." Thus was my heavenly Father in Christ Jesus pleased to give me the full assurance of faith, and out of a strong, stony, unbelieving heart, to raise up a child unto Abraham. How glad should I now have been to have spent every moment in prayer and thanksgiving ! 266 APPENDIX. I lost no opportunity of repairing to a throne of grace ; but flew to it with an earnestness irresistible and never to be satisfied. Could I help it ? Could I do othcr^vdse than love and rejoice in my reconciled Father in Christ Jesus ? The Lord had enlarged my heart, and I ran in the way of his commandments. For many succeeding weeks, tears were ready to flow if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my employment. Too happy to sleep much, I thought it was but lost time that was spent in slumber. O that the ardour of my first love had continued ! But I have known many a lifeless and unhallowed hour since ; long intervals of darkness, interrupted by shoi't returns of peace and joy in believing. My physician, ever watchful and apprehensive for my welfare, was now alarmed, lest the sudden transition from despair to joy should terminate in a fatal frenzy. But " the Lord was my strength and my song, and was become my salvation." I said, " I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord ; he has chastened me sore, but not given me over unto death. give thanks unto the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever." In a short time Dr. C. became satisfied, and acquiesced in the soundness of my cure ; and much sweet communion I had with him concerning the things of our salvation. He visited me every morning while I staid with him, which was near twelve months after my recovery, and the Gospel was the delightful theme of our conversation. No trial has befallen me since, but what might be ex- pected in a state of warfare. Satan, indeed, has changed his battery. Before my conversion, sensual gratification was the weapon with which he sought to destroy' me. Being naturally of an easy, quiet disposition, I was seldom tempted to anger ; yet that passion it is which now gives me the most disturbance, and occasions the sharpest con- flicts. But, Jesus being my strength, I fight against it ; and if I am not conqueror, yet I am not overcome. I now employed my brother to seek out an abode for me in the neighbourhood of Cambridge, being determined, by the Lord's leave, to see Loudon, the scene of my former PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 2G7 abomiuations, no more. I had still one place of preferment left, which seemed to bind me under the necessity of returning thither again. But I resolved to break the bond, chiefly because my peace of conscience was in question. I held, for some years, the office of Commissioner of Bank- rupts, worth about Wl. per annum. Conscious of my igno- rance of the law, I could not take the accustomed oath, and resigned it ; thereby releasing myself from an occasion of great sin, and every obligation to return to London. By this means, I reduced myself to an income scarcely sufficient for my maintenance ; but I would rather have starved in reality than deliberately offend against my Saviour ; and his great mercy has since raised me up such friends, as have enabled me to enjoy all the comforts and conveniences of life. I am well assured that, while I live, " bread shall be given me, and water shall be sure," according to his gracious promise. After my brother had made many unsuccessful attempts to procure me a dwelling near him, I one day poured out my soul in prayer to God, beseeching him that, wherever he should be pleased, in his fatherly mercy, to lead me, it might be in the society of those who feared his name, and loved the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity ; a prayer of which I have good reason to acknowledge his gracious acceptance. In the beginning of June, 1765, I received a letter from my brother, to say he had taken lodgings for me at Hunting- don, which he believed would suit me. Though it was sixteen miles from Cambridge, I was resolved to take them ; for I had been two mouths in perfect health, and my cir- cunxstances required a less expensive way of life. It was with great reluctance, however, that I thought of leaving the place of my second nativity ; I had so much leisure there to study the blessed word of God, and had enjoyed so much happiness : but God ordered everything for me like an indulgent Father, and had prepared a more com- fortable place of residence than I could have chosen for myself. On the 7th of June, 17G5, having spent more than eighteen months at St. Albau's, partly in bondage, and 268 APPENDIX. partly in the liberty wherewith Christ had made me free, I took my leave of the place at four iu the morning, and set out for Cambridge. The servant, whom I lately mentioned as rejoicing in my recovery, attended me. He had maintained such an affectionate watchfulness over me during my whole illness, and waited on me with so much patience and gentleness, that I could not bear to leave him behind, though it was with some difficulty the Doctor was prevailed on to part with him. The strongest argument of all was the earnest desire he expressed to follow me. He seemed to have been providentially thrown in my way, having entered Dr. C.'s service just time enough to attend me ; and I have strong ground to hope, that God will use me as an instrument to bring him to a knowledge of Jesus. It is impossible to say with how delightful a sense of his protection and fatherly care of me it has pleased the Almighty to favour me, during the whole journey. I remembered the pollution which is in the world, and the sad share I had in it myself ; and my heart ached at the thought of entering it again. The blessed God had endued me with some concern for his glory, and I was fearful of hearing it traduced by oaths and blasphemies, the common language of this highly favoured but ungrate- ful country. But, " fear not, I am with thee," was my comfort. I passed the whole journey in silent communion with God ; and those hours are amongst the happiest I have known. I repaired to Huntingdon the Saturday after my arrival at Cambridge. ]\Iy brother, who had attended me thither, had no sooner left me than, finding myself surrounded by strangers and in a sti'ange place, my siMi-it.s began to sink, and I felt (such were the backslidings of my heart) like a traveller in the midst of an inhospitable desert, with- out a friend to comfort or a guide to direct me. I walked forth, towards the close of the day, in this melancholy frame of mind, and, having wandered about a mile from the town, I found my heart, at length, so powerfully drawn towards the Lord, that, having gained a retii'cd and secret nook in the corner of a field, I kneeled down under a bank, PERSONAL NARRATIVE. 269 and poured forth my complaints before him. It pleased my Saviour to hear me, in that this oppression was taken off, and I was enaljled to trust in him tliat carcth for the stranger, to roll my burden upon him, and to rest assured that, wheresoever he might cast my lot, the God of all consolation would still be with me. But this was not all. He did for me more than either I had asked or thought. The next day I went to church, for the first time after my recovery. Throughout the whole service I had nnich to do to restrain my emotions, so fully did I see the beauty and the glory of the Lord. My heart was full of love to all the congregation, especially to them in whom I observed an air of sober attention. A grave and sober person sat in the pew with me ; him I have since seen and often con- versed with, and have found him a pious man, and a true servant of the blessed lledeemer. While he was singing the psalm, I looked at him, and, observing him intent on his holy employment, I could not help saying in my heart, with much emotion, " Bless you, for praising him whom my soul loveth ! " Such was the goodness of the Lord to mc, that he gave me the " oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ;" and though my voice was silent, being stopt by the intenseness of what I felt, yet my soul sung within me, and even leapt for joy. And when the Gospel for the day was read, the sound of it was more than I could well support. Oh, what a word is the word of God, when the Spirit quickens us to receive it, and gives the hearing ear, and the understanding heart ! The harmony of heaven is in it, and discovers its Author. The parable of the prodigal son was the portion. I saw myself in that glass so clearly, and the loving-kindness of my slighted and forgotten Lord, that the whole scene was realized to me, and acted over in my heart. I went immediately after church to the place where I had prayed the day before, and found the relief I had there received was but the earnest of a richer blessing. How shall I express what the Lord did for me, except by saying, that he made all his goodness to pass bcfoi-e me ! I seemed to speak to him face to face, as a man conversing with his 270 APPENDIX. friend, except that my spcecli was only in tears of joy, and groanings which cannot be uttered. I could say, indeed, with Jacob, not " how dreadful," but how lovely, " is this place ! This is none other than the house of God." Four months I continued in my lodging. Some few of the neighbours came to see me, but their visits were not very frequent ; and, in general, I had but little intercourse, except with my God in Christ Jesus. It was he who made my solitude sweet, and the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose ; and my meditation of him was so delightful that, if I had few other comforts, neither did I want any. One day, however, towards the expiration of this period, I found myself in a state of desertion. That commimion which I had so long been able to maintain with the Lord was suddenly interrupted. I began to dislike my solitary situation, and to fear I should never be able to weather out the winter in so lonely a dwelling. Suddenly a thought struck me, which I shall not fear to call a suggestion of the good providence which had brought me to Huntingdon. A few months before, I had formed an acquaintance vrith the Rev. Mr. Unwin's family. His son, though he had heard that I rather declined society than sought it, and though I\Irs. Unwin herself dissuaded him from visiting me on that account, was yet so strongly inclined to it, that, notwithstanding all objections and arguments to the con- trary, he one day engaged himself, as we were coming out of church after morning prayers, to di-ink tea -nath me that afternoon. To my inexpressible joy, I found him one whose notions of religion were spiritual and Hvely ; one whom the Lord had been training up from his infancy for the service of the temple. We opened our hearts to each other at the first interview ; and when we parted I imme- diately retired to my chamber, and prayed the Lord, who had been the author, to be the guardian of our friendship, and to grant to it fervency and perpetuity, even unto death : and I doubt not that my gracious Father heard this prayer also. The Sunday following I dined with him. That after- noon, while the rest of the family was withdrawn, I had much discourse with Mrs. Unwin. I am not at liberty to PERSONzUi NARRATIVE. 271 describe the pleasure I had in conversing with her, because she will be one of the first who will have the perusal of this narrative. Let it suffice to say, I found we had one faith, and had been baptized with the same baptism. When I returned home, I gave thanks to God, who had so graciously answered my prayer;*, by bi'inging me into the society of Christians. She has since been a means in the hand of God of supporting, quickening, and strength- ening me, in my walk with him. It was long before I thought of any other connexion with this family than as a friend and neighbour. On the day, however, above men- tioned, while I was revolving in my mind the nature of my situation, and beginning, for the first time, to find an irk- someness in such retirement, suddenly it occurred to me, that I might probably find a place in Mr. Uuwiu's family as a boarder. A young gentleman, who had hved with him as a pupil, was the day before gone to Cambridge. It a^jpeared to me, at least, possible, that I might be allowed to succeed him. From the moment this thought struck me, such a tumult of anxious solicitude seized me, that for two or three days I could not divert my mind to any other subject. I blamed and condemned myself for want of submission to the Lord's will ; but still the language of my mutinous and disobedient heart was, " Give me the bless- ing, or else I die." About the third evening after I had determined upon this measure, I at length made shift to fasten my thoughts upon a theme which had no manner of connexion with it. While I was pursuing my meditations, Mr. Unwin and family quite out of sight, my attention was suddenly called home again by the words which had been continually play- ing in my mind, and ,vere, at length, repeated with such importunity that I could not help regarding them : — " The Lord God of truth will do this." I was efFectually convinced, that they were not of my own production, and accordingly I received from them some assurance of suc- cess ; but my unbelief and fearfulncss robbed me of much of the coiufort they were intended to convey ; though I have since had many a blessed exi:)erience of the same kind, for which I can never be sufficiently thankful. I imme- 272 APPENDIX. diately began to negociate the affair, and in a few days it Avas entirely concluded. I took possession of my new abode, Nov. 11, 1765. I have found it a place of rest prepared for me by God's own hand, where he has blessed me with a thousand mercies, and instances of his fatherly protection ; and where he has given me abundant means of furtherance in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, both l)y the study of his own word and communion with his dear disciples. ]\Iay nothing but death interrupt our union ! Peace be with the reader, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen ! LONDON : Printed by G. 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