heretofore borrowed help from him; but he is a gentleman 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 implore 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 accordingly gone this day to Northampton, loaded part with my effusions in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs upon individuals! I have written one that serves two hundred persons."

in

One of the stanzas of this poem is often quoted, that commencing

"Like crowded forest-trees we stand,

And some are marked to fall."

The clerk of All Saints, as soon as he had obtained the favour, took care to let it be widely known both at Northampton and Olney who had written the verses. Moreover he sent a bundle of them to Maurice Smith, the Olney Jack-of-all-trades, "who sold them for threepence a piece-a high price for a 'Memento Mori,' a commodity not generally in great request.

Cowper wrote stanzas "On a similar occasion " for the years 1788, 1789, and 1790. The original MS.. of the Dirge of 1789 is in the Northampton Museum. There were no verses for 1791, the old clerk having

died, and Cowper hoped that this would put him out of office; but in November of the following year "the successor of the clerk defunct" made a journey to Weston and begged a continuance of the favour, which the poet kindly granted. So verses were also written for the years 1792 and 1793.

135. Mr. Clotworthy Rowley.-February,

1788.

In December (1787) Cowper had the pleasure of hearing from his old Templar friend, Mr. Clotworthy Rowley, who was now living at Dublin. Having read Cowper's poems, Mr. Rowley had felt his friendship for the poet revived, and wrote accordingly. He likewise sent half a dozen books which Cowper had lent him twenty-five years previously, apologizing for having kept them so long, and explaining that they had been sent to Dublin by mistake. Cowper, who regarded Rowley as "one of the most benevolent and friendly creatures in the world," replied with the utmost cordiality, and gave an account of his history since their parting. He likewise told him that he was translating Homer. Hearing what work Cowper had got "on the anvil," Mr. Rowley made himself busy in procuring subscribers for it, and the correspondence between the two old friends thus resumed was continued as long as the poet lived at Weston. Says Cowper: "I have now, therefore, a correspondent in Ireland, another in Scotland, and a third in Wales." To wit, Rowley, Rose, and Churchey. "All this would be very

diverting, had I a little more time to spare to them.” But as he elsewhere says

"It is a maxim of much weight,
Worth conning o'er and o'er,
He who has Homer to translate
Had need of nothing more."

136. The "Frogs."

The uninterrupted kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton, or, as he not infrequently styled them, "the Throcks, or "Mr. and Mrs. Frog," still continued to constitute one of the greatest pleasures of Cowper's existence, and he thus speaks of a small return he made them for their numerous favours:

"This morning, being the morning of New Year's Day, I sent to the Hall a copy of verses, addressed to Mrs. Throckmorton, entitled, The Wish, or the Poet's New Year's Gift.' We dine there to-morrow, when I suppose I shall hear news of them. Their kindness is so great, and they seize with such eagerness every opportunity of doing all they think will please us, that I held myself almost in duty bound to treat them with this stroke of my profession."

In this graceful little poem Cowper tells Mrs. Throckmorton that oft he has wished her good, "but never yet in rhyme." There would be no need to wish her fairer, more prudent, more sprightly, more ingenious, or even to wish her a greater amount of wedded love. What in particular to pray for her

he did not, indeed, know; so he gets over the difficulty

in this way :

"None here is happy but in part;

Full bliss is bliss divine;

There dwells some wish in every heart,

And doubtless one in thine.

That wish, on some fair future day,
Which fate shall brightly gild
('Tis blameless, be it what it may),
I wish it all fulfill'd."

During the next year or two several other poems. owed their existence to incidents connected with Mrs. Throckmorton. Notably the lines on the death of her bullfinch (September, 1788), and those "On her Beautiful Transcript of Horace's Ode Ad librum suum,' "" which ode, and another, by the by, pretended to have been discovered in 1788, turned out to be forgeries. They were said to have been discovered in the Palatine Library, and communicated by Gasper Pallavicini, the sub-librarian. Into the company of

Mrs. Throckmorton, indeed, he and Mrs. Unwin were very much thrown, and they found her at all times. agreeable, whether they drank tea with her in the spacious and sombre parlour at the Hall, whether she took three o'clock dinner with Cowper and Mrs. Unwin at the Lodge, as sometimes she was prevailed upon to do, or whether she walked with them in the early morning to gather mushrooms. In wet weather it was Mrs. Unwin's custom to make the journey between her house and the Hall in pattens or clogs.

As regards the conversation, both religion and politics were excluded, consequently, notwithstanding

the difference of Cowper's views from those of his friends, they were perfectly at peace. Not but what Mrs. Frog, when opportunity offered, would give a sly poke at the poet. For example, she one day told him, "with a significant sort of a look," that she was going to town" on purpose to be present at the ball at Brooks's." "I answered," says Cowper, "It is indifferent to me on what account you go, if you do but take care of yourself while you are gone, and return in good health to Weston.' Thus, and by such management as this, I contrive to avoid all party disputation— a moderate course, which I think myself the more at liberty to pursue, because my political principles are upon record having long since been printed."

In all probability, too, the joke at Cowper's expense, in reference to Mr. Canniford, the curate, owed its origin to the playfulness of Mrs. Throck.

Mr. Canniford had, early in 1788, undertaken the joint curacies of Ravenstone and Weston Underwood, rendered vacant by the departure of a lame curate, named Mr. Bull (no kin to Cowper's "Taureau"). At Olney, where Mr. Canniford had preached once, "he was hailed as the Sun by the Greenlanders after half a year of lamp-light." A few days after his arrival at Weston circumstances led him into Cowper's company. "The moment he entered the room," says Cowper (February 7, 1788), "I felt myself incurably prejudiced against him his features, his figure, his address, and all that he uttered, confirmed that prejudice, and I determined, having once seen him, to see him no more. Two days after he overtook me in the village. Your humble servant, Mr Cowper! A fine morning, sir, for