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 such a love to him both as a believer 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."

A fortnight after (May 14th) was perceived the first symptom of amendment. Yesterday, as he was feeding the chickens," says Mr. Newton, "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."

A few days more, and, to the surprise of every one, Cowper suddenly signified his willingness to depart. When he had once made up his mind he longed to be gone. A few days were necessary to prepare Orchard Side for their reception, and on Monday, May 23rd (1774), Cowper quitted the vicarage, after a stay there of nearly a year and five months.

His kindness to Cowper during this long and weary period exhibits a beautiful feature in Newton's character. Upon the whole," he says, "I have not been weary of my cross. Besides the submission I owe to the Lord, I think I can hardly do or suffer too much for such a friend, yet sometimes my heart has been impatient and rebellious."

CHAPTER X.

TRIFLING, OR, FROM HIS RECOVERY TO THE DEPARTURE OF NEWTON.

(May, 1774-Jan., 1780.)

55. His Tame Hares, and the "Heu! quam remotus."-1774.

A

S Cowper began to recover he found amusement in various trifles, his chief pleasure being

gardening, upon which he would talk freely, though other conversation he seldom noticed. But he improved every day. Nevertheless he did not regain hope. In some of his most melancholy moments he would compose lines descriptive of his unhappy state, and two of them have been preserved for us by Mr. Brian Bury Collins, a young friend of Newton's who occasionally visited at Olney :

"Caesus amor meus est, et nostro crimine: cujus,
Ah! cujus posthinc potero latitare sub alis?"

"My love is slain, and by my crime is slain,
Ah! now beneath whose wings shall I repose?"

From neither company nor books did Cowper yet receive

any pleasure; nevertheless, being in a condition that made some diversion necessary, he was glad of anything that would engage his attention, without fatiguing it; consequently when a neighbour offered for his acceptance a leveret, formerly the plaything of his children, now tired of it, Cowper willingly took the creature under his protection, perceiving that in the management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, he should find just that sort of employment which his case required. "It was soon known," he says, "among my 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." He undertook the care of three, and distinguished them by the names Puss, Tiney, and Bess, but informs us that, notwithstanding the two feminine appellatives, they were all males. Turning carpenter, he built them houses to sleep in. In the daytime they had the range of the hall, but in the evening he sometimes permitted them to enter and gambol in his parlour. The houses or boxes in which they slept were apparently at one time kept in the kitchen, at the back of the hall, between which apartments Hugh Miller in 1845 noticed "a small port-hole in the plaster framed by a narrow facing of board, and through this port-hole, cut in the partition for the express purpose, Cowper's hares used to come leaping out to their evening gambols."

Each animal had his peculiarities of character and temper. Puss at once grew familiar, allowed Cowper to carry him about in his arms, more than once fell asleep on his knee, and after recovering from a sickness

of three days, signified his gratitude for the kindness shown him by licking the poet's 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

unsaluted."

Tiney was very different. "He too was sick, and in his sickness had an equal share of my attention; but if, after his recovery, 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 solemnity of manner, that in him too I had an agreeable companion."

"Old Tiney, surliest of his kind,

Who, nursed with tender care,
And to domestic bounds confined,
Was still a wild jack-hare.

I kept him for his humour's sake,
For he would oft beguile

My heart of thoughts that made it ache,
And force me to a smile."

"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."

"These creatures," continues Cowper-for all along we have been quoting from his charming paper in the Gentleman's Magazine (June, 1784)-" have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest alteration that is made in the place to which they are 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." Bess died soon after he was full grown; Tiney lived to be nine years old; Puss to be eleven years eleven months, dying of sheer old age. As the hall door opened into the street, visitors, when the hares were out, were "refused admittance at the grand entry, and referred to the back door as the only possible way of approach."

Cowper, however, indulged in numerous pets besides the hares, and he speaks of his "eight pairs of tame pigeons," his linnet and his robins. Lady Hesketh has put it on record "that he had at one time five rabbits, three hares, two guinea pigs, a magpie, a jay, and a starling; besides two goldfinches, two canary birds, and two dogs. It is amazing how the three hares can find room to gambol and frolic (as they certainly do) in his small parlour;" and she adds, "I forgot to enumerate a squirrel, which he had at the same time, and which used to play with one of the hares continually."

The present is the place to insert the little known Latin poem of Cowper's, commencing "Heu! quam remotus," which bears date, "Die ultimo, 1774." So far as I am aware, it has never been printed, except in one of the editions of Cowper's Autobiography, published