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66 Now stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, wheel the sofa round,
And while the bubbling and loud-hissing urn
Throws up a steamy column, and the cups
That cheer but not inebriate, wait on each,
So let us welcome peaceful evening in."

The subsequent history of the "loud-hissing urn,' above mentioned, is an affecting one, as appears by the letter of December 24, 1786, in which Cowper requests his cousin to buy a new tea-urn, "that which we have at present having never been handsome, and being now old and patched. A parson once, as he walked across the parlour, pushed it down with his belly, and it never perfectly recovered itself." The particular tea in that particular urn was bohea. Green tea Cowper never

touched, "or only to be poisoned with it."

Previous to the arrival of his desk Cowper used to do his writing upon a "book of maps," which was placed on a "card-table." "You will wonder, no doubt," he says to Newton (March 19, 1785), "when I tell you that I write upon a card-table; and will be still more surprised when I add that we breakfast, dine, sup, upon a card-table. In short, it serves all purposes, except the only one for which it was originally designed. The solution of this mystery shall follow, lest it should run in your head at a wrong time, and should puzzle you perhaps when you are on the point of ascending your pulpit: for I have heard you say that at such seasons your mind is often troubled with impertinent intrusions. The round table which we formerly had in use was unequal to the pressure of my superincumbent breast and elbows. When I wrote upon it, it creaked and tilted, and by a variety of inconvenient

tricks disturbed the process. The fly-table was too slight and too small; the square dining-table too heavy and too large, occupying, when its leaves were spread, almost the whole parlour; and the sideboardtable, having its station at too great a distance from the fire, and not being easily shifted out of its place and into it again, by reason of its size, was equally unfit for my purpose. The card-table, therefore, which had for sixteen years been banished as mere lumber; the card-table, which is covered with green baize, and is therefore preferable to any other that has a slippery surface; the card-table, that stands firm and never totters-is advanced to the honour of assisting me upon my scribbling occasions, and, because we choose to avoid the trouble of making frequent changes in the position of our household furniture, proves equally serviceable upon all others. It has cost us now and then the downfall of a glass: for, when covered with a table-cloth, the fish-ponds are not easily discerned, and, not being seen, are sometimes as little thought of. But, having numerous good qualities which abundantly compensate that single inconvenience, we spill upon it our coffee, our wine, and our ale, without murmuring, and resolve that it shall be our table still to the exclusion of all others. Not to be tedious, I will add but one more circumstance upon the subject, and that only because it will impress upon you, as much as anything that I have said, a sense of the value we set upon its escritorial capacity. Parched and penetrated on one side by the heat of the fire, it has opened into a large fissure, which pervades not the moulding of it only, but the very substance of the plank. At the mouth of this aperture a sharp

splinter presents itself, which, as sure as it comes in contact with a gown or an apron, tears it. It happens, unfortunately, to be on that side of this excellent and never-to-be-forgotten table which Mrs. Unwin sweeps with her apparel, almost as often as she rises from her chair. The consequences need not, to use the fashionable phrase, be given in detail: but the needle sets all to rights; and the card-table still holds possession of its functions without a rival."

At his card-table Cowper would sit, paper, pouncebox, and penknife before him, the two last in frequent requisition if he should chance to be penning an epistle to a stranger or a person of dignity-the result being a stiff and uninteresting composition. Writing to a friend, however, not only does his pen fly with the rapidity of lightning, but he makes very few either erasures or corrections, and with what happy result, everybody knows.

Such is a brief account of the parlour at Orchard Side and its contents. In this room Cowper read aloud of an evening while the ladies plied their crochet-hook or knitting-needles; here he wrote both letters and poetry; in this room his hares gambolled, his linnets twittered, and his dog Mungo defied the thunder and lightning. Here, when there was no other means of getting exercise, he and Mrs. Unwin played battledoor and shuttlecock while Lady Austen fingered the harpsichord; here he was told the story of John Gilpin; in this room he read the ballad at the breakfast table. Here occurred the amusing incident of the "kissing candidate." From these windows Cowper viewed so many of the scenes he so graphically describes in his letters

With this room, in short, are associated a thousand and one incidents familiar to readers of Cowper.

123. The Arrival of Lady Hesketh at
Olney.-June, 1786.

At length the long-wished-for day arrived, and with a welcome from the steeple Lady Hesketh made her entrance into Olney. Says Cowper: "I am fond of the sound of bells, but was never more pleased with those of Olney than when they rang her into her new habitation. It is a compliment that our performers upon those instruments have never paid to any other personage (Lord Dartmouth excepted) since we knew the town. In short, she is, as she ever was, my pride and my joy, and I am delighted with everything that means to do her honour. Her first appearance was too much for me; my spirits, instead of being gently 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, throughout 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."

The long-talked-of event, was in short, a fait accompli. After an interval of twenty-three years the cousins had again met. Lady Hesketh and her suite, to wit," Mrs. Eaton, Cookee, and Samuel," were installed in the vicarage. Her ladyship was able to gaze on

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