Samuel Rose was the son of Dr. William Rose, a schoolmaster, of Chiswick, who was largely concerned in the Monthly Review. Cowper thus notices his future friend's first visit:-" A young gentleman called “A 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."

132. The Fourth Derangement.-January to June, 1787.

Again the month of January had come round. Every January since the disastrous month in 1773 had been looked forward to by Cowper with fear and trembling, and it was always with a feeling of great relief when the memorable 24th had been passed. More than once this trying period had well-nigh been too much for him; more than once, but for the efforts of his friends, and especially of Mrs. Unwin, he would have fallen into his old state of despondency. But the death of Mr. Unwin had cast a gloom over both, and this gloom, added to the influence of the season, proved more than could be combated. Even early in the month he had been troubled with a nervous fever. His letter of the 18th-the last he wrote before the

attack-was a very ominous one. It was not a particularly melancholy letter, and apparently his fever was

not much worse, but the dreadful 24th was close at hand; not far distant either was the still more dreadful black day of February, the day of the Fatal Dream; and Lady Hesketh, to whom the letter was sent, must have felt uneasy when she found that her cousin had taken for his chief topic the subject of dreams. He says:

"I have a mind, my dear, 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 will acknowledge that in times of old 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 in 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 blind and fallible, and 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 generality 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."

Cowper must have been seized with his derangement within a few days of the writing of this letter, and

most likely on the 24th itself. Of the details of the next six months—which time the malady lasted-only a few are given us. "My indisposition," wrote Cowper, in the following October, "could not be of a worse kind. Had I been afflicted with a fever, or confined 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 great cause to exult in his success, as Mr. Bull can tell you.'

Once Cowper tried to hang himself, and was saved only by Mrs. Unwin accidentally entering the room and cutting him down; another time he was prevented from taking his life in an even more dreadful manner by the sudden entrance of Mr. Bull. Mrs. Newton made the offer to come to Mrs. Unwin's assistance, but Cowper's impatience at the presence of a third person rendered this impossible. For the same reason Newton himself deferred an intended visit to Olney. "From this dreadful condition of mind," says Cowper, "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 depended on, was a matter of the greatest uncertainty."

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Cowper used to speak of the previous derangement "the dreadful seventy-three," and of this one as the "more dreadful eighty-six." Again and again

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during this indisposition Mr. Bull had called, in the hope of being able to effect some good, but invariably Cowper refused to see him. At length, however, in the beginning of July, a meeting took place, and Lady Hesketh wrote on the 5th to Mr. Bull: "I am truly thankful that the ice is at last broken, and that he was prevailed upon to see you. I do sincerely hope that, having once experienced the comfort of your society, he will himself be desirous of renewing it whenever you can indulge him with it."

The last visitor Cowper had seen before his seizure had been Mr. Rose, and Mr. Rose was one of the first to visit him after his recovery. The first letter, too, which Cowper wrote was to his new friend, to thank him for his visit, and also for a copy of Burns's poems. This was on July 24th. Having read the poems, Cowper told Rose that he considered them "a very extraordinary production," but he added subsequently: "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, but shut up in a dark lantern. I lent him to a very sensible neighbour of mine. But his uncouth dialect spoiled all; and, before he had half read him through, he was quite ramfeezled."

Though now fairly well again, it was some time. before Cowper resumed his pen. He spent most of his time in reading books from the shelves of his friends the Throckmortons. He says, on September 4th (1787):

"I have read Savary's Travels into Egypt; Me

moires du Baron de Tott; Fenn's Original Letters; the Letters of Frederick of Bohemia, and am now reading Memoires d'Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. I have also read Barclay's Argenis, a Latin romance,, and the best romance that ever was written-all these, together with Madan's Letters to Priestley, and several pamphlets, within these two months. So I am a great reader."

On August 30th he writes: "My health and spirits seem to be mending daily. I use exercise, and take the air in the park and wilderness. I read much, but as yet write not. Our friends at the Hall make themselves more and more amiable in our account, by treating us rather as old friends than as friends newly acquired. There are few days in which we do not meet, and I am now almost as much at home in their house as in our own. Mr. Throckmorton, having long since put me in possession of all his ground, has now. given me possession of his library. An acquisition of great value to me, who never have been able to live. without books, since I first knew my letters, and who have no books of my own."

In the following letter to Newton Cowper deals with an extraordinary delusion that had long been present with him, but which had now left him. It is dated October 2, 1787: "My dear Friend,-After a long but necessary interruption of interruption of our correspondence, I return to it again, in one respect at least better qualified for it than before; I mean by a belief of your identity, which for thirteen years I did not believe.. The acquisition of this light, if light it may be called which leaves me as much in the dark as ever on the