gloomy apprehensions; though in every thing that does not concern his own peace, he is as sensible, and discovers as quick a judgement as ever. The Lord evidently sent him to Olney, 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 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." 66 In the course of a fortnight after this letter was written, the first symptom of amendment was perceived. Yesterday, as he was feeding the chickens," Mr. Newton 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 complain; my mercies are many and great, my trials comparatively few; yet surely this affair, taken in all its circumstances, 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 off 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"." The next letter announced that Mrs. Unwin had prevailed on Cowper to return to their own house. "She had often laboured at this point in vain, and I am persuaded," says Mr. Newton, "a few days sooner it would have been impracticable. But now the Lord, who saw the weight I had upon my mind, was pleased to overrule him to go. The day before he came hither, hardly any entreaty could have induced him to enter our doors; it was a sudden turn; his determination to stay when he was here was sudden, and equally sudden was his departure. When he had once consented he longed to be gone. A few days were necessary to prepare the house for their reception; but they left on last Monday morning. I think it was the Lord's doing,-one of the many proofs we have had in the course of this affliction, that with him nothing 24 May 14. is impossible. I can see much of His wisdom and goodness in sending him under my roof; and now I see His goodness in removing him. Upon the whole, 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. But I see the Lord's time is the best. The rest must be waited for, and I have hopes we shall not wait very long. He evidently grows better, though the main stress of his malady still continues. He has been hitherto almost exactly treading over again the dreary path he formerly trod at St. Alban's. Some weeks before his deliverance there, he began to recover his attention, which had long been absorbed and swallowed up in the depths of despair, so that he could amuse himself a little with other things. Into this state the Lord seems now to have brought him; so that, though he seems to think himself lost to hope, he can continually employ himself in gardening, and upon that subject will talk as freely as formerly, though he seldom notices other conversation; and we can perceive almost daily, that his attention to things about him increases. I really have a warm hope that his deliverance is approaching 25 " A decisive symptom of amendment had previously shown itself. His mind, though possessed by its fatal delusion, had recovered in some degree its activity, and in some of his most melancholy moments he used to compose lines descriptive of his own unhappy state. Two of these lines were remembered by a young poet 26 of St. John's, who sometimes went from Cambridge to visit Mr. Newton while Cowper was residing with him; and Mr. George Dyer has preserved them in his History of Cambridge27, with a poet's feeling; "not recollecting," he 26 May 26. 26 Mr. Bryan Bury Collins, "one of my own early friends," says Mr. Dyer, "who touched the true lyric strings; but leaving college, he abandoned poetry for pursuits which more interested him; and now both as to poetry and preaching,-lingua silet."-Hist. of Cambridge, vol. ii. p. 265. 27 Supplement to the History of Cambridge, p. 111. I will not deny myself the pleasure of observing that this passage, which I had passed over without noting it, ten years ago, (not having then any particular interest in the subject,) was recently pointed out to me by Mr. Wordsworth, in the curious and characteristic work of our old friend;-a person, of whom if I were ever to think without kindness, or to speak without affection and respect, I should be ashamed of myself. He is now blind, and in his eighty-first year. S. C.-1. N says, "that they are any where introduced, and conceiving them to be more descriptive of the circumstances of Mr. Cowper's situation, than any with which we have met in his writings." Casus amor meus est, et nostro crimine: cujus, G. D. The fatal impression remained fixed in his mind, while in other respects it gradually regained its natural tone. He was incapable of receiving pleasure either from company or books; but he continued to employ himself in gardening, and understanding his own case well enough to perceive that any thing which would engage his attention without fatiguing it, must be salutary, he amused himself with some leverets; they grew up under his care, and continued to interest him nearly twelve years, when the last survivor died quietly of mere old age. He has immortalized them in Latin and in English, in verse and in prose; they have been represented in prints, and cut on seals; and his account of them, which in all editions of his poems, is now appended to their epitaphs, contains more observations than had ever before been contributed toward the natural history of this inoffensive race. He found in them as much difference of temper and character as is observable in all domestic animals, and in men themselves; and this might have been expected. The most remarkable fact which he noticed is, that they were never infested by any vermin; but it should seem more probable that this should have been an accidental consequence of their mode of life, than that the species should be exempt from an annoyance, to which, as far as we know, all other animals are subject, not birds and beasts only, but fish, and even insects. To one of these hares that had never seen a spaniel, Cowper introduced a spaniel that had never seen a hare; and because the one discovered no token of fear and the other no symptom of hostility, he inferred that there is no natural antipathy between dog and hare: a fallacious inference, for the dog in its wild, which is its natural state, is a beast of prey. One of them was happier in human society than when shut up with his natural companions. Cowper twice nursed this creature in sickness, and by constant care and trying him with a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. "No creature," he says, "could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery, 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 unsaluted; a ceremony which he never performed but once again, upon a similar occasion." It is very remarkable that this peculiar expression of attachment should only have been shown twice, and each time for the same peculiar reason. More than two years elapsed after his return to his own house, before he renewed the communication with any of his absent friends. The silence seems then to have broken by a letter from Mr. Hill, informing him of his uncle Ashley's recovery from a serious illness, and offering, as appears by the answer, to supply some of his wishes, as well as his wants. A gleam of cheerfulness appears in Cowper's reply. DEAR FRIEND, TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. Nov. 12, 1776. One to whom fish is so welcome as it is to me, can have no great occasion to distinguish the sorts. 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; butts, plaice, flounder, or any other. 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 ob liging 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. As to the frequency, which you leave to my choice, too, you have no need to exceed the number of your former remit tances. After an interval of some five months, Cowper thanks his old friend28 for "a turbot, a lobster, and Captain Brydone; a gentleman," he says, "who relates his travels so agreeably that he deserves always to travel with an agreeable companion." By this time Cowper's love of literature had revived. "I have been reading Gray's works," he says, "and think him the only poet since Shakespeare entitled to the character of sublime. Perhaps you will remember that I once had a different opinion of him. I was prejudiced. He did not belong to our Thursday society, and was an Eton man, which lowered him prodigiously in our esteem. I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written; but I like Gray's better. His humour or his wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill-natured or offensive; and yet, I think, equally poignant with the Dean's." Hill encouraged this renovation of his former taste for intellectual amusement, entered upon literary subjects in his next letter, and offered to send him the Abbé Raynal's History. Cowper replies 29, "We differ not much in our opinion of Mr. 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 judgement. As to Mr. 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 young man of taste and learning. As to the book you mention, I am in doubt whether to read it or not. 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." 30 I Hill then proposed to send him the South Sea Voyages, but Lord Dartmouth, who had recently visited Olney, had furnished Cowper with both Cook and Forster's. “”Tis well,” 30 It was a visit of business, of which Mr. Newton speaks thus, in one of his unpublished letters, June 14, 1777.-" I dined with Lord Dartmouth, Lord Verney, and about ten gentlemen of the county, at the Swan, on Monday, upon a committee to inspect and report the ruinous state of our bridge. We had such a sumptuous dinner as I suppose was never seen at Olney before. We had a man cook, and a bill of fare from London. |