As the General was expected to pay a visit at Olney, Lady Hesketh gave her cousin a hint upon the only subject which might possibly occasion any uncomfortable feeling between them. Cowper's reply shows what the change in his own views had been. "As to the affair of religious conversation," he said, "fear me not, lest I should trespass upon his peace in that way. Your views, my dear, upon the subject of a proper conduct in that particular are mine also. When I left St. Alban's, I left it under impressions of the existence of a God, and of the truth of scripture, that I had never felt before. I had unspeakable delight in the discovery, and was impatient to communicate a pleasure to others that I found so superior to every thing that bears the name. This eagerness of spirit, natural to persons newly informed, and the less to be wondered at in me, who had just emerged from the horrors of despair, made me imprudent, and, I doubt not, troublesome to many. Forgetting that I had not those blessings at my command which it is God's peculiar prerogative to impart, spiritual light and affections, I required in effect of all with whom I conversed, that they should see with my eyes; and stood amazed that the Gospel, which with me was all in all, should meet with opposition, or should occasion disgust in any. But the Gospel could not be the word of God if it did not; for it foretells its own reception among men, and describes it as exactly such. Good is intended, but harm is done, too often, by the zeal with which I was at that time animated. But, as in affairs of this life, so in religious concerns likewise, experience begets some wisdom in all who are not incapable of being taught. I do not now, neither have I for a long time, made it my practice to force the subject of evangelical truth on any. I received it not from man myself, neither can any man receive it from me. God is light, and from him all light must come; to his teaching, therefore, I leave those whom I was once so alert to instruct myself. If a man asks my opinion, or calls for an account of my faith, he shall have it; otherwise I trouble him not. Pulpits for preaching; and the parlour, the garden, and the walk abroad for friendly and agreeable conversation 40"

The account which he had given of himself distressed his cousin. "I knew," said he, " that my last letter would give 40 April 3, 1786.

S. C.-1.

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you pain; but there is no need that it should give you so much. He who hath preserved me hitherto will still preserve me. All the dangers that I have escaped are so many pillars of remembrance, to which I shall hereafter look back with comfort, and be able, as I well hope, to inscribe on every one of them a grateful memorial of God's singular protection of me. Mine has been a life of wonders for many years, and a life of wonders I in my heart believe it will be to the end. Wonders I have seen in the great deeps, and wonders I shall see in the paths of mercy also. This, my dear, is my creed 41." And this no doubt it was during many years, except at intervals, when the cloud came over him; which, however, at such times oppressed his spirits more than it darkened his understanding. His own letters, as they furnish the only materials, contain also the best account that could be given of his state of nerves. Telling Lady Hesketh that Dr. Kerr had recommended air and exercise as the best physic for him, and in all weathers, he says, come, therefore, my dear, and take a little of this good physic with me, for you will find it beneficial as well as I; come and assist Mrs. Unwin in the re-establishment of your cousin's health. Air and exercise, and she and you together, will make me a perfect Samson. You will have a good house over your head, comfortable apartments, obliging neighbours, good roads, a pleasant country, and in us, your constant companions, two who will love you, and do already love you dearly and with all our hearts. If you are in any danger of trouble, it is from myself if my fits of dejection seize me; and as often as they do you will be grieved for me; but perhaps by your assistance I shall be able to resist them better. If there is a creature under Heaven from whose cooperation with Mrs. Unwin I can reasonably expect such a blessing, that creature is yourself. I was not without such attacks when I lived in London, though at that time they were less oppressive; but in your company I was never unhappy a whole day in all my life 42.

The General's intended visit was prevented by his ill health; the time fixed for Lady Hesketh's was June. "My dear," said her cousin, "I will not let you come till the end of May or the beginning of June, because, before that time, my greenhouse will not be ready to receive us, and it is the only pleas41 January 28, 1786. 42 May 8, 1786.

Im

ant room belonging to us. When the plants go out, we go in. I line it with mats, and spread the floor with mats; and there you shall sit, with a bed of mignionette at your side, and a hedge of honeysuckles, roses, and jasmine; and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Sooner than the time I mention, the country will not be in complete beauty. And I will tell what you you shall find at your first entrance. primis, as soon as you have entered the vestibule, if you cast a look on either side of you, you shall see on the right hand a box of my making. It is the box in which have been lodged all my hares, and in which lodges Puss at present; but he, poor fellow, is worn out with age, and promises to die before you can see him. On the right hand, stands a cupboard, the work of the same author; it was once a dove-cage, but I transformed it. Opposite to you stands a table, which I also made; but a merciless servant having scrubbed it until it became paralytic, it serves no purpose now but of ornament; and all my clean shoes stand under it. On the left hand, at the further end of this superb vestibule, you will find the door of the parlour, into which I will conduct you, and where I will introduce you to Mrs. Unwin, unless we should meet her before, and where we will be as happy as the day is long.

Among the circumstances which cheered Cowper at this time, there is one that proves how strong an interest he had excited in an individual. What was the nature of the first communication from this person cannot be collected from any documents that have yet appeared, but it is thus spoken of in a letter13 to Lady Hesketh. "Hours and hours and hours have I spent in endeavours altogether fruitless, to trace the writer of the letter that I send, by a minute examination of the character; and never did it strike me, till this moment, that your father wrote it. In the style I discover him; in the scoring of the emphatic words, (his never-failing practice ;) in the formation of many of the letters; and in the Adieu! at the bottom, so plainly, that I could hardly be more convinced had I seen him write it. Tell me, my dearest cousin, if you are not of my mind? How much am I bound to love

43 The date has been cut off with the signature, for some collector of autographs. But from its place in the collection the letter appears to have been written at the end of December, 1785.

him if it be so! Always much; but in that case, if possible, more than ever.

"Farewell, thou beloved daughter of my beloved anonymous uncle."

That Lady Hesketh did not confirm this suspicion is certain, and he did not repeat it when he informed her of a second and more important letter from the same unknown, "Anonymous is come again. May God bless him, whosoever he be, as I doubt not that he will! A certain person said on a certain occasion, (and He never spake word that failed,) 'whoso giveth you a cup of cold water in my name, shall by no means lose his reward.' Therefore, anonymous as he chooses to be upon earth, his name, I trust, shall hereafter be found written n heaven. But when great princes, or characters much superior to great princes, choose to be incog. it is a sin against decency and good manners to seem to know them. I therefore know nothing of Anonymous, but that I love him heartily, and with most abundant cause. Had I opportunity, I would send you his letter, though, yourself excepted, I would indulge none with a sight of it. To confide it to your hands will be no violation of the secrecy that he has enjoined himself, and consequently me. But I can give you a short summary of its purport. After an introduction of a religious cast, which does great honour to himself, and in which he makes an humble comparison between himself and me, by far too much to my advantage, he proceeds to tell me, that being lately in company where my last work was mentioned, mention was also made of my intended publication. He informs me of the different sentiments of the company on that subject, and expresses his own in terms the most encouraging: but adds, that having left the company and shut himself up in his chamber, an apprehension there seized him lest, if perhaps the world should not enter into my views of the matter, and the work should come short of the success, that I hope for, the mortification might prove too much for my health; yet thinks that even in that case, I may comfort myself by adverting to similar instances of a failure, where the writer's genius would have insured success, if any thing could have insured it, and alludes in particular to the fate and fortune of the Paradise Lost. In the last place, he gives his attention to my circum

44 January 23, 1786.

stances, takes the kindest notice of their narrowness, and makes me a present of an annuity of fifty pounds a year, wishing that it were five hundred pounds. In a P. S. he tells me that a small parcel will set off by the Wellingborough coach on Tuesday next, which he hopes will arrive safe. I have given you the bones; but the benignity and affection, which is the marrow of those bones, in so short an abridgement, I could not give you."

"I kept my letter unsealed to the last moment, that I might give you an account of the safe arrival of the expected parcel. It is at all points worthy of the letter-writer. Snuff-box, purse, notes, Bess, Puss, Tiney-all safe. Again, may God bless him!"

In his next letter 45 he says, "It is very pleasant, my dearest cousin, to receive a present so delicately conveyed as that which I received so lately from Anonymous; but it is also very painful to have nobody to thank for it. I find myself therefore driven by stress of necessity, to the following resolution, viz. that I will constitute you my Thanks-receiver-general, for whatsoever gift I shall receive hereafter, as well as for those that I have already received from a nameless benefactor. I therefore thank you, my cousin, for a most elegant present, including the most elegant compliment that ever poet was honoured with; for a snuff-box of tortoise-shell, with a beautiful landscape on the lid of it, glazed with crystal, having the figures of three hares in the fore-ground, and inscribed above with these words, The Peasant's Nest, and below with these -Tiney, Puss, and Bess. For all and every of these, I thank you, and also for standing proxy on this occasion. Nor must I forget to thank you that so soon after I had sent you the first letter of Anonymous, I received another in the same hand. -There! Now I am a little easier."

45 This letter Hayley has printed. From his silence respecting the annuity, and also respecting the regular allowance which Cowper received from his relations, I am inclined to think that he never saw those letters to Lady Hesketh with which I have been entrusted. Speaking of his pecuniary circumstances when he settled at Olney, Hayley says, "he was very far from inheriting opulence on the death of his father," (vol. i. p. 93). Mr. Grimshawe, leaving the rest of the paragraph as it stood, has substituted for these words the erroneous assertion, that "the death of his father placed him in a state of independence," (vol. i. p. 94).