most engaging family-piece it is possible to conceive.-Since I wrote the above, I met Mrs. Unwin in the street, and went home with her. She and I walked together, near two hours, in the garden, and had a conversation which did me more good than I should have received from an audience of the first prince in Europe. That woman is a blessing to me, and I never see her without being the better for her company. I am treated in the family as if I was a near relation, and have been repeatedly invited to call upon them at all times. You know what a shy fellow I am; I cannot prevail with myself to make so much use of this privilege as I am sure they intend I should; but perhaps this awkwardness will wear off hereafter. It was my earnest request, before I left St. Albans, that wherever it might please Providence to dispose of me, I might meet with such an acquaintance as I find in Mrs. Unwin. How happy it is to believe with a stedfast assurance, that our petitions are heard, even while we are making them!"

When Cowper was "revolving in his mind the nature of his situation, and beginning for the first time to find an irksomeness in such retirement," a thought suddenly struck him; he should not fear, he says, to call it a suggestion of the good providence of God which had brought him to Huntingdon. "Suddenly it occurred to me, that I might probably find a place in Mr. Unwin's family as a boarder. A young gentleman, who had lived with him as a pupil, was the day before gone to Cambridge. It appeared to me, at least, possible, that I might be allowed to succeed him. I immediately began to negociate the affair, and in a few days it was entirely concluded." Economy was one urgent motive for this change, which in other respects also was so consonant with his inclinations. The terms upon which the Unwins had entertained Cowper as one of the family, must have placed him comparatively at ease, when their establishment was broken up by the dreadful circumstance of Mr. Unwin's death. In July, 1767, going on a Sunday morning to serve his church, he was thrown from his horse, and the back part of his skull was fractured. "At nine o'clock," says Cowper, "he was in perfect health, and as likely to live twenty years as either of us; and before ten was stretched speechless and senseless upon a flock bed, in a poor cottage, where (it being impossible to remove him) he died on Thursday evening."

This sudden and disastrous event was followed by the removal of the widow and her son and daughter to Olney, whither Cowper also accompanied them. This change was effected through the advice of the Rev. John Newton, who was at that time curate of Olney. He engaged a house for them so near the vicarage in which he lived, that by opening a doorway in the garden wall, they could communicate without going into the street; and until the house was ready for their reception, he seems to have received them as his guests. It was not for any attractions of the surrounding country, nor

for any convenience of place of habitation, that Cowper and Mrs. Unwin had fixed upon Olney for their abode. The sole motive which directed them in their choice was that they might be under the pastoral care of Mr. Newton. This friendship could not be estimated above its value, Mr. Newton being a man whom it was impossible not to admire for his strength of heart, and the warmth and sincerity of his affections, and his vigorous intellect, and his sterling worth.

In September, 1769, Cowper was summoned to Cambridge by a letter, stating that his brother was dangerously ill; he found him so on his arrival, but after ten days left him so far restored as to ride many miles without fatigue, and to have every symptom of returning health. These were fallacious symptoms. Cowper was again summoned in the ensuing February, and the case then had become desperate. John Cowper died on the 20th of March, 1770. The remarkable circumstances of his illness and death are to be found in the poet's correspondence, and also in a connected narrative. See Southey's Cowper, vol. i. p. 221.

Cowper at this time read little he had parted with a good collection of books when his affairs in London were settled; afterwards he often regretted this; but during the first year of his residence at Olney he seems to have had neither inclination nor leisure for reading. Mr. Unwin was settled upon a living in Essex; his sister had married a clergyman by name Powley, and removed to a great distance in Yorkshire. Cowper, therefore, had no other society than that of Mrs. Unwin and Mr. Newton; and he held no communication with his absent friends. He was not, however, without some intellectual employment; Mr. Newton having formed the intention of producing a volume of hymns, persuaded him to engage in it; "a desire," he says, " of promoting the faith and comfort of sincere Christians, though the principal, was not the only motive to this undertaking. It was likewise intended as a monument to perpetuate the remembrance of an intimate and endeared friendship."*

It is said that from the time of his brother's death, the increasing gloom which pressed upon his spirits gave but too much ground for the most painful apprehensions. But Dr. Cotton was not consulted till it was too late. In January, 1773, it had become a case of decided insanity. He was then unwilling even to enter Mr. Newton's door; but having one day been prevailed upon to visit him and remain one night, there he suddenly determined to stay. For more than a twelvemonth Cowper persisted in staying at the house of Mr. Newton, under the medical treatment of Dr. Cotton. Mrs. Unwin was his unwearied attendant at this time, day and night, equally regardless of her own health, and of the uncharitable construction of censorious and malicious tongues.

* These hymns are republished in the present volume: see page 514.

The character which his madness had assumed rendered this perpetual vigilance necessary. Meantime the inconvenience to Mr. Newton was sorely felt, though he performed every duty of friendship to the utmost. In a letter to Mr. Thornton, Mr. Newton says, "Mr. Cowper's long stay at the vicarage in his present uncomfortable state, has been upon many accounts inconvenient and trying. His choice of being here was quite unexpected; and his continuance is unavoidable, unless he was to be removed by force. Mrs. Unwin has often tried to persuade him to return to their own house, but he cannot bear to hear of it. He sometimes begs, and weeps, and pleads to stay with such earnestness that it must be submitted to. His health is better: he works almost incessantly in the garden, and while employed is tolerably easy; but as soon as he leaves off he is instantly swallowed up by the most gloomy apprehensions; though in every thing that does not concern his own peace, he is as sensible, and discovers as quick a judgment as ever."

In the course of a fortnight afterwards, 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." 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." After this Cowper's mind seemed gradually to regain 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 towards the natural history of this inoffensive race. For this account see page 434.

In 1779 Mr. Newton removed to London, when Mr. Thornton presented him to the rectory of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch-Haw. Before his departure he published the Olney Hymns,' by which Cowper may be said to have been first introduced to the public as a poet; and though they met with some opposition in a quar

b

ter where it was little expected, obtained a considerable sale. The removal of one with whom he had lived twelve years in habits of daily intercourse, and of the most unreserved intimacy, was severely felt by Cowper. In a letter to Mrs. Newton, he says, "The vicarage-house became a melancholy object, as soon as Mr. Newton had left it; when you left it, it became more melancholy; now it is actually occupied by another family, I cannot even look at it without being shocked." Some time before this separation, Cowper had been rendered somewhat uneasy concerning his circumstances, a letter from Mr. Hill having given him reason to apprehend some defalcation in his scanty means. A few months afterwards he was informed of Sir Thomas Hesketh's death, which proved, in its eventual consequences, of the greatest importance to Cowper; but at the time, the elevation of his old associate, Thurlow, to the chancellorship, appeared of much more to some of his sanguine friends, who measured the attachment of others towards him by their own. Mr. Unwin, with whom about this time he began to correspond, frequently advised him to recall himself to the recollection of one in whose power it now was to relieve him from all anxieties concerning his income, by performing a promise which was not the less binding because of the half-sportive, half-serious mood in which it had been made.* It is not easy, nor is it always possible, for men in power to serve one who is not in a situation to serve himself. There came a time when Thurlow might properly have solicited a pension for Cowper, and no doubt could have obtained it; and that he neglected to do so, must ever be considered as some discredit to his memory. At this time, however, Cowper neither thought himself neglected by Thurlow, nor had any reason to think so. He wrote some stanzas on his promotion, and sent them to Hill.

TheReport of an adjudged Case, not to be found in any of the Books," was written about the same period. "Cowper's taste," says Sir Egerton Brydges, "lay in a smiling, colloquial, good-natured humour; his melancholy was a black and diseased melancholy, not a grave and rich contemplativeness." It was black because it was morbid; but it assumed a better character in his writings, when a fortunate direction was given it. Mrs. Unwin was the first who excited him to undertake something of greater pith and moment than he had ever before produced. She urged him to write a poem of considerable length, and as moral satire was equally congenial to his taste and accordant to his views, she suggested as a theme the *Thurlow's promise to Cowper was as follows. One evening they were drinking tea together at a lady's house in Bloomsbury, when Cowper,.. contrasting in melancholy foresight his own conduct and consequent prospects with those of his fellow idler and giggler in former days,.. said to him, "Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall be always nobody, and you will be chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are!" He smiled, and replied, "I surely will." "These ladies," said Cowper, "are witnesses!" The future chancellor still smiled, and answered, "Let them be so for I will certainly do it."

Progress of Error. Mr. Newton was the only person to whom his intention was communicated while he was engaged upon it; and notwithstanding the tone and purport of his poetry, he seems to have thought that Mr. Newton might disapprove it. "Don't be alarmed," he says to him; "I ride Pegasus with a curb. He will never run away with me again. I have even convinced Mrs. Unwin that I can manage him, and make him stop when I please." This met with Mr. Newton's approbation, and was speedily followed by three other poems of the same kind, Truth, Table Talk, and Expostulation. So eagerly did he enter into this undertaking, and pursue it, that the first of these poems sprung up in the month of December, and the last in the month of March following. The four poems contained about two thousand five hundred lines; and these he thought, with a few select smaller pieces, about seven or eight perhaps, the best he could find in a bookful which he had by him, would furnish a volume of tolerable bulk, that needed not to be indebted to an unreasonable breadth of margin for the importance of its figure. The business of finding a publisher was undertaken by Mr. Newton, who found one in his old friend Johnson, with whom he had had dealings of his own. The publisher took upon himself the whole risk, but seems to have requested that the book should not appear as an anonymous work, to which Cowper afterwards acceded.

Cowper soon afterwards pleased himself with a second sight of unborn volumes. He says to Mr. Newton, "I am in the middle of an affair called "Conversation,' which, as Table Talk' serves in the present volume by way of introductory fiddle to the band that follows, I design shall perform the same office in a second." Upon Johnson's expressing a wish to him that his pen might still be employed, he offered him this then unfinished poem, which he estimated at eight hundred lines, if he chose to swell the volume; he was told in reply, not to be afraid of making the volume too large, which Cowper interpreted to mean, that if he had still another piece, there would be room for it. Another was upon the stocks. "I have already," said he, "begun, and proceeded a little way, in a poem called Retirement.'

About this period Cowper became acquainted with Lady Austen. One day two ladies happened to call at a shop opposite Mrs. Unwin's house. The one, by name Mrs. Jones, was one of their very few acquaintance, the wife of a clergyman, who resided in the village of Clifton, within a mile of Olney; Lady Austen, the other, was her sister, and widow of a baronet. Cowper was so struck by her appearance, that, upon hearing who she was, he requested Mrs. Unwin would invite them to tea. Shy as he was, this was an extraordinary movement on his part: his shyness returned when the invitation had been accepted; he wondered at himself, and was for a long while unwilling to face the little party which had been