sons may be said to have had many fathers, but a plurality of mothers is not common." In May of this year, 1790, Cowper thus describes the manner in which he was employed. "I am still at my old sport-Homer all the morning, and Homer all the evening. Thus have I been held in constant employment, I know not exactly how many, but I believe these six years, an interval of eight months excepted. It is now become so familiar to me to take Homer from my shelf at a certain hour, that I shall, no doubt, continue to take him from my shelf at the same time, even after I have ceased to want him. That period is not far distant. I am now giving the last touches to a work, which had I foreseen the difficulty of it, I should never have meddled with; but which, having at length nearly finished it to my mind, I shall discontinue with regret." Perhaps no one was ever better qualified to give sound and judicious advice to persons in various conditions in life than Cowper, and no one certainly ever gave it more cheerfully, or in a manner more perfectly unassuming. An instance of this occurred in a letter which he wrote in June of this year, to his cousin, John Johnson, Esq., who was then pursuing his studies at Cambridge, who had recently been introduced to him, and for whom he entertained the most affectionate regard. "You never pleased me more than when you told me you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think that you were wasting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame; now scarcely worth your having. I cannot be contented that your renown should thrive nowhere but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and never let your honer be circumscribed by the paltry dimensions of a University. It is well that you have already, as you observe, acquired sufficient information in that science to enable you to pass creditably such examinations as I suppose you must hereafter undergo. Keep what you have gotten, and be content: more is needless. You could not apply to a worse than I am, to advise you concerning your studies. I was never a regular student myself, but lost the most valuable part of my life in an attorney's office, and in the Temple. I will not therefore give myself airs and affect to know what I know not. The affair is of great importance to you, and you should be directed by a wiser than I. To speak, however, in very general terms on the subject, it seems to me that your chief concern is with history, natural philosophy, logic, and divinity; as to metaphysics, I know but little about them. But the very little I do know has not taught me to admire them. Life is too short to afford time even for serious trifles; pursue what you know to be attainable; make truth your object, and your studies will make you a wise man." In the summer of 1790, much as Cowper's time was occupied in giving the finishing touch to his Homer, he nevertheless, at the suggestion of some friend, undertook to translate a series of Latin letters, received from a Dutch minister of the gospel, at the Cape of Good Hope. This occupation, though it left him but little time for writing to his numerous correspondents, afforded him considerable pleasure. There was a congeniality in it to the prevailing disposition of his mind, and in a letter to Mr. Newton, who requested him to publish these letters, he thus writes: "I have no objection at all to being known as the translator of Van Leer's Letters, when they shall be published. Rather, I am ambitious of it as an honor. It will serve to prove, that if I have spent much time to little purpose in the translation of Homer, some small portion of my time has, however, been well disposed of." It will have been perceived, from the extracts we have already made, that Cowper's gloomy peculia rity of mind still prevailed, at least occasionally, to a painful extent. It is true, he adverts to it in his letters, at this time, less frequently than formerly; he introduces it, however, sufficiently often to show that it had undergone no diminution, and that it was suppressed only by the intense application which his engagements required. The following extracts from his letters written towards the close of 1790, will describe the state of his mind in this respect, at that period. "I have singularities of which, I believe, at present you know nothing; and which would fill you with wonder if you knew them. I will add, however, in justice to myself, that they would not lower me in your good opinion; though perhaps they might tempt you to question the soundness of my upper story. Almost twenty years have I been thus unhappily circumstanced; and the remedy is in the hands of God only. That I make you this partial communication on the subject, conscious at the same time that you are well worthy to be entrusted with the whole, is merely because the recital would be too long for a letter, and painful both to me and to you. But all this may vanish in a moment, and if it please God, it shall. In the mean time, my dear Madam, remember me in your prayers, and mention me at those times, as one whom it has pleased God to afflict with singular visitations. Twice I have been overwhelmed with the blackest despair; and at those times, every thing in which I have been at any time of my life concerned, has afforded to the enemy a handle against me. I tremble, therefore, almost at every step I take, lest on some future similar occasion, it should yield him opportunity, and furnish him with means to torment me.' On another occasion he thus writes: "A yellow shower of leaves is now continually falling from all the trees in the country. A few moments only seem to have passed since they were buds; and in a few moments more they will have disappeared! It is one advantage of a rural situation, that it affords many hints of the rapidity with which life flies, that do not occur in towns and cities. It is impossible for a man, conversant with such scenes as surround me, not to advert daily to the shortness of his existence here, admonished of it, as he must be, by ten thousand objects. There was a time when I could contemplate my present state, and consider myself as a thing of the day with pleasure; when I numbered the seasons, as they passed in swift rotation, as a school-boy numbers the days that interpose between the next vacation, when he shall sec his parents, and enjoy his home again. But to make so just an estimate of a life like this, is no longer in my power. The consideration of my short continnance here, which was once grateful to me, now fills me with regret. I would live, and live always, and am become such another wretch as Mæcenas was, who wished for long life-he cared not at what expense of sufferings. The only consolation left me on this subject is, that the voice of the Almighty can, in one moment, cure me of this mental infirmity. That he can, I know by experience; and there are reasons for which I ought to believe that he will. But from hope to despair is a transition that I have made so often, that I can only consider the hope that may come, and that sometimes I believe will, as a short prelude to joy, to a miserable conclusion of sorrow that shall never end. Thus are my brightest prospects clouded; and thus, to me, is hope itself become like a withered flower, that has lost both its hue and its fragrance. I ought not to have written in this dismal strain to you, nor did I intend it; you have more need to be cheered than saddened; but a dearth of other themes constrained me to choose myself for a subject, and of myself I can write no otherwise." Early in December, 1790, Cowper had a short | sure to affect him deeply; and the following ex but severe attack of that nervous fever to which he tracts from his letters to Mr. Newton, on this trying was very subject, and which he dreaded above all occasion, will not fail to be interesting:-"Had you others, because it generally preceded a most severe been a man of the world, I should have held myparoxysm of melancholy. Happily, on this occa- self bound, by the law of ceremonies, to have sent sion, it lasted only for a short time; and in a letter you long since my tribute of condolence. I have to Mrs. King, dated the last day of the year, he thus sincerely mourned with you; and though you have records his feelings on the occasion:-"I have lately lost a wife, and I only a friend, yet do I understand been visited with an indisposition much more for- too well the value of such a friend as Mrs. Newton, midable than that which I mentioned to you in my not to have sympathized with you very nearly. But last-a nervous fever, a disorder to which I am you are not a man of the world; neither can you, subject, and which I dread above all others, because who have the Scripture, and the Giver of the Scripit comes attended by a melancholy perfectly insup-ture to console you, have any need of aid from portable. This is the first day of my complete re- others, or expect it from such spiritual imbecility as covery, the first in which I have perceived no symp- mine." toms of my terrible malady. I wish to be thankful to the Sovereign Dispenser both of health and of sickness, that, though I have felt cause enough to tremble, He gives me new encouragement to hope that I may dismiss my fears, and expect an escape from my depressive malady. The only drawback to the comfort I now feel, is in the intelligence contained in yours, that neither Mr. King nor yourself are well. I dread always, both for my own health and for that of my friends, the unhappy influences of a year worn out. But, my dear Madam, this is the last day of it, and I resolve to hope that the new year shall obliterate all the disagreeables of the old I can wish nothing more warmly, than that it may prove a propitious year for you." one. few years or many have intervened, our sensibility makes them still present-such a mere nullity is time, to a creature to whom God gives a feeling heart and the faculty of recollection!" "It affords me sincere pleasure that you enjoy serenity of mind, after your great loss. It is well in all circumstances, even in the most afflictive, with those who have God for their comforter. You do me justice in giving entire credit to my expressions of friendship for you. No day passes in which I do not look back to the days that are fled, and consequently none in which I do not feel myself affectionately reminded of you, and of her whom you have lost for a season. I cannot even see Olney spire from any of the fields in the neighborhood, much less can I enter the town, and still less the vicarage, without experiencing the force of those mementoes, and recollecting a multitude of passages to which you and yours were parties. The In the autumn of this year Cowper had sent his past would appear a dream, were the remembrance "Homer" to the press; and through the whole of of it less affecting. It was, in the most important the ensuing winter he was closely employed in cor- respects, so unlike my present moment, that I am recting the proof-sheets, and making such altera- sometimes almost tempted to suppose it a dream! tions as he still thought desirable. The time which But the difference between dreams and realities this consumed, and the indefatigable industry with long since elapsed, seems to consist chiefly in this: which he engaged in it, will be seen by the follow- that a dream, however painful or pleasant at the ing extracts:-"My poetical operations, I mean of time, and perhaps for a few ensuing hours, passes the occasional kind, have lately been pretty much like an arrow through the air, leaving no trace of at a stand. I told you, I believe, in my last, that its flight behind it; but our actual experiences make 'Homer,' in the present stage of the process, occu- a lasting impression. We review those which inpied me more intensely than ever. He still conti-terested us much when they occurred, with hardly nues to do so, and threatens, till he shall be com-less interest than in the first instance; and whether pletely finished, to make all other composition impracticable. I am sick and ashamed of myself that I forgot my promise, but it is actually true that I did forget it. You, however, I did not forget; nor did I forget to wonder and be alarmed at your si- In June, 1791, having completed his long and arlence, being myself perfectly unconscious of my duous undertaking—the translation of "Homer," arrears. All this, together with various other tres- he thus writes to Mr. Newton on the occasion: passes of mine, must be set down to the account of "Considering the multiplicity of your engagements, Homer; and, wherever he is, he is bound to make and the importance, no doubt, of most of them, I his apology to all my correspondents, but to you in am bound to set the higher value on your letters; particular. True it is, that if Mrs. Unwin did not and, instead of grumbling that they come so seldom, call me from that pursuit, I should forget, in the to be thankful to you that they come at all. You ardor with which I persevere in it, both to eat and are now going into the country, where I presume to drink, if not to retire to rest! This zeal has in- you will have less to do; and I am rid of " Homer;" creased in me regularly as I have proceeded, and let us try, therefore, if in the interval between the in an exact ratio, as a mathematician would say, to present hour and the next busy season (for I too, if the progress I have made towards the point at which I live, shall probably be occupied again,) we can I have been aiming. You will believe this, when I contrive to exchange letters more frequently than tell you that, not contented with my previous labors, for some time past. You do justice to me, and to I have actually revised the whole work, and have Mrs. Unwin, when you assure yourself that to hear made a thousand alterations in it since it has been of your health, will give us pleasure. I know not, in the press. I have now, however, tolerably well in truth, whose health and well-being could give us satisfied myself at least, and trust that the printer more. The years that we have seen together will and I shall trundle along merrily to the conclusion." never be out of our remembrance; and, so long as In the commencement of 1791, Cowper's long-we remember them, we must remember you with tried friend, Mr. Newton, lost his wife. She died sometime in January, after many months' severe suffering, borne with exemplary fortitude and patience. She had always taken a lively interest in Cowper's welfare; and, when she resided at Olney, had frequently assisted Mrs. Unwin in the arduous duty of watching over the poet, during his painful mental depression. Her decease, therefore, was affection. In the pulpit, and out of the pulpit, you have labored in every possible way to serve us; and we must have a short memory indeed for the kindness of a friend, could we by any means become forgetful of yours. It would grieve me more than it does, to hear you complain of the effects of time, were not I also myself the subject of them. While he is wearing out you and other dear friends of CHAPTER XV. cated. Benefits he had derived from it. Feels the want of employment. Prepares materials for a splendid edition of Milton's poetic works. Vindicates his character. Attempts of his friends to dissuade him from his new engagement. His replies. The commencement of his acquaintance with Mr. Haley. Pleasure it afforded Mr. Haley. Mrs. Unwin's first attack of paralysis. Manner in which it affected Cowper. Remarks on Milton's labors. Reply to Mr. Newton's letter for original composition. Continuance of his depression. First letter from Mr. Haley. Unpleasant circumstances respecting it. Mr. Haley's first visit to Weston. Kind manner in which he was received. Mrs. Unwin's second severe paralytic attack. Cowper's feelings on the occasion. Mr. Hayley's departure. Cowper's warm attachment to him. Reflections on the recent changes he had witnessed. Promises to visit Eartham. Makes preparations for the journey. Peculiarity of his feelings on the occasion. mine, he spares not me; for which I ought to account myself obliged to him, since I should other- Publication of his Homer. Anxiety respecting it. To whom dediwise be in danger of surviving all that I have ever loved-the most melancholy lot that can befall a mortal. God knows what will be my doom hereafter; but precious as life necessarily seems to a mind doubtful of its future happiness, I love not the world, I trust, so much, as to wish a place in it when all my beloved shall have left it. As to Homer, I am sensible that, except as an amusement, he was never worth my meddling with; but, as an amusement, he was to me invaluable. As such, he served me more than five years; and in that respect I know not, at present, where I shall find his equal. You oblige me by saying, that you will read him for my sake. I verily believe that any person of a spiritual turn may read him to some advantage. He may suggest reflections that may not be unserviceable, even in a sermon: for I know not where we can find more striking examples of the pride, the arrogance, and the insignificance of man; at the same time that, by ascribing all events to a divine interposition, he inculcates constantly the belief of a Providence; insists much on the duty of charity towards the poor and the stranger: on the respect that is due to superiors, and to our seniors in particular; and on the expedience and necessity of prayer and piety towards the gods; a piety mistaken indeed in its object, but exemplary for the punctuality of its performance. Thousands who will not learn from Scripture to ask a blessing, either on their actions or on their food, may learn it, if they please, from Homer." a day, from much of the anxiety that I could not but feel on such an occasion: I should be glad to know who he is, only that I might thank him." On the first of July, 1791, Cowper's Homer appeared.-After so many years of incessant toil, it was not to be expected that he would feel otherwise than anxious respecting the reception it met with from the public. He had labored indefatigably to produce a faithful and free translation of the inimitable original, and he could not be indifferent to the result. To Mrs. King he thus writes on the occasion:-"My Homer is gone forth, and I can sincerely say-joy go with it! What place it holds in the estimation of the generality I cannot tell, having heard no more about it since its publication than if no such work existed. I must except, however, an anonymous eulogium from some man of letters, which I received about a week ago. It was It appears from the above extract that Cowper kind in a perfect stranger, as he avows himself to had no expectations of again seeing his Homer un-be, to relieve me in some degree, at least, at so early til it was actually before the public. Johnson, the publisher, however, unexpectedly to him, sent him an interleaved copy, and recommended him to revise it again before it was fully committed to the Cowper, very properly, dedicated the Iliad to his press. On this occasion, he thus writes to his friend noble relative Earl Cowper, and the Odyssey to the Mr. Newton:-"I did not foresee, when I chal- dowager Countess Spencer, whom, in one of his lenged you to a brisker correspondence, that a new letters he thus describes:-"We had a visit on Monengagement of all my leisure time was at hand-a day from one of the first women in the world-I new, and yet an old one. An interleaved copy of mean in point of character and accomplishmentsmy Homer arrived soon after from Johnson, in the dowager Lady Spencer! I may receive, perwhich he recommended it to me to make any alte-haps, some honors hereafter, should my translation rations that might yet be expedient, with a view to another impression. The alterations that I make are, indeed, but few, and they are also short; not more, perhaps, than half a line in two thousand. But the lines are, I suppose, nearly forty thousand in all; and to revise them critically must consequently be a work of time and labor. I suspend it, however, for your sake, till the present sheet be filled, and that I may not seem to shrink from my own offer. Were I capable of envying, in the strict sense of the word, a good man, I should envy Mr. Venn, and Mr. Berridge, and yourself, who have spent, and while they last, will continue to spend, your lives in the service of the only Master worth serving; laboring always for the souls of men, and not to tickle their ears, as I do. But this I can say, God knows how much rather I would be the obscure tenant of a lath and plaster ccttage, with a lively sense of my interest in a Redeemer, than the most admired object of public notice without it. Alas! what is a whole poem, even one of Homer's, compared with a single aspiration that finds its way immediately to God, though clothed in ordinary lan-painted by an excellent artist for her lover; the lover, guage, or perhaps, not articulated at all?—These are my sentiments as much as ever they were, though my days are all running to waste among Greeks and Trojans. The night cometh when no man can work; and if I am ordained to work to better purpose, that desirable period cannot be far distant. My day is beginning to shut in, as every man's must, who is on the verge of sixty." speed according to my wishes, and the pains I have taken with it; but shall never receive any that I esteem so highly; she is indeed, worthy, to whom I should dedicate, and may but my Odyssey prove as worthy of her, I shall have nothing to fear from the critics." Whether it arose from the unreasonable expectations of the public, or from the utter impossibility of conveying all the graces and the beauties of these unrivalled poems, in a translation, it is certain that the volumes, when they appeared, did not give that satisfaction, either to the author, or to his readers, which had been anticipated. It would, perhaps, be difficult, if not impossible, to assign a better reason, for the imperfection of Cowper's translation, if imperfection it deserves to be called, than that mentioned by his justly admired biographer, Mr. Hayley.-"Homer is so exquisitely beautiful in his own language, and he has been so long an idol in every literary mind, that any copy of him, which the best of modern poets can execute, must probably resemble in its effect, the portrait of a graceful woman, indeed, will acknowledge great merit in the work, and think himself much indebted to the skill of such an artist, but he will never acknowledge, as in truth he never can feel, that the best resemblance exhibits all the graces that he discerns in the beloved original. So fares it with the admirers of Homer; his very translators themselves, feel so perfectly the power of this predominant affection, that they gra dually grow discontented with their own labor, how- | share of health and cheerfulness which he enever approved in the moment of its supposed com-joyed. pletion. This was so remarkably the case with Cowper, that in process of time we shall see him employed upon what may almost be called his second translation, so great were the alterations he made in a deliberate revisal of the work, for a second edition. And in the preface to that edition, he has spoken of his own labor with the most frank and ingenuous veracity. Yet of his first edition it may, I think, be fairly said, that it accomplished more than any of his poetical predecesso's had achieved before him. It made the nearest approach to that sweet majestic simplicity which forms one of the most attractive features in the great prince and father of poets." If Cowper had derived no other benefit from his translation, than that of constant employment, for so long a time, when he stood so much in need of it, it would have been to him invaluable, as the best and most effectual remedy for that inordinate sensibility to which he was subject. Besides this, however, it procured him other advantages of paramount importance; it improved the general state of his health; it introduced him to a circle of literary friends, whom he would otherwise never have known, and who, when they once knew him, could not fail to feel affectionately interested in his welfare; it brought him into closer contact with those with whom he had previously been acquainted, by inducing him to avail himself of their kind offers and assistance in the transcribing way, which to a mind like his could not fail to become a source of almost uninterrupted enjoyment; it established his reputation as a most accomplished scholar, and unquestionably ranked him among the highest class of poets. A living writer has well remarked, that "to Cowper's translation of Homer, we are beholden, not only for the pleasure which a perusal will be sure to afford to reasonable and patient readers, but we may attribute to its happy possession of his mind all the beautiful and inimitable letters which appear in his correspondence, during the progress of that work. The toil of daily turning over the thoughts of the greatest of poets, in every form of English that his ingenuity could devise, occupied, for many years, that very portion of his time which, with a person of no profession, and having no stated duties to perform, lies heaviest upon the spirit. The salutary exercise of his morning studies made him relish with keener zest, the relaxation of his social hours, or those welcome opportunities of epistolary converse with the absent, in which it is evident that much of the little happiness allowed to him lay; he is never more at home, consequently never more amiable, sprightly, and entertaining, and even poetical, than in his correspondence, when he pours out all the treasures of his mind and the affections of his heart, upon the paper which is to be the speaking representative of himself to those he loves. It has often been regretted that instead of this labor in vain, as the translation of Homer has sometimes seemed to many, he had not spent an equal portion of time and talent on original composition. The regret is at least as much bestowed in vain, as was that labor, for there is no well-founded reason to suppose, from the momentary jeopardy in which he lived, of being plunged into sudden, irretrievable despondence, that if he had been otherwise employed, he could have maintained even that small *It is said that Broome assisted Pope very largely in his translation of Homer; but Cowper had no assistant in that way. All the Throckmorton family, Lady Hesketh, Mrs. Johnson, and many others, helped him as transcribers, and only as such. It is not to be expected that a mind like Cowper's could remain for any lengthened period unemployed. Accustomed as he had long been to intense application, when he had completed his great work, he immediately felt the want of some other engagement. To a mind less active than his, replying to his correspondents, which had now become most extensive, would have been employment amply sufficient-especially as he was considerably in arrears with them, owing to his previous labors. This, however, was not enough for Cowper. He wanted something more worthy of his powers; something that required more vigor of thought, and demanded more severe application. Several of his friends again urged him for original composition, and in all probability they would have been successful, had he not, about this time, received a letter from his publisher, of whose judgment and integrity he had always entertained a high opinion, recommending him to prepare materials for a splendid edition of Milton. To this proposal Cowper immediately assented. He had always expressed himself delight. ed with Milton's poetry, and on one occasion, in a letter to his friend Mr. Unwin, had thus ventured to defend his character from the severe censures cast upon him by Johnson, in his "Lives of the Poets:" "I have been well entertained with Johnson's biography, for which I thank you; with one exception, and that a swinging one, I think he has acquitted himself with his usual good sense and sufficiency. His treatment of Milton is unmerciful, to the last degree. He has belabored that great poet's character with the most industrious cruelty. As a man, he has hardly left him the shadow of one good quality. Churlishness in his private life, and a rancorous hatred of every thing royal in his public, are the two colors with which he has smeared all the canvas. If he had any virtues, they are not to be found in the Doctor's picture of him, and it is well for Milton, that some sourness in his temper is the only vice with which his memory has been charged: it is evident enough, that if his biographer could have discovered more, he would not have spared him. As a poet he has treated him with severity enough, and has plucked one or two of the most beautiful feathers out of his muse's wing, and trampled them under his great foot. He has passed sentence of condemnation upon Lycidas, and has taken occasion from that charming poem, to expose to ridicule (what is indeed ridiculous enough) the childish prattlings of pastoral compositions, as if Lycidas was the prototype and pattern of them all. The liveliness of the description, the sweetness of the numbers, the classical spirit of antiquity that prevails in it, go for nothing. I am convinced by the way, that he has no ear for poetical numbers, or that it was stopped by prejudice against the harmony of Milton's." Was there ever any thing so delightful as the music of the Paradise Lost? It is like that of a fine organ; has the fullest and the deepest tones of majesty, with all the softness and elegance of the Dorian flute. Variety without end, and never equalled, unless perhaps by Virgil. Yet the Doctor has little or nothing to say upon this copious theme, but talks something about the unfitness of the English language for blank verse, and how apt it is, in the mouth of some readers, to degenerate into declamation." Cowper had no sooner made up his mind on the subject of his new engagement, than he communicated it to his correspondents. To one he writes, "I am deep in a new literary engagement, being retained by my bookseller as editor of an intended most magnificent edition of Milton's Poetical Works. This will occupy me as much as Homei did, for a year or two to come; and when I have finished it, I shall have run through all the degrees of my profession, as author, translator, and editor. I know not that a fourth could be found; but if a fourth can be found, I dare say I shall find it. I am now translating Milton's Latin poems. I give them, as opportunity offers, all the variety of measure that I can. Some I render in heroic rhymes, some in stanzas, some in seven, some in eight syllable measure, and some in blank verse. They will altogether, I hope, make an agreeable miscellany for the English reader. They are certainly good in themselves, and cannot fail to please, but by the fault of their translator." One of his most esteemed correspondents, the Rev. Walter Bagot, attempted to dissuade him from entering upon his new engagement, and urged him to publish in a third volume, what original pieces he had already composed, added to a translation of Milton's Latin and Italian poems. Had this plan been suggested to him earlier, he would, in all probability, have pursued it, as he thus writes to his friend on the subject:-"As to Milton, the die is cast. I am engaged, have bargained with Johnson, and cannot recede. I should otherwise have been glad to do as you advise, to make the translation of his Latin and Italian poems part of another volume, for with such an addition, I have nearly as much verse in my budget as would be required for the purpose." From some expressions in a letter to the Rev. Mr. Hurdis, the author of the Village Curate, with whom Cowper had entered into a correspondence, a few months previous to this, and to whom he had written several most interesting letters, it would appear as if he entered upon his new engagement rather precipitately, and without due consideration. "I am much obliged to you for wishing that I were employed in some original work, rather than in translation. To tell the truth, I am of your mind; and unless I could find another Homer, I shall promise (I believe) and vow, when I have done with Milton, never to translate again. But my veneration for our great countryman is equal to what I feel for the Grecian; and consequently I am happy, and feel myself honorably employed, whatever I do for Milton. I am now translating his Epitaphium Damonis; a pastoral, in my judgment, equal to any of Virgil's Bucolics, but of which Dr. Johnson (so it pleased him) speaks, as I remember, contemptuously. But he who never saw any beauty in a rural scene, was not likely to have much taste for a pastoral. In pace quiescat!" Among other consequences resulting from his new undertaking, one of the most gratifying to himself was, its becoming the means of introducing him to an acquaintance with his esteemed friend, and future biographer, Mr. Hayley. This important event in Cowper's life-so it afterwards proved -is related with so much beauty and simplicity by Mr. Hayley, in his life of Cowper, and reflects a lustre so bright on both the biographer and the poet, that we cannot do better than give it in his own words. Mr. Hayley thus relates the circumstance: "As it is to Milton that I am in a great measure indebted for what I must ever regard as a signal blessing, the friendship of Cowper, the reader will pardon me for dwelling a little on the circumstances that produced it-circumstances which often lead me to repeat those sweet verses of my friend, on the casual origin of our valuable attachments 'Mysterious are His ways whose power It is the allotment of the skies, That guides and governs our affections, And plans and orders our connections.' "These charming lines strike with peculiar force on my mind, when I recollect that it was an idle endeavor to make us enemies which gave rise to our intimacy, and that I was providentially conducted to Weston at a season when my presence there afforded peculiar comfort to my affectionate friend, under the pressure of a very heavy domestic affliction which threatened to overwhelm his very tender spirits. The entreaty of many persons whom I wished to oblige, had engaged me to write a life of Milton, before I had the slightest suspicion that my work could interfere with the projects of any man; but I was soon surprised and concerned in hearing that I was represented in a newspaper as an antagonist of Cowper. I immediately wrote to him on the subject, and our correspondence soon endeared us to each other in no common degree. The series of his letters to me I value, not only as memorials of a most dear and honorable friendship, but as exquisite examples of epistolary excellence." The above interesting extract will have informed the reader that Mr. Hayley paid Cowper a visit at Weston; this visit, however, so gratifying to both parties, did not take place till the beginning of May, 1792. In the December previous, Cowper had ever experienced. Mrs. Unwin, his affectionate companion, who had watched over him with so much tenderness and anxiety, for so many years, was suddenly attacked with strong symptoms of paralysis. In a letter to his friend, Mr. Rose, dated 21st December, 1791, Cowper thus relates this painful event:-"On Saturday last, while I was at my desk, near the window, and Mrs. Unwin at the Oh! Mr. Cowper, don't let me fall!' I turned, and fire-side opposite to it, I heard her suddenly exclaim, saw her actually falling, and started to her side just in time to prevent her. She was seized with a violent giddiness, which lasted, though with some abatement, the whole day, and was attended with sent, however, she is relieved from the vertigo, and some other very, very alarming symptoms. At preseems, in all respects, better. She has been my faithful and affectionate nurse for many years, and consequently has a claim on all my attentions. She has them, and will have them, as long as she wants them, which will probably be, at the least, a considerable time to come. I feel the shock, as you may suppose, in every nerve. God grant that there may be no repetition of it. Another such a stroke upon her would, I think, overset me completely; but, at present, I hold up bravely." met with one of the heaviest domestic calamities he Notwithstanding the interruption of Cowper's studies, occasioned by Mrs. Unwin's indisposition, and by the extreme slowness of her recovery, he had now become so much accustomed to regular employment, and had derived from it so many advantages, that he could not possibly remain inactive. In the month of February we find him thus employed:-"Milton, at present, engrosses me altogether. His Latin pieces I have translated, and have begun with the Italian. These are few, and will not detain me long. I shall proceed immediately to deliberate upon, and to settle the plan of my commentary, which I have hitherto had but little time to consider. I look forward to it, for this reason, with some anxiety. I trust, at least, that this anxiety will cease, when I have once satisfied myself about the best manner of conducting it. But, after all, I seem to fear more the labor to which it calls, than any great difficulty with which it is likely to be attended. |