but it was not the religion of a creed, for what creed ever proclaimed the delusion under which Cowper laboured? His persuasion was in opposition to his creed, for he knew that he was once saved, and yet believed that he should be lost, though his creed assured him that, where divine grace had once revealed its saving power, it never failed to perfect its work in mercy--that the Saviour's love is unchangeable, and that whom he hath loved he loveth unto the end. (John xiii. 1.) His case therefore was an exception to his creed, and consequently must be imputed to the operation of other causes.

We trust we have now succeeded in tracing to its true source the origin of Cowper's malady, and that the numerous facts which have been urged must preclude the possibility of future misconception.

There are some distinguishing features in this mysterious malady which are too extraordinary not to be specified. We notice the following:

1st. The free exercise of his mental powers continued during the whole period of his depression, with the exception of two intervals, from 1773 to 1776, and a season of eight months in the year 1787. With these intermissions of study, all his works were written in moments of depression and unceasing nervous excitement.

It still further shows the singular mechanism of

*Cowper believed that he had incurred the Divine displeasure, because he did not commit the crime of self-destruction; a persuasion so manifestly absurd as to afford undeniable proof of derangement.

his wonderful mind, that his Montes Glaciales, or Ice Islands, exhibiting decided marks of vigour of genius, were composed in the last stage of his malady-within five weeks of his decease-when his heart was lacerated by sorrow, his imagination scared by dreams, and the heavens over his head were as brass. The public papers had announced a phenomenon, which the voyages of Captains Ross and Parry have now made more familiar, viz. the disruption of immense masses of ice in the North Pole, and their appearance in the German Ocean. Cowper seized this incident as a fit subject for his poetic powers, and produced the poem from which we make the following extract.

What portents, from what distant region, ride,
Unseen till now in ours, th' astonish'd tide ?-
What view we now? more wondrous still! Behold!
Like burnish'd brass they shine, or beaten gold;
And all around the pearl's pure splendour show,
And all around the ruby's fiery glow.
Come they from India, where the burning earth,
All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth;
And where the costly gems, that beam around
The brows of mightiest potentates, are found?
No. Never such a countless dazzling store
Had left, unseen, the Ganges' peopled shore-
Whence sprang they then?

- Far hence, where most severe,
Bleak Winter well-nigh saddens all the year,
Their infant growth began. He bade arise
Their uncouth forms, portentous in our eyes.
Oft, as dissolv'd by transient suns, the snow
Left the tall cliff to join the flood below,
He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast
The current, ere it reach'd the boundless waste.

By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile,
And long successive ages roll'd the while,
Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claim'd to stand
Tall as its rival mountains on the land.
Thus stood, and, unremovable by skill

Or force of man, had stood the structure still;
But that, though firmly fixt, supplanted yet
By pressure of its own enormous weight,
It left the shelving beach-and, with a sound
That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around,
Self-launch'd, and swiftly, to the briny wave,

As if instinct with strong desire to lave,

Down went the pond'rous mass.

See Vol. viii. p. 415.

2ndly. His malady, however oppressive to himself, was not perceptible to others.

The Editor is enabled to state this remarkable fact on the authority of Dr. Johnson, confirmed by the testimony of Lady Throckmorton, and John Higgins, Esq. of Turvey Abbey, formerly of Weston.

There was nothing in his general manner, or intercourse with society, to excite the suspicion of the wretchedness that dwelt within. Among strangers he was at all times reserved and silent, but in the circle of familiar friends, where restraint was banished, not only did he exhibit no marks of gloom, but he could participate in the mirth of others, or inspire it from his own fertile resources of wit and humour. The prismatic colours, so to speak, were discernible through the descending shower. The bow in the heavens was not only emblematic of his imagination, but might be interpreted as the pledge of promised mercy. For it seemed to be graciously ordered that his lively and sportive imagination

should be a relief to the gloomy forebodings of his mind; and that, in vouchsafing to him this alleviation, God proclaimed, "Behold, I do set my bow in the cloud, it shall be for a covenant between me and thee."

3rdly. The rare union, in the same mind, of a rich vein of humour with a spirit of profound melancholy was never perhaps so strikingly exemplified as in the celebrated production of John Gilpin. The town resounded with its praises. Henderson recited it to overflowing auditories; Mr. Henry Thornton addressed it to a large party of friends at Mr. Newton's. Laughter might be said to hold both his sides, and the gravest were compelled to acknowledge the power of comic wit. We scarcely know a more extraordinary phenomenon than what is furnished by the history of this performance. For it appears, by the author's own testimony, that it was written in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at all." * It is also known that this depression was not incidental or temporary, but a fixed and settled feeling; that he was in fact absorbed, for the most part, in the profoundest melancholy; that he considered himself to be cut off from the mercy of his God, though his life was blameless and without reproach; and that, finally, having enlightened his country with strains of the sublimest morality, he died the victim of an incurable despair. As a contrast to the inimitable humour of John Gilpin, let us now turn to that most affecting representation *Vol. ii. p. 96.

which the poet draws of his own mental sufferings, occasioned by the painful depression which has been the subject of so many remarks.

Look where he comes-in this embowered alcove
Stand close concealed, and see a statue move:
Lips busy, and eyes fixt, foot falling slow,
Arms hanging idly down, hands clasped below,
Interpret to the marking eye distress,
Such as its symptoms can alone express.
That tongue is silent now; that silent tongue
Could argue once, could jest or join the song,
Could give advice, could censure or commend,
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend.
Renounced alike its office and its sport,
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short;
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway,
And like a summer-brook are past away.
This is a sight for pity to peruse,

Till she resemble faintly what she views;

Till sympathy contract a kindred pain,

Pierced with the woes that she laments in vain.

This, of all maladies that man infest,

Claims most compassion, and receives the least.

See Poem on Retirement.

The minute and mournful delineation of mental trouble here submitted to the eye of the reader, and the fact of this living image of woe being a portrait of Cowper drawn by his own hand, impart to it a character of inimitable pathos, and of singular and indescribable interest.

The physical and moral solution of this evil, and its painful influence on the mind, till the cure is administered by an almighty Physician, are beautifully and affectingly described.