rative firmness, but his intense feelings, perhaps, pictured its remote effects in colours much more gloomy than were ever likely to be realised. Such seems to have been the case with him at the death of his brother. He attended him in his dying hours, saw him gradually sink into the arms of death, arranged all the affairs of his funeral, and then, when other persons less susceptible of feeling, would in all probability have forgotten the event, his apprehensive mind invested it with imaginary horrors that were to him insupportable.

This affliction of Cowper's commenced in the early part of January, 1787. In his letters to his cousin, he thus adverts to the first symptoms of it. "I have had a little nervous fever lately that has somewhat abridged my sleep, and though I find myself better to-day than I have been since it seized me, yet I feel my head lightish, and not in the best order for writing." In the next letter to the same correspondent, written about a week afterwards-the last he wrote to any of his correspondents until his recovery, he again adverts to the progress of his complaint. "I have been so much indisposed with the nervous fever, that I told you in my last had seized me, my nights, during the whole week, may be said to have been almost sleepless. The consequence has been that, except the translation of about thirty lines at the conclusion of the thirteenth book, I have been forced to abandon Homer entirely. This was a sensible mortification to me as you may suppose, and felt the more, because my spirits of course failing with my strength, I seemed to have peculiar need of my old amusement. It seemed hard, therefore, to be forced to resign it, just when I wanted it most. But Homer's battles cannot be fought by a man who does not sleep well, and who has not some little degree of animation in the day time. Last night, however, quite contrary to my expectation, the fever left me entirely, and I slept soundly, quietly, and long. If it please God that it return not, I shall soon find myself in a condition to proceed. I walk constantly, that is to say, Mrs. Unwin and I together: for at these times I keep her continually employed, and never suffer her to be absent from me many minutes. She gives me all her time, and all her attention, and forgets that there is another object in the world besides myself."

About this time, that intimacy between Cowper and Samuel Rose, Esq., which subsequently ripened into a friendship that nothing but death could dissolve, commenced. At the close of the letter from which we made our last extract, Cowper thus adverts to the circumstance. "A young gen

tleman called here yesterday, who came six miles out of his way to see me. He was on a journey to London from Glasgow, having just left the university there. He came I suppose, partly to satisfy his own curiosity, but chiefly, as it seemed, to bring me the thanks of some of the Scotch professors for my two volumes. His name is Rose, an Englishman. Your spirits being good, you will derive more pleasure from this incident than I can at present, therefore I send it." Notwithstanding the depression of mind which Cowper was beginning again to experience, when this unexpected interview between him and Mr. Rose took place, and his consequent aversion to the visits of any one, but especially strangers, yet he was so highly pleased with his new friend, that he commenced a correspondence with him immediately on recovering his health; and he ever regarded it as a providential circumstance, and a token of the goodness of God towards him, in giving him a friend and a correspondent, who in some measure, at least, supplied the loss he had experienced by the death of Mr. Unwin.

In February, 1787, Cowper's depressive malady had so greatly increased that his mind became again enveloped in the deepest gloom. The following extracts from his letters, written after his recovery, which took place in the ensuing autumn, will best describe the painful and distressing state to which he was reduced :-" My indisposition could not be of a worse kind. Had I been afflicted with a fever, or confined by a broken bone, neither of these cases would have made it impossible that we should meet. I am truly sorry that the impediment was insurmountable while it lasted, for such, in fact, it was. The sight of any face, except Mrs. Unwin's, was to me an insupportable grievance; and when it has happened, that by forcing himself into my hiding place, some friend has found me out, he has had no great cause to exult in his success, as Mr. Bull could tell you. From this dreadful condition of mind, I emerged suddenly; so suddenly that Mrs. Unwin, having no notice of such a change herself, could give none to any body; and when it obtained, how long it might last, and how far it might be depended upon, was a matter of the greatest uncertainty. It affects me on the recollection with the more concern, because it has deprived me of an interview with you, and has prevented you from visiting others who would have been very glad to see you."

In the midst of Cowper's severe attack, his friend, Mr Rose, paid him another visit, and was greatly distressed to find him reduced to such a degree of wretchedness that he

could not be prevailed upon to converse with him on any subject. Cowper, as soon as he began to feel the slightest symptoms of recovery, recollected the great sympathy and disinterested kindness of his new friend, and he took care to present him with the first productions of his pen. In the last week of July, 1787, he thus addressed him :-"This is the first time I have written this six months; and nothing but the constraint of obligation could induce me to write now. I cannot be so wanting to myself as not to endeavour, at least, to thank you, both for the visits with which you have favoured me, and the poem that you have sent me. In my present state of mind I taste nothing, nevertheless I read,-partly from habit, and partly because it is the only thing I am capable of." A month afterwards he again wrote to the same correspondent. "I have not yet taken up my pen, except to write to you. The little taste that I have had of your company, and your kindness in finding me out, make me wish that we were nearer neighbours, and that there were not so great a disparity in our years; that is to say, not that you were older, but that I was younger. Could we have met early in life, I flatter myself that we might have been more intimate than now we are likely to be. But you shall not find me slow to cultivate such a measure of your regard as your friends of your own age can spare me. I hope the same kindness, which has prompted you twice to call on me, will prompt you again; and I shall be happy, if, on a future occasion, I shall be able to give you a more cheerful reception than can be expected from an invalid. My health and spirits are considerably improved, and I once more associate with my neighbours. My head, however, has been the worst part of me, and still continues so; is subject to giddiness and pain, maladies very unfavourable to poetical employment: but I feel some encouragement to hope that I may possibly, before long, find myself able to resume the translation of Homer. When I cannot walk, I read, and read perhaps more than is good for me. But I cannot be idle. The only mercy that I show myself in this respect is, that I read nothing that requires much closeness of application."

Cowper was now recovered sufficiently to resume his correspondence with Lady Hesketh, and the following extracts will throw some additional light on the gradually improving state of his health, and on the manner in which he then spent his time. My dear cousin, though it costs me something to write, it would cost me more to be silent. My intercourse with my neighbours being renewed, I can no longer

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forget how many reasons there are, why you especially should not be neglected; no neighbour, indeed, but the kindest of my friends, and ere long, I hope an inmate. My health and spirits seem to be mending daily. To what end I know not, neither will conjecture, but endeavour, as far as I can, to be content that they do so. I use exercise, and take the air in the park; I read much; have lately_read Savary's Travels in Egypt; Memoirs of Baron du Tott; Fenn's Original Letters; the Letters of Frederick of Bohemia; and am now reading Memoirs d'Henri de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. I have also read Barclay's Argenis, a Latin romance, and the best romance that was ever written. All these, together with Madan's Letters to Priestly, and several pamphlets, I have read within these two months. So that you will say I am a great reader. I, however, write but little, because writing is become new to me; but I shall come on by degrees, and hope to regain the use of my pen before long. Our friends at the Hall make themselves more and more amiable in our account, by treating us rather as old friends, that as friends newly acquired. There are few days in which we do not meet, and I am now almost as much at home in their house as in my own. I have the free use of their library, an acquisition of great value to me, as I cannot live without books. By this means, I have been so well supplied, that I have not yet even looked at the Lounger, which you were so kind as to send me. His turn comes next, and I shall probably begin him to-morrow."

Cowper's correspondence with Mr. Newton, had now been suspended for some months. In the beginning of the ensuing October he renewed it; and the following extracts will afford some interesting information respecting the peculiarity of his case. "My Dear Friend-After a long but necessary interruption of our correspondence, I return to it again, in one respect, at least, better qualified for it than before; I mean by a belief of your identity, which for thirteen years, strange and unaccountable as it may appear, I did not believe. The acquisition of this light, if light it may be called, which leaves me as much in the dark as ever, on the most interesting subjects, releases me, however, from the most disagreeable suspicion that I am addressing myself to you as the friend whom I loved and valued so highly in my better days, while in fact you are not that friend but a stranger. I can now write to you without seeming to act a part, and without having any need to charge myself with dissimulation; a charge from which, in that state of mind, and under such an un

comfortable persuasion, I know not how to exculpate myself, and which, as you will easily conceive, not seldom made my correspondence with you a burden. Still, indeed, it wants, and is likely to want, that best ingredient, which alone can make it truly pleasant, either to myself or you that spirituality which once enlivened all our intercourse. You will tell me, no doubt, that the knowledge I have gained is an earnest of more, and more valuable information too; and that the dispersion of the clouds in part, promises, in due time, their complete dispersion. I should be happy to believe it but the power to do so is at present far from me. Never was the mind of man benighted to a degree that mine has been. The storms that have assailed me would have overset the faith of every man that ever had any; and the very remembrance of them, even after they have been long passed by, makes hope impossible. Mrs. Unwin, whose poor bark is still held together, though much shattered by being tossed and agitated so long at the side of mine, does not forget yours and Mrs. Newton's kindness on this last occasion. Mrs. Newton's offer to come to her assistance, and your readiness to have rendered us the same service, could you have hoped for any salutary effect of your presence, neither Mrs. Unwin nor myself undervalue, nor shall presently forget. But you judged right when you supposed that even your company would have been no relief to me; the company of my father or my brother, could they have been returned from the dead to visit me, would have been none. We are now busy in preparing for the reception of Lady Hesketh, whom we expect here shortly. Mrs. Unwin's time has, of course, been lately occupied to a degree that made writing to her impracticable; and she excused herself the rather, knowing my intentions to take her office. It does not, however, suit me to write much at a time. This last tempest has left my nerves in a worse condition than it found them; my head especially, though better informed, is more infirm than ever; I will therefore only add, that I rejoice to hear Mrs. Cowper has been so comfortably supported under her heavy trial. She must have severely felt the loss of her She has an affectionate heart towards her children, and could not but be sensible of the bitterness of such a cup. But God's presence sweetens every bitter. Desertion is the only evil that a christian cannot bear."

son.

Cowper's friends were all delighted to see him again in full possession of his mental powers; and, as many of them attributed his last attack to the irritation and fatigue occa