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About this time, Mrs. King appears to have been informed that it was Cowper's intention to leave Weston, and that Mrs. Unwin had been making inquiries after a house at Huntingdon. Adverting to this report, in a letter to that lady, he thus writes:-"The report that informed you of inquiries made by Mrs. Unwin, after a house at Huntingdon, was unfounded. We have no thought of quitting Weston, unless the same Providence that led us hither should lead us away. It is a situation the most eligible, perfectly agreeable to us both, and to me in particular, who write much, and walk much, and, consequently, love silence and retirement. If it has a fault, it is, that it seems to threaten us with a certainty of never seeing you. But may we not hope that when a milder season shall have improved your health, we may yet, notwithstanding the distance, be favoured with Mr. King's and your company? A better season will likewise improve the roads, and exactly in proportion as it does so, will, in effect, lessen the interval between us. I know not if Mr. Martyn be a mathematician, but most probably he is a good one, and he can tell you that this is a proposition mathematically true, though rather paradoxical in appearance."

In a letter to Mr. Newton, 5 February, 1790, Cowper again plaintively describes the state of his mind." Your kind letter deserved a speedier answer, but you know my excuse, which were I to repeat always, my letters would resemble the fag end of a newspaper, where we always find the price of stocks, detailed with little or no variation. When January returns, you have your feelings concerning me, and such as prove the faithfulness of your friendship. I have mine also concerning myself, but they are of a cast different from yours. Yours have a mixture of sympathy and tender solicitude, which makes them, perhaps, not altogether unplea sant. Mine, on the contrary, are of an unmixed nature, and consist simply, and merely, of the most alarming apprehensions. Twice has that month returned upon me, accompanied by such horrors, as I have no reason to suppose ever made part of the experience of any other man. I, accordingly, look forward to it, and meet it with a dread not to be imagined. I number the nights as they pass, and in the morning bless myself that another night is gone, and no harm has happened. This may argue, perhaps, some imbecility of mind, and, indeed, no small degree of it; but it is natural, I believe, and so natural as to be necessary and unavoidable. I know that God is not governed by secondary causes, in any of his operations; and that, on the contrary, they are all so

many agents, in his hand, which strike only when he bids them. I know, consequently, that one month is as dangerous to me as another; and that in the middle of summer, at noonday, and in the clear sunshine, I am, in reality, unless guarded by Him, as much exposed as when fast asleep at midnight, and mid-winter. But we are not always the wiser for our knowledge, and I can no more avail myself of mine, in this case, than if it were in the head of any other man, and not in my own. I have heard of bodily aches and ails, that have been particularly troublesome when the season returned in which the hurt that occasioned them was received. The mind, I believe, (with my own, however, I am sure it is so,) is liable to similar periodical affection. But February is come; January, my terror, is passed; and some shades of the gloom that attended his presence have passed with him. I look forward with a little cheerfulness to the buds and the leaves that will soon appear, and say to myself, till they turn yellow, I will make myself easy. The year will go round, and January will approach. I shall tremble again, and I know it; but in the meantime I will be as comfortable as I can. Thus, with respect to peace of mind, such as it is, that I enjoy. I subsist, as the poor are vulgarly said to do, from hand to mouth; and of a Christian, such us you once knew me, am, by a strange transformation, become an epicurean philosopher, bearing this motto on my mind,Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quærere."

Towards the end of this month, Cowper received as a present, from Mrs. Bodham, a cousin of his, then residing in Norfolk, his mother's portrait. The following extracts will show the powerful impression which this circumstance made upon his tender mind:-"My dearest Rose,* whom I thought withered and fallen from the stalk, but whom I find still alive: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to learn it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so. Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her. I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so

* Mrs. Bobham's name is Anne, but Cowper always called her Rose, when a child, and was aware that she would remember his doing so.

acceptable to me as the picture you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and received it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits, somewhat akin to what I should have felt had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first that I open my eyes upon in the morning. She died when I had completed my sixth year, yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. There is, I believe, in me, more of the Donne than of the Cowper, and though I love all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to your side. I was thought, in the days of my childhood, much to resemble my mother, and in my natural temper, of which, at the age of fifty-eight, I must be supposed a competent judge, can trace both her, and my late uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability, and a little, I would hope, both of his, and of her I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention; but speaking to you, I will even speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at all points. The truth is, whatever I am, and wherever I am, I love you all."

To Lady Hesketh he thus adverts to the circumstance.“I am delighted with Mrs. Bodham's kindness in giving me the only picture of my mother that is to be found, I suppose, in all the world. I had rather possess it than the richest jewel in the British crown, for I loved. her with an affection,. that her death, fifty years since, has not in the least abated. I remember her too, young as I was when she died, well enough to know that it is a very exact resemblance of her, and as such it is to me invaluable. Everybody loved her, and with an amiable character so impressed on all her features, everybody was sure to do so."

To John Johnson, Esq., 28th February, 1790, he thus records his feelings on this occasion. "I was never more pleased in my life than to learn, and to learn from herself, that my dearest Rose is still alive. Had she not engaged me to love her by the sweetness of her character when a child, she would have done it effectually now, by making me the most acceptable present in the world, my own dear mother's pic

ture. I am perhaps the only person living who remembers her, but I remember her well, and can attest on my own knowledge, the truth of the resemblance. Amiable and elegant as the countenance is, such exactly was her own; she was one of the tenderest parents, and so just a copy of her, is therefore to me invaluable. I wrote yesterday to my Rose, to tell her all this, and to thank her for her kindness in sending it! Neither do I forget your kindness, who intimated to her that I should be happy to possess it. She invites me into Norfolk, but alas! she might as well invite the house in which I dwell: for, all other considerations and impediments apart, how is it possible that a translator of Homer should lumber to such a distance. But though I cannot comply with her kind invitation, I have made myself the best amends in my power, by inviting her, and all the family of Donnes, to Weston." To Mrs. King, on the same interesting occasion, he writes: "I have lately received from a female cousin of mine in Norfolk, whom I have not seen these fiveand-twenty years, a picture of my own mother. She died when I wanted two days of being six years old; yet I remember her perfectly, find the picture a strong resemblance of her, and because her memory has been ever precious to me, I have written a poem on the receipt of it; a poem which, one excepted, I had more pleasure in writing than any that I ever wrote. That one was addressed to a lady whom I expect in a few minutes to come down to breakfast, and who has supplied to me the place of my own mother— my own invaluable mother, these six-and-twenty years. Some 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; not 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 honour 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.

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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 honour. It will serve to prove that if I have spent

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