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suade myself that even you will be successful in attempting it. But it is no matter: you are yourself a good which Ĩ can never value enough; and, whether rich or poor in other respects, I shall always account myself better provided for than I deserve, with such a friend as you, that I can call my own. Let it please God to continue to me my William and Mary, and I shall be more reasonable than to grumble. I rose this morning, wrapt round with a cloud of melancholy, and with a heart full of fears; but if I see my Mary's amendment a little advanced, I shall be better."

"Of what materials can you suppose me made, if, after all the rapid proofs you have given me of your friendship, I do not love you with all my heart, and regret your absence continually. But you must permit me to be melancholy now and then; or, if you will not, I must be so without your permission; for that sable thread is so interwoven with the very thread of my existence as to be inseparable from it, at least while I exist in the body. Be content, therefore let me sigh and groan, but always be sure that I love you. You will be well assured that I should not have indulged myself in this rhapsody about myself and my melancholy, had my present state of mind been of that complexion, or had not our poor Mary seemed still to advance in her recovery. It is a great blessing to us both, that, feeble as she is, she has a most invincible courage, and a trust in God's goodness that nothing shakes. She is certainly, in some degree, better than she was yesterday; but how to measure the degree I know not, except by saying-that it is just perceptible."

In a letter dated 11th June, 1792, Cowper thus discloses his state of mind to Lady Hesketh. "My dearest cousin, thou art ever in my thoughts, whether I am writing to thee or not, and my correspondence seems to grow upon me at such a rate, that I am not able to address thee so often as I would. In fact, I live only to write letters. Hayley is, as you see, added to the number of my correspondents, and to him I write almost as duly as I rise in the morning. Since I wrote last, Mrs. Unwin has been continually improving in strength, but at so gradual a rate, that I can only mark it by saying that she moves every day with less support than the former. On the whole, I believe she goes on as well as can be expected, though not quite so well as to satisfy me."

"During the last two months I seem to myself to have been in a dream. It has been a most eventful period, and fruitful to an uncommon degree, both in good and in evil. I have been very ill, and suffered excruciating pain. I reco

vered, and became quite well again. I received within my doors a man, but lately, an entire stranger, and who now loves me as his brother, and forgets himself to serve me. Mrs. Unwin has been seized with an illness, that for many days threatened to deprive me of her, and to cast a gloom, an impenetrable one, on all my future prospects. She is now granted to me again. A few days since I should have thought the moon might have descended into my purse as likely as any emolument, and now it seems not impossible. All this has come to pass with such rapidity as events move with in romance indeed, but not often in real life. Events of all sorts creep or fly exactly as God pleases."

While Mr. Hayley was at Weston, he had persuaded Cowper and Mrs. Unwin to promise him a visit at Eartham, some time in the summer. Believing that it would greatly improve Mrs. Unwin's health, and be an agreeable relaxation to Cowper, after the anxiety of mind he had felt respecting his esteemed invalid. Mr. Hayley wrote several pressing invitations to induce them to come as early as possible. The following extracts will show the state of Cowper's mind respecting it. To Mr. Bull he writes, "We are on the eve of a journey, and a long one. On this very day se'nnight we set out for Eartham, the seat of my brother bard, Mr. Hayley, on the other side of London, nobody knows where, a hundred and twenty miles off. Pray for us, my friend, that we may have a safe going and return. It is a tremendous exploit, and I feel a thousand anxieties when I think of it. But a promise made to him when he was here, that we would go if we could, and a sort of persuasion that we can if we will, oblige us to it. The journey and the change of air, together with the novelty to us of the scene to which we are going, may, I hope, be useful to us both; especially to Mrs. Unwin, who has most need of restoratives."

To Mr. Newton he thus discloses his feelings on the subject. "You may imagine that we, who have been resident in one spot for so many years, do not engage in such an enterprise without some anxiety. Persons accustomed to travel would make themselves merry with mine; it seems so disproportioned to the occasion. Once I have been on the point of determining not to go, and even since we fixed the day, my troubles have been almost insupportable. But it has been made a matter of much prayer, and at last it has pleased God to satisfy me, in some measure, that his will corresponds with our purpose, and that he will afford us his protection. You, I know, will not be unmindful of us during our absence

from home; but will obtain for us, if your prayers can do it, all that we would ask for ourselves-the presence and favour of God, a salutary effect of our journey, and a safe return."

Anxious to enjoy the pleasure of Cowper's company at Eartham, Mr. Hayley, in his letters to the poet, urged him, by no means to defer his visit till late in the summer. From Cowper's replies we select the following interesting extracts. "The weather is sadly against my Mary's recovery; it deprives her of many a good turn in the orchard, and fifty times have I wished this very day, that Dr. Darwin's scheme of giving rudders and sails to the icelands, that spoil all our summers, were actually put into practice. So should we have gentle airs instead of churlish blasts, and those everlasting sources of bad weather, being once navigated into the southern hemisphere, my Mary would recover as fast again. We are both of your mind respecting the journey to Eartham, and think that July, if by that time she have strength for the journey, will be better than August. This, however, must be left to the Giver of all Good. If our visit to you be according to his will, he will smooth our way before us, and appoint the time of it; and I thus speak not because I wish to seem a saint in your eyes, but because my poor Mary actually is one, and would not set her foot over the threshold, unless she had, or thought she had, God's free permission. With that she would go through floods and fire, though without it she would be afraid of everything-afraid even to visit you, dearly as she loves, and much as she longs to see you."

In another letter to Mr. Hayley, he writes, "The progress of the old nurse in Terence is very much like the progress of my poor patient in the road to recovery. I cannot indeed say that she moves but advances not, for advances are certainly made, but the progress of a week is hardly perceptible. I know not, therefore, at present, what to say about this long postponed journey; the utmost that it is safe for me to say at this moment is this,-you know that you are dear to us both; true it is that you are so, and equally true, that the very instant we feel ourselves at liberty, we will fly to Eartham. You wish me to settle the time, and I wish with all my heart so to do; living in hopes, meanwhile, that I shall be able to do it soon. But some little time must necessarily intervene. Our Mary must be able to walk alone, to cut her own food, and to feed herself, and to wear her own shoes, for at present she wears mine. All these things considered, my friend and brother, you will see the expediency of waiting

a little before we set off to Eartham. We mean, indeed, before that day arrives, to make a trial of her strength; how far she may be able to bear the motion of a carriage, a motion that she has not felt these seven years. I grieve that we are thus circumstanced, and that we cannot gratify ourselves in a delightful and innocent project, without all these precautions; but when we have leaf-gold to handle, we must do it tenderly."

The day was at length fixed for this long-intended journey; and the following letter to Mr. Hayley, written a day or two previously, describes Cowper's feelings respecting it :—

"Through floods and flames to your retreat
I win my desp❜rate way,

And when we meet, if e'er we meet,
Will echo your huzza !”

"You will wonder at the word desperate in the second line, and at the if in the third; but could you have any conception of the fears that I have had to bustle with, of the dejection of spirits I have suffered concerning this journey, you would wonder much that I still courageously persevere in my resolution to undertake it. Fortunately for my intention, it happens that as the day approaches my terrors abate; for had they continued to be, what they were a week ago, I must, after all, have disappointed you; and was actually once, on the verge of doing it. I have told you something of my nocturnal experiences, and assure you now, that they were hardly ever more terrific than on this occasion. Prayer has, however, opened my passage at last, and obtained for me a degree of confidence, that I trust will prove a comfortable viaticum to me all the way. The terrors that I have spoken of, would appear ridiculous to most, but to you they will not, for you are a reasonable creature, and know well that to whatever cause it be owing, (whether to constitution or to God's express appointment) I am hunted by spiritual hounds in the night season. I cannot help it. You will pity me, and wish it were otherwise; and though you may think there is much of the imaginary in it, will not deem it, for that reason, an evil less to be lamented. So much for fears and distresses. Soon I hope they will all have a joyful termination, and I and my Mary be skipping with delight at Eartham."

The protracted indisposition of Mrs. Unwin, and the preparation which Cowper thought it necessary to make for his journey, had entirely diverted his mind from his literary un

dertaking. To Mr. Hayley, on this point, he thus writes:

As to

"I know not how you proceed in your Life of Milton, but I suppose not very rapidly, for while you were here, and since you left us, you have had no other theme but me. As for myself, except my letters, and the nuptial song I sent you in my last, I have literally done nothing, since I saw you. Nothing, I mean, in the writing way, though a great deal in another; that is to say, in attending my poor Mary, and endeavouring to nurse her up for a journey to Eartham. In this I have hitherto succeeded tolerably well, and I had rather carry this point completely than be the most famous editor of Milton the world has ever seen, or shall see. this affair, I know not what will become of it. I wrote to Johnson a week since to tell him, that the interruption of Mrs. Unwin's illness still continued, and being likely to continue, I knew not when I should be able to proceed. The translations I said were finished, except the revisal of a part. I hope, or rather wish, that at Eartham I may recover that habit of study, which, inveterate as it once seemed, I now seem to have lost-lost to such a degree, that it is even painful for me to think of what it will cost me to acquire it again."

About this time, at the request of a much esteemed relative, Cowper sat to Abbot, the painter, for his portrait; and the following playful manner in which he adverts to the circumstance, exhibits the peculiarity of his case, and shows, that though he was almost invariably suffering under the influence of deep depression, he frequently wrote to his correspondents, in a strain the most sprightly and cheerful :— "How do you imagine I have been occupied these last ten days? In sitting, not on cockatrice eggs, nor yet to gratify a mere idle humour, nor because I was too sick to move, but because my cousin Johnson has an aunt who has a longing desire of my picture, and because he would, therefore, bring a painter from London to draw it. For this purpose I have been sitting, as I say, these ten days; and am heartily glad that my sitting time is over. The likeness is so strong, that when my friends enter the room where the picture is, they start, astonished to see me where they know I am not."

"Abbot is painting me so true,

That (trust me) you would stare,
And hardly know, at the first view,
If I were here, or there."

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