from the interesting employment by serious indisposition. It pleased God, for reasons inscrutable to us, and which it would be impious to arraign, to visit the afflicted poet, with a renewed attack of his former hypochondriacal complaint, more protracted, and not less violent, than the one he had before experienced. Just on the eve of the attack he composed the following sublime hymn –

"God moves in a mysterious way,

His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea,

And rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines

Of never failing skill

He treasures up his bright designs,
And works his sovereign will.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take!

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence

He hides a smiling face.

His purposes all ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;

The bud may have a bitter taste
But sweet will be the flower.

Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan His work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."

-Its consequences

CHAPTER VII.

Great severity of Cowper's mental depression — His presentiment of it Remarks upon its probable cause - Absurdity of attributing it, in any degree, to religion Mrs. Unwin's great attention to him - His aversion to the company of strangers Symptoms of his recovery- -Domesticates three leverets-Amusement they afforded him - Mr. Newton's removal from OlneyIntroduction of Mr. Bull to Cowper - His translation of Madame de la Guyon's poems, at Mr. Bull's request - Commences his original productions, at the suggestion of Mrs. Unwin - Renews his correspondence with Mr. and Mrs. Newton - Describes the state of his mind.

WE are again arrived at another of those melancholy periods of Cowper's life, over which it must be alike the duty of the biographer, and the wish of the reader, to cast a veil. Mental aberration, whoever may be the subject of it, excites the tenderest commiseration of all; but if there be a time when it may be contemplated with emotions more truly distressing than another, it is when it attacks those who are endowed with talents the most brilliant, with dispositions the most amiable, and with piety the most ardent and unobtrusive. Such was eminently the case in the present instance. To see a mind like Cowper's, enveloped in the thickest gloom of despondency, and for several years, in the prime of life, remaining in a state of complete inactivity and misery, must have been distressing in no ordinary degree.

A short time previous to the afflictive visitation, Cowper appears to have received some presentiment of its approach,

and during a solitary walk in the fields, as was hinted above, he composed that beautiful hymn in the Olney collection with which we closed our last chapter. On this occasion, acute as may have been his feelings, he must have experienced an unshaken confidence in God; for it is scarcely possible to read this admirable production, however dark and distressing the dispensations of Divine Providence towards us may be, without enjoying the same delightful emotions. About the same time, he composed the hymn, entitled Temptation,' the following lines from which will show how powerfully his mind was then exercised.

"The billows swell, the winds are high,
Clouds overcast my wintry sky;

Out of the depths to thee I call,

My fears are great, my strength is small.

O Lord, the pilot's part perform,

And guide and guard me through the storm;

Defend me from each threatening ill,
Controul the waves, say 'Peace, be still.'

Amidst the roaring of the sea,

My soul still hangs her hope on thee;

Thy constant love, thy faithful care,

Is all that saves me from despair."

He now relapsed into a state, very much resembling that, which had previously occasioned his removal to St. Alban's. This second attack occurred in 1773; he remained in the same painful and melancholy condition, without even a single alleviation of his sufferings, for the protracted period of five years; and it was five years more, before he wholly recovered the use of his admirable powers. His mind, which could formerly soar on the wings of faith and love, to the utmost limits of Christian knowledge and enjoyment, now sunk into the lowest depths of depression; and

here seemed as if it would remain immoveably fixed: rejecting, with deplorable firmness, every species of consolation that was attempted to be administered.

Various causes have been assigned, by different writers, for the melancholy aberration of mind of which Cowper was now, and at other seasons of his life, the subject; but none are so irreconcilable to every thing like just and legitimate reasoning, as the attempt to ascribe it to religion. That unjust views of the character of God, and of the nature of the gospel, may never have been the predisposing causes of great and severe mental depression, we are not disposed to deny; though we think this a case of very rare occurrence, and one in which the subject of it must be in a state of great ignorance respecting the fundamental truths of religion. Ought this, however, when it does happen, to be identified with religion, of which, at the best, it can only be regarded as a mere caricature? There was evidently, 'in the case of Cowper, nothing that bore the slightest resemblance to this. Making some allowances for expressions occasionally employed by him peculiar to the system which he had embraced, perhaps it will not be saying too much to affirm, that no individual ever entertained more scriptural views of the gospel dispensation, in all its parts, and of the perfections and attributes of its great Author, than this excellent man. The letters. he wrote to his correspondents, and the hymns he composed, prior to this second attack, prove unquestionably that his views of religion were at the remotest distance from what can be termed visionary or enthusiastic: on the contrary, they were perfectly scriptural and evangelical, and were consequently, infinitely more adapted to support, than to depress his mind.

The living poet whom we have before quoted, remarks: -“With regard to Cowper's malady, there scarcely needs

any other proof that it was not occasioned by his religion than this, that the error on which he stumbled was in direct contradiction to his creed. He believed that he had been predestinated to life, yet under his delusion imagined that God, who cannot lie, repent, or change, had, in his sole instance, and in one moment, reversed his own decree, which had been in force from all eternity. At the same time, by a perversion of the purest principles of Christian obedience, he was so submissive to what he erroneously supposed was the will of God, that, to have saved himself from the very destruction which he dreaded, he would not avail himself of any of the means of grace, even presuming they might have been efficacious, because he believed they were forbidden to him. Yet, in spite of the selfevident impossibility, of his faith, affecting a sound mind, with such a hallucination; though a mind previously diseased, might as readily fall into that as any other; in spite of chronology, his first aberration having taken place before he had tasted the good word of God;' in spite of geography, that calamity having befallen him in London, where he had no acquaintance with persons holding the reprobated doctrines of election and sovereign grace; and in spite of fact, utterly undeniable, that the only effectual consolations which he experienced under his first or subsequent attacks of depression, arose from the truths of the gospel; in spite of all these unanswerable confutations of the ignorant and malignant falsehood, the enemies of Christian truth persevere in repeating, that too much religion made poor Cowper mad.' If they be sincere, they are themselves under the strongest delusion; and it will be well, if it prove not, on their part, a wilful one-it will be well, if they have not reached that last perversity of human reason, to believe a falsehood of their own invention."