You may judge how gaily we arrived. I fancy Solomon had just returned from a long party of pleasure on the sea of Tiberias, where one of his Mistresses had the hysterics, when he drew the pensive conclusion that 'all is vanity and vexation of spirit.' Adieu ! (Written from the Castle of Fort Augustus in 1778, to a Glasgow lady.) Mrs Amelia Opie (1769-1853) was born at Norwich, the only child of James Alderson, M.D., a Radical and Unitarian; in 1798 she married the painter John Opie, R.A. (1761-1807). While very young she had written songs and tragedies, but her first acknowledged work was the domestic and pathetic tale of The Father and Daughter (1801). To this story of ordinary life, which went through AMELIA OPIE. From the Portrait by John Opie, R.A., in the National Portrait Gallery. a dozen editions, she contrived to give deep interest by her genuine painting of nature and passion and her animated dialogue. Adeline Mowbray, or the Mother and Daughter (1804); Simple Tales (1806); Temper, or Domestic Scenes (1812); Tales of Real Life (1813); New Tales (1818); Tales of the Heart (1820); Madeline (1822), all show the same characteristics-the portraiture of domestic life with the express aim of regulating the heart and affections; Godwin's political and social theories occasionally intrude. Detraction Displayed was written to expose that 'most common of all vices, which is found in every class or rank in society, from the peer to the peasant, from the master to the valet, from the mistress to the maid, from the most learned to the most ignorant, from the man of genius to the meanest capacity.' Mrs Opie's tales were soon thrown into the shade by the greater force of Miss Edgeworth, the fascination of Scott, and the more masculine temper of our modern literature. Like Henry Mackenzie, Mrs Opie was too uniformly pathetic and tender. 'She has not succeeded,' said Jeffrey, 'in copying either the concentrated force of weighty and deliberate reason, or the severe and solemn dignity of majestic virtue. To make amends, however, she represents admirably everything that is amiable, generous, and gentle.' And she possessed power of exciting and harrowing the feelings in no ordinary degree; some of her short tales are full of gloomy and terrific painting, alternately resembling those of Godwin and Mrs Radcliffe. After the death of her husband in 1807, Mrs Opie resided chiefly in her native city of Norwich, but often visited London, where her company was courted by literary and fashionable circles. In 1825 she was formally admitted into the Society of Friends or Quakers, whose services she had attended for eleven years; but her liveliness of character was in no whit thereby diminished, or the singular happiness of her old age clouded. Miss Sedgwick, in her Letters from Abroad (1841), declared: 'I owed Mrs Opie a grudge for having made me in my youth cry my eyes out over her stories; but her fair, cheerful face forced me to forget it. She long ago forswore the world and its vanities, and adopted the Quaker faith and costume; but I fancied that her elaborate simplicity, and the fashionable little train to her pretty satin gown, indicated how much easier it is to adopt a theory than to change one's habits.' Miss Thackeray's Book of Sibyls gives a delightful picture of her. An interesting volume of Memorials from her letters, diaries, and other manuscripts, by Miss Brightwell, was published in 1854. Mrs Opie's best-known poem, long included in schoolbook selections, is The Orphan Boy's Tale. And hear a helpless orphan's tale; And my brave father's hope and joy; And I am now an orphan boy. And see the lighted windows flame! She could not bear to see my joy; And made me a poor orphan boy. My mother, shuddering, closed her ears; 'What is an orphan boy?' I cried, As in her face I looked, and smiled; 'You'll know too soon, ill-fated child!' You'll give me clothing, food, employ ! Your happy, happy, orphan boy! Mrs Hunter (1742-1821), the wife of the great physician John Hunter, was the daughter of Dr Home, an army surgeon; and Anne Home had become distinguished as a poetess years before her marriage. Her most famous song, My Mother bids me bind my Hair, was originally written to an air of Pleydell's, but owes its immortality largely to its having been set by Haydn to the tune everybody knows. Her other songs are mostly tender and natural, but hardly remarkable. Song. The season comes when first we met, But you return no more; Which time can ne'er restore? O days too sweet, too bright to last, The fleeting shadows of delight, In fancy stop their rapid flight, But, ah! I wake to endless woes And tears the fading visions close! Death-song written for an Original Indian Air. I go to the land where my father is gone, When hope lies dead within the heart, 'Tis hard to smile when one would weep; Yet such the lot by thousands cast Where disappointment cannot come; The weary wanderers home. Mrs Tighe (1772-1810), born Mary Blachford, was the daughter of a Wicklow clergyman, and married (unhappily) her cousin, who sat for Kilkenny in the Irish Parliament. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman, whose society was greatly prized. Of her poems, by far the most famous was a version, in melodious Spenserian stanzas, of the tale of Cupid and Psyche from the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Mackintosh said of the last three cantos that they were beyond all doubt the most faultless series of verses ever produced by a woman. Moore complimented her in song. Mrs Hemans wrote in her memory 'The Grave of a Poetess' and another elegy, and Keats seems to have been moved and even influenced by Psyche. which by 1853 had passed through half-a-dozen editions. Of less interest were her other poems, such as her moralisation on a lily, beginning— How withered, perished seems the form Of yon obscure unsightly root; From 'Psyche.' She rose, and all enchanted gazed On the rare beauties of the pleasant scene: The high-ranged columns own no mortal hand, And trees of matchless size a fragrant shade bestow. The sun looks glorious, 'mid a sky serene, As tranced in some bright vision, Psyche cries, When lo! a voice divinely sweet she hears, From unseen lips proceeds the heavenly sound; 'Psyche, approach, dismiss thy timid fears, At length his bride thy longing spouse has found, And bids for thee immortal joys abound; For thee the palace rose at his command, For thee his love a bridal banquet crowned; He bids attendant nymphs around thee stand, Prompt every wish to serve-a fond obedient band.' [pride, Increasing wonder filled her ravished soul, In splendid vista opening to her sight; That scarce the beams of heaven emit such lustre bright. The amethyst was there of violet hue, Or the mild eyes where amorous glances play; And there the gem which bears his luckless name Whose death, by Phoebus mourned, insured him deathless fame. There the green emerald, there cornelians glow Now through the hall melodious music stole, All that voluptuous ease could e'er supply When through the obscuring gloom she nought can spy, But softly rustling sounds declare some being nigh. Oh, you for whom I write! whose hearts can melt, At the soft thrilling voice whose power you prove, You know what charm, unutterably felt, Attends the unexpected voice of love : Above the lyre, the lute's soft notes above, With sweet enchantment to the soul it steals, And bears it to Elysium's happy grove; You best can tell the rapture Psyche feels, When love's ambrosial lip the vows of Hymen seals. "Tis he, 'tis my deliverer! deep imprest Upon my heart those sounds I well recall,' The blushing maid exclaimed, and on his breast But, ere the breezes of the morning call Aurora from her purple, humid bed, While sleep his downy wings had o'er her eyelids spread Helen Maria Williams (1762–1827), daughter of an officer, was brought up at Berwick, but in 1781 came to London with a versetale, Edwin and Eltruda, which attracted some notice and led to her producing a succession of poems (Ode to Peace; Peru, &c.; collected 1786). In 1788 she went to stay with her sister, the wife of Athanase Coquerel, Huguenot pastor in Paris, and became a fanatical supporter of revolution principles. A friend of Madame Roland, she was imprisoned by Robespierre, and was all but made a Girondist martyr. From 1794 till 1796 she was understood to be living under the protection of a Mr Stone, by whose side at Père-Lachaise she was buried; and was said to have at one time lived with that same Imlay who did not protect Mary Wollstonecraft. Yet she remained a devout Christian and wrote admirable hymns; though by Royalists in France and Tories in England, like the Anti-Jacobin set, she was treated as a disreputable person. Her long series of letters, narratives, sketches, and tours dealing with the state of France (1790-1815) are transparently sincere, but utterly and ignorantly one-sided, worth reading 'not as history but as a phase of opinion,' according to Professor Laughton, who pronounces her account of affairs at Naples in Nelson's time to be ‘distinctly false in every detail.' She translated Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels (1814), and spent most of her last years at Amsterdam with her nephew, the famous rationalist preacher, A. L. C. Coquerel. The best-known of her hymns are 'My God, all Nature owns Thy sway,' and 'While Thee I seek, protecting Power.' On her Perourou, or the Bellows-mender, Lord Lytton's Lady of Lyons was based. Her friend Anne Plumptre (1760-1818), daughter of the President of Queen's College, Cambridge, was also an enthusiastic revolutionist. She took a conspicuous part in naturalising German literature in England, by translating from Kotzebue, Musäus, &c., and by her own Letters from Germany. She wrote two or three novels and narratives of a sojourn in France and in Ireland. William Cowper, He retired to Huntingdon in order to be near Cambridge, where his brother was a Fellow, and there formed an intimacy with the family of the Rev. Morley Unwin. He was adopted as one of the family; became almost wholly devoted to spiritual interests; and when in 1767 Mr Unwin died, of a fall from his horse, he continued to live in the house of the widow, engaged mainly in religious exercises, reading, and correspondence. Mary Unwin's name will ever be associated with Cowper's. Death only could sever a tie so strongly knit-cemented by mutual faith and friendship, and by sorrows of which the world knew nothing. After the death of Mr Unwin the family were advised by the Rev. John Newton to fix their abode at Olney, in northern Buckinghamshire, where Mr Newton was curate; and Cowper removed with them to a spot for ever consecrated by his genius. He had still the river Ouse with him, as at Huntingdon, but the scenery was more varied and attractive, with many delightfully retired walks. His life was that of a religious recluse; he corresponded less regularly with his friends, and associated only with Mrs Unwin and the evangelical curate. Newton, who strove not always judiciously, it may be-to cheer the gentle invalid, engaged his help in writing the famous 'Olney Hymns,' Cowper's share includ 'the most popular poet of his generation, and the best of English letter-writers,' as Southey called him, belonged to the English aristocracy; his father was the son of one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, and a younger brother of the first Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor. The name is the same as Cooper, and by the family is so pronounced. Cowper's mother, Anne Donne, was also well born, and through her he claimed the famous Dean of St Paul's as an ancestor. His father, a chaplain to George II., was rector of Great Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, and there the poet was born, 26th (15th O.S.) November . 1731. In his sixth year he lost his mother-whom he tenderly and affectionately remembered his life long-and was sent to a boarding-school. There the tyranny of a schoolfellow terrorised the timid and home-sick boy, and led after two years to his removal. At Westminster, where Vincent Bourne, the Latin poet, was one of his masters, he had Churchill and Warren Hastings as schoolfellows, and, as he says, served a seven years' apprenticeship to the classics. At eighteen he was articled to an attorney, having the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow as fellow-clerk; and in 1754 was called to the Bar. He never made law aing sixty-seven. Cowper further aided Newton in study in the solicitor's office he and Thurlow were 'constantly employed from morning to night in giggling and making giggle;' in his chambers in the Temple he wrote lively verses, and idled with Bonnell Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, and other wits. He contributed a few papers to the Connoisseur and to the St James's Chronicle, both conducted by his friends; and in 1759 was appointed to a small sinecure as Commissioner of Bankrupts (worth £60 a year). Darker days were at hand. When he was in his thirty-second year, almost 'unprovided with an aim,' his kinsman, Major Cowper, presented him to the office of Clerk of the Journals to the House of Lords, a desirable and lucrative appointment. Cowper accepted it; but the labour of studying the forms of procedure, and the dread of having to stand an examination (though often a mere form) at the bar of the House of Lords, plunged him into the deepest misery. The seeds of insanity were then in his frame; and after brooding over imaginary terrors till reason and self-control had fled, he made several attempts to commit suicide. The appointment was given up, and Cowper was removed to the quaintly named 'Collegium Insanorum' at St Albans, kept by Dr Cotton (see page 532). The cloud of horror (from the conviction that he was eternally damned) gradually passed away, and on his recovery a few months later he resolved to withdraw entirely from the society and business of the world, and conscientiously resigned even his Commissionership. He had still a small fund left, and his family and friends subscribed a further sum to enable him to live frugally in retirement. parochial work, visiting the sick, and taking part in meetings; but his morbid melancholy gained ground, and in 1773 became once more decided insanity. When after about two years in this unhappy state Cowper began to recover, he took to gardening, rearing hares, sketching landscapes, and composing poetry. Poetry was fortunately his chief enjoyment; and its fruits appeared in a volume of poems published in 1782-poems on abstract subjects, the dialogue called Table Talk being added to enliven the tone. The sale was slow; but his friends were eager in praise of the book, which received the approbation of Johnson and Franklin. His correspondence had been resumed, and cheerfulness revived at Olney, whence Newton had now removed to a London rectory. This happy change was greatly promoted by the presence of Lady Austen, a widow who came to live near Olney, and by her conversation for a time charmed away the melancholy spirit. She told Cowper the story of John Gilpin, and the famous horseman and his feats were an inexhaustible source of merriment.' She it was also who prevailed upon the poet to try his powers in blank verse, and from her suggestion sprang the noble poem of The Task. This memorable friendship was at length disturbed; perhaps a shade of jealousy on the part of Mrs Unwin (to whom for a time he had been formally engaged, his mental condition alone having stood in the way of marriage) intervened; and before the Task was finished, its fair inspirer had finally (1783) left Olney. In 1785 the new volume was published. Its success was instant and decided, and it left its mark on the literary taste of the time. Eighteenth century readers were glad to hear the frank and spontaneous voice of poetry and of nature, and in the rural descriptions and fireside scenes of the Task they saw English scenery and domestic life faithfully and tenderly delineated. 'The Task,' said →Southey, 'was at once descriptive, moral, and satirical. The descriptive parts everywhere bore evidence of a thoughtful mind and a gentle spirit, as well as of an observant eye; and the moral sentiment which pervaded them gave a charm in which descriptive poetry is often found wanting. The best didactic poems, when compared with the Task, are like formal gardens in comparison with woodland scenery.' The blank verse has nothing of Milton's grandeur, indeed, but pos sesses a sweetness and serious power of its own-though Cowper's rhymed couplets are neater and more masterly than his blank verse. He next undertook a translation of Homer, having, after critical study in the Temple, formed a > poor opinion of Pope's translation. Setting himself to a daily task of in 1791 and 1794, the task of nursing her fell upon the sensitive and dejected poet. He had translated poems from the French of Madame de Guyon, from the Greek poets, from Milton's Latin and Italian verse, and from Vincent Bourne's Latin, and now a careful revision of his Homer and an engagement to edit a new edition of Milton were his last literary undertakings. The Homer he did revise, but without improving the first edition; the second task was never finished. A deepening WILLIAM COWPER. From the Portrait by George Romney in the National Portrait Gallery. gloom settled on his mind, with occasional bright intervals. A visit to his friend Hayley, at Eartham, gave him a lucid interval, and in 1794 a pension of £300 was granted to him from the Crown. He was induced, in 1795, to remove with Mrs Unwin to East Dereham in Norfolk, and there Mrs Unwin died in December 1796. Cowper heard of his old friend's death apparently without emotion. He lingered on for more than three years, still under the same dark shadow of religious despondency and terror, but occasionally writing, and listening attentively to works read to him forty lines, he at length accomplished the forty | by his friends. His last poem was The Castaway, thousand verses, and published by subscription, his friends being generously active in supporting the work, which appeared in 1791 in two volumes quarto. The modest translator's confident expectation that he had for ever superseded Pope has not been fulfilled; baldness has proved a worse fault than ornament. Meanwhile the now successful author and Mrs Unwin had removed to Weston-Underwood, a beautiful village about a mile from Olney. His fascinating cousin, Lady Hesketh, had cheered him and encouraged him in the Homeric labour; he had also formed a friendly intimacy with the Catholic family of the Throckmortons, to whom Weston belonged, and his circumstances were comparatively easy. Yet his malady returned upon him in 1787; and Mrs Unwin being rendered helpless by paralytic attacks in touching and beautiful verse, which showed no decay of poetical power; and death came to his release on the 25th of April 1800. So sad and strange a destiny has seldom befallen a man of genius. With wit and humour at will, he was nearly all his life weighed down by the deepest melancholy. Innocent, pious, and confiding, he lived in perpetual dread of everlasting punishment: he saw between him and heaven a high wall he could not scale; yet his intellectual vigour was not subdued by affliction. What he wrote for amusement or relief in the midst of 'supreme distress' shows no sign of mental disturbance; and in the very winter of his days, his fancy was often as fresh and blooming as in the spring and morning of existence. That he was constitutionally prone to melancholy and insanity |