—there are some twelve or fourteen in all-and found nothing that seemed worth quoting. They are like most of the love-poems of the last century—imitative, conventional, passionless, written from the head rather than the heart. A lock of hair is begged in one; in another a quarrel is spoken of, and happily as a thing that is past. And these trifles, poor Theodora, are all that remain of thy love! It is sad to think of. Thirteen years of melancholy, despair, and madness passed, and Cowper found a home at Huntingdon with the Unwins. The family consisted of the Rev. William Unwin, his wife Mary, and a son and daughter: "The most agreeable people imaginable," Cowper wrote to his friend, Joseph Hill, in 1765. They treat me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their house is always open to me. The old gentleman carries me to Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of learning and sense, and as simple as Parson Adams. His wife has a very uncommon understanding, has read much to excellent purpose, and is more polite than a duchess." In June, 1767, Mr. Unwin was killed by a fall from his horse. A few months later his widow removed to Olney, and Cowper accompanied her. The connection between the poet and this lady has frequently been commented upon by his biographers, who cannot quite make up their minds whether he loved her, or not. The relation was a subject of gossip at the time, some going so far as to say that he was married to her, which he flatly denied. It is said by one of his biographers that he intended to marry her, and repeatedly declared that if he entered into a church again, it would be for the purpose of making her his wife. Southey scouts the idea, and insists upon it that the relation was a friendly one, and nothing more. My own opinion is that Cowper loved Mrs. Unwin, or fancied that he did so, but was prevented from marrying her by the return of his madness, or her disinclination to enter again into the bonds of matrimony, or some other reason equally valid. But this is mere conjecture. It is enough for us to know that they were not married, and that the tie which bound them together, whatever it may have been, was an innocent and happy one. They were probably necessary to each other. At any rate, Mrs. Unwin was necessary to Cowper, especially in his hours of despondency and gloom. She watched him with the skill of a physician, and the tenderness of a mother, and it was to her that he owed some of the brightest years of his life. She incited him to write, suggesting to him the subjects of some of his most admired poems. During his nineteen years' residence at Olney with her, he dawned upon the world as a poet, by the publication of his first volume of poems, wrote "THE TASK," and translated the greater part of Homer. In November, 1786, they removed to Weston, where Mrs. Unwin was struck with paralysis, and where, in the autumn of 1793, Cowper wrote the poem which I have quoted. Hayley visited them at this place, and perceived the approach of the storm which finally wrecked the poet's intellect. 'There was something indescribable," he says, "in his appearance, which led me to apprehend that, without some signal event in his favour to reanimate his spirits, they would gradually sink into hopeless dejection. The state of his aged, infirm companion afforded additional ground for increasing solicitude. Her cheerful and beneficent spirit could hardly resist her own accumulated maladies, so far as to preserve ability sufficient to watch over the tender health of him, whom she had watched and guarded so long." In 1796, they removed to East Dereham, in Norfolk, where, on the 17th of December, Mrs. Unwin died, in the seventy-second year of her age. Cowper, who was in one of his fits of insanity, was aware that her dissolution was expected, and when the servant opened his window, on the morning of the day she died, he said to her, "Sally, is there life above stairs?" He visited her bedside that morning as usual, and returning to his room, desired his relative, Mr. Johnson, to read to him. The book was Miss Burney's "CAMILLA." Mr. Johnson read a few pages, when he was beckoned from the room, and informed that all was over. When he returned, Cowper did not ask why he had been called out, so he told him that Mrs. Unwin had breathed her last. It did not seem to move him, and the reading proceeded as before. A few hours later he said that he was sure she was not dead, but would come to life in the grave, and be suffocated on his account. As he seemed to wish to see her, Mr. Johnson led him into her chamber. At first he fancied that he saw her stir, but on looking more closely he saw that she was indeed dead, and flung himself to the other side of the room with a passionate burst of feeling. He soon grew calm, and when he had descended the stairs, asked for a glass of wine, and from that moment never mentioned her naine, nor spoke of her again. TO MARY. The twentieth year is well nigh past Ah, would that this might be the last! My Mary! Thy spirits have a fainter flow, I see thee daily weaker grow; 'Twas my distress that brought thee low, My Mary! Thy needles, once a shining store, For my sake restless heretofore, Now rust disused, and shine no more; My Mary! For though thou gladly wouldst fulfil The same kind office for me still, Thy sight now seconds not thy will, My Mary! But well thou play'dst the housewife's part, And all thy threads with magic art Have wound themselves about this heart, My Mary! Thy indistinct expressions seem Like language uttered in a dream; Thy silver locks, once auburn bright, For could I view nor them, nor thee, My Mary! Partakers of thy sad decline, Such feebleness of limbs thou provest, My Mary! And still to love, though pressed with ill, In wintry age to feel no chill, With me is to be lovely still, My Mary! But ah! by constant heed I know, Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe, My Mary! And should my future lot be cast Thy worn-out heart will break at last, My Mary! THOMAS CAMPBELL. 1777-1844. THE Caroline of this poem was the daughter of a clergyman of Inverary, whom Campbell met at Sunipol, in the Isle of Mull, in the summer of 1795. She was on a visit at the house of one of his relatives, with whom he was then lodging, and being about his own age, young, beautiful, and accomplished, he fell to admiring her, and writing verses in her praise. They spent the summer together pleasantly, and parted early in autumn, each with a memorial of their meeting, she with the manuscript of some of his poems, and he with her image in his fancy. They met again at Inverary in the following summer, but nothing came of it, except the second part of Campbell's poem, which was written at that time. He devoted himself to poetry, and she was shortly after married to a certain Thomas W. Esq., of Sterling. CAROLINE. PART I. I'll bid the hyacinth to blow, I'll teach my grotto green to be; The holly bower and myrtle tree. There all his wild-wood sweets to bring, The sweet South wind shall wander by, Delight my rustling canopy. Come to my close and clustering bower, Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower, With all thy rural echoes come, Sweet comrade of the rosy day, Wafting the wild bee's gentle hum, Where'er thy morning breath has played, Thou wandering wind of fairy-land. For sure from some enchanted isle, Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold, Where pure and happy spirits smile, Of beauty's fairest, brightest mould: From some green Eden of the deep, Where Pleasure's sigh alone is heaved, Where tears of rapture lovers weep, Endeared, undoubting, undeceived: From some sweet Paradise afar, Thy music wanders, distant, lost, Where Nature lights her leading star, And love is never, never crossed. O gentle gale of Eden bowers, If back thy rosy feet should roam, To revel with the cloudless Hours In Nature's more propitious home, Name to thy loved Elysian groves, That o'er enchanted spirits twine, A fairer form than Cherub loves, And let the name be Caroline. |