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present, to abstain. In reality, I have no need, at least I believe not, of any such caution. Those jarrings which made my skull feel like a broken egg-shell, and those twirls which I spoke of, have been removed by an infusion of bark." In another letter, he thus playfully speaks of his diseased sensations: "1 have a perpetual din in my nead, and though I am not deaf, hear nothing aright; neither my own voice, nor that of others. I am under a tub, from which tub, accept my best love. Yours,

W. C."

But in the letter with which he renewed his correspondence with Mr. Newton, he still speaks of gloom and de.pair, and of" the storms of which even the remembrance, makes hope impossible." The same letter also exhibits & peculiar and distinct feature in this most remarkable case of insanity. "My dear friend," he begins, "after a long but necessary interruption of our correspondence, I return to it again, in one respect at least, better qualified for it than before; I mean by a belief in your identity, which for thirteen years I did not believe."

Cowper now resumed his translation, which he pursued Curing the next four years, with little interruption. In the circumstances of his life at this time, there was much to cheer him. His abode was comfortable, his employment satisfactory, his reputation established and increasing, he had renewed his correspondence with his relatives, and some of the companions of his early life, by whom he was occasionally visited; and Lady Hesketh's annual visits, and the society of the Throckmortons, which, notwithstanding Mr. Newton's censure, he and Mrs. Unwin still continued to enjoy, afforded him the relaxation of happy social intercourse. An incident, too, which with its attendant circumstances, added much to Cowper's happiness during the latter portion of this interval, was the receipt of his mother's picture. "It was his lot," te

quote Southey's Narrative, "happy indeed in tais respect, to form new friendships as he advanced in years, instead of having to mourn for the dissolution of old ones by death. During seven-and-twenty years he had held no intercourse with his maternal relations, and knew not whether they were living or dead; the malady which made him withdraw from the world seems, in its milder consequences, to have withheld him from making any inquiry concerning them; and from their knowledge he had entirely disappeared till he became known to the public. One of a younger generation was the first to seek him out. This was Mr. John Johnson, grandson of his mother's brother. During his visit he observed with what affection Cowper spoke of his mother; the only portrait of her was in possession of her niece, Mrs. Bodham, who had been a favourite cousin of Cowper's in her childhood; and upon young Johnson's report of his visit, on his return home, this picture was sent to Weston as a present, with letter from his kinswoman, written in the fulness of her neart. It was replied to with kindred feeling, thus:-'_

....

"My dear 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 acceptable to me as the picture you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed 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 ne last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am occular 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 in me, I believe, 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 muca to resemble my mother; and in my natural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I must be supposed to be 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 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 this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the Dean of St. Pauls's, and I think I have proved myself a Donne at all points. The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all. I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham for his kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you all, and Mrs. Unwin's kind respects, am

My dear, dear Rose, ever yours,

W. C."

About this time, the laureateship became vacant by the death of Warton; Cowper was always ready at occasional verses; and his friends were desirous to procure the offic for him; but he declined their services in this matter,. the following letter to Lady Hesketh

MY DEAREST Coz,

The Lodge, May 28th, 1790.

I thank thee for the offer of thy best services on this Dccasion. But Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever wreath beside may hereafter adorn them! It would be a leaden extinguisher clapped on all the fire of my genius, and I would never more produce a line worth reading. To speak seriously, it would make me miserable, and therefore I am sure that thou, cf all my friends, would least wish me to wear it.

Adie, ever thine-in Homer-hurry.

W. C.

In the summer of 1791, his Homer was published, and nough it does not now hold that rank among the translated classics, which he and his friends expected it would establish for itself, it was, at the time, well received, its merita as a faithful version were allowed; and on settling with his bookseller, Cowper expressed himself satisfied with the pecuniary result of his labor. "Few of my concerns," said he, "have been so happily concluded."

In the following August, (1792,) Cowper made a threedays' journey into Sussex, to visit, at Eartham, his friend Haley, the poet, who had sought and made his acquaintance the previous year. He was so unaccustomed to travel that the journey was undertaken only at the earnest entreaty of his friend, and not without many misgivings. "I laugh," he writes Haley, a few days before he set out, "to think what stuff these solicitudes are made of, and what an important thing it is for me to travel, while other men steal from their homes, and make no disturbance." Again:-"Fortunately for my intentions, as the day approaches, my terrors abate, for had they continued what they were a week since, I must, after all, have disappointed you." At Farthan Cowper met Hulis, Charlotte

Smith, the novelist, and Romney; to the latter of whom he sat for his portrait. During the first part of the six weeks, which he spent with Haley and his friends, their society had a beneficial effect on his spirits; but at last, he be gan to be somewhat dejected, and evidently longed for the repose and seclusion of Weston. New scenes and strange objects, he complained, dissipated his powers of thinking, and composition, and even letter-writing became irksome to him. "I am, in truth," he writes, "so unaccountably local in the use of the pen, that, like the man in the fable, who could only leap well at Rhodes, I seem incapable of writing at all, except at Weston. It has an air of snug concealment, in which a disposition like mine is peculiarly gratified." On his way home, he passed but a single night, and that a gloomy one,-in London, which he had not visited since he left it, a madman, in 1763. This was the only long journey that Cowper ever made. The year previous he wrote Hurdis, "I have not been thirteen miles from home these twenty years, and so far but seldom."

The translation of Homer, which occupied him nearly six years, was the last literary undertaking of importance which Cowper lived to finish. At the suggestion of a friend, he commenced a poem on the Four Ages, of which, he at first, had high hopes, but he was unable to make much progress in it. Previously to his engagement with Homer, he had commenced an original work with a similar result. His Task and other poems had been written with ease and ra pidity; but "the mind," he remarked, in reference to this subject, "is not a fountain, but a cistern." The facts, observations, and impressions, which had been accumu lating in his mind, during the somewhat long period of his life, before he commenced author, had gradually become, as it were, crystalized into thoughts and images of beauti ful clearness and precision; and to polish these ard arrange

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