LETTER CXIX.

W. COWPER, Esq. to MAJOR COWPER.-A contented and happy mind.

MY DEAR MAJOR,

Huntingdon, Oct. 18, 1765. I have neither lost the use of my fingers nor my memory, though my unaccountable silence might incline you to suspect that I had lost both. The history of those things which have, from time to time, prevented my scribbling, would not only be insipid but extremely voluminous; for which reasons they will not make their appearance at present, nor probably at any time hereafter. If my neglecting to write to you were a proof that I had never thought of you, and that had been really the case, five shillings apiece would have been much too little to give for the sight of such a monster! but I am no such monster, nor do I perceive in myself the least tendency to such a transformation. You may recollect that I had but very uncomfortable expectations of the accommodation I should meet with at Huntingdon. How much better is it to take our lot, where it shall please Providence to cast it, without anxiety! Had I chosen for myself, it is impossible I could have fixed upon a place so agreeable to me in all respects. I so much dreaded the thought of having a new acquaintance to make, with no other recommendation than that of being a perfect stranger, that I heartily wished no creature here might take the least notice of me. Instead of

which, in about two months after my arrival, I became known to all the visitable people here, and do verily think it the most agreeable neighbourhood I

ever saw.

Here are three families who have received me with the utmost civility; and two in particular have treated me with as much cordiality, as if their pedigrees and mine had grown upon the same sheepskin. Besides these, there are three or four single men who suit my temper to a hair. The town is one of the neatest in England; the country is fine, for several miles about it; and the roads, which are all turnpike, and strike out four or five different ways, are perfectly good all the year round. I mention this latter circumstance chiefly because my distance from Cambridge has made a horseman of me at last, or at least is likely to do so. My brother and I meet every week, by an alternate reciprocation of intercourse, as Sam Johnson would express it; sometimes I get a lift in a neighbour's chaise, but generally ride. As to my own personal condition, I am much happier than the day is long; and sun-shine and candle-light see me perfectly contented. I get books in abundance, as much company as I choose, a deal of comfortable leisure, and enjoy better health, I think, than for many years past. What is there wanting to make me happy? Nothing, if I can but be as thankful as I ought; and I trust that He who has bestowed so many blessings upon me, will give me gratitude to crown them all. I beg you will give my love to my dear cousin Maria, and to every body at the park. If Mrs.

VOL. I.

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Maitland is with you, as I suspect by a passage in Lady Hesketh's letter to me, pray remember me to her very affectionately. And believe me, my dear friend, ever yours.

LETTER CXX.

REV. CLAUDIUS BUCHANAN to REV. JOHN NEWTON."The excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord."

1794.

Your aged domestics will wonder why I stay so long at Cambridge, when I have so much work to do in the ministry. I wish they could impart to me somewhat of their experience, self-knowledge, and humility; and in exchange I promise to give them on my return from college, all my mathematics, pure and mixed, geometry, algebra, fluxions, containing the nature of pneumatics, hydraulics, hydrostatics, the doctrine of incommensurables, indivisibles, and infinites, parabolic and hyperbolic logarithms, summation of series, solution of quadratics containing impossible roots, together with the properties of parallelopipeds and dodecahedrons, not forgetting Sir Isaac Newton, his celebrated corollaries to the paradoxical lemma respecting curvilinear straight lines! together with other particulars, too many to be here enumerated.

What a mercy, you will say, that Phoebe (1) has not to learn all this in order to get to heaven!

(1) Alluding to an old and highly-valued domestic of Mr. Newton.

I thank you for your dissertation on Cambridge learning. I hope I have passed the ordeal now, and that I shall be led to the study of those things by which I may be best able to promote the glory of God. I sigh for the sublime grace of self-denial. It is the preservative of the youthful Christian from snares innumerable.

LETTER CXXI.

MISS H. MORE to a FRIEND.-The transforming power and divine support of Christianity. Account of the death-bed of Miss H

1792.

I cannot forbear remarking to you and Mrs. what has lately so forcibly struck myself, I mean the transforming power of the Christian religion.

Miss H, shy, reserved, cold, and so hesitating in her natural manner, that few ever discovered, what a great intimacy enabled me to discover, a most accomplished mind, hid behind a thick veil of humility,-acquired in the near views of death and eternity, a sort of righteous courage, an animated manner, and a ready eloquence, which were all used as means for awakening and striking others. This extraordinary change was manifested in various ways during the eighteen days in which she was given over, but shone out with complete lustre the last night of her life.

It may be more profitable to consider the behaviour exhibited in her last hours, as the structure

of her mind particularly exempted her from the charge of enthusiasm. There was little ardour in her temper: her affections were rather languid; and there was not an atom of fever in her complaint; so that her head was never more clear, nor her judgment more sound. When I expressed my concern that her sufferings were prolonged, she said she saw clearly the wisdom of that dispensation; for that if she had been taken away in the beginning of her illness, she should have wanted much of that purification she now felt, and of those clear and strong views which now supported her. She once observed, that it was a strange situation to be an inhabitant of no world; for that she had done with this, and was not yet permitted to enter upon a better. In the night on which she died, she called us all about her, and with an energy and spirit quite unlike herself, she cried out with an animated tone,-"Be witnesses, all of you, that I bear my dying testimony to my Christian profession. I am divinely supported, and have almost a foretaste of heaven. Oh! this is not pain but pleasure!" After this, she sunk into so profound a calm, that we thought her insensible. We were mistaken, however; for she had still speech enough to finish every favourite text I began: and, to show how clear her intellects still were, when I mis-quoted, she set me right, though with a voice now scarcely intelligible. To perfect her faith, and to exercise ours, it pleased her heavenly Father to try her after this with one hour of suffering, as exquisite as ever human nature sustained; and I