qualified for the only offices from which he could expect either emolument or subsistence. With some twinges of remorse, too, were doubtless blending the sighs of a hopeless affection. But the great difficulty was, how to rid himself of the meagre fiend—Want—which was beginning to stare him in the face. At this time, while talking one day on his affairs with a friend, he expressed his hope that the clerk of the House of Lords should die, that, through Major Cowper, his kinsman, who had the place at his disposal, he might obtain it. This, he afterwards in deep contrition said, was "spoken in the spirit of a murderer." Alas! if this be so, who is blameless? What man that lives has not a thousand times, in levity, or in momentary anger, uttered similar expressions-nay, entertained similar desires? And is not, if the law be carried out to its rigour, "every one that hateth his brother a murderer?" Surely, surely Cowper was here applying too sternly a test, which, in condemning him, would condemn all men, and which would, moreover, confound the guilt of the idle WISH with that of the determined purpose, the secret influence, or the overt act.

At all events, his wish was fulfilled. In what De Quincey would call a "spirit of accommodation," such as he tells us produced so many windfalls of good fortune to Wordsworth, the clerk of the journals dropped off, and two other officials— the reading clerk and the clerk of the committees-resigned, and thus any one out of three situations, all valuable, fell within the reach of Cowper. Major Cowper immediately called on him and offered him two of the most profitable places, reserving the other for Mr Arnold. The kind promptitude of his relative touched the heart of the poet, who was besides dazzled at the splendid prospect opened so providentially up to him. He accepted the offer eagerly, but that moment felt, he says, a dagger planted in his heart." He went home in deep dejection; and, fancying himself unfit for the duties of the office, he wrote to his friend, and proposed resigning the more lucrative offices in favour of Mr Arnold, and succeeding him as clerk of the journals, a much easier post. This was at once arranged, and he became, for the moment, contented and calm. But an opposition arising to his friend's right of

presentation, and a powerful party in the Lords insisting that the new clerk to the journals should be examined at the bar of the house, Cowper was seized with a fit of incontrollable terror. In vain did he try to qualify himself for the examination by attending daily at the office, and studying the journals. He was seized with a nervous fever, and, when partially recovered, fled to Margate. There air and exercise restored him; but as soon as he came back to town, his malady returned in tenfold force. We cannot dwell on the melancholy history that follows, which, even in the graceful language of his own narrative, is absolutely appalling. Suffice it to say that he at one time cursed and blasphemed his Maker; at another, like Manfred, "prayed for madness as a blessing," and repeatedly attempted self-murder. Every one remembers how, in one of these frightful attempts, he was saved through the breaking of a garter, by which he had strung himself to his own bed. At last he obtained transient relief by resigning the situation. But his system and soul were thoroughly unhinged. His days continued to be days of darkness; his nights, nights of despair. Satan, he imagined, had become a constant inmate of his soul, and was tormenting him before the time,—now in his waking hours by horrible suggestions, and now in sleep by the dark machinery of dreams. He felt oppressed under a constant sense of God's wrath; his sins seemed all arranged before him like the open mouths of lions ready to devour him up. There was a "dreadful sound in his ears," a dull dead pressure on his brain, and a perpetual flashing as of fire before his eyes. He heard the flaming sword of Eden turning audibly over his head, a sound mingled with the distant moaning of the waves of hell. In vain he sought relief from books; every page he opened seemed bordered by the blackness of darkness, and in vain he sought aid from his kind brother John, who, when he came at his call, found him crying out, "O brother, I am damned!" He sent for Martin Madan, his friend, the chaplain of the Lock Hospital, who ministered him some consolation by pointing to the peace-speaking blood of Christ. At last his intellect, which had hitherto remained quite entire, reeled and wavered. He lost consciousness of everything, except a vague sense of

sin, such as oft oppresses men in dreams, and a "certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation." He was now veritably insane, and it was thought expedient to remove him to a private asylum, kept by Dr Cotton, at St Albans.

Cowper has declined to discover the "secrets of his prisonhouse." He tells us only that the differentia of his madness lay in an infinite self-loathing and abhorrence. He thought himself lost, and justly lost, because he was the most execrable monster that ever polluted humanity! The Bible he threw away as a book in which he had no longer any interest or portion. But Dr Cotton was exceedingly kind, as Cowper has so beautifully acknowledged in one of his poems, and gradually he became somewhat calmer. At this juncture, his brother, who was a fellow of Bene't College, Cambridge, visited him. They walked out to the garden. John laboured to convince him that his expectation of sudden judgment was a delusion. He burst into tears, and said, "If it be a delusion, then am I the happiest of human beings." He dated his recovery from that moment. He re-opened his Bible. He saw once more the benignant face of his Saviour,-of Him who so often in the days of his flesh had compassion on the "lunatics and the sore vexed;" the doctrine of Christ as the Propitiation broke on him like the morning; he wept like a child for very gladness; the cloud was fairly burst, and he came out of it, not a "sadder," but certainly a "wiser" and a humbler man, and was now to be seen clothed and in his right mind, sitting at the feet of Jesus. Although perfectly restored, he continued for a whole additional year at St Albans, enjoying friendly and Christian communion with the amiable, talented, and pious man who had been one important agent in his cure.

He had now made up his mind to forsake the world, and, especially, never to enter London - a city with which so many dark associations were connected. Wordsworth, in his "Ruth," speaking of the rocks and scenery which, by nursing a romantic and ill-regulated sensibility, had wrought her ruin, adds

"She never charged them with the wrongs

That they had done to her."

For why? because they were the mere passive instruments

in producing her misery. But Cowper felt that the corrupted and corrupting influence of London society had actively and, in some measure, wittingly destroyed him. He resolved, therefore, not only on instant flight, but on measures of reprisal against that "great Babel," at the very first opportunity. He left with the feeling of Lot leaving Sodom, and he kept his twofold resolution,—he never again saw, though he often shot his vengeful shafts at, its haughty towers, "crowned with darkness. London gave itself no concern at his retreat. He had as yet made no name, and not one of its public journals or public men cried "stole away" to this wounded hare, or cared to track, by the spilt blood-drops, the "stricken deer that left the herd."

He fixed his abode in Huntingtown, where he lived a quiet retired life in lodgings;—walked much, bathed often, resumed his attendance on church, corresponded with Lady Hesketh and with Hill, lived partly on supplies from his relations, partly on the rent of his lodgings in the Temple, which were let, admired the blue willows of the Ouse, and-important event in his history-became acquainted with the family of the Unwins. William Cawthorne Unwin, a Cambridge student, and son of Morley Unwin (who had been a clergyman in Grimstone, but had been persuaded by his wife, Mary Cawthorne, to take a house in Huntingtown, and prepare a few pupils for the university), had often met Cowper in his walks, and been struck with the mild melancholy of his aspect, and with the traces of genius which were engraven on his face. After long desiring and delaying to accost him, he at last, one Sunday afternoon, on the way from morning service, under a row of trees, mustered courage to do so. They became instantly intimate; Cowper was introduced to the family, formed speedily an affection, pure as heaven, long as life, and strong as death, to Mary Cawthorne Unwin, and in November 11, 1765, became domesticated in their house. It was, on the whole, the most fortunate circumstance in his history. They were all amiable, gentle, intelligent, and Christian people; their religious opinions, domestic habits, and intellectual tastes, were identical; and this "pre-established harmony" between them was never disturbed till the close. At this time, some of his

relatives began to tire of, and withdraw, their contributions to his support, and it was then that Theodora Cowper stept in, through an anonymous communication, and nobly offered to supply any deficiency in his funds; proving thus that many waters had not quenched her love, neither had the floods, and such floods! drowned it.

His life in Huntingtown continued of the same even equable tenor, till interrupted by the death of the elder Unwin, who was killed by a fall from a horse. This led to the removal to the neighbouring village of Olney of the whole family, including the poet. Olney had no particular attractions, in point of scenery; it was simply a dull, disagreeable English village, surrounded by tame marshy scenery; without a real hill to diversify the sameness, or even one nook of romantic interest to beautify the surrounding district. The sole magnet, leading this accomplished family to it, lay in that remarkable man, then its vicar, John Newton. He was certainly a singular person, —almost a John Bunyan in his blended romance and commonplace, in his combination of genius and shrewd sagacity of mind, in the intense imagination which influenced his perceptions, and in the picturesque simplicity of his style, not to speak of the kindred struggles and misadventures through which both had attained peace. His "Narrative" is quite a novel in interest, as well as a psychological curiosity. those conversational remarks of his, preserved by Cecil, are very fresh and sagacious in thinking, and very pointed and poignant in style. He visited the Unwins after the death of Morley, and proposed that they and their friend should remove to Olney. He engaged a house for them so near his own vicarage, that by opening a doorway in the garden wall, they were able to communicate together without going out into the street of the village.

And

For two or three years nothing worth recording took place in our poet's life, unless it were the removal of John Cowper by a rapid illness, which, of course, deeply affected his brother. He wrote a sketch of his history and character, under the title of "Adelphi," which was published after he too had departed. His own life became still more recluse. He dropped correspondence both with Lady Hesketh, and nearly with Hill, and