have received a visit likewise from Mr. He is very much a gentleman, well-read and sensible. I am persuaded, in short, that if I had the choice of all England, where to fix my abode, I could not have chosen better for myself, and most likely I should not have chosen so well." "As to my own personal condition," he says, "I am much happier than the day is long, and sunshine and candle-light alike see me perfectly contented. I get books in abundance, 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 " Cowper had not at this time so fixed himself in retirement as to give up all thought of visiting his friends. He says to Lady Hesketh", "You cannot think how glad I am to hear you are going to commence lady and mistress of Freemantle. I know it well, and could go to it from Southampton blindfold. You are kind to invite me to it, and I shall be so kind to myself as to accept the invitation; though I should not for a slight consideration be prevailed upon to quit my beloved retirement at Huntingdon." Some change in Lady Hesketh's plans frustrated this intention, which might otherwise have been frustrated by a change in his own. By the time he had spent three months in his lodgings, he had "contrived, by the help of good management and a clear notion of economical affairs, to spend the income of a twelvemonth." One day he found himself "in a state of desertion." In his own words, "the communion I had been so long enabled to maintain with the Lord, was suddenly interrupted. I began to dislike my solitary situation, and to fear I should never be able to weather out the winter in so lonely a dwelling 28" The excitement consequent upon such a recovery as his, was beginning to fail in solitude; and he felt the want of intellectual occupation and of domestic society, both which were essential for his happiness. Fortunately he had then made acquaintance "with the race of the Unwins, consisting," as he says to Lady Hesketh" "of father and mother, and, son and daughter, the most comfortable social folks you ever knew. The son is about twenty 26 To Major Cowper, Oct. 18, 1761. 27 Sept. 4, 1769. 29 Sept. 14, 1763. one years of age; one of the most unreserved and amiable young men I ever conversed with. He is not yet arrived at that time of life when suspicion recommends itself to us in the form of wisdom, and sets every thing but our own dear selves at an immeasurable distance from our esteem and confidence. Consequently he is known almost as soon as seen; and having nothing in his heart that makes it necessary for him to keep it barred and bolted, opens it to the general view of a stranger. The father is a clergyman, and the son is designed for orders. The design, however, is quite his own, proceeding merely from his being, and having always been, sincere in his belief and love of the gospel." The son, William Cawthorne Unwin, had been pleased with Cowper's countenance, whose appearance and deportment indeed were likely to form a frequent topic of discourse at the tea-tables in Huntingdon. The young man had a strong inclination to call on him; the father dissuaded him from this, because it was said that the stranger rather declined society than sought it. One day, however, as they came out of church after the morning prayers, Unwin, seeing him take a solitary walk under a row of trees, accosted and joined him there, and finding that his advances were received to his wish, engaged himself to drink tea with him that afternoon. "To my inexpressible joy," says Cowper, in his Memoir, "I found him one whose notions of religion were spiritual and lively; one whom the Lord had been training from his infancy to the service of the Temple. We opened our hearts to each other at the first interview; and when we parted I immediately retired to my chamber, and prayed the Lord, who had been the author, to be the guardian, of our friendship; to give it fervency and perpetuity even unto death; and I doubt not that my gracious Father has heard this prayer also." Morley Unwin, the father of the young man, was at this time far advanced in years. He had been master of the free school, and lecturer to the two churches in Huntingdon, before he obtained a college living; and while in expectation of one, formed an engagement with a lady much younger than himself, Mary Cawthorne by name, the daughter of a draper in Ely; she was a person of lively talents with a sweet serene countenance and she was remarkably fond of reading. Upon succeeding to the living of Grimstone, in Norfolk, he married and took up his abode there; but Mrs. Unwin liked neither the situation nor the society of that sequestered place; and she prevailed on him to return to Huntingdon, where he was known and respected. Accordingly he took a large convenient house in the High Street there, and prepared a few pupils for the University. His only children were a son and daughter. Hayley remembered having noticed them at Cambridge in the year 1763, as a youth and damsel of countenances uncommonly pleasing. On the Sunday, after the first interview with the son, Cowper dined with the family, and had much discourse with Mrs. Unwin. He says, in his Memoir, "I am not at liberty to describe the pleasure I had in conversing with her, because she will be one of the first who will have the perusal of this narrative; let it suffice to say, we had one faith, and had been baptized with the same baptism. When I returned to my lodging, I gave thanks to God, who had so graciously answered my prayers, by bringing me into the society of Christians." The family into which Cowper was soon to be adopted, he thus described to Lady Hesketh30: "they are indeed a nice set of folks, and suit me exactly. I should have been more particular in my account of Miss Unwin, if I had had materials for a minute description. She is about eighteen years of age, rather handsome and genteel. In her mother's company she says little; not because her mother requires it of her, but because she seems glad of that excuse for not talking, being somewhat inclined to bashfulness. There is the most remarkable cordiality between all the parts of the family; and the mother and daughter seem to dote upon each other. The first time I went to the house, I was introduced to the daughter alone; and sat with her near half an hour before her brother came in, who had appointed me to call upon him. Talking is necessary in a tête-à-tête, to distinguish the persons of the drama from the chairs they sit on accordingly she talked a great deal, and exceedingly well; and, like the rest of the family, behaved with as much ease and address as if we had been old acquaintance. She resembles her mother in her great piety, who is one of the most remarkable instances of it I have ever seen. They are altogether the cheerfulest and most engaging family-piece it is possible to conceive.-Since I 30 Oct. 18, 1765. wrote the above, I met Mrs. Unwin in the street, and went home with her. She and I walked together, near two hours, in the garden, and had a conversation which did me more good than I should have received from an audience of the first prince in Europe. That woman is a blessing to me, and I never see her without being the better for her company. I am treated in the family as if I was a near relation, and have been repeatedly invited to call upon them at all times. You know what a shy fellow I am; I cannot prevail with myself to make so much use of this privilege as I am sure they intend I should; but perhaps this awkwardness will wear off hereafter. It was my earnest request, before I left St. Alban's, that wherever it might please Providence to dispose of me, I might meet with such an acquaintance as I find in Mrs. Unwin. How happy it is to believe with a stedfast assurance, that our petitions are heard, even while we are making them;—and how delightful to meet with a proof of it, in the effectual and actual grant of them! Surely it is a gracious finishing given to those means which the Almighty has been pleased to make use of for my conversion. After having been deservedly rendered unfit for any society, to be again qualified for it, and admitted at once into the fellowship of those whom God regards as the excellent of the earth, and whom, in the emphatical language of Scripture, he preserves as the apple of his eye, is a blessing, which carries with it the stamp and visible superscription of divine bounty;—a grace unlimited as undeserved; and, like its glorious Author, free in its course and blessed in its operation." The different tone in which he describes these new friends to Hill is remarkable, though the same regard and liking for them are expressed 31. "I have added another family to the number of those I was acquainted with, when you were here. Their name is Unwin-the most agreeable people imaginable; quite sociable, and as free from the ceremonious civility of country gentlefolks as any I ever met with. 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 good sense, and as simple as parson Adams. His wife has a very uncommon understanding, has read much, to excellent purpose, and 31 Oct. 25, 1765. is more polite than a duchess. The son, who belongs to Cambridge, is a most amiable young man, and the daughter quite of a piece with the rest of the family. They see but little company, which suits me exactly; go when I will I find a house full of peace and cordiality in all its parts, and am sure to hear no scandal, but such discourse, instead of it, as we are all better for. You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning; such are the mornings I spend with these good people; and the evenings differ from them in nothing, except that they are still more snug, and quieter. Now I know them, I wonder that I liked Huntingdon so well before I knew them, and am apt to think I should find every place disagreeable, that had not an Unwin belonging to it. "This incident convinces me of the truth of an observation I have often made, that when we circumscribe our estimate of all that is clever within the limits of our own acquaintance (which I at least have always been apt to do) we are guilty of very uncharitable censure upon the rest of the world, and of a narrowness of thinking disgraceful to ourselves. Wapping and Redriff may contain some of the most amiable persons living, and such as one would go to Wapping and Redriff to make acquaintance with." وو When Cowper was "revolving in his mind the nature of his situation, and beginning for the first time to find an irksomeness in such retirement, a thought suddenly struck him; he should not fear, he says, to call it a suggestion of the good providence of God which had brought him to Huntingdon. Suddenly it occurred to me, that I might probably find a place in Mr. Unwin's family as a boarder. A young gentleman, who had lived with him as a pupil, was the day before gone to Cambridge. It appeared to me, at least, possible, that I might be allowed to succeed him. From the moment this thought struck me, such a tumult of anxious solicitude seized me, that for two or three days I could not divert my mind to any other subject. I blamed and condemned myself for want of submission to the Lord's will; but still the language of my mutinous and disobedient heart was, 'Give me the blessing, or else I die!' "About the third evening after I had determined upon this measure, I, at length, made shift to fasten my thoughts upon a theme which had no manner of connexion with it. While I |