suppose David might feel when the Lord smote Uzza for touching the Ark. He was displeased; and I have found my spirit rising against what He sees fit to permit. But if He brings them through fire and water safe to his kingdom, whatever they may suffer by the way, they are less to be pitied than the mad people of the world, who think themselves in their senses, and take occasion to scoff at the Gospel, as if it was only fit to drive people out of their senses. Perhaps the Lord permits these things, in judgement, that they who seek occasion for stumbling and cavilling may have what they want. I trust there is nothing in my preaching that tends to cast those down who ought to be comforted."

CHAPTER IX.

COWPER AT OLNEY. FIRST VOLUME OF HIS POEMS. LADY AUSTEN.

HITHERTO Cowper had had no other society at Olney than that of Mr. Newton's visitants, and his occasional inmates,chiefly young men from the university, who had determined upon taking what is called the evangelical line, and therefore placed themselves under him to finish their education. Next to the duties of his ministry, Mr. Newton had made it the business of his life to attend his afflicted friend'; and now before his departure, prevailing over the strong reluctance which Cowper still felt at seeing a stranger, he introduced to him the Reverend William Bull, a dissenting minister, who was settled in the adjacent town of Newport Pagnell. Feelings of compassion induced Mr. Bull to consider it as "a duty to visit him once a fortnight";" he soon became attached to Cowper, and by his own amiable disposition, congenial taste, and cultivated understanding, gradually gained his cordial and confidential

esteem.

The removal of one with whom he had lived twelve years in habits of daily intercourse, and of the most unreserved intimacy, was severely felt by Cowper. In a letter to Mrs. Newton3, he says, "The vicarage-house became a melancholy object, as

1 Dr. Johnson's Sketch of the Life of Cowper. They are Mr. Newton's own words, in a letter to Dr. Johnson, after Cowper's death.

2 Hayley, vol. i. p. 120.

3 March 4, 1780.

soon as Mr. Newton had left it; when you left it, it became more melancholy: now it is actually occupied by another family, I cannot even look at it without being shocked. As I walked in the garden this evening I saw the smoke issue from the study chimney, and said to myself, That used to be a sign that Mr. Newton was there; but it is so no longer. The walls of the house know nothing of the change that has taken place; the bolt of the chamber-door sounds just as it used to do; and when Mr. P goes upstairs, for aught I know, or ever shall know, the fall of his foot could hardly, perhaps, be distinguished from that of Mr. Newton. But Mr. Newton's foot will never be heard upon that staircase again. These reflections, and such as these, occurred to me upon the occasion; * * * * * If I were in a condition to leave Olney too, I certainly would not stay in it. It is no attachment to the place that binds me here, but an unfitness for every other. I lived in it once, but now I am buried in it, and have no business with the world on the outside of my sepulchre; my appearance would startle them, and theirs would be shocking to me.

"Such are my thoughts about the matter. Others are more deeply affected, and by more weighty considerations, having been many years the objects of a ministry which they had reason to account themselves happy in the possession of."

Some time before this separation, Cowper had been rendered somewhat uneasy concerning his circumstances, a letter from Mr. Hill having given him reason to apprehend some defalcation in his scanty means. "I shall be glad," he says in his reply, "if you will let me know whether I am to understand by the sorrow you express, that any part of my former supplies is actually cut off, or whether they are only more tardy in coming in, than usual. It is useful even to the rich, to know, as nearly as may be, the exact amount of their income; but how much more so to a man of my small dimensions. If the former should be the case, I shall have less reason to be surprised, than I have to wonder at the continuance of them so long. Favours are favours indeed, when laid out upon so barren a soil, where the expense of sowing is never accompanied by the smallest hope of return. What pain there is in gratitude, I have often felt; but the pleasure of requiting an obligation has always been out of my reach.”

4 January 1, 1778.

A few months afterwards he was informed of Sir Thomas Hesketh's death. "Poor Sir Thomas," he says, "I knew that I had a place in his affections, and from his own information, many years ago, a place in his will; but little thought that after the lapse of so many years I should still retain it. His remembrance of me, after so long a season of separation, has done me much honour, and leaves me the more reason to regret his decease 5." The death of Sir Thomas proved, in its eventual consequences, of the greatest importance to Cowper; but at the time, the elevation of his old associate Thurlow to the chancellorship appeared of much more to some of his sanguine friends, who measured the attachment of others towards him by their own. Mr. Unwin, with whom about this time he began to correspond, frequently advised him to recall himself to the recollection of one in whose power it now was to relieve him from all anxieties concerning his income, by performing a promise which was not the less binding because of the half-sportive, half-serious mood in which it had been made. Cowper replied to this suggestion thus: June 18, 1778.

DEAR UNWIN,

I feel myself much obliged to you for your kind intimation, and have given the subject of it all my best attention, both before I received your letter and since. The result is, that I am persuaded it will be better not to write. I know the man and his disposition well; he is very liberal in his way of thinking, generous and discerning. He is well aware of the tricks that are played upon such occasions; and, after fifteen years interruption of all intercourse between us, would translate my letter into this language-pray remember the poor. This would disgust him, because he would think our former intimacy disgraced by such an oblique application. He has not forgotten me; and if he had, there are those about him who cannot come into his presence without reminding him of me; and he is also perfectly acquainted with my circumstances. It would perhaps give him pleasure to surprise me with a benefit; and if he means me such a favour, I should disappoint him by asking it. Thus he dealt with my friend Mr. Hill, to whom by the way I introduced him, and to all my family connexions in town. He sent for him the week before last, and without any solicitation, freely gave him one of his secretaryships. I know not the in5 April 11, 1778. 6 Page 28.

come; but as Mr. Hill is in good circumstances and the gift was unasked, I dare say it is no trifle.

I repeat my thanks for your suggestion; you see a part of my reasons for thus conducting myself; if we were together, I could give you more. Yours, affectionately, W. C.

It is not easy, nor is it always possible, for men in power to serve one who is not in a situation to serve himself. There came a time when Thurlow might properly have solicited a pension for Cowper, and no doubt, could have obtained it; and that he neglected to do so, must ever be considered as some discredit to his memory. But at this time he had justified the opinion which Cowper had entertained of him, and shown himself not unmindful of his old friends, by surprising Mr. Hill with an appointment. This," said Cowper, "is just according to the character of the man. He will give grudgingly in answer to solicitation, but delights in surprising those he esteems with his bounty." The increase of business which this brought with it, had the effect of shortening Hill's letters. "If I had had the horns of a snail," says his friend, "I should have drawn them in the moment I saw the reason of your epistolary brevity, because I felt it too. May your seven reams be multiplied into fourteen, till your letters become truly Lacedæmonian, and are reduced to a single syllable! Though I shall be a sufferer by the effect, I shall rejoice in the cause. You are naturally formed for business, and such a head as yours can never have too much of it. Though my predictions have been fulfilled in two instances, I do not plume myself much upon my sagacity; because it required but little to foresee that Thurlow would be Chancellor, and that you would have a crowded office." At this time Cowper neither thought himself neglected by Thurlow, nor had any reason to think so. He wrote some stanzas on his promotion, and sent them to Hill: "I wrote them indeed," he says, 66 on purpose for you; for my subjects are not always such as I could hope would prove agreeable to you. My mind has always a melancholy cast, and is like some pools I have seen, which, though filled with a black and putrid water, will nevertheless, in a bright day, reflect the sunbeams from their surface "."

He strove against that "black and diseased melancholy," Nov. 14, 1779.

I

and sought to divert or mitigate it by healthful exercise of body and of mind. Cowper, indeed, when in a state of moral responsibility, seems to have beautifully exemplified that true practical philosophy, which makes the most of little pleasures and the best of every thing. He was now about to garden upon what was to him a greater scale; and having been made to feel the necessity of economising in his amusements, called upon his friend Unwin to assist him in "a design to cheat the glazier" Government," said he, "has laid a tax upon glass, and he has trebled it. I want as much as will serve for a large frame, but am unwilling to pay an exorbitant price for it. shall be obliged to you, therefore, if you will inquire at a glass manufacturer's how he sells his Newcastle glass, such as is used for frames and hothouses. If you will be so good as to send me this information, and at the same time the manufacturer's address, I will execute the rest of the business myself, without giving you any farther trouble." He did wisely in thus restricting his agent's power; the London tradesman proved not more reasonable than the Olney one, and Cowper, upon receiving his terms, replied, "If you please, you may give my service to Mr. James M—, glazier, and tell him that I have furnished myself with glass from Bedford for half the money."

Another commission followed 10. "Amico mio, be pleased to buy me a glazier's diamond pencil. I have glazed the two frames designed to receive my pine plants. But I cannot mend the kitchen windows till, by the help of that implement, I can reduce the glass to its proper dimensions. If I were a plumber I should be a complete glazier, and possibly the happy time may come when I shall be seen trudging away to the neighbouring towns with a shelf of glass hanging at my back. If government should impose another tax upon that commodity, I hardly know a business in which a gentleman might more successfully employ himself. A Chinese, of ten times my fortune, would avail himself of such an opportunity without scruple; and why should not I, who want money as much as any mandarin in China? Rousseau would have been charmed to have seen me so occupied, and would have exclaimed with rapture, 'that he had found the Emilius, who (he supposed) had subsisted only in his own idea.' I would recommend it to you to

8 May 26, 1779. 9 July 1779. 10 To Mr. Unwin, Sept. 21, 1779.