Yesterday se'nnight we all dined together in the Spinnie-a most delightful retirement, belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton of Weston. Lady Austen's lackey, and a lad that waits on me in the garden, drove a wheelbarrow full of eatables and drinkables to the scene of our fête champêtre. A board, laid over the top of the wheelbarrow, served us for a table; our diningroom was a root-house, lined with moss and ivy. At six o'clock, the servants, who had dined under the great elm upon the ground, at a little distance, boiled the kettle, and the said wheelbarrow served us for a tea-table. We then took a walk into the wilderness, about half a mile off, and were at home again a little after eight, having spent the day together from noon till evening, without one cross occurrence, or the least weariness of each other. A happiness few parties of pleasure can boast of."

It was not long before an arrangement grew out of this new friendship, which was thus communicated to Mr. Newton. "Here is a new scene opening, which, whether it perform what it promises or not, will add fresh plumes to the wings of time; at least while it continues to be a subject of contemplation. If the project take effect, a thousand varieties will attend the change it will make in our situation at Olney. If not, it will serve, however, to speculate and converse upon, and steal away many hours, by engaging our attention, before it be entirely dropped. Lady Austen, very desirous of retirement, especially of a retirement near her sister, an admirer of Mr. Scott as a preacher, and of your two humble servants now in the green-house, as the most agreeable creatures in the world, is at present determined to settle here. That part of our great building which is at present occupied by Dick Coleman, his wife, child, and a thousand rats, is the corner of the world she chooses, above all others, as the place of her future residence. Next spring twelvemonth she begins to repair and beautify, and the following winter (by which time the lease of her house in town will determine) she intends to take possession. I am highly pleased with the plan, upon Mrs. Unwin's account, who, since Mrs. Newton's departure, is destitute of all female connexion, and has not, in any emergency, a woman to speak to. Mrs. Scott is indeed in the neighbourhood, and an excellent person, but always engaged by a close attention to her family, and no more than ourselves a lover of visiting. But

these things are at present in the clouds. Two years must intervene,—and in two years not only this project, but all the projects in Europe may be disconcerted 43.5

66

Cowper's spirits received a wholesome impulse when the solitude, or rather (as he termed it) the duality of their condition at Olney seemed drawing to a conclusion. He said to Mr. Unwin that it had in his eyes strong marks of providential interposition. A female friend, and one who bids fair to prove herself worthy of the appellation, comes recommended by a variety of considerations to such a place as Olney. Since Mr. Newton went, and till this lady came, there was not in the kingdom a retirement more absolutely such than ours. We did not want company, but when it came we found it agreeable. A person that has seen much of the world, and understands it well, has high spirits, a lively fancy, and great readiness of conversation, introduces a sprightliness into such a scene as this, which, if it was peaceful before, is not the worse for being a little enlivened. In case of illness too, to which all are liable, it was rather a gloomy prospect, if we allowed ourselves to advert to it, that there was hardly a woman in the place from whom it would have been reasonable to have expected either comfort or assistance. The present curate's wife is a valuable person, but has a family of her own, and though a neighbour, is not a very near one. But if this plan is effected, we shall be in a manner one family, and I suppose never pass a day without some intercourse with each other 44"

Lady Austen réturned to town in October. Cowper told her to expect a visit there from Mr. Unwin; "an enterprise," said he to his friend, "which you may engage in with the more alacrity, because as she loves any thing that has any connexion with your mother, she is sure to feel a sufficient partiality for her son. She has many features in her character which you will admire; but one in particular, on account of the rarity of it, will engage your attention and esteem. She has a degree

of gratitude in her composition, so quick a sense of obligation as is hardly to be found in any rank of life; and, if report says true, is scarce indeed in the superior. Discover but a wish to please her, and she never forgets it; not only thanks you, but the tears will start into her eyes at the recollection of the smallest service. With these fine feelings she has the 43 Aug. 21. 44 Aug. 25.

In

most, and the most harmless, vivacity you can imagine. short she is what you will find her to be upon half an hour's conversation with her15"

Cowper addressed a poetical epistle to her in London, in the manner of his old associate, poor Lloyd.

45 Sept. 26.

DEAR ANNA, between friend and friend,
Prose answers every common end;
Serves in a plain and homely way,
T'express th' occurrence of the day;

Our health, the weather, and the news;
What walks we take, what books we choose;
And all the floating thoughts we find

Upon the surface of the mind.

But when a poet takes the pen,
Far more alive than other men,
He feels a gentle tingling come
Down to his finger 16 and his thumb,
Deriv'd from nature's noblest part,
The centre of a glowing 46 heart :
And this is what the world, who knows
No flights above the pitch of prose,
His more sublime vagaries slighting,
Denominates an itch for writing.
No wonder I, who scribble rhyme
To catch the triflers of the time,

And tell them truths divine and clear,

Which, couch'd in prose, they will not hear;

Who labour hard to allure and draw

The loiterers I never saw,

Should feel that itching, and that tingling,

With all my purpose intermingling,

To your intrinsic merit true,

When call'd t' address myself to you.

Mysterious are His ways, whose power,

Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds, that never met before,

Shall meet, unite, and part no more :

46 Perhaps Cowper remembered John Bunyan's lines

in which that glorious tinker describes the origin of his Pilgrim's Progress:

It came from mine own heart, so to my head,

And thence into my fingers trickeled:

Thence to my pen, from whence immedia

On paper I did dribble it daintily.

It is th' allotment of the skies,
The hand of the supremely Wise,
That guides and governs our affections,
And plans and orders our connections;
Directs us in our distant road,

And marks the bounds of our abode.

Thus we were settled when you found us,
Peasants and children all around us,
Not dreaming of so dear a friend
Deep in the abyss of Silver-End 47.
Thus Martha-e'en against her will
Perch'd on the top of yonder hill;
And you, though you must needs prefer
The fairer scenes of sweet Sancerre 48,
Are come from distant Loire, to choose
A cottage on the banks of Ouse.
This page of Providence, quite new,
And now just opening to our view,
Employs our present thoughts and pains
To guess, and spell, what it contains:
But day by day, and year by year,
Will make the dark enigma clear;
And furnish us, perhaps, at last,
Like other scenes already past,
With proof, that we, and our affairs,
Are part of a Jehovah's cares:
For God unfolds by slow degrees,
The purport of his deep decrees;
Sheds every hour a clearer light
In aid of our defective sight;
And spreads, at length, before the soul,
A beautiful and perfect whole,
Which busy man's inventive brain
Toils to anticipate in vain.

Say, Anna, had you never known
The beauties of a rose full blown,
Could you, though luminous your eye,
By looking on the bud, descry,
Or guess with a prophetic power,
The future splendour of the flower?
Just so, the Omnipotent, who turns
The system of a world's concerns,
From mere minutiæ can educe
Events of most important use,

47 An obscure part of Olney, adjoining to the residence of Cowper, which faced the market-place.

S. C.-1.

48 Lady Austen's residence in France.
P

And bid a dawning sky display

The blaze of a meridian day.

The works of man tend, one and all,

As needs they must, from great to small;
And vanity absorbs at length

The monuments of human strength.
But who can tell how vast the plan,
Which this day's incident began?

Too small, perhaps, the slight occasion
For our dim-sighted observation;
It pass'd unnoticed, as the bird
That cleaves the yielding air unheard;
And yet may prove, when understood,
An harbinger of endless good.

Not that I deem, or mean to call,
Friendship, a blessing cheap, or small:
But merely to remark, that ours,
Like some of nature's sweetest flowers,
Rose from a seed of tiny size,

That seem'd to promise no such prize;
A transient visit intervening,

And made almost without a meaning,
(Hardly the effect of inclination,
Much less of pleasing expectation,)
Produc'd a friendship, then begun,
That has cemented us in one;

And placed it in our power to prove.
By long fidelity and love,

That Solomon has wisely spoken;

"A threefold cord is not soon broken."

"In this interesting poem," says Hayley, "the author expresses a lively and devout presage of the superior productions that were to arise in the process of time, from a friendship so unexpected and so pleasing; but he does not seem to have been aware, in the slightest degree, of the evident dangers that must naturally attend an intimacy so very close, yet perfectly innocent, between a poet and two ladies, who, with very different mental powers, had each reason to flatter herself that she could agreeably promote the studies, and animate the fancy of this fascinating bard."

Considering the good sense and the principles of all parties, and, moreover, the age of two of them (Cowper being then fifty and Mrs. Unwin seven years older), the danger will not be deemed so evident as Hayley considered it to have been,.. after the event. Every circumstance is interesting in the story