tude was too great not to be felt continually, and consequently made our intercourse unpleasant. We have reason, however, to believe that she has given up all thoughts of a return to Olney 52." The circumstances which rendered this intimacy irksome, and finally dissolved it, Cowper afterwards stated in a letter to Lady Hesketh, wherein, to explain what interruptions had delayed him in the progress of the Task, he thus gives an account of the rise and termination of this memorable friendship. "There came a lady into this country, by name and title, Lady Austen, the widow of the late Sir Robert Austen. At first she lived with her sister, about a mile from Olney; but in a few weeks took lodgings at the vicarage here. Between the vicarage and the back of our house are interposed our garden, an orchard, and the garden belonging to the vicarage. She had lived much in France, was very sensible, and had infinite vivacity. She took a great liking to us, and we to her. She had been used to a great deal of company; and we, fearing that she would find such a transition into silent retirement irksome, contrived to give her our agreeable company often. Becoming continually more and more intimate, a practice obtained at length of our dining with each other alternately, every day, Sundays excepted. In order to facilitate our communication, we made doors in the two garden walls 53 abovesaid, by which means we considerably shortened the way from one house to the other; and could meet when we pleased, without entering the town at all; a measure the rather expedient, because the town is abominably dirty, and she kept no carriage. On her first settlement in our neighbourhood, I made it my own particular business, (for at that time I was not employed in writing, having published my first volume, and not begun my second,) to pay my devoirs to her ladyship every morning at eleven. Customs very soon become laws. I began the Task; for she was the lady who gave me the Sofa for a subject. Being once engaged in the work, I began to feel the inconvenience of my morning attendance. We had seldom breakfasted ourselves till 52 July 12, 1784. 53 Hayley (i. 306) says that Mr. Newton opened this communication when he occupied the parsonage; and Lady Austen had the advantage of it. I followed his statement, not recollecting what is said here. Probably Hayley has made no mistake, and Cowper means that it had been re-opened after having long been disused. Minute accuracy was unimportant, and he was writing as succinctly as he could. ten; and the intervening hour was all the time that I could find in the whole day for writing: and occasionally it would happen that the half of that hour was all that I could secure for the purpose. But there was no remedy. Long usage had made that which at first was optional, a point of good manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect the Task, to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject. But she had ill health 5*, and before I had quite finished the work was obliged to repair to Bristol. Thus, as I told you, my dear, the cause of the many interruptions that I mentioned, was removed, and now, except the Bull that I spoke of, we have seldom any company at all. After all that I have said upon this matter, you will not completely understand me, perhaps, unless I account for the remainder of the day. I will add, therefore, that having 54 Lady Austen died while Hayley's Life of Cowper was in the press. If she had lived to peruse it, she would probably have corrected some of the mistakes upon this subject, into which he had fallen. It appears by the extracts which are now before the reader, (and they are not partial extracts, but comprise the whole that is said concerning it,) that the same causes which led to an interruption of her friendship with Cowper, finally dissolved it. Love was out of the question in her case, jealousy equally so in Mrs. Unwin's; and though Cowper had "fallen in friendship" with her at first sight, and addressed complimentary verses to her, these from a man advanced some way on the road from fifty to threescore, were not likely to be mistaken by a woman who knew the world, and was, moreover, well acquainted with his peculiar circumstances. Mr. Knox says, in his correspondence with the late excellent Bishop Jebb*, that he had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very artful woman. When I find myself differing in opinion from Mr. Knox, I distrust my own judgment. But in this instance it appears that his correspondent thought he had judged harshly, and I do not see what object an artful woman could possibly have had in view. It may be said that Hayley makes jealousy the cause of the separation. and represents Lady Austen as having hoped that Cowper would marry her, and that he derived his information from Lady Austen herself. To this I reply, that the latter part of the statement is merely what Hayley inferred from the former, and the former may thus be explained. Lady Austen exacted attentions which it became inconvenient and irksome to pay,—or, perhaps, in Cowper's morbid state of sensitiveness, he fancied that she exacted them. He is not likely to have stated this so explicitly in his letter to her, as he did to Mr. Unwin and Lady Hesketh. Lady Austen herself may never have suspected it; and by imputing jealousy to Mrs. Unwin, she accounted to herself and to Hayley for what must otherwise have appeared unaccountable to her. * Vol. i. p. 276. paid my morning visit, I walked; returning from my walk, I dressed we then met and dined, and parted not till between ten and eleven at night 55 !" You The Bull, thus playfully mentioned, was the person to whose benevolent attention Mr. Newton had consigned him, on his removal from Olney. Carissime Taurorum Cowper sometimes addressed him in his letters. He was indeed a man after his own heart. "You are not acquainted with him," he says to Mr. Unwin, "perhaps it is as well for you that you are not. would regret still more than you do, that there are so many miles interposed between us. He spends part of the day with us to-morrow. A dissenter, but a liberal one; a man of letters and of genius; a master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it,—an imagination, which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs away with him into such fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happiness to be of the party; at other times he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for companions in such a world as this, than men of such a temperament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one, and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection. Such a man is Mr. Bull. But-he smokes tobacconothing is perfect! Nihil est ab omni Parte beatum." Before Cowper began the Task, Mr. Bull put into his hands Madame Guyon's poetical works, and requested him to translate a few of them, "partly," he says, "to amuse a solitary hour, partly to keep in exercise the genius of this incomparable man. A month's leisure was devoted to them, and they were presented to Mr. Bull to make what use of them he pleased. This friend sometime afterwards suggested that they should be printed 56, Cowper undertook to revise them for this purpose, but various circumstances prevented him from ever carrying the intention into effect. Mr. Bull probably thought that the strain of her 55 Jan. 16, 1786. 56 He seems to have contemplated this at first, by the I edication to his friend, which was sent with the manuscript. poetry would rather soothe his mind than agitate it, and induce a sane state of religious feeling. But perhaps the passages on which Cowper brooded most were those that he could apply, when taken apart from the context, to his own imaginary condition. My claim to life, though sought with earnest care, Cowper, however, explained to Mr. Newton how it was that he could treat upon subjects in verse, which he trembled to approach in prose. "There is a difference," said he. "The search after poetical expression, the rhyme, and the numbers, are all affairs of some difficulty; they arrive, indeed, but are not to be attained without study, and engross, perhaps, a larger share of the attention than the subject itself. Persons fond of music will sometimes find pleasure in the tune, when the words afford them none 58. From the letter wherein he told Mr. Bull that these translations were finished, it appears that his friend had reasoned with him upon his case; and the answer expresses a miserable assurance of utter desertion. "Both your advice," he says, "and your manner of giving it, are gentle and friendly and like yourself. I thank you for them, and do not refuse your counsel because it is not good, or because I dislike it, but because it is not for me. There is not a man upon earth that might not be the better for it, myself only excepted. Prove to me 57 The extreme freedom of the translation seems to show that he intended a self-application here; Si vous me demandez ce que je crois de moi, Je n'en connois aucune chose : C'est dans le rien que je repose. Un neant malheureux, qui ne demande pas Et qui n'attend jamais de grace, 58 March 19, 1784. Vol. iii. Cantique 69. that I have a right to pray, and I will pray without ceasing; yea, and pray, too, even in " the belly of this hell," compared with which Jonah's was a palace,-a temple of the living God! But let me add, there is no encouragement in the scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so effectual as to reach it. I do not relate it to you, because you could not believe it; you would agree with me if you could. And yet the sin by which I am excluded from the privileges I once enjoyed, you would account no sin; you would tell me that it was a duty. This is strange ;-you will think me mad; —but I am not mad, most noble Festus! I am only in despair; and those powers of mind which I possess, are only permitted to me for my amusement at some times, and to acuminate and enhance my misery at others. I have not even asked a blessing upon my food these ten years, nor do I expect that I shall ever ask it again.-Yet, I love you, and such as you, and determine to enjoy your friendship while I can ;-it will not be long; we must soon part for ever"." He seldom touched upon this string in his letters to any one except Mr. Newton. "I am well in body," he says to him, "but with a mind that would wear out a frame of adamant ; yet upon my frame, which is not very robust, its effects are not discernible. Mrs. Unwin is in health 60 !". "We think of you often, and one of us prays for you; the other will, when he can pray for himself! Writing in the second week of January, he entered at once upon this dismal strain. MY DEAR FRIEND, TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. Jan. 13, 1784. The new year is already old in my account. I am not, indeed, sufficiently second-sighted to be able to boast by anticipation an acquaintance with the events of it yet unborn, but rest convinced that, be they what they may, not one of them comes a messenger of good to me. If even death itself should be of the number, he is no friend of mine. It is an alleviation of the woes even of an unenlightened man, that he can wish for death, and indulge a hope, at least, that in death he shall find deliverance. But, loaded as my life is with despair, I have no such comfort as would result from a supposed probability of better things to come, were it once ended. For, 59 Oct. 27, 1783. 60 Feb. 24, 1783. 61 Feb. 8. |