Bodham, who had been a favourite cousin of Cowper's, in her childhood; and upon the youth's report of his visit, on his return home, this picture was sent to Weston, as a present, with a letter from his kinswoman, written in the fulness of her heart. It was replied to with kindred feeling, thus : MY DEAREST ROSE, TO MRS. BODHAM. Weston, Feb. 27, 1790. WHOM I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I find still alive: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to learn it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so. Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her : I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me, as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. There is in me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and though I love all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to your side. I was thought in the days of my childhood much to resemble my mother; and in my natural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I must be supposed to be a competent judge, can trace both her, and my late uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability; and a little, I would hope, both of his and of her- I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but speaking to you, I will even speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ances tor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at all points. The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all. I account it a happy event that brought the dear boy, your nephew, to my knowledge; and that breaking through all the restraints which his natural bashfulness imposed on him, he determined to find me out. He is amiable to a degree that I have seldom seen, and I often long with impatience to see him again. My dearest cousin, what shall I say in answer to your affectionate invitation? I must say this, I cannot come now, nor soon, and I wish with all my heart I could. But I will tell you what may be done, perhaps, and it will answer to us just as well: you and Mr. Bodham can come to Weston, can you not? The summer is at hand, there are roads and wheels to bring you, and you are neither of you translating Homer. I am crazed that I cannot ask you all together, for want of house-room; but for Mr. Bodham and yourself we have good room; and equally good for any third, in the shape of a Donne, whether named Hewitt, Bodham, Balls, or Johnson, or by whatever name distinguished. Mrs. Hewitt has particular claims upon me; she was my playfellow at Berkhamstead, and has a share in my warmest affections. Pray tell her so! Neither do I at all forget my Cousin Harriet. She and I have been many a time merry at Catfield, and have made the parsonage ring with laughter. Give my love to her. Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that I shall receive you as if you were my sister, and Mrs. Unwin is, for my sake, prepared to do the same. When she has seen you, she will love you for your own. I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham for his kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you all, and with Mrs. Unwin's kind respects, am, My dear, dear Rose, ever yours, W. C. P.S.-I mourn the death of your poor brother Castres, whom I should have seen had he lived, and should have seen with the greatest pleasure. He was an amiable boy, and I was very fond of him. Still another P.S.-I find on consulting Mrs. Unwin, that I have underrated our capabilities, and that we have not only room for you, and Mr. Bodham, but for two of your sex, and even for your nephew into the bargain. We shall be happy to have it all so occupied. Your nephew tells me, that his sister, in the qualities of the mind, resembles you; that is enough to make her dear to me, and I beg you will assure her that she is so. long before I hear from you. Let it not be Upon receiving this portrait of his mother, Cowper composed the most beautiful of his minor poems, a poem which he tells us he had more pleasure in writing than any that he had ever wrote, one excepted; "that one," he says, 66 was addressed to a lady who has supplied to me the place of my own mother, my own invaluable mother, these six and twenty years. Some sons may be said to have had many fathers; but a plurality of mothers is not common The following Sonnet must be the piece to which he thus alludes. Mary! I want a lyre with other strings; 69 Such aid from Heaven as some have feign'd they drew ! And undebased by praise of meaner things! But thou hast little need; there is a book There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine, At this time Mrs. Unwin was afflicted with almost constant headaches, and a pain in the side, the cause of which was not understood; her lameness consequent upon her fall was very little amended, but her looks had not altered for the worse, "and her spirits," Cowper said, "were good, because supported by comforts which depend not on the state of the body." The time came when she was rendered, by infirmities of mind and body, as unlike her former self in other things, as she now was in strength. 59 To Mrs. King, March 12, 1790. Certainly Cowper would not thus have spoken of Mrs. Unwin, if there had ever been any matrimonial engagement between them. There must have appeared a great amendment in Cowper's notions concerning his own spiritual state after his last recovery; otherwise Mr. Bull, who was always a judicious friend, would not have requested him to compose a hymn. The application reached him, however, in a dark hour, and he replied thus, "My dear friend, ask possibilities and they shall be performed, but ask not hymns from a man suffering by despair as I do. I could not sing the Lord's song were it to save my life, banished as I am, not to a strange land, but to a remoteness from his presence, in comparison with which the distance from east to west is no distance,—is vicinity and cohesion. I dare not, either in prose or verse, allow myself to express a frame of mind which I am conscious does not belong to me; least of all can I venture to use the language of absolute resignation, lest only counterfeiting, I should for that very reason be taken strictly at my word, and lose all my remaining comfort. Can there not be found among those translations of Madame Guyon somewhat that might serve the purpose? I should think there might. Submission to the will of Christ, my memory tells me, is a theme that pervades them all. If so, your request is performed already; and if any alteration in them should be necessary, I will with all my heart make it. I have no objection to giving the graces of the foreigner an English dress, but insuperable ones to all false pretences and affected exhibitions of what I do not feel." In the ensuing year, Mr. Bean found him in a happier mood, and obtained from him a hymn to be sung by the children of the Olney Sunday school; at a time when Cowper said “he was somewhat in the case of lawyer Dowling in Tom Jones, and could he split himself into as many poets as there are Muses, could have found employment for them all." Encouraged, perhaps, by this, Mr. Newton asked him to translate for publication, a series of letters, which he had received from a Dutch clergyman at the Cape of Good Hope. Though so much additional occupation came inconveniently when he had little time to spare from his Homer, Cowper could not refuse this to Mr. Newton"; and he had no objection to being known as the translator; rather," said he, "I am ambitious of it as an honour. It will serve to prove, that if I have spent much time to little purpose, in the translation of Homer, some 70 May 25, 1788. 71 To Mrs. King, June 14, 1790. small portion of my time has, however, been well disposed of 72." Mr. Newton acted with the kindest intentions toward his poor friend, when he put these letters into his hands. There is nothing remarkable in the early part of the writer's history. His name was Van Lier, he was born in 1764, "of worthy parents and of respectable condition;" he was destined by them to the ministry, and educated accordingly; and in his boyhood he became strongly attached to a beautiful girl of his own age, whose family were intimate with his. To this lady, who is called Miss E., he made a declaration, by letter, from the university, and received for answer, that she could take no step in an affair of that sort without the knowledge and consent of her parents. This wounded his pride; he made advances to another lady, from whom he received a similar answer; then having frequent opportunities of seeing his first love, and finding that she had refused other offers, he soon ascertained that he was not indifferent to her, and obtained a promise of her hand, should the parents of both prove favourable to his wishes. "I was now," he said, "elevated to the pinnacle of joy, I accounted myself completely happy; and my heart, alas, full of idolatry, looked for felicity to the creature, regarding lightly the Creator, who is over all, blessed for ever." At this time he describes himself as full of hatred, envy, and malice, destitute of religion, and vicious, though externally seeming to deserve the praise of much decency. But among his scanty remains of virtue ("if any virtue," says he, "I had,) I still possessed a compassionate and beneficent disposition. I could not think much of any man oppressed with want and misery without painful sympathy. If the poor ap plied to me for relief, I assisted them willingly and gladly, and had sometimes a lively and grateful sense of my privilege. Yet even on such occasions I adverted not to the commandment of God, nor proposed to myself his glory as my object, but obeyed merely the dictates of natural instinct and sensibility." He had not indeed dived in the mud of German metaphysics, but he had dabbled in the puddles of French philosophy 73. 72 To Mr. Newton, Oct. 15, 1790. 13 Among the works which were very hurtful to him those of Enicdenus and Voltaire are specified. Enicdenus belongs to the same Propria quæ maribus as Mules Quince, |