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"The matter being thus settled, something like a calm took place in my mind. I was, indeed, not a little concerned about my character; being aware, that it must needs suffer, by the strange appearance of my proceeding. This, however, being but a small part of the anxiety I had laboured under, was hardly felt, when the rest was taken off. I thought my path to an easy maintenance was now plain and open, and for a day or two was tolerably cheerful. But, behold, the storm was gathering all the while; and the fury of it was not the less violent, for this gleam of sunshine.

"In the beginning, a strong opposition to my friend's right of nomination began to show itself. A powerful party was formed among the Lords to thwart it, in favour of an old enemy of the family, though one much indebted to its bounty; and it appeared plain, that if we succeeded at last, it would only be by fighting our ground by inches. Every advantage, I was told, would be sought for, and eagerly seized, to disconcert us. I was bid to expect an examination at the bar of the house, touching my sufficiency for the post I had taken. Being necessarily ignorant of the nature of that business, it became expedient that I should visit the office daily, in order to qualify myself for the strictest scrutiny. All the horror of my fears and perplexities now returned. A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me, as this intelligence. I knew, to demonstration, that upon these terms the clerkship of the journals was no place for me. To require my attendance at the bar of the house, that I might there publicly entitle myself to the office, was, in effect, to exclude me from it. In the mean time, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward; all pressed me to undertake that which I saw to be impracticable. They whose spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public exhibition of themselves, on any occasion, is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horrors of my situation; others can have none.

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"My continual misery at length brought on a nervous fever quiet forsook me by day, and peace by night; a finger raised against me, was more than I could stand against. In this posture of mind, I attended regularly at the office; where, instead of a soul upon the rack, the most active spirits were essentially necessary for my purpose. I expected no assistance from any

body there, all the inferior clerks being under the influence of my opponent; and accordingly I received none. The journal books were indeed thrown open to me; a thing which could not be refused; and from which, perhaps, a man in health, and with a head turned to business, might have gained all the information he wanted; but it was not so with me. I read without perception, and was so distressed, that had every clerk in the office been my friend, it could have availed me little; for I was not in a condition to receive instruction, much less to elicit it out of manuscripts, without direction. Many months went over me thus employed; constant in the use of means, despairing as to the issue.

"The feelings of a man, when he arrives at the place of execution, are probably much like mine every time I set my foot in the office, which was every day, for more than half a year together.

"At length the vacation being pretty far advanced, I made shift to get into the country, and repaired to Margate."

One of his letters written at this time, and only one, has been preserved; it was to his cousin Harriet, whose name will be inseparably and most honourably associated with his as long as his shall be remembered, and who was then the wife of Sir Thomas Hesketh.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Temple, Aug. 9, 1763. Having promised me to write to you, I make haste to be as good as my word. I have a pleasure in writing to you at any time, but especially at the present, when my days are spent in reading the Journals, and my nights in dreaming of them. An employment not very agreeable to a head that has long been habituated to the luxury of choosing its subject, and has been as little employed upon business, as if it had grown upon the shoulders of a much wealthier gentleman. But the numskull pays for it now, and will not presently forget the discipline it has undergone lately. If I succeed in this doubtful piece of promotion, I shall have at least this satisfaction to reflect upon, that the volumes I write will be treasured up with the utmost care for ages, and will last as long as the English constitution, a duration which ought to satisfy the vanity of any author who has a spark of love for his country.

O! my good cousin! if I was to open my heart to you, I could show you strange sights; nothing, I flatter myself, that would shock you, but a great deal that would make you wonder. I am of a very singular temper, and very unlike all the men that I have ever conversed with. Certainly I am not an absolute fool; but I have more weakness than the greatest of all the fools I can recollect at present. In short, if I was as fit for the next world, as I am unfit for this,-and God forbid I should speak it in vanity! I would not change conditions with any saint in Christendom.

My destination is settled at last, and I have obtained a furlough. Margate is the word, and what do you think will ensue, cousin? I know what you expect, but ever since I was born I have been good at disappointing the most natural expectations. Many years ago, cousin, there was a possibility I might prove a very different thing from what I am at present. My character is now fixed, and riveted fast upon me; and, between friends, is not a very splendid one, or likely to be guilty of much fascination.

Adieu, my dear cousin! So much as I love you, I wonder how the deuce it has happened I was never in love with you. Thank Heaven that I never was, for at this time I have had a pleasure in writing to you, which in that case I should have forfeited. Let me hear from you, or I shall reap but half the reward that is due to my noble indifference.

Yours ever, and evermore,

W. C.

This letter is interesting not merely because it bears the stamp of Cowper's peculiar and admirable talent; it is important as containing his own view of his own character at that time. He tells his cousin that if she could look into his heart she would see strange sights there, much that would make her wonder, but nothing that would shock her.

At Margate he began presently to recover his spirits; this amendment he imputed to the effects of a new scene, to an intermission of his painful employment, and to cheerful company,.. which throughout life, while any thing availed, was of all things most beneficial to him. Yet for some time, though the day had passed cheerfully and without any disturbing recollection of his fears, his first waking thoughts in the morning, he says, were horrible; and he looked forward to the

winter, and regretted the flight of every moment that brought it nearer, like a man borne away by a rapid torrent into a strong sea, whence he sees no possibility of returning, and where he knows he cannot subsist." Present circumstances, however, prevailed over his insane apprehensions; and the progress of the disease was suspended till he returned to town.

About the beginning of October he was again required to attend the office, and prepare for what he called "the push." But no sooner had he resumed, or seemed to resume, his ineffectual labours,.. labours which were ineffectual only because he was possessed with the persuasion that they necessarily must be so,.. than his misery and his madness.. (for such indeed it was..) returned.

Again, he says, "I felt myself pressed by necessity on either side, with nothing but despair in prospect. To this dilemma was I reduced, either to keep possession of the office to the last extremity, and by so doing expose myself to a public rejection for insufficiency, (for the little knowledge I had acquired would have quite forsaken me at the bar of the house;) or else to fling it up at once, and by this means runs the hazard of ruining my benefactor's right of appointment, by bringing his discretion into question. In this situation, such a fit of passion has sometimes seized me, when alone in my chambers, that I have cried out aloud, and cursed the hour of my birth: lifting up my eyes to heaven, at the same time, not as a suppliant, but in the hellish spirit of rancorous reproach and blasphemy against my Maker. A thought would sometimes come across my mind, that my sins had perhaps brought this distress upon me,-that the hand of divine vengeance was in it; but in the pride of my heart I presently acquitted myself, and thereby implicitly charged God with injustice, saying, 'What sins have I committed to deserve this?"

"I saw plainly that God alone could deliver me; but was firmly persuaded that he would not, and therefore omitted to ask it. Indeed at his hands I would not; but as Saul sought to the witch, so did I to the physician, Dr. Heberden; and was as diligent in the use of drugs as if they would have healed my wounded spirit, or have made the rough places plain before me. I made, indeed, one effort of a devotional kind; for having found a prayer or two in that repository of self-righteousness and pharisaical lumber, the Whole Duty

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of Man,' I said them a few nights, but with so little expectation of prevailing that way, that I soon laid aside the book, and with it all thoughts of God and hopes of a remedy."

In his better mind, or under the influence of a more tolerant spiritual director, Cowper would not have spoken thus unjustly and uncharitably of a good old book, which contains the substance of a course of sermons addressed in the plainest language to plain people, and setting before them those duties, which they are called upon to perform in the ordinary course of life. The author was a person of sound judgement and sober piety, who sought to make his parishioners practical Christians and not professing ones: and that he was humbleminded himself there is conclusive proof; for he concealed his name, and no inquiries have ever yet been able to ascertain it. If the book appeared to Cowper stale and unprofitable, it was because it told him nothing but what he knew before; and still more, because it was intended for sane minds. It was like wholesome food to a sick stomach, or a cup of pure spring water to one who craves for drams. "I now," he says, "began to look upon madness as the only chance remaining. I had a strong foreboding that so it would fare with me, and I wished for it earnestly, and looked forward to it with impatient expectation!" Such forebodings and wishes were indications of the actual disease.

The seeds of that disease seem to have been lurking in him since its first manifestation, nearly fourteen years before this time. According to his own account, his recovery had been instantaneous; and he thought he could remember that he had ascribed it, at the time, to God's gracious acceptance of his prayers but Satan, and his own wicked heart, he said, persuaded him that natural means had effected a natural cure, and the blessing was thus converted into a poison." There is a well-known saying, that the greater the sinner, the greater the saint. Perhaps no one ever drew up a narrative of his own conversion, without unconsciously seeking to exemplify that saying in his own case, by exaggerating his former depravity, for the sake of making the change appear the greater, and enhancing the miracle of divine favour; and this is done as well by those who deceive themselves, as by those who are wilfully deceiving others. Cowper represents himself as having lived in an uninterrupted course of sin, till he had obtained

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