dence so near him as to enable him to be often in their society. They had good reason to be pleased with this change; and Mr Cowper in particularas he derived essential benefit from his intercourse with a person of so decided a christian character as Mr Newton, whose varied knowledge of divine truth was not superior to his christian experience. Such was their intimacy with each other, that Mr Newton subsequently observes, "We were seldom seven waking hours separated. And a monument has been reared, by their joint efforts, which shall commemorate their christian fellowship so long as the English language shall be the vehicle of praising God with "psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs. Of the Olney collection of hymns, sixty-eight were the production of Cowper's muse, the others being contributed by Mr Newton.

After having enjoyed three years of almost undisturbed happiness at Olney, his tranquillity was interrupted, (but not destroyed,) by the melancholy intelligence of the serious indisposition of his only brother. He instantly repaired to Cambridge, where John was residing; and arrived in time to enjoy confidential conversation with him about his eternal interests; concerning which he found him, though in orders, deplorably ignorant. It pleased God to Vouchsafe the blessing on the efforts made by the pious layman. His brother expired on the 20th March, 1770. Of his death, Mr Cowper thus writes: "You judge rightly of the manner in which I have been affected by the Lord's late dispensation towards my brother. I found in it cause of sorrow, that I lost so near a relation, and one so deservedly dear to me, and that he left me just when our sentiments, upon the most interesting subjects, became the same; but much more cause of joy, that it pleased God to give me clear and evident proof that he had changed his heart, and adopted him into the number of his children." This language-and it was from the heart, for Cowper could use no other-indicates any

thing but despondency; and yet the circumstances of his brother's death have been adduced as the cause of that suspension of his happiness, to which he was, not long after this, subjected.

During Cowper's retirement at Huntingdon, and the first years of his residence at Olney, he does not seem to have engaged in any literary undertaking of magnitude. He occupied his leisure, in reading, epistolary correspondence, and in making contributions to the Olney hymns. One fact in his history may be stated at this stage of it-that, as the developement of his poetical genius was interrupted first by his illness, before he was the subject of religious impressions; so, his return to the cultivation of his talents for poetry took place after the change of his religious views, and before the mental eclipse which followed. Religion, therefore, has the honour of having stimulated, rather than impeded, his poetical exertions: and, but for the Olney Hymns, we might have wanted the charming poem of The Task.

In the month of January, 1773, Cowper was again visited with a most st obstinate attack of his constitutional disorder, which was now evidently of a hypochondriacal nature. Such was the violence of his malady, that, for the first twelvemonths after its commencement, for the second time, it yielded to no treatment, that affection joined to medical skill could devise. In the following year, however, he experienced an alleviation, though not a removal, of his complaint. He was now susceptible of amusement; and, in spite of the partial derangement of mind under which he still unhappily laboured; his diversions were characteristic of his amiable manners. He undertook the taming of three hares. Nor is it an uninteresting exercise to attend him, in imagination, through his rural excursions in search of food for them, to mark the benignity of a countenance beaming with benevolence, even under partial insanity, when witnessing the happiness of these irrationb

al creatures. The precise cause of this second attack of a most inveterate disease has been unsuccessfully investigated. It is involved in the profoundest mystery. During the years of his melancholy disease, Mrs Unwin gave herself up to attend him with all the zeal of a Catholic devotee; watching every movement he made, and affectionately ministering to all his wants. Her unremitting efforts to preserve his life exposed her own to imminent peril. For his restoration to health of body and tranquillity of mind, she scrupled not to sacrifice her time, her health, her fortune, her comfort, and to a certain degree, her reputation! During the lucid intervals which he occasionally enjoyed, he afforded her gratifying proofs, that his heart was deeply sensible of her tender and unwearied attention towards him.

His distressing derangement had so completely subverted those religious sentiments, that had for nine years filled his mind with inexpressible delight, and had found vent, occasionally, in some of the most beautiful devotional compositions that were ever arrayed in the garb of poetry-that he conceived himself (happily it was an illusion) for ever cut off from the hope of mercy. His friend Mr Greatheed, who preached his funeral sermon, has eloquently described the state of his mind, as follows:

"That vivid imagination, which often attained the utmost limits of the sphere of reason, did but too eagerly transgress them; and his spirits, no longer sustained upon the wings of faith and hope, sunk, with their weight of natural depression, into the horrible abyss of absolute despair.-He cherished an unalterable persuasion, that the Lord, after having renewed him in holiness, had doomed him to everlasting perdition. The doctrines in which he had been established, directly opposed such a conclusion, and he remained still equally convinced of their general truth: but he supposed himself to be the only person that ever believed with the heart unto righteousness, and was notwithstanding excluded from salvation. In this

state of mind, with a deplorable consistency, he ceased not only from attendance upon public and domestic worship, but likewise from every attempt at private prayer; apprehending that for him to implore mercy, would be opposing the determinate. counsel of God.-Amidst these dreadful sufferings, such was hi unshaken submission to what he imagined to be the divine pleasure, that he was accustomed to say, If holding up my finger would save me from endless torments, I would not do it against the will of God.' During the whole of these distresses, his friend Mr Newton never wearied in his exertions to rouse him from his delusions; and, for this benevolent purpose, exhausted all the stores of his fertile mind, to reason him out of his gloomy conceptions; and when this failed, to divert his mind from brooding over them. Cowper was once prevailed on to remain with him upwards of a whole year, at the vicarage, still deaf to all the suggestions of his friend's enlightened and truly benevolent mind. Those persons in the neighbourhood, who were of a religious turn of mind, stood appalled by so dreadful a revolution in the feelings of one, whom they cousidered as the best of his species, and who was, notwithstanding, the object of so dark a dispensation, as to them appeared altogether unaccountable! He was inaccessible to all, but Mr Newton; yet all were anxious to contribute to his relief. In this melancholy state he continued buried from the world for seven years; and it is very possible he might never have emerged again, to amuse and improve mankind, but for the unabated efforts of his amiable female friend. Mrs Unwin, at length, succeeded in prevailing with him to engage in some literary undertaking, in order to abstract his mind from those gloomy ideas that had so long kept the ascendancy over him. She suggested the subject of some poems, which were mostly composed in winter 1780,-81, and at first not intended for publication; the author being afraid that a bookseller could not be found to

run the hazard. When he found one, he expresses his satisfaction thus, "Johnson has heroically set all peradventures at defiance, and takes the whole charge upon himself. So out I come. As a tribute of gratitude, he employed Mr Newton to stand godfather to the first volume of his poems, which was published in the year 1782.

In the year 1781, our poet made a valuable acquisition, in the acquaintance of lady Austen, who came to the neighbourhood of Olney, on a visit to her sister; she afterwards took a house in Cowper's immediate neighbourhood, and by her sprightly and agreeable conversation, charmed him so much that he commonly addressed her by the endearing name of sister Anne.

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Her well-furnished mind often produced some elegant trifle to divert the sombre feelings of her friend; and "John Gilpin" is only a sified expansion of one of her anecdotes. Several productions of his muse originated in the society of this accomplished lady: above them all in value, is The Task, a poem combining more of the originality and fidelity of the moral-painting of Shakspeare, than has been displayed since the time of the Bard of Avon. To this accomplished lady likewise, we owe the translation of Homer, which he began in 1784, and finished in less than six years from its commencement. On its appearance, the most favourable opinion pronounced it inferior to Pope's translation, in harmony of numbers, and in the general costume of the poem, if we may so express it; but the severest judges acknowledge that Cowper's version far surpasses Pope's, in fidelity of rendering the original, and in the vigour (though not in the elevation) of the language.

His second volume, containing The Task and some smaller poems, was published in 1785. It was more popular than the previous volume; not being so much limited to religious subjects, and therefore adapted for a wider circle of readers. So strong now was