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the report of fame in his favour, that it reached his noble relations, and roused them to stand forth, and assert their claim to kindred with a man who was considered, and was really, an honour to his species. Lady Hesketh, who had never forgot him, now become a widow by the death of her husband, Sir Thomas, renewed her intercourse with her cousin the poet; and, finding his exchequer any thing but full, generously offered to replenish it. Not long after, Mrs Unwin and Mr Cowper removed to a more commodious house, at Weston, a beautiful village, about two miles from Olney. Their change of residence was rendered necessary by the prospect of Lady Hesketh's often renewing the visit she had paid them in the summer of 1786. The interview which Cowper had with a cousin, endeared in his memory by the recollections of juvenile intercourse and affection, produced a most agreeable effect upon his mind; which she was too quick-sighted not to observe, and too benevolent not to encourage. She, therefore, on taking leave of him, promised to repeat her visits as frequently as possible; and begged the favour of his valuable correspondence to be regularly continued. This he readily agreed to do; and, in fulfilling his promise, has shown how very sensible his heart was to kindness, and how steady he was in his attachments. His rising prospects were again marred, however, by the unexpected accounts of the Rev Mr Unwin's death; who had fallen a prey to a putrid fever, caught by him at Winchester, the place of his residence. This was a sad stroke to poor Cowper. He had loved the amiable youth, with a regard more than fraternal; and his affection met with such returns as genuine friendship only is able to make. The efforts made by him to console the sorrowing mother, contributed to divert his own mind. And his spirits were pretty well recovered, when in January of the following year, he was seized with a nervous fever, which, for ten months, prevented him from engaging in any lite

rary pursuits. Many persons had, long before this, expressed a wish to become acquainted with so in. teresting a person as our poet; but a fear of shaking his nerves by the introduction of strangers, induced his friends to repress such curiosity. A Mr Rose, from Scotland, an enthusiastic admirer of "The Task," and of its author, was very properly made an exception, both on his own account, and on account of the pleasing communication he was honoured with from the Scots literati to Cowper. This gentleman likewise presented our poet with a copy of the productions of the Ayrshire Bard, which ministered much to his gratification, and to the merits of which he did ample justice. Among his correspondents, at this time, in addition to Mr Rose, was the Rev. W. Bagot, a gentleman of a poetical imagination, and of an understanding highly cultivated. Necessity, too, the mother of invention, introduced to his notice, at this time, the parish clerk of All Saints, in Northampton; who having applied to Cowper for a copy of verses to annex to the yearly Bill of Mortality, which his office rendered imperative on him to produce, the poet good naturedly desired him to apply to some other person better qualified than he for such a purpose, and mentioned a gentleman by name, as a very fit person. The clerk, with great simplicity, replied, "Alas! Sir, I have heretofore borrowed help of him; but he is a gentleman of so much reading, that the people of our town cannot understand him!" Such a reply would, in most cases, have defeated the object of the applicant; but Cowper was no ordinary man. He felt interested in the poor clerk; and wrote for him the verses he wished for the present, and for five following occasions. While the most illiterate could not allege that these verses were above their comprehension, the most fastidious must have been gratified with the singular felicity of their execution.

He had scarcely got Homer finished, when he undertook to edite, for his publisher, a splendid edition of Milton's poems, with notes; and translations of his Latin and Italian poetry. This undertaking his disease prevented him from ever fully accomplishing. It was the occasion, however, of making him acquainted with Mr Hayley, who was writing a life of Milton, and who became a valuable friend to him while he lived, and his respectable biographer after his death. When Mr Hayley paid his first visit, at the Lodge, in 1792, he providentially hap.. pened to be present, when the agony, which Cowper experienced from the sight of a paralytic attack on Mrs Unwin, had nearly plunged him into his former despondency. Though the means resorted to, for restoring Mrs Unwin's health, were partially successful; yet, the blow inflicted on Cowper's spirits, while tending his afflicted friend, left its effects on the remainder of his life. In the end of this summer he did Mr Hayley the honour of repaying his visit. The flutter he was in before setting out, and in returning, more than overbalanced the benefit which the kindness of his friend must have secured, while with him at Eartham; with which he was quite charmed. But his malady was hastening to its crisis; and he arrived at Weston in greater dejection than when he left it. The state of Mrs Unwin's health called forth all his sensibilities, now morbidly acute. Such was the uneasiness of his mind, that when his friend, Mr Rose, waited on him, he had to prepare for the interview by a dose of laudanum. In the following year he seems to have done little and suffered much. Mr Hayley again made a journey to Weston, and was grieved to find the storm fast gathering around the head of his worthy friend. Now, too, he was deprived of the tender solicitude of his infirm companion, and of her invaluable services. In this helpless and destitute condition, he again became the object of a female's nursing care. Lady Hesketh, on ascertaining his present state, with a zeal and disinterestedness truly heroic, flew to his relief; and, as Mrs Unwin had formerly done, divorced herself from the world, for the sake of one solitary invalid. Can there be virtue more exalted than this! Her own health was the price she paid for her unwearied exertions to promote his comfort; and, what was most poignantly felt by her, the sacrifice was in vain. Early in the year 1794, he sunk into a fit of hopeless dejection; and his mental powers appeared to have ceased their operations. He was now unsusceptible of pleasure from the company of his friends: and Lord Thurlow was, by several years, too late in redeeming the pledge given to Cowper in early life, by procuring him a pension from His Majesty of L300 a-year. It was found necessary to remove him to Tuddenham, in Norfolk, to be under the superintendence of his kinsman, the Rev. John (now Dr) Johnson, to whom he had become extremely attached, during their frequent correspondence and intercourse for five years. This gentleman had introduced himself at the lodge, at first, as the grandson of the Rev. Roger Donne, formerly rector of Catfield, in Norfolk, brother to the poet's mother. Cowper had for twenty-seven years entirely lost sight of this branch of his family, and was highly delighted with the intelligence he received from his young friend and relative. A succession of endearing and valuable services, on the part of Dr Johnson contributed to draw closer the bands of reciprocal attachment. It was therefore not difficult to persuade the two invalids to try what effect a change of air might produce on their debilitated constitutions. In three days they arrived at the end of their journey, and were kindly received by Miss Johnson and Miss Perowne, -the latter proving herself a worthy successor of Mrs Unwin and Lady Hesketh, in her unwearied, enlightened, and tender attentions to the poet. The Parsonage House had been procured as more suitable than the residence of Dr Johnson, which was in the marketplace of East Dereham. The retiredness of his new abode comported most happily with Cowper's feelings; and he was prevailed upon to make frequent excursions round it, in company with his friend and relative. The latter observing that the late change of residence had, on the whole, operated favourably on the poet's health; began to be of opinion, that a removal to the sea-side might complete what he conceived happily begun. The two invalids were accordingly conveyed to Mundsley, a village on the Norfolk coast. Dr Johnson, who accompanied them, was gratified to observe, " that there was something inexpressibly soothing to the spirit of Cowper in the monotonous sound of the breakers." His mind became, at this time, so composed, that he wrote a letter to the clergyman of Weston, distinguished for the same tenderness of feeling, and the same felicitous simplicity and delicacy of language, displayed in his previous epistolary correspondence. The despatch of this letter excited the hopes of his friends, that he would resume writing to his former correspondents, and thus, not only beguile the present moments, but invigorate his mind for more important efforts. In these anticipations, they were, alas! miserably disappointed. Two other epistles, and two small poems-the one entitled, "On the Ice Islands, seen floating in the German Ocean," and the other "The Cast-away," were the only productions to which his genius afterwards gave birth. His kinsman's ingenuity was unceasingly employed in devising schemes likely to tranquillize his mind. For this purpose several changes of residence were resorted to, and a succession of select fictitious narratives was read, which amused and interested him much, particularly those from the pen of the excellent Richardson. From no book, however, did he appear to derive so much gratification as from the Bible: and yet so immoveable was his mental illusion on the subject of religion, that he would never engage in any devotional exercise. Another trial was now approaching him; for which, however, he was not altogether unpre.

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