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cases cropped up, instead of taking the usual course, they went to Cowper, who, when he could not give the required assistance, was kind-hearted enough to apply to his friend Hill, who sent a speedy answer to his query. Writing to Hill, May 6, 1780, he says: "I know less of the law than a country attorney, yet sometimes I think I have almost as much business. My former connection with the profession has got wind, and though I earnestly profess, and protest, and proclaim it abroad, that I know nothing of the matter, they cannot be persuaded to believe that a head once endued with a legal periwig can ever be deficient in those natural endowments it is supposed to cover. I have had the good fortune to be once or twice in the right, which, added to the cheapness of a gratuitous counsel, has advanced my credit to a degree I never expected to attain in the capacity of a lawyer. Indeed, if two of the wisest in the science of jurisprudence may give opposite opinions on the same point, which does not unfrequently happen, it seems to be a matter of indifference whether a man answers by rule or at a venture. He that stumbles upon the right side of the question is just as useful to his client as he that arrives at the same end by regular approaches, and is conducted to the mark he aims at by the greatest authorities."

About this time he wrote "The Report of an Adjudged Case, not to be found in any of the Books." "Happy," said he, when he transcribed it six months later for his friend Hill, "is the man who knows just so much of the law as to make himself a little merry now and then with the solemnity of judicial proceedings."

73. Mrs. Powley at Olney.-May, 1780.

With Mrs. Unwin Cowper was always on most affectionate terms; to her son William he was scarcely less attached; but there was one member of the family who had shown a decided coolness towards himnamely, Mrs. Unwin's daughter Susanna, now Mrs. Powley. Mrs. Powley, we are told, esteemed Cowper as a man, but complained that her mother was wasting a deal of her property upon him. At a later date she declared that Mrs. Unwin had wasted eighteen hundred pounds upon him. Nothing, of course, was shown. outwardly, and Cowper seems never to have been aware of the real cause of the coolness.

Mrs. Powley and her husband were now (May, 1780) on a visit to Olney, and Cowper urged William Unwin to try and get away from Stock to meet them. "You cannot always," says he, " find your brother and sister Powley at Olney. These and some other considerations, such as the desire we have to see you, and the pleasure we expect from seeing you all together, may, and I think ought, to overcome your scruples."

Far from suspecting what was really the case, Cowper, innocently enough, attributes Mrs. Powley's indifference to his poetical effusions, especially his humorous ones, to another cause. A few months later (December 24, 1780) he tells Unwin: "Your poor sister she has many good qualities, and upon some occasions gives proof of a good understanding; but as some people have no ear for music, so she has none for

humour. Well, if she cannot laugh at our jokes, we can, however, at her mistakes, and in this way she makes us ample amends for the disappointment. Mr. Powley is much like herself: if his wife overlooks the jest, he will never be able to find it. They were neither of them born to write epigrams or ballads, and I ought to be less mortified at the coldness with which they entertain my small sallies in the small sallies in the way of drollery, when I reflect that, if Swift himself had had no other judges, he would never have found one admirer."

74. Cowper as a Letter-writer.

In a letter to Unwin, dated June 8, 1780, Cowper informs us of his own way of writing letters, and criticizes adversely the method of Pope. It runs as follows:

"Your mother communicated to me the satisfaction you expressed in my correspondence, that you thought me entertaining, and clever, and so forth. Now you must know I love praise dearly, especially from the judicious, and those who have so much delicacy themselves as not to offend mine in giving it. But then, I found this consequence attending, or likely to attend, the eulogium you bestowed-if my friend thought me witty before, he shall think me ten times more witty hereafter-where I joked once, I will joke five times, and, for one sensible remark, I will send him a dozen. Now this foolish vanity would have spoiled me quite, and would have made me as disgusting a letter-writer as Pope, who seems to have thought that unless a

sentence was well-turned, and every period pointed with some conceit, it was not worth the carriage. Accordingly he is to me, except in a very few instances, the most disagreeable maker of epistles that ever I met with. I was willing, therefore, to wait till the impression your commendation had made upon the foolish part of me was worn off, that I might scribble away as usual, and write my uppermost thoughts, and those only."

Cowper had himself by this time got into his very best style. As showing in how interesting a manner he could describe even the most trivial occurrences, no better example could be found than the letter to Newton, dated August 21, 1780:

"The following occurrence ought not to be passed over in silence, in a place where so few notable ones are to be met with. Last Wednesday night, while we were at supper, between the hours of eight and nine, I heard an unusual noise in the back parlour, as if one of the hares was entangled and endeavouring to disengage herself. I was just going to rise from table when it ceased. In about five minutes a voice on the outside of

the parlour door inquired if one of my hares had got away. I immediately rushed into the next room, and found that my poor favourite Puss had made her escape. She had gnawed in sunder the strings of a lattice work, with which I thought I had sufficiently secured the window, and which I preferred to any other sort of blind, because it admitted plenty of air. From thence I hastened to the kitchen, where I saw the redoubtable Thomas Freeman, who told me that, having seen her just after she dropped into the street,

he attempted to cover her with his hat, but she screamed out and leaped directly over his head. I then desired him to pursue as fast as possible, and added Richard Coleman to the chase, as being nimbler and carrying less weight than Thomas; not expecting to see her again, but desirous to learn, if possible, what became of her. In something less than an hour Richard returned, almost breathless, with the following account: that, soon after he began to run, he left Tom behind him and came in sight of a most numerous hunt of men, women, children, and dogs; that he did his best to keep back the dogs, and presently outstripped the crowd, so that the race was at last disputed between himself and Puss: she ran right through the town, and down the lane that leads to Dropshot. A little before she came to the house, he got the start and turned her; she pushed for the town again, and soon after she entered it sought shelter in Mr. Wagstaff's tan-yard, adjoining to old Mr. Drake's. Sturges's harvest men were at supper, and saw her from the opposite side of the way. There she encountered the tan-pits full of water, and, while she was struggling out of one pit, and plunging into another, and almost drowned, one of the men drew her out by the ears, and secured her. She was then well washed in a bucket to get the lime out of her coat, and brought home in a sack at ten o'clock.

"This frolic cost us four shillings, but you may believe that we did not grudge a farthing of it. The poor creature received only a little hurt in one of her claws and one of her ears, and is now almost as well as ever."

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