"Our severest winter," he writes to Mr. Unwin (June 8, 1783), "commonly called the spring, is now over, and I find myself seated in my favourite recess, the greenhouse. In such a situation, so silent, so shady, where no human foot is heard, and where only my myrtles presume to peep in at the window, you may suppose I have no interruption to complain of, and that my thoughts are perfectly at my command. But the beauties of the spot are themselves an interruption, my attention being called upon by those very myrtles, by a row of grass pinks just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans already in bloom; and you are to consider it, if you please, as no small proof of my regard, that, though you have so many powerful rivals, I disengage myself from them all and devote this hour entirely to you."

In yet another letter (to Mr. Newton, September 18, 1784) he makes a charming allusion to his favourite retreat "My greenhouse is never so pleasant as when we are just upon the point of being turned out of it. The gentleness of the autumnal suns and the calmness of this latter season make it a much more agreeable retreat than we ever find it in summer when the winds being generally brisk we cannot cool it by admitting a sufficient quantity of air without being at the same time incommoded by it. But now I sit with all the windows and the door wide open, and am regaled with the scent of every flower in a garden as full of flowers as I have known how to make it. We keep no bees, but if I lived in a hive I should hardly hear more of their music. All the bees in the neighbourhood resort to a bed of mignonette, opposite to

the window, and pay me for the honey they get out of it by a hum, which, though rather monotonous, is as agreeable to my ear as the whistling of my linnets."

The biographer would here note that the erections called by Cowper the greenhouse and the summerhouse were not one and the same, as is stated, by mistake, in "The Town of Cowper," for one of Cowper's letters distinctly states that such was not the case (to Unwin, June 12, 1785). The greenhouse has now disappeared. The summer-house, which probably was not yet given over to Cowper's use, demands a passage to itself, and will be dealt with further on.

80. Newton's Visit to Olney.-June, 1781.

For a long time Newton had promised himself the pleasure of a visit to his old flock at Olney, and in June the event took place. With him came Mrs. Newton and his niece, Miss Catlett, a little boardingschool miss of twelve, whom he loved very dearly, and who became a great comfort to him in after years. Of course Cowper would not listen to the proposal that they should put up at an inn. "Miss Catlett must not think of any other lodging than we can without any inconvenience, as we shall, with all possible pleasure, furnish her with. We can each of us say that is, I can say it in Latin, and Mrs. Unwin in English— Nihil tui a me alienum puto. She shall have a great bed and a great room."

This visit was to all parties a most agreeable one. Cowper had resolved beforehand to do or say nothing

I

that should throw a gloom over the gathering. determined, as much as possible, to be deaf to the suggestions of despair; that, if I could contribute but little to the pleasure of the opportunity, I might not dash it with unseasonable melancholy, and, like an instrument with a broken string, interrupt the harmony of the concert.

But not only did he not spoil the pleasure of others, he entered so heartily into the joy of the occasion himself that his own dark thoughts were quite forgotten. With Newton he talked of his forthcoming volume, and the many other topics that interested both, and with Miss Catlett, whose name was so suggestive to him of a certain article of diet, he was always having his little joke: "Now, Miss Catlett," he would ask pleasantly, "shall I give you a piece of cutlet?" On account of her high spirits he dubbed her "Euphrosyne, the laughing lady."

When Newton went back again Cowper's sensations "were far from pleasant," and Mrs. Unwin suffered more upon the occasion than when Newton first took leave of Olney.

81. Lady Austen.-July, 1781.

Looking out of his window, one day in July, Cowper noticed two ladies enter the draper's shop on the opposite side of the way, one of whom he recognized as Mrs. Jones, of Clifton. Being much struck with the appearance of the stranger, he inquired who she was, and learnt that she was Lady Austen, widow of

Sir Robert Austen, Baronet, and sister of Mrs. Jones; thereupon he got Mrs. Unwin to invite the ladies to tea; but upon their arrival, in acceptance of the invitation, the poet, who had since repented of his boldness, could not at first muster sufficient courage to join the little party.

But, having at length forced himself into their company, he found Lady Austen such a vivacious and sympathetic companion that he speedily lost all shyness, with which in her presence he seems never afterwards to have been troubled. In his own words, she was "a lively, agreeable woman, who had seen much of the world, and accounted it a great simpleton, as it is-one who laughed and made laugh, and could keep up a conversation without seeming to labour at it." In the evening he escorted the ladies home, and a few days after, with Mrs. Unwin, returned the visit. The walk from Olney to Clifton is a very beautiful one. The path leads first through level meadows intersected by narrow arms of the river, and about half-way to Clifton, a few yards beyond the main stream, takes us past the pleasant spot where stood the picturesque old water-mill to which Cowper alludes in "The Winter Morning Walk" ("Task," V.). The current is spoken of as stealing silently and unperceived beneath its sheet of ice and snow, but at the mill it bursts asunder its icy shackles, and

"Scornful of a check, it leaps

The mill-dam, dashes on the restless wheel,
And wantons in the pebbly gulf below:
No frost can bind it there; its utmost force
Can but arrest the light and smoky mist
That in its fall the liquid sheet throws wide."

The music of its familiar clack and splashing waters has long ceased; even the mill itself, with all its appurtenances, has disappeared; but the site is still very lovely, especially in summer time, when the shallow streams that surround it are yellow with irises, and bristle with reeds, and rushes, and wax-like umbels of butomus.

Mounting a steep path brings us to the top of Clifton Hill, and the view is not soon forgotten by the memory. The visitor carries away remembrance of the smooth line of the horizon broken by the conspicuous spire of Hanslope church (eight miles distant); the nearer prospect of the Weston uplands (in front of whose woods and spinnies could formerly be seen the old mansion of the Throckmortons); the steep white road leading to Weston, the river winding through the level meadows, and, here and there lost to sight, appearing in the evening sun like a succession of silver lakes, the lines of willows marking the smaller watercourses, the roof-tops of the long town of Olney; the church with its many-lighted steeple and great east window; the mill at Olney; and the straight run of river at the foot of the declivity, lined on the near side by a row of willows, doddered with age, and grown with polypodies and wild raspberry.1

Clifton itself, which was now to be such a favourite resort of Cowper, consisted of a group of cottages, an antiquated circular dove-house, and three important structures which stood on the brow of the hill that overlooks the river-namely, the Church, the Rectory, and the Hall; but the last, called also the "The Town of Cowper."