83. The Fracas.-January, 1782.

By the time Lady Austen set out for London in October she and the poet (or rather Sister Anne and Brother William, as they now preferred to call one another) were closest friends. Lady Austen, indeed, made up her mind to disturb Dick Coleman, his wife, and the thousand rats that inhabited the eastern portion of the house occupied by Cowper, and live there herself."Next spring twelvemonth she begins to repair and beautify, and in the following winter she intends to take possession."

Cowper, in the same letter, tells Unwin, whom he requests to visit her in London, more about Lady Austen's character. "She has many features in her character which you will admire; but one, in particular, on account of the rarity of it, will engage your attention and esteem. She has a degree of gratitude in her composition, so quick a sense of obligation, as is hardly to be found in any rank of life, and, if report say true, is scarce indeed in the superior. Discover but a wish to please her, and she never forgets it; not only thanks you, but the tears will start into her eyes at the recollection of the smallest service. With these fine feelings, she has the most, and the most harmless, vivacity you can imagine." Elsewhere he says, "She is exceedingly sensible, has great quickness of parts, and an uncommon fluency of expression."

In December, to all appearance, the affection between the brother and sister was undiminished, for on the 17th was despatched the "Poetical Epistle to Lady

Austen;" but before February had flown a disagreement occurred which had its origin in some passage that Cowper wrote, which gave her displeasure. Says he, "Conscious of none but the most upright and inoffensive intentions, I yet apologized for the passage in question, and the flaw was healed again. Our correspondence, after this, proceeded smoothly for a considerable time; but at length, having had repeated occasion to observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and built such expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her that we were mortal, to recommend it to her not to think more highly of us than the subject could warrant, and intimating that when we embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and, so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its real merits, we make it an idol, and have nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes, and that we shall derive nothing from it but a painful conviction of our error." The simple truth of the matter was, Lady Austen was in love with him, and she had clung to the hope that the affection with which he regarded her was something more than mere friendship.

Such being the case, it is not surprising that the letter gave "mortal offence. It received, indeed, an answer, but such a one as could by no means be replied to". -an answer in which she " expressed herself with

a warmth that she knew must have affronted and shocked" both Cowper and Mrs. Unwin.

And that was the end of the friendship that promised

so much—at least so thought Cowper. Far otherwise it proved, for Lady Austen, soon after, sent a present of three pairs of ruffles, with advice that he should soon receive a fourth. "I knew they were begun before we quarrelled. I begged Mr. Jones to tell her, when he wrote next, how much I thought myself obliged, and gave him to understand that I should make her a very inadequate though the only return in my power by laying my volume at her feet." This, of course, was the volume of poems that was on the point of being published.

84. Wilson, the Barber.

Of Cowper's neighbours none was more in his company than Wilson, the barber, a worthy whom the poet reckoned amongst the "men of best intelligence" in the town. Plenty of people now living in Olney can remember Mr. Wilson, and numbers of interesting facts connected with the poet scattered up and down the pages of this volume owe their preservation to him. Cowper's references to his "friseur" and the articles inseparable from his calling are of frequent

Occurrence.

"First came the barber," he says (July 27, 1780), "who, after having embellished the outside of my head, has left the inside just as unfurnished as he found it." In one place, speaking of the inability of some people to appreciate a joke, he says: "You might as well relate a good story to a barber's block" (December 21, 1780). In another he likens something or other to

the action of putting a plaster on a barber's block. Cowper's own wig-block is still preserved in the summer-house.

Even in his brightest years Cowper was subject to brief periods of melancholy, and Wilson when he called would sometimes perceive that vacant, woebegone look that only too accurately betrayed the state within. On such occasions, whilst shaving him, the barber was obliged again and again "to chuck up his lower jaw," which had the habit of falling.

After the summer of 1781, when he made a public profession of religion by joining the Baptist church in the town, Mr. Wilson, contrary to his previous habit, was very strict in his observance of the Sabbath. "The barber and hairdresser who officiates for me,' says Cowper in June of that year, "would not wait upon the king himself on a Sunday."

Previous to this it had been his custom to go out every Sunday morning to dress the hair of Lady Austen, but he now sent word that although he should be only too happy to attend her other days, he could no longer do so on Sundays.

At first thought the reader may not look upon this as a very great calamity to Lady Austen, but calling to mind the lofty and elaborate head-dresses of the last century, he will form some idea of the dilemma in which she found herself. Probably, too, whilst honouring the one, who sacrificed his interest to his conscience, he will sympathize just a little with the other, and think none the worse of her for being vexed and rating Mr. Wilson roundly. All, however, to no effect; and as in the small town of Olney there

was only one barber (Cowper adds, one bellman, one poet"), she was obliged to have her hair dressed on Saturday evenings. And we are told that more than once she sat up all night to prevent its disarrangement.I

Besides Wilson and Raban, there were several other townsfolk with whom Cowper was more or less acquainted, and whom he refers to as making visits to him, generally for the purpose of bringing news. Two of them, with Mr. Wilson, he describes as entering on this errand on November 27, 1781. "First Mr. Wilson, then Mr. Teedon, and lastly Mr. Whitford, each with a cloud of melancholy on his brow, and with a mouth wide open, have just announced to us this unwelcome intelligence from America." Of Teedon we shall have a good deal to say by and by. Whitford was the minister of the Independent meeting at Olney, of which he was pastor from 1776 to 1783. He was an old friend of John Newton's, having, in fact, at one time studied under him.

85. The Publication of the First Volume.— February, 1782.

The volume which had been so long in the press was now put before the world. Cowper had made his "public entrée."

The "Task" has been read, and read again, by almost everybody, but these earlier and, to use Cowper's own description of them, "serio-comic " poems, although containing many passages of beauty

* “The Town of Cowper."