whipped, which operation he underwent at the cart's tail, from the stone-house to the high arch and back again. He seemed to show great fortitude, but it was all an imposition upon the public. The beadle, who performed it, had filled his left hand with red ochre, through which after every stroke he drew the lash of his whip, leaving the appearance of a wound upon the skin, but in reality not hurting him at all. This being perceived by Mr. Constable Handscomb, who followed the beadle, he applied his cane, without any such management or precaution, to the shoulders of the too merciful executioner. The scene immediately became more interesting. The beadle could by no means be prevailed upon to strike hard, which provoked the constable to strike harder; and this double flogging continued, till a lass of Silver End, pitying the pitiful beadle thus suffering under the hands of the pitiless constable, joined the procession, and placing herself immediately behind the latter, seized him by his capillary club, and pulling him backwards by the same, slapped his face with a most Amazonian fury. This concatenation of events has taken up more of my paper than I intended it should, but I could not forbear to inform you how the beadle thrashed the thief, the constable the beadle, and the lady the constable, and how the thief was the only person concerned who suffered nothing."

97. Thurlow, Colman, and Bacon.

Among the persons to whom Cowper had presented copies of his first volume were Lord Thurlow and

Colman, his old intimates at the Temple. To Thurlow, in the letter that accompanied the volume, he had said:

My Lord, I make no apology for what I account a duty. I should offend against the cordiality of our former friendship should I send a volume into the world, and forget how much I am bound to pay my particular respects to your lordship upon that occaWhen we parted, you little thought of hearing from me again, and I as little that I should live to write to you, still less that I should wait on you in the capacity of an author.

sion.

Among the pieces I have the honour to send there is one for which I must intreat your pardon; I mean that of which your lordship is the subject. The best excuse I can make is, that it flowed almost spontaneously from the affectionate remembrance of a connection that did me so much honour."

Cowper looked for a reply to this letter with much anxiety. He said to Unwin (March 18, 1782): “Whether I shall receive any answer from his Chancellorship or not is at present in ambiguo, and will probably continue in the same state of ambiguity much longer. He is so busy a man, and at this time, if the papers may be credited, so particularly busy, that I am forced to mortify myself with the thought that both my book and my letter may be thrown into a corner as too insignificant for a statesman's notice, and never found till his executor finds them. This affair, however, is neither at my libitum nor his. I have sent him the truth, and the truth which I know he is ignorant of." A fortnight later, in reply to some favourable

opinions communicated to him by Unwin, he says: "Alas, we shall never receive such commendations from him on the woolsack! He has great abilities, but no religion. Mr. Hill told him some time since. that I was going to publish; to which piece of information, so far as I can learn, he returned no answer, for Mr. Hill has not reported any to me. He had afterwards an opportunity to converse with him in private, but my poor authorship was not so much as mentioned; whence I learn two lessons: first, that, however important I may be in my own eyes, I am very insignificant in his; and secondly, that I am never likely to receive any acknowledgment of the favour I have conferred upon his lordship."

And so it proved. Thurlow did not even take the trouble to acknowledge the receipt of the book; and this was the sequence to the large promise he had made to provide for Cowper if he should attain the Chancellorship! To expect Thurlow to keep a promise made in a laughing mood and on the spur of the moment would have been foolish, but Cowper had a right to expect a few graceful words. Half a dozen strokes of Thurlow's pen would have filled him with joy, but these were denied him. To add to the mortification, Colman, too, was mute. At first Cowper made all the excuses for them possible. Both were busy men ; but when month after month passed by, and still no answer came, his wounded spirit showed itself in indignant verse, and in the poem called "The Valediction " (November, 1783) he branded with the name of False Friend both Niger and Terentius, him of the woolsack, and him of the sock and buskin.

"Farewell, false hearts! whose best affections fail,
Like shallow brooks which summer suns exhale;
Forgetful of the man whom once ye chose,
Cold in his cause, and careless of his woes;

I bid you both a long and last adieu !

Cold in my turn, and unconcerned like you."

In the letter in which he sent the lines to Unwin. (November 10, 1783) he said: "You will understand before you have read many of them that they are not for the press. I lay you under no other injunctions. The unkind behaviour of our acquaintance, though it is possible that in some instances it may not much affect our happiness, nor engage many of our thoughts, will sometimes obtrude itself upon us with a degree of importunity not easily resisted, and then, perhaps, though almost insensible of it before, we feel more than the occasion will justify. In such a moment it was that I conceived this poem, and gave loose to a degree of resentment which, perhaps, I ought not to have indulged, but which in a cooler hour I cannot altogether condemn. My former intimacy with the two characters was such that I could not but feel myself provoked by the neglect with which they both treated me on a late occasion."

As a set-off, however, against the vexation caused by the conduct of Colman and Thurlow must be placed the pleasure caused by the attentions of Mr. Bacon, the sculptor. Bacon, who was a friend of Newton, had read Cowper's first volume with great delight, and he now made himself known to the poet by sending him a print of the monument of Lord Chatham, which he had just been executing. Nothing," says Cowper, "can be more handsome

than the present, nor more obliging than the manner in which he has made it. I take it for granted that the plate is, line for line, and stroke for stroke, an exact representation of his performance. I have most of the monuments in the Abbey by heart, but I recollect none that ever gave me so much pleasure.' Whilst this impression was still warm, the poet introduced his new friend and his work into the poem upon which he was engaged.

"Bacon there

Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips."

("Task," bk. I.)

In his letter to Newton of January 25 (1784) Cowper encloses his translation of Dr. Jortin's "In Brevitatem," which he prefaces with the following jingle:

"The late Dr. Jortin
Had the good fortune
To write these verses
Upon tombs and hearses
Which I, being jinglish,
Have done into English."

98. At Book the Fifth.-February, 1784.

It may have surprised some readers that so much of the "Task "is taken up with descriptions of scenes in winter. But it must be remembered that nearly 'the whole of the poem was written in the winter months,

'For account of Dr. John Jortin, see Gentleman's Magazine, February, 1839.