was received by Cowper's reply to it (October 12, 1785) "My dear cousin, it is no new thing with you to give pleasure. But I will venture to say that you do not often give more than you gave me this morning. When I came down to breakfast, and found upon the table a letter franked by my uncle, and when opening that frank I found that it contained a letter from you, I said within myself 'This is just as it should be. We are all grown young again, and the days that I thought I should see no more are actually returned.' You perceived, therefore, that you judged well when you conjectured that a line from you would not be disagreeable to me. It could not be otherwise than as in fact it proved-a most agreeable surprise, for I can truly boast of an affection for you that neither years nor interrupted intercourse have at all abated. I need only recollect how much I valued you once, and with how much cause, immediately to feel a revival of the same value-if that can be said to revive, which at the most has only been dormant for want of employment. But I slander it when I say that it has slept. A thousand times have I recollected a thousand scenes, in which our two selves have formed the whole of the drama, with the greatest pleasure; at times too when I had no reason to suppose that I should ever hear from you again."

In her second letter Lady Hesketh inquired into the state of his finances, offering, in the event of his being straightened, such assistance as she was able to afford. He replies: "My benevolent and generous cousin, when I was once asked if I wanted anything, and given delicately to understand that the inquirer was ready to

supply all my occasions, I thankfully and civilly, but positively, declined the favour. I neither suffer, nor have suffered, any such inconveniences as I had not much rather endure than come under obligations of that sort to a person comparatively with yourself a stranger to me. But to you I answer otherwise. I know you thoroughly, and the liberality of your disposition, and have that consummate confidence in the sincerity of your wish to serve me, that delivers me from all awkward constraint, and from all fear of trespassing by acceptance. To you, therefore, I reply yes whensoever, and whatsoever, and in what manner soever you please; and add, moreover, that my affection for the giver is such as will increase to me tenfold the satisfaction that I shall have in receiving. It is necessary, however, that I should let you a little into the state of my finances, that you may not suppose them more narrowly circumscribed than they are. Since Mrs. Unwin and I have lived at Olney we have had but one purse; although during the whole of that time, till lately, her income was nearly double mine. Her revenues, indeed, are now in some measure reduced, and do not much exceed my own; the worst consequence of this is, that we are forced to deny ourselves some things which hitherto we have been better able to afford, but they are such things as neither life, nor the well-being of life, depend

"Now, my beloved cousin, you are in possession of the whole case as it stands. Strain no points to your own inconvenience or hurt, for there is no need of it; but indulge yourself in communicating (no

matter what) that you can spare without missing it, since by so doing you will be sure to add to the comforts of my life one of the sweetest that I can enjoy a token and proof of your affection."

The letters of Cowper to his cousin, Lady Hesketh, are among the most delightful in his correspondence. He is almost always cheerful when writing to her, and he is always most affectionate. They sometimes commence with " My dear Cousin"; but when in a whimsical mood it was "My dearest Coz," "My dearest Coswoz," or "My dearest Cuzzy-wuzzy," and he sometimes styled himself "Yours ever Giles Gingerbread"-in allusion, probably, to some joke of his Temple days. In one letter he is "Jeremy Jago."

In short, so agreeable did Cowper find writing to and hearing from his cousin, that he expressed the hope that their correspondence had now suffered its last interruption, and that they would go down together to the grave, chatting and chirping as merrily as such a scene of things as this would permit—a wish that was almost literally fulfilled.

116. The Rev. Walter Bagot.-December, 1785.

Shortly after the publication of his first volume Cowper was visited by an old schoolfellow, the Rev. Walter Bagot, rector of Blithfield, Staffordshire, who was staying with his brother Charles (whose name was now altered to Chester), at Chicheley, five miles distant. "Having read my book, and liking it," says Cowper,

"he took that opportunity to renew his acquaintance with me."

Cowper had been acquainted at Westminster, it may be remembered, with the five brothers Bagot. To one of them, now a bishop, Cowper paid a compliment in the "Task." For paying this compliment he gives his reasons in a letter to Unwin (December 18, 1784): “In the first place, then, I wished the world to know that I have no objection to a bishop, quid bishop. In the second place, the brothers were all five my schoolfellows, and very amiable and valuable boys they were. Thirdly, Lewis, the bishop, had been rudely and coarsely treated in the Monthly Review, on account of a sermon which appeared to me, when I read their extract from it, to deserve the highest commendations, as exhibiting explicit proof both of his good sense and his unfeigned piety."

In November, 1785, Mr. Bagot was at his brother's again, and visited Cowper three times. On the last occasion Cowper informed his friend of the new translation of Homer. Mr. Bagot received the news with great pleasure, immediately subscribed a draft of twenty pounds, and promised his whole heart and his whole interest, which lay "principally among people of the first fashion."

117. Anonymous.-December, 1785.

In December (1785) Cowper received a letter that greatly gratified him from a person who styled himself or herself, whichever it might be, Anonymous. What

the contents of this letter were we do not know, but Cowper thus speaks of it to Lady Hesketh: "Hours and hours and hours have I spent in endeavours, altogether fruitless, to trace the writer of the letter that I send by a minute examination of the character; and never did it strike me, till this moment, that' your father wrote it. In the style I discover him; in the scoring of the emphatic words (his never-failing practice); in the formation of many of the letters.” In the next letter to Lady Hesketh, however, Cowper was by no means so certain, but he declared therein that he would try no more to pierce the vail behind which Anonymous had thought proper to hide. "He chooses to be unknown, and his choice is, and ever shall be, so sacred to me that, if his name lay on the table before me reversed, I would not turn the paper about that I might read it. Much as it would gratify me to thank him, I would turn my eyes away from the forbidden discovery."

Describing the second letter of Anonymous, Cowper says: "In the last place, he gives his attention to my circumstances, takes the kindest notice of their narrowness, and makes me a present of an annuity of fifty pounds a year, wishing that it were five hundred pounds."

Various presents arrived also for Cowper, brought by the Wellingborough coach. These were "a most elegant writing-desk" of cedar, mounted with silver, the same that figures in his portrait by Abbot, and a handsome snuff-box, the lid of which was embellished with a landscape. In the background of the picture was a hill with a cottage surrounded by trees, and in the fore