Cowper writes to Newton (November 17, 1786) :"I could not help giving a last look to my old prison and its precincts; and, though I cannot easily account for it, having been miserable there so many years, felt something like a heart-ache when I took my last leave of a scene that certainly in itself had nothing to engage affection. But I recollected that I had once been happy there, and could not, without tears in my eyes, bid adieu to a place in which God had so often found me. The human mind is a great mystery; mine, at least, appeared to me to be such upon this occasion. found that I not only had a tenderness for that ruinous abode, because it had once known me happy in the presence of God; but that even the distress I had suffered for so long a time, on account of His absence, had endeared it to me as much. I was weary of every object, had long wished for a change, yet could not take leave without a pang at parting."

I

Indeed, spite of all he said against it, Orchard Side had served Cowper a good turn. To look at, it was, we admit, a cheerless, prison-like edifice. Cowper, however, need not have been under any fear lest it should collapse while he was in it, for, as before observed, it is still standing, and in all probability will continue to stand for many a day.

BOOK III.

THE

"COULEUR DE ROSE;" OR, FROM COWPER'S ARRIVAL IN WESTON TO THE INTRODUCTION OF MRS. KING.

W

(November, 1786-February, 1788.)

127. Weston Lodge.

VESTON LODGE, the large and comfortable house to which Cowper had now moved, was to be his residence for nearly ten years. In

a letter to Mrs. Hill he speaks of some of the advantages of his situation: "The opposite object," to the Lodge, "and the only one, is an orchard, so well planted, and with trees of such growth, that we seem to look into a wood, or rather to be surrounded by one. Thus, placed as we are in the midst of a village, we have none of those disagreeables that belong to such a position, and the village itself is one of the prettiest I know; terminated at one end by the church tower, seen through the trees, and at the other by a very handsome gateway, opening into a fine grove of elms, belonging to our neighbour Courtenay."

Another letter (to Lady Hesketh, November 26,

1786) describes the house itself: "You well know that the best house has a desolate appearance unfurnished. This house, accordingly, since it has been occupied by us and our meubles, is as much superior to what it was when you saw it, as you can imagine. The parlour is even elegant. When I say that the parlour is elegant, I do not mean to insinuate that the study is not so. It is neat, warm, and silent, and a much better study than I deserve, if I do not produce in it an incomparable translation of Homer. I think every day of those lines of Milton, and congratulate myself on having obtained, before I am quite superannuated, what he seems not to have hoped for sooner :

'And may at length my weary age

Find out the peaceful hermitage !'

For if it is not a hermitage, at least it is a much better thing; and you must always understand, my dear, that when poets talk of cottages, hermitages, and such-like things, they mean a house with six sashes in front, two comfortable parlours, a smart staircase, and three bedchambers of convenient dimensions; in short, such a house as this."

At Olney Cowper had lived the life of a recluse. At Weston, on the contrary, he was visited by all around him, and he describes his study-the room on the right as you enter as exposed to all manner of inroads. Here, in one of the cambric muslin caps made for him by Lady Hesketh, and seated at the desk which had been given him by Anonymous, he might generally be found, and use made the new order of things familiar to him; so familiar, indeed, that neither servants going and