140. Mr. Bean.-March, 1788.

The death of the aged and non-resident Vicar of Olney, the Rev. Moses Browne, necessitated the choice of a successor, and that choice fell on the Rev. James Bean, a friend of the Rev. John Newton, who arrived in the town on the 3rd of March. Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Bean resided at Olney, and not many days elapsed after his arrival before he made the acquaintance of the poet, who was able to write on the 12th: "The new Vicar of Olney is arrived, and we have exchanged visits. He is a plain, sensible man, and pleases me much. A treasure for Olney, if Olney can understand his value." And on the 17th he says: "Of Mr. Bean I could say much, but have only time at present to say that I esteem and love him. On some future occasion I shall speak of him more at large; and he observed a few weeks later: "He is a man with whom, when I can converse at all, I can converse on terms perfectly agreeable to myself; who does not distress me with forms, nor yet disgust me by the neglect of them; whose manners are easy and natural, and his observations always sensible. I often, therefore, wish them nearer neighbours."

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The vicarage at Olney, which had so long been but partially occupied by a bachelor curate, now began "once more to assume a comfortable aspect." After several visits had been interchanged, spite of "dirty ways, high winds, rain and snow," Mr. Bean April 17th drank tea at the lodge, and next day

on

Cowper and Mrs. Unwin did the same at the vicarage, which they found very agreeable, their new neighbours being of a character exactly suited to their wish: "conversible, peaceable, amiable."

In 1789, at Mr. Bean's request, Cowper wrote a "Hymn, for the use of the Sunday School at Olney" -"Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer

request that caused the poet to observe: "I am somewhat in the case of Lawyer Dowling, in 'Tom Jones; and, could I split myself into as many poets as there are muses, could find employment for them all."

141. Cowper "in at the Death.”

On the 3rd of March Cowper wrote a very characteristic letter to Lady Hesketh, describing how it came about that a few days previously he was in at the death of a fox. Cowper lived in a fox-hunting country, and all the gentry among whom he was thrown were ardent fox-hunters. Mr. Wrighte of Gayhurst, Mr. Praed of Tyringham, Mr. Chester of Chicheley, and the brothers Throckmorton. The poet's own sentiments on the subject are pretty well known. His satiric lines on the hunting squire and the hunting parson are among the best things of his first volume, and both in his letters and subsequent verse he is always ready to have a cut at this one of his pet aversions-as, for example, in that delightful poem, "The Needless Alarm poem whose melodious lines and realistic pictures are followed by the moral :

"Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,

Live till to-morrow, will have passed away."

The letter referred to of the 3rd of March is so good of its kind, that no apology is needed for quoting it whole. He says: "One day last week Mrs. Unwin and I, having taken our morning walk, and returning homeward through the Wilderness, met the Throckmortons. A minute after we had met them we heard the cry of hounds at no great distance, and, mounting the broad stump of an elm, which had been felled, and by the aid of which we were enabled to look over the wall, we saw them. They were all at that time in our orchard presently we heard a terrier, belonging to Mrs. Throckmorton, which you may remember by the name of Fury, yelping with much vehemence, and saw her running through the thickets within a few yards of us at her utmost speed, as if in pursuit of something which we doubted not was the fox. Before we could reach the other end of the Wilderness, the hounds entered also; and when we arrived at the gate which opens into the grove, there we found the whole weary cavalcade assembled. The huntsman, dismounting, begged leave to follow his hounds on foot, for he was sure, he said, that they had killed him-a conclusion I suppose he drew from their profound silence. He was accordingly admitted, and, with a sagacity that would not have dishonoured the best hound in the world, pursuing precisely the same track which the fox. and the dogs had taken, though he had never had a glimpse of either after their first entrance through the rails, arrived where he found the slaughtered prey. He soon produced dead reynard, and rejoined us in the grove with all his dogs about him. Having an opportunity to see a ceremony, which I was pretty sure

would never fall in my way again, I determined to stay and to notice all that passed with the most minute attention. The huntsman having, by the aid of a pitchfork, lodged reynard on the arm of an elm, at the height of about nine feet from the ground, there left him for a considerable time. The gentlemen sat on their horses contemplating the fox, for which they had toiled so hard; and the hounds, assembled at the foot of the tree, with faces not less expressive of the most rational delight, contemplated the same object. The huntsman remounted; cut off a foot, and threw it to the hounds-one of them swallowed it whole like a bolus. He then once more alighted, and, drawing down the fox by the hinder legs, desired the people, who were by this time rather numerous, to open a lane for him to the right and left. He was instantly obeyed, when throwing the fox to the distance of some yards, and screaming like a fiend, Tear him to pieces!' at least six times repeatedly, he consigned him over absolutely to the pack, who in a few minutes devoured him completely. Thus, my dear, as Virgil says, what none of the gods could have ventured to promise me, time itself, pursuing its accustomed course, has of its own accord presented me with. I have been in at the death of a fox, and you now know as much of the matter as I, who am as well informed as any sportsman in England."

142. At Chicheley again.-May 24, 1788.

On the 24th of May Cowper speaks of having dined again with "the most companionable and domestic Mr.

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Chester." "The whole kingdom," he says, hardly furnish a spectacle more pleasing to a man who has a taste for true happiness than himself, Mrs. Chester, and their multitudinous family. Seven long miles are interposed between us, or perhaps I should oftener have an opportunity of declaiming on this subject."

"I saw at Mr. Chester's a great curiosity-an antique bust of Paris, in Parian marble. You will conclude that it interested me exceedingly. I pleased myself with supposing that it once stood in Helen's chamber. It was, in fact, brought from the Levant, and, though not well mended (for it had suffered much by time), is an admirable performance."

In October of the same year, 1788, Cowper records. another visit to the Chesters, this time in Lady Hesketh's carriage, when he had the pleasure of seeing another of the five brothers-Howard-whom he had not met for many years. Cowper was truly happy, he tells the Rev. Walter Bagot in being the instrument of bringing the Chesters and Lady Hesketh to an acquaintance. "She and your sister would love each other more than people generally do in this neighbourhood, could they come often together. Another year perhaps may afford more frequent opportunities than they are likely to find in the present, which is now far spent, and threatens us with foul weather soon and dirty roads, which make Chicheley unapproachable by mortal wight, who is subject to fear in a carriage. Menelaus. tells Telemachus that had Ulysses returned safe from Troy, it was his intention to have built him a city and