The painting by Abbot was done to oblige "Johnny of Norfolk." "How do you imagine I have been occupied these last ten days?" says Cowper to Mr. Bull, on the 25th of July. "In sitting,—not on cockatrice eggs, nor yet to gratify a mere idle humour, nor because I was too sick to move; but because my cousin Johnson has an aunt who has a longing desire of my picture, and because he would therefore bring a painter from London to draw it. For this purpose I have been sitting, as I say, these ten days, and am heartily glad that my sitting time is over." Indeed so wearied was he on one occasion that young Mr. Higgins, who sometimes looked on, kindly took his place and sat for the hand.

Abbot's oil-painting represents the poet in a periwig, green coat, yellow waistcoat, and breeches (the Throckmorton archery costume). In an unpublished letter of August 29, 1792, Cowper says, "Green and buff are colours in which I am oftener seen than in any others, and are become almost as natural to me as to a parrot, and the dress was chosen principally for that reason." The periwig is probably the identical article concerning which he wrote to "Mrs. Frog" (Throckmorton) in March, 1790: << My periwig is arrived, and is the very perfection of all periwigs, having only one fault : which is, that my head will only go into the first half of it, the other half, or the upper part of it, continuing still unoccupied. My artist in this way at Olney has, however, undertaken to make the whole of it tenantable, and then I shall be twenty years younger than you have ever seen me." Before him is the writing desk that was presented by Theodora. "My desk, the most

elegant, the compactest, the most commodious desk in the world, and of all the desks that ever were or ever shall be, the desk that I love the most." In a letter to Hayley (July 15, 1792) he writes:

- Abbot is painting me so true,
That trust me) you would stare,
And hardly know, at the first view,
If I were here or there."

And a few days later he said to the same correspondent, “Well, this picture is at last finished, and well finished, I can assure you. Every creature that has seen it has been astonished at the resemblance. Sam's boy bowed to it, and Beau walked up to it, wagging his tail as he went, and evidently showing that he acknowledged its likeness to his master. It is half length, as it is technically but absurdly called: that is to say, it gives all but foot and ankle." Cowper thought Abbot's likeness of him the "closest imaginable ;" and according to Mr. Johnson, “Catharina,” and Mr. John Higgins, it was a better resemblance than either Romney's or Lawrence's.

176. The Journey to Eartham.-August 1st.

Cowper had now quite made up his mind to visit Hayley, though to take a journey of a hundred and twenty miles was verily a deed of derring-do. "A thousand lions, monsters, and giants" were in his way, nevertheless he hoped they would all vanish if he had but the courage to face them, and he had little doubt that the change of air, together with the novelty of the

scene, would be useful both to him and Mrs. Unwin. Pray for us, my friend," he says to Mr. Bull, "that we may have a safe going and return. It is a tremendous exploit." Persons accustomed to travel, as Cowper observes, would make themselves merry with all this anxiety, which seemed so disproportioned to the occasion. But for over twenty-six years Cowper had scarcely stirred from the neighbourhood of Olney and Weston. "Once," he says, writing to Newton, "I have been on the point of determining not to go, and even since we fixed the day; my troubles have been so insupportable. But it has been made a matter of much prayer, and at last it has pleased God to satisfy me, in some measure, that His will corresponds with our purpose, and that He will afford us His protection. You, I know, will not be unmindful of us during our absence from home; but will obtain for us, if your prayers can do it, all that we would ask for ourselves-the presence and favour of God, a salutary effect of our journey, and a safe return."

On July 29th he writes to Hayley as follows, commencing his letter with a verse of poetry :

"Through floods and flames to your retreat

I win my desp'rate way,

And when we meet, if e'er we meet,
Will echo your huzza!”

"You will wonder at the word desp'rate in the second line, and at the if in the third; but could you have any conception of the fears I have had to bustle with, of the dejection of spirits that I have suffered concerning this journey, you would wonder much more

that I still courageously persevere in my resolution to undertake it. Fortunately for my intentions, it happens, that as the day approaches my terrors abate; for had they continued to be what they were a week since, I must, after all, have disappointed you; and was actually once on the verge of doing it. I have told you something of my nocturnal experiences, and assure you now, that they were hardly ever more terrific than on this occasion. Prayer has however opened my passage at last, and obtained for me a degree of confidence that I trust will prove a comfortable viaticum to me all the way. On Wednesday therefore we set forth.

"The terrors that I have spoken of would appear ridiculous to most, but to you they will not, for you are a reasonable creature, and know well that, to whatever cause it be owing (whether to constitution, or to God's express appointment) I am hunted by spiritual hounds in the night season. I cannot help it. You will pity me, and wish it were otherwise; and though you may think there is much of the imaginary in it, will not deem it for that reason an evil less to be lamented-so much for fears and distresses. Soon I hope they shall all have a joyful termination, and I, my Mary, my Johnny, and my dog, be skipping with delight at Eartham!"

His friends, Rose, General Cowper, and Carwardine, informed him of their desire to meet him at various

points on the route. "Other men," remarks Cowper, "steal away from their homes silently, and make no disturbance; but when I move, houses are turned upside down, maids are turned out of their beds, all the counties through which I pass appear to be in an

uproar Surrey greets me by the mouth of the General, and Essex by that of Carwardine. How strange does all this seem, to a man who has seen no bustle, and made none, for twenty years together!

Abbot, who had returned to London, in fulfilment of his commission, ordered a coach to Olney, "with four steeds to draw it," and on Wednesday, August 1st, Cowper, Mrs. Unwin, Johnson, Sam, and Beau set out for Eartham. A day or two after, describing the journey, he says: "It pleased God to carry us both through the journey with far less difficulty and inconvenience than I expected. I began it indeed with a thousand fears, and when we arrived the first evening at Barnet, found myself oppressed in spirit to a degree that could hardly be exceeded. I saw Mrs. Unwin weary, as she might well be, and heard such noises, both within the house and without, that I concluded she would get no rest. But I was mercifully disappointed. She rested, though not well, yet sufficiently.'

At the "Mitre," where the night was spent, Cowper was met by Mr. Rose. At Kingston, where they dined the second day, he encountered the General (who lived at Ham, close by), whom he had not seen for thirty years. The second night was passed at Ripley (six miles from Guildford). Of the remainder of the journey Cowper thus speaks in a letter to Teedon: “I indeed myself was a little daunted by the tremendous height of the Sussex hills, in comparison of which all that I had seen elsewhere are dwarfs; but I only was alarmed; Mrs. Unwin had no such sensations, but was always cheerful from the beginning of our expedition to the end of it." And he adds, "I had one glimpse