Speaking of the manner in which they employed their time at Eartham, Hayley observes: "Homer was not the immediate object of our attention. The morning hours that we could bestow upon books were chiefly devoted to a complete revisal and correction of all the translations, which my friend had finished, from the Latin and Italian poetry of Milton; and we generally amused ourselves after dinner in forming together a rapid metrical version of Andreini's Adamo "—a poem that is interesting only from the fact that it probably suggested to Milton the design of "Paradise Lost." Neither the original nor Cowper and Hayley's joint version of it are of any particular merit. This translation, which is included in some editions of Cowper's works, is entitled "Adam, a drama."

178. The Portrait by Romney.-August 26th.

Only a month had passed since Cowper's portrait had been painted by Abbot, and now, at the request of Hayley, he was to be drawn in crayons by Romney.

George Romney, the great rival of Sir Joshua Reynolds, was one of the guests invited by Hayley to meet Cowper at Eartham. The story of Romney was a curious one. Born about 1735, he was bred to his father's trade of carpenter-joiner, obtained a knowledge of painting from a portrait-painter at Kendal when he was nineteen, married at twenty-two, and at twentyseven quitted his wife, with her concurrence, to seek his fortune in London. It had been thirty years since he took this step, and Fortune had favoured him. He

continued to provide for his wife and children, but that was all During those thirty years he had not seen her, nor did he return to her or Kendal till seven years subsequently, when, though famous and rich, he was a broken-down old man.

Romney had long been the friend of Hayley. Fifteen years previously he had drawn Hayley's portrait, an admirable likeness," which the Eartham bard now gave to his "William of Weston." Romney's portrait of Cowper was regarded by Hayley as one of the most masterly and faithful resemblances he ever beheld. Romney himself considered it as the nearest approach he had ever made to a perfect representation of life and character. It had, however, an

air of wildness in it expressive of a disordered mind, which the shock produced by the paralytic attack of Mrs. Unwin was rapidly impressing on on his countenance." Cowper also considered the picture a good one. Comparing it with Abbot's, in an unpublished letter of August 29, 1792, he says: “Romney has succeeded equally well in drawing my head only, but my head in a different aspect, little more than a profile." On his return to Weston, Cowper wrote the following lines, which show that he did not notice, though all his friends did, “the symptoms of woe in it":

TO GEORGE ROMNEY, ESQ.,

On his picture of me in crayons, drawn at Eartham, in the sixty-first year of my age, and in the months of August and September, 1792.

"Romney, expert infallibly to trace

On chart or canvas, not the form alone
And semblance, but, however faintly shown,

The mind's impression too on every face,

With strokes that time ought never to erase;

Thou hast so pencilled mine, that though I own
The subject worthless, I have never known
The artist shining with superior grace.

But this I mark, that symptoms none of woe
In thy incomparable work appear :
Well! I am satisfied, it should be so,

Since, on maturer thought, the cause is clear;
For in my looks what sorrow could'st thou see,
While I was Hayley's guest, and sat to thee?"

179. The Epitaph on Fop.-August 25th.

Try as he might, Cowper was not able, while in Sussex, to use his pen to his satisfaction. "I am in truth," he says, "so unaccountably local in the use of my pen, that, like the man in the fable, who could leap well nowhere but at Rhodes, I seem incapable of writing at all, except at Weston."

Consequently we find that the only original piece he wrote during this visit was the epitaph on the dog Fop. He despatched it to Weston on August 23rd, when he says: "Without waiting for an answer to my last, I send my dear Catharina the epitaph she desired, composed as well as I could compose it in a place where every object, being still new to me, distracts my attention, and makes me as awkward at verse as if I had never dealt in it. Here it is :—

EPITAPH ON FOP,

A DOG, BELONGING TO LADY THROCKMORTON.

Though once a puppy, and though Fop by name,
Here moulders one whose bones some honour claim;
No sycophant, although of spaniel race!

And though no hound, a martyr to the chase!

Te suurmeis, rabbits, leverets, rejoice!
Your haunts no longer echo to his voice.
This record of his face exalting view,

He died worn out with vain pursuit of you!

“Yes!” the indignant shade of Fop replies, * And worn with vain pursuit, man also dies!”

The epitaph gave “Catharina" great gratification. Cowper afterwards told her he was glad she was pleased with it, and that he should be prouder still to see it " perpetuated by the chisel"-an allusion doubtless to the intention of the lady to have it inscribed on the basement of a monumental urn destined for the Wilderness, where it may still be read. In the previously quoted letter the poet says more about his situation :

“I am here, as I told you in my last, delightfully situated, and in the enjoyment of all the most friendly hospitality can impart; yet do I neither forget Weston, nor my friends at Weston: on the contrary, I have at length, though much and kindly pressed to make a longer stay, determined on the day of our departure— on the 17th of September we shall leave Eartham ; four days will be necessary to bring us home again, for I am under a promise to General Cowper to dine with him on the way, which cannot be done comfortably, either to him or to ourselves, unless we sleep that night at Kingston."

Cowper had in fact, spite of the allurements of Eartham, soon begun to get homesick. He tells Lady Hesketh, on September 9th: "This is, as I have already told you, a delightful place; more beautiful scenery I have never beheld, nor expect to behold; but the charms of it, uncommon as they are, have not

in the least alienated my affections from Weston. The genius of that place suits me better, it has an air of snug concealment, in which a disposition like mine feels peculiarly gratified; whereas here I see from every window woods like forests, and hills like mountains, a wildness, in short, that rather increases my natural melancholy, and which, were it not for the agreeables I find within, would soon convince me that mere change of place can avail me little." And he subsequently wrote to Newton: "Within doors all was hospitality and kindness, but the scenery would have its effect; and though delightful in the extreme to those who had spirits to bear it, was too gloomy for me."

180. Hurdis, Charlotte Smith, and "Little

Tom:"

Cowper had the gratification while at Eartham of meeting his correspondent Hurdis. But the pleasure of the meeting was mingled with sadness owing to the fact that Hurdis had but recently lost a beloved sister -the "Sally "Sally" of one of Cowper's minor poems. "You would admire him much," Cowper tells Lady Hesketh. "He is gentle in his manners, and delicate in his person, resembling our poor friend Unwin, both in face and figure, more than any one I have ever seen. But he has not, at least he has not at present, his vivacity."

Another person whom Hayley had invited to meet Cowper was the gifted but unfortunate Charlotte Smith, who had just begun "The Old Manor House," the best