cepted a note which he sent to inform Raban of the pulling down of the Shiel Hall, and blacksmith's shop adjoining. Continues Teedon : "I went over to the Esqr. (Cowper) and informed him of it, who desired me to go to Raban and inform him, and write down his Ans', who (i.e., Raban) defied them to touch the School." As mentioned earlier in this work, the Shiel Hall was not actually demolished till 1816.

Besides a day school for boys, Teedon and his household also kept a night school for girls. From each scholar was received from 6s. 3d. to 7s. per quarter. The number of scholars mentioned in the diary is 87 (boys 50, girls 37). Thus, taking night school and day school together, he might have had between 30 and 40 at a time, perhaps not so many.

The diary, it will be remembered, closes on February 2, 1794, and on this date Teedon made a visit to Cowper. Probably, however, he visited him after.

Very often the different voices Cowper heard caused only distress, but occasionally it was not so, as witness the letter to Teedon of October 16, 1792, written while Mr Johnson was at Weston :

"On Sunday, while I walked with Mrs. Unwin and my cousin in the orchard, it pleased God to enable me once more to approach Him in prayer, and I prayed silently for everything that lay nearest my heart with a considerable degree of liberty. Nor did I let slip the occasion of praying for you.

"This experience I take to be a fulfilment of those words :

"The ear of the Lord is open to them that fear Him, and He will hear their cry.'

"The next morning, at my waking, I heard these : 'Fulfil thy promise to me.'

"And ever since I was favoured with that spiritual freedom to make my requests known to God, I have enjoyed some quiet, though not uninterrupted by threatenings of the enemy."

Referring to another of his cheering moments, Cowper says:

"In one of my short sleeps I dreamed that I had God's presence in a slight in a slight measure, and exclaimed under the impression of it—

"I know that Thou art infinitely gracious, but what will become of me?'

"This fever keeps me always in terror, for it has ever been the harbinger of my worst indispositions. As to prayer, the very Collects you mention have been the prayers that I have generally used when I have felt the least encouragement to pray at all. But I may add, never with any sensible effect. In compliance, however, with your call to that service, I will use them again, and be careful not to omit them, at least till the time you mention is expired. Yet if faith be necessary to effectuate prayer, alas, what chance have mine!"

A week later he wrote again to Teedon :

"I have now persevered in the punctual performance of the duty of prayer as long, and I believe longer, than the time which you specified. Whether any beneficial effect has followed, I cannot say. My wakings in the night have certainly been somewhat less painful and terrible than they were, but this I cannot help ascribing to the agency of an anodyne which I have constantly

used lately at bedtime. Of one thing, however, I am sure, which is, that I have had no spiritual anodynevouchsafed to me. My nights having been somewhat less disturbed, my days have of course been such likewise; but a settled melancholy overclouds them all; nothing cheers me, nothing inspires me with hope. It is even miraculous in my own eyes that, always occupied as I am in the contemplation of the most distressing subjects, I am not absolutely incapacitated for the common offices of life.

"My purpose is to continue such prayer as I can make, although with all this reason to conclude that it is not accepted, and though I have been more than once forbidden in my own apprehension by Him to whom it is addressed. You will tell me, that God never forbids anybody to pray, but, on the contrary, encourages all to do it. I answer-No. Some He does. not encourage, and some He even forbids; not by words perhaps, but by a secret negative found only in their experience."

As soon as God had revealed anything new, Teedon's custom to communicate with Cowper, and the poet thus replies to one of these letters :

"Dear Sir, in your last experience, extraordinary as it was, I found nothing presumptuous. God is free to manifest Himself, both in manner and measure, as He pleases; and to you He is pleased to manifest Himselt uncommonly in both. It would be better with poor me, if, being the subject of so many of your manifestations (for which I desire to be thankful both to God and you), I were made in some small degree at least partaker of the comfort of them, But

except that my

nights are less molested than they used to be, I perceive at present no alteration at all for the better."

In an unpublished letter to Hayley, dated October 28, 1792, Cowper says of himself: "I am a pitiful beast, and in the texture of my mind and natural temper have three threads of despondency for one of hope."

The various voices that Cowper fancied he heard he entered in a book, together with Teedon's interpretations of them, keeping on till he had filled volumes. These volumes have not, we believe, been preserved.

A few words may now be added concerning the ne'erdo-well, Dick Coleman. We have already said that Dick turned out badly, and the truth is, he was a source of vexation to Cowper the whole of his life. After his marriage, Dick lived next door to his benefactor in the eastern portion of "Orchard Side." Cowper alludes to him in the amusing account of the flight of one of his hares, and subsequently speaks of the neighbouring house as inhabited by "Dick Coleman, his wife, and a thousand rats." Though Coleman had turned out such a ne'er-do-well, his benefactor still continued to have an interest in him, as may be seen from the poet's letter to his publisher, Mr. Joseph Johnson, July 8, 1792: "There is one Richard Coleman in the world, whom I have educated from an infant, and who is utterly good for nothing; but he is at present in great trouble, the fruit of his own folly. I send him, by this post, an order upon you for eight guineas."

The consequence of this fresh act of benevolence was that Dick was enabled to get back repay the kindness in his usual way.

to Olney, and to There is a refer

ence to him in Teedon's diary, which, though brief, is

suficient to show that Dick was a general nuisance. It is as follows: "September 18 (1792), Worthy went over with my letter to the Esq (i.e., Cowper), but as they did not come (referring to Cowper and Mrs. Unwin's return from Eartham), brought it back. Found Dick Coleman just come in, and advised Kitchener (Cowper's gardener) by all means if they came to get rid of him without Mr. Cowper's seeing Him. I do not think we should be wronging Dick by assuming that he was drunk.

183. The Miltonic Trap.-December, 1792.

Even before the journey to Eartham Cowper had been much troubled because he was unable to proceed with Milton. After his return the various hindrances he continued to meet with, and the consequent unsettled state of his mind again militated against the progress of his studies. On October 28th he writes: "The consciousness that there is so much to do, and nothing done, is a burthen I am not able to bear. Milton especially is my grievance, and I might almost as well be haunted by his ghost as goaded with continual reproaches for neglecting him."

On November 9th he writes to Rose: "I wish that I were as industrious and as much occupied as you, though in a different way; but it is not so with me. Mrs. Unwin's great debility (who is not yet able to move without assistance) is of itself a hindrance such as would effectually disable me. Till she can work, and read, and fill up her time as usual (all which is at