replied naïvely, "Do, Sir? wash all day, and ride out on the great dog at night"-a response not at all agreeable to the views of Mr. Ashley Cowper, who had marked with dissatisfaction his nephew's capriciousness and want of application. The poet's uncle cannot be charged with rashness in his decision, for the question of marriage or no marriage was evidently pending for a long time; and though the final negative was placed on the ground of the near relationship between the parties, it is quite evident that behind this were other reasons which can easily be imagined. To his cousin Harriet, afterwards Lady Hesketh, Cowper was also warmly attached, their friendship survived various interruptions, through causes unavoidable, and her ministrations cheered his declining days.

We next find Cowper settled in chambers, ostensibly to pursue his legal studies, really, to pass most of his time in thinking about his cousin Theodora, or in reading classical authors. Want of employment which would thoroughly absorb his attention, neglect of regular exercise, and other causes which modern medical skill would speedily deal with, but which a century ago were little studied in their bearings upon health, produced an attack of the nervous complaint to which he was inclined by temperament. His own emphatic account of his melancholy is too painful to quote in full, but he declares that he " was upon the rack day and night, lying down in horror and rising up in despair." He sought relief in drugs, and in what is often quite as unpleasant, and less efficacious, the advice of friends, and at last went off into the country with Sir T. Hesketh.

Vainly had he tried to obtain solace by reading devotional books, though

he particularly notes that he obtained some comfort from the study of the poems of George Herbert. Their quaintness and emotional fervour attracted him, yet he failed to draw those profitable lessons he might have done from one in whose eyes the Redeemer and His work were so precious. I do not think, however, that Cowper's own verse, of later composition, shows that he was at all influenced, as a poet, by Herbert. Cowper's stay at Southampton lasted several months, and many years subsequently he records in one of his letters how much he enjoyed the walks in its vicinity, specifying Netley Abbey, Freemantle, and Redbridge, as places especially attractive. He did not much care about handling a gun or riding on horseback, and was inclined to endorse Dr. Johnson's opinion that a ship is nothing better than a floating prison, with the additional unpleasantness of the risk of being drowned. He says that he gave himself a nautical air, and " wore trousers; "Sir Thomas being fond of yachting, and having a vessel lying in Southampton Water; but he was always glad to be on shore again. Ordinarily, doubtless, Cowper, like most of his contemporaries, wore knee-breeches, to the close of his life. Trousers were first worn by seamen, and afterwards gradually came into general use on land. Recruited in health by this holiday, Cowper returned to the Middle Temple, and not long after was called to the bar.

Cowper's cousin Theodora was the poet's inspiration, and frequently his theme. A singular collection of early poems, scarcely any of which had been in print, was published by Mr. Croft, on the death of this lady in 1825. She had carefully treasured up the copies of them, penned and presented to her by her cousin.

to his Theodora are numerous, several of the poems dealing with the wonted phases of courtship, quarrels, reconciliations, etc. With Cowper's statement before us, written after his conversion, that he seldom thought upon religious subjects during those London years, being practically an unbeliever, though he defended occasionally the doctrines of Christianity when in the company of infidel friends, we may be somewhat astonished to find the poet taking up Scriptural themes.

In a fragmentary poem the poet speaks thus of gold, in man's hands so potent for good or for evil : "All-worshipped Gold! thou mighty mystery!

Say by what name shall I address thee, either

Our blessing, or our bane? Without thy aid,

The generous pangs of pity but distress The human heart, that fain would feel the bliss

Of blessing others; and, enslaved by thee,

Far from relieving woes which others feel,

Misers oppress themselves. Our blessing then,

With virtue when possessed; without, our bane !

The plaintive key predominates in these poems, especially in one addressed to Lady Hesketh, probably written in 1757, in which Cowper describes himself as, " deprived of every joy he valued most," and also "neglected on the world's rude coast." He was then lamenting that he was to appearance finally separated from his Theodora, communication between the cousins being now forbidden. Almost coincident with this painful event was the sudden death of one of Cowper's inti

mate friends, a young officer in the guards, Sir William Russell, who was drowned while bathing. Cowper's father had died the previous year, too suddenly for his son to reach Berkhampstead in time to see him alive; but this event had not any peculiarly depressing effect on his spirits. With his father, after his second marriage, William Cowper had not enjoyed much intercourse. It may be presumed that he received a small patrimony, for not long after his return to London, he purchased a set of chambers in the Inner Temple.

His courtship ended, Cowper paid rather more attention to those legal pursuits in which he had lost much ground through inaction, and succeeded in obtaining the office of Commissioner of Bankrupts, gaining a small emolument thereby. Although the title sounds formidable, so that one might wonder how a nervous man like Cowper could undertake the office, yet its duties were merely formal; a Chief Commissioner took the lead at all sittings. Morally, he was not rising, but sinking, and he had renewed his acquaintance with sundry Westminster school-fellows, men about town. Conspicuous amongst these were Thornton, Colman and Lloyd, the last-named less lacking in poetic ability than in prudence and principle. The result of this intercourse Cowper details in the Autobiography he wrote after his conversion, in which he does not spare himself, though manifestly he never went down to the level of some of his companions. As to this Autobiography, I ought to remark, that its authenticity forbids the historian to ignore it, yet it is advisedly excluded from many editions of the poet's works, since it is clear that he never intended it to be published. Southey, not satisfied with con

demning those who surreptitiously gave the manuscript into the printer's hands, hints that the writer speaks of himself in language of exaggerated self-condemnation : in this view I cannot agree.

But

it must be admitted that there is a singularity about some portions, which we may explain by the fact that it was composed at a time when Cowper's state of health rendered it difficult for him to survey unexcitedly some incidents in his previous history. Several hymns in the Olney collection, since transferred to many hymnals, have a direct bearing on those ungodly years; such as those beginning, "Sin enslaved me many years; " "I thirst, but not as once I did; "I was a grovelling

creature once; and, "My God, till I receive Thy stroke." And there was that in Cowper which would not allow him, like certain of his friends, to abide contentedly at the swine-trough; the voice of conscience would be heard; and as an additional warning, in the course of 1762, Cowper's nervous depression. returned with intensity. For this derangement of health there were various causes, physical and mental. His income was rapidly diminishing, while the hoped-for sinecure was not forthcoming, and with the delay Cowper did not become more competent for exertion in his profession, but the reverse. Such was William Cowper at the age of thirty

one.

BY THE REV. W. H.

PROFESSOR C. V. Riley, a celebrated bee keeper in America, has convinced himself that bees manufacture their honey from the nectar of flowers; that they do not "gather honey all the day." He asserts that the nectar in the flowers would never become honey however manipulated by man; but it is taken up by the bees and passed through a state of semi-digestion and excretion, resulting in the manufacture of what is known as honey; but the flavour or perfume is nevertheless so preserved that we may determine one kind of honey from another.

Dr. Carpenter has long advocated with great clearness and cogency a very probable theory of oceanic circulation. In brief, he believes it to be due to the cooling and sinking of the polar waters, and the indraught of warmer surface water to supply their place. But Professor Wyville Thompson, of the "Challenger," has sent home a statement to the effect that he has found no evidence during the cruise of exploration which upholds this view, but rather the reverse. Dr. Carpenter, in reply, reiterates his doctrine with a considerable show of force, and very properly points out that Professor Thompson has been deprived of the advantage of those considerations which have been taken into account by men of sciencesuch as Sir W. Thomson and others-reasoning upon the successive facts presented to them during the absence of the "Challenger," and therefore he is not in so good a position to judge of even the facts he has himself obtained as those who have been in communion with the current science of the world.

He is content to leave the issue to the decision of the British Asso

ciation to be held this year at Glasgow, when Dr. Wyville Thompson will doubtless be present; and we may expect a practical and valuable conclusion to a somewhat prolonged discussion.

Professor Challis, one of the most distinguished of English mathematicians, very recently read an elaborate and valuable paper, at the Victoria Institute, the principal object of which was to show that Galileo's theorem concerning the parabolic motion of a projectile became known only by experiment, that it could be known by no other means, and that, although Newton and his successors have been able, by combining it with the law of gravitation, to explain all the planetary motions, yet, if we go from the physics to the metaphysics of the question, as we are bound to do, it is impossible to explain any_motion without a conscious effort. Thus we are brought face to face with a cause, and of necessity a competent one.

It is to the honour of our generation that a marble scroll, with an admirable inscription, has been placed in Westminster Abbey to the memory of Jeremiah Horrocks, whose extraordinary ability as an astronomer would have made him, had he lived, as prominent as Newton himself, whom, indeed, his labours aided. The inscription is as follows:

"In Memory of JEREMIAH HORROCKs, Curate of Hoole, in Lancashire, who died on the 3rd of Jany., 1641, in or near his 22nd year, Having in so short a life Detected the long inequality in the mean motion of Jupiter and Saturn, Discovered the orbit of the moon

series, which are supposed to belong only to certain sets of strata, are gradually carried further down, and brought nearer to the beginning. Mr. Scudder has discovered the abdomen of a dragon-fly in a fragment of carboniferous shale from Cape Breton, thus carrying back the existence of the insects to the paleozoic age. It is not impossible that it will, in the course of ages, be seen that all great representative forms are to be found among the lowest strata of the earth. But be this as it may, the constant pushing of the higher forms lower down is an increase of difficulty for believers in pure evolution.

are

Sermon preached in Carver Street Chapel, Sheffield; and Official Charge to Young Ministers, on their ordination to the Christian Ministry, delivered in Norfolk Street Chapel, Sheffield, on August 1st and 4th, 1875, respectively. By the REV. W. MORLEY PUNSHON, LL.D., Ex-President. London : Wesleyan Conference Office, 1876. These powerful twin-discourses very fittingly combined, the former being in fact a Charge to the Methodist People as the latter to the rising ministry. Both are worthy of the occasion and the preacher, being grave, weighty, earnest, straightforward, frank, genial, kindly even to tenderness, timely and judicious, in one word, if that word be admissible, -Presidential. To the charm of genuine Methodist simplicity is added that of a sober and restrained imaginativeness, and an unbidden and outbursting eloquence, very beautiful and effective. The preacher, in giving to the young ministry the most seasonable and suitable advice, has also incidentally set before them a model of a rich, yet vigorous, chaste and manly pulpit-style. Several passages are very striking, notably, a thunder-clap and lightning blaze of indignant rebuke of priestly pretension, as just as it is brilliant. Scriptural Churchprinciples are announced with clearness and cogency. This Charge-these Charges -will hold not only a worthy but a distinguished place in the noble series of Presidential deliverances, and may be profitably perused and pondered by the whole Methodist Body.

The Story of the Jubilee Singers, with their Songs. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

a

In this interesting volume we have, first of all, a pleasantly written account of the origin, progress, and final success of the several singing campaigns of these now famous choristers: then, the personal history of the singers, all of whom are earnest Christians, who either have been themselves slaves, or were the children of slaves and lastly, a collection of their most popular and attractive melodies. A perusal of this volume will suggest many important lessons on the value of patient plodding effort, stimulated by urgent need, joined to persistent purpose and sustained by Christian faith. It will afford moreover striking illustration of the mighty power of Christian Song. Judged from musical stand-point it is probable these simple solos and choruses would not rank very high. "Compositions" indeed they are not, in the ordinary sense of the term. They were never made, they grew spontaneously as the natural and artless expression of deep and often sad and troubled feelings, awakened by the hardships and sufferings of a life of bondage. Much no doubt of the effect produced by these songs was due to the singers. No one could hear them without being delighted and amazed at the correct time, the sweet, full, melodious tone, the exquisite harmony, the precision, spirit and marvellous expression which characterised all their renderings. At the same time it cannot be denied that