washed, while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humour and drollery. Puss was tamed by gentle usage; Tiney was not to be tamed at all; and Bess had a courage and confidence that made him tame from the beginning. I always admitted them into the parlour after supper, when, the carpet affording their feet a firm hold, they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party. One evening, the cat being in the room, had the hardiness to pat Bess upon the cheek, an indignity which he resented by drumming upon her back with such violence that the cat was happy to escape from under his paws, and hide herself. I describe these animals as having each a character of his own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances were so expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that a shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar with their features, that he can, by that indication only, distinguish each from all the rest; and yet, to a common observer, the difference is hardly perceptible. I doubt not that the same discrimination in the cast of countenances would be discoverable in hares, and am persuaded that among a thousand of them no two could be found exactly similar: a circumstance little suspected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it. These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest alteration that is made in the place to which they are accustomed, and instantly apply their nose to the examination of a new object. A small hole being burnt in the carpet, it was mended with a patch, and that patch in a moment underwent the strictest scrutiny. They seem to be very much directed by the smell in the choice of their favourites: to some persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be reconciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch them; but a miller coming in engaged their affections at once; his powdered coat had charms that were irresistible. It is no wonder that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens of the kind has taught me to hold the sportsman's amusement in abhorrence; he little knows what amiable creatures he persecutes, of what gratitude they are capable, how cheerful they are in their spirits, what enjoyment they have of life, and that, impressed as they seem with a peculiar dread of man, it is only because man gives them peculiar cause for it. That I may not be tedious, I will just give a short summary of those articles of diet that suit them best. I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an erroneous one, at least, grass is not their staple; they seem rather to use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any kind. Sowthistle, dandelion, and lettuce are their favourite vegetables, especially the last. I discovered by accident that fine white sand iz in great estimation with them; I suppose as a digestive. It happened, that I was cleaning a birdcage when the hares were with me; I placed a pot filled with such sand upon the floor, which, being at once directed to it by a strong instinct, they devoured voraciously; since that time I have generally taken care to see them well supplied with it. They account green corn a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they seldom eat: straw of any kind, especially wheat-straw, is another of their dainties: they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with clean straw never want them; it serves them also for a bed, and, if shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable time. They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity of them with great relish, and are particularly fond of the plant called musk: they seem to resemble sheep in this, that, if their pasture be too succulent, they are very subject to the rot; to prevent which, I always made bread their principal nourishment, and, filling a pan with it cut into small squares, placed it every evening in their chambers, for they feed only at evening and in the night; during the winter, when vegetables were not to be got, I mingled this mess of bread with shreds of carrot, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely thin; for, though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them. These, however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice of summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied with water; but so placed, that they cannot overset it into their beds. I must not omit, that occasionally they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn, and of the common brier, eating even the very wood when it is of considerable thickness. Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a fall; Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no signs of decay, nor even of age, except that he has grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude without observing, that I have lately introduced a dog to his acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least symptom of hostility. There is therefore, it should seem, no natural antipathy between dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it; they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all respects sociable and friendly. I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add, that they have no ill scent belonging to them, that they are indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature has furnished them with a brush under each foot; and that they are never infested by any vermin. May 28, 1784.1 1 MEMORANDUM FOUND AMONG ME. COWPER'S PAPERS. "Tuesday, March 9, 1786. "This day died poor Puss, aged eleven years eleven months. He died between twelve and one at noon, of mere old age, and apparently without pain." C Natural history was not his only amusement. The chisel and the saw were likewise in great request in his diligent hands, producing tables and joint-stools of mysterious workmanship. There was not, he said, in all the county, a squire who had made better squirrel-houses, hutches for rabbits, or bird-cages, than himself; while in the manufacture of cabbage-nets he had no superior. His ambition even grasped the pencil, which he used through a whole year in delineating figures that had no parallel in nature or art. Having completed three landscapes, and seen them glazed and framed, and remembering that no artist was ever painted down except by himself, he determined to relinquish the pursuit, and retire with his fame. Of all his little engagements, gardening was the most beneficial and lasting. He began with lettuces and cauliflowers, ascending by slow steps to melons, an orange-tree, and myrtles. A severe winter put his skill to the trial, but he rose with the occasion, contriving to give his plants and beds a fire-heat; and he might have been seen wading through the snow, with the bellows under his arm, "just before going to bed, to give the latest puff to the embers, lest the frost should seize them before morning." 66 The friend who watched the poet in his long sickness, was to have the reward of finding a comfort for him when the heaviness of the night had in some measure melted in the morning. To the suggestion of Mrs. Unwin we owe the first volume of Cowper's poems. The winter of 1780 was cheered by the employment. "At this season of the year," he said, and in this gloomy uncomfortable climate, it is no easy matter for the owner of a mind like mine to divert it from sad objects, and fix it upon such as may administer to its amusement. Poetry, above all things, is useful to me in this respect." He was not one of the mob of gentlemen who write with ease. A poet, n my circumstances," he told a friend," has a difficult part to act. One minute obliged to bridle his humour, if he has any, and the next to clap a spur to the sides of it ; 66 now ready to weep from a sense of the importance of his subject, and on a sudden constrained to laugh, lest his gravity should be mistaken for dulness. If this be not violent exercise for the mind, I know not what is, and if any man doubt it, let him try.” While Cowper was busy in these poetical labours, a lady to whom every reader of taste must be for ever indebted, came to visit her sister, in the neighbouring village of Clifton. Her name was Austen, the widow of Sir Robert Austen. Cowper was looking through the window when the two sisters entered a shop on the opposite side of the street, and being immediately struck by the appearance of the stranger, he requested Mrs. Unwin to invite them to tea. The growth of the acquaintance was as rapid as the commencement had been romantic; and her "lady, ship" quickly vanished in “ dear Anna." Olney rarely received so attractive a guest. A fairer form and face might not shine upon a poet, even in dreams. "Show but a wish to please her," exclaimed the delighted friend, "and the tears start into her eyes." For Mr. Newton he painted a graver portrait: "She is a lively, agreeable woman, has seen much of the world, and accounts it a great simpleton, as it is. She laughs and makes laugh, and keeps up a conversation without seeming to labour at it." The intimacy lasted between three and four years; and perhaps it formed the brightest episode in a life most sad and stormy. The morning call, the afternoon walk, the literary evening, the mirthful conversation, and the gay song, were blended together in harmonious interchange. A door in the garden, originally opened by Mr. Newton, helped to unite the two families, who dined at each other's houses alternately. Nor less it pleased in livelier mood Who has forgotten the pic-nic in the Spinnie? From c 2 those hours of genial intercourse flowed the "Task" and the grander Homeric strains. Great familiarity, however, is always a perilous delight; and after the sunny day the sharp frost sets in. Neither is constancy in his attachments, with the exception of Mrs. Unwin, to be numbered among the virtues of Cowper. He has confessed that his admiration was passionate and fleeting. The gloss of a new pleasure soon wore off; and perhaps the most delicate texture was the least enduring. The friends quarrelled; and the cause of the lady's anger is stated by Hayley with a positiveness and authority that cannot be questioned. She had reason to be offended. Not even Theodora had treasured the verses of her laureate with a fonder interest. From those endearing expressions of regard, what closer bond might not "Sister Anne" have anticipated? Yet the charming delusion would have yielded to a more thoughtful knowledge of her friend. He treated his correspondents poetically. His kinsman, Mr. Johnson, was Johnny of Norfolk;" "the Bull" symbolized the dissenting minister of that name; and the kind Throckmorton was "the Dowager Frog." Lady Austen had to learn by experience that love, like verse, is sometimes made in metaphor, and ends with it. Any feeling of loneliness in the mind of Cowper was quickly dispersed by a new friendship with a family in the neighbouring village of Weston. The Throckmortons were Roman Catholics, liberal, charitable, and most accomplished and elegant in their tastes and pursuits. Henceforward Weston Hall became a favourite haunt of Cowper, who found in it grace, kindness, books, and welcome. No vision of Guy Fawkes seems to have troubled his thoughts; the gentlemen opened their grounds to him, the ladies sang his songs, and even the Padre himself transcribed Homer. Dearer companionship was in store. "The Task," which appeared in 1785, awoke the sleeping memories of many friends. His old schoolfellow, Colman, who boarded in the same house at Westminster, |