Chapter C (6)

Lady Austen went away for a time; and later on, Cowper again writes to
Unwin, under the seal of profound secrecy: ‘When persons for whom I
have felt a friendship disappoint and mortify me, by their conduct, or
act unjustly by me, although I no longer esteem them, I feel that
tenderness for their character that I would conceal the blemish if I
could.’ Then, naming the lady to whom he alluded, he goes on: ‘Nothing
could be more promising, however sudden in its commencement, than our
friendship. She treated us with as much unreserve as if we had been
brought up together. At her departure she proposed a correspondence
with me, as writing does not agree with your mother.’

He then proceeds to tell how, after a short time, he perceived, by the
tenor of Lady Austen’s letters that he had unintentionally offended
her, and, having apologised, the wound seemed healed; but finding, on
repeated occasions, that she expressed ‘a romantic idea of our merits,
and built such expectations of felicity on our friendship, as we were
sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her
that we were mortal, and to recommend her not to think too highly of
us, intimating that, when we embellish a creature with colours taken
from our own fancy, and extol it above its merits, we make it an
idol,’ etc.

The reader, even if he be no poet, can supply the rest of this homily;
and if he be of our way of thinking, he will smile at the frequent use
of the plural pronoun. Neither will he be surprised to hear that the
letter in question ‘gave mortal offence,’ even though the writer had
read it aloud, before posting it, ‘to Mrs. Unwin, who had honoured it
with her warmest approbation.’ We still quote the correspondence with
William Unwin. ‘If you go to Bristol, you may possibly fall in with a
lady who _was_ here very lately. If you should meet, remember that we
found the connection on some accounts an inconvenient one, and we do
not wish to renew it; so pray conduct yourself accordingly. A
character with which we spend all our time should be made on purpose
for us, and in this case the dissimilitude was felt continually, and
consequently made our intercourse unpleasant.’ Now the strain of this
letter helps us to understand that the one written not long before to
Lady Austen was no sooner read than she flung it indignantly into the
fire.

But so it was, and, for our part, we are loath to see the bright
vision, which had cast a halo over dull little Olney, vanish from the
horizon. Cowper’s biographers are all at issue as to the cause of this
estrangement, ‘it is so difficult to solve the mystery.’ To us the
only difficulty appears in the choice of solutions. Hayley, who
handles the matter with delicacy and discretion, says, ‘Those
acquainted with the poet’s _innocence and sportive piety_ would agree
that the verses inscribed to Anna might assuredly have been inspired
by a real sister.’ To him they appeared ‘the _effusions of a gay and
tender gallantry_, quite distinct from any amorous attachment.’ At the
same time, he sees the possibility of a lady, only called by that
endearing name, mistaking all the attentions lavished upon her, as ‘a
mere prelude to a closer alliance.’

The good-hearted, high-flown Hayley concludes by expressing his
sympathy with Cowper, as being ‘perplexed by _an abundance of
affection in a female associate_‘—surely he should have said a couple!

The Rev. Mr. Scott, for some time Lady Austen’s landlord at Olney, is
reported to have said: ‘Who can wonder that two women, who were
continually in the society of one man, should quarrel, sooner or
later?’

Southey (an evident partisan of Mrs. Unwin’s), while acquitting Lady
Austen of any ‘matrimonial designs,’ urges that it would be impossible
for a woman of threescore to feel any jealousy in the matter of
Cowper’s affections. Now it strikes us that the woman of threescore
could herself have had no ‘matrimonial intentions,’ or she would have
carried them out long before. But is it likely that Cowper’s ‘Mary’
would have tolerated a wife under the same roof, or tamely given the
_pas_ to an ‘Anna’? Cowper indeed called Mrs. Unwin his mother, and
Lady Austen his sister; but the former lady may have distrusted the
ambiguity of the latter elective relationship, knowing how frequently
the appellation of brother and sister has been used as a refuge from
the impending danger, of a nearer tie.

Southey goes on to observe, in contradistinction, we suppose, to Mr.
Scott’s remark, that two women were shortly afterwards living
constantly in the society of the identical man, without one shade of
jealousy. Now Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh differed in all respects—in
age, in character, in discipline of mind. The former had been Cowper’s
early friend, and the _confidante_ of his love for her sister
Theodora; they had corresponded with each other for years; and in one
of his letters he says: ‘It seems wonderful, that, loving you as much
as I do, I should never have fallen in love with you. I am so glad I
never did, for it would have been most inconvenient,’ etc.

Lady Hesketh now returned from a lengthened residence on the
Continent, her husband was dead, and the intercourse of old days was
renewed, in all its happy freedom, between the cousins. A few more
words respecting poor Lady Austen, and then her name shall be heard no
more. Cowper writes to Lady Hesketh a long letter on the subject, in
which he describes the rise, decline, and fall of the friendship, and
goes on in this strain: ‘At first I used to pay my _devoirs_ to her
ladyship every morning at eleven. Custom soon became law. When I began
“The Task,” I felt the inconvenience of this daily attendance; long
usage had made that which was at first optional, a point of good
manners. I was compelled to neglect “The Task,” for the Muse that had
inspired it.’

Hayley speaks in most flattering terms of Lady Austen, in his Life of
Cowper, and wrote one of the long-winded epitaphs of the day on her
death, which took place before he had completed the poet’s biography,
in the compilation of which she had given him much assistance. After
her estrangement from the Olney household, Lady Austen married a
Frenchman, one Monsieur de Tardif, who wrote verses to her in his own
language; she accompanied her husband to Paris in 1802, where she
died.

As regards Cowper, one thing is certain: he did not subscribe to the
common error, that ‘two is company, and three none,’ but rather to the
German proverb, ‘Alle gute ding, sind drey;’ for he now summons Lady
Hesketh to his side. He entreats her to come and reside under his
roof, painting, in the most glowing colours, the happiness that her
society will afford them. He addresses her in the most tender, the
most affectionate terms—‘Dearly beloved cousin,’ ‘Dearest,
dearest,’—and often in the middle of his epistles he breaks forth
again into similar endearing epithets. Southey assures us that Mrs.
Unwin never felt a shade of jealousy for Lady Hesketh; but no one
tells us if such letters as these were read aloud to Mary, or
‘honoured by her warmest approbation. Among the anonymous presents
which Cowper was now in the habit of receiving, was one more
acceptable than all others, and that not only because it enclosed a
cheque for fifty pounds, with a promise that the donation should be
annual, as he writes to Lady Hesketh (whom he appoints his ‘Thanks
Receiver-General,’ ‘seeing it is so painful to have no one to thank’),
but because the letter was accompanied by ‘the most elegant gift, and
the most elegant compliment, that ever poet was honoured with,’—a
beautiful tortoise-shell snuff-box, with a miniature on the lid,
representing a landscape, with the three hares frolicking in the
foreground; above and below two inscriptions, ‘Bess, Puss, Tiny,’ and
‘The Peasant’s Nest.’ Southey had no doubt (neither would it appear
had Cowper himself, though he thinks it dishonourable to pry into the
incognito) that ‘Anonymous’ and Theodora were synonymous. He was now
hard at work translating Homer, and he longed to read what he had done
to Lady Hesketh, as well as to Mrs. Unwin. ‘The latter,’ he says, ‘has
hitherto been my touchstone, and I have never printed a line without
reference to her. With one of you at each elbow, I shall be the
happiest of poets.’

To the same: ‘I am impatient to tell you how impatient I am to see
you. But you must not come till the fine weather, when the greenhouse,
the only pleasant room in the house, will be ready to receive us, for
when the plants go out, we go in. There you shall sit, my dear, with a
bed of mignionette by your side, and a hedge of roses, honeysuckle,
and jasmine, and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Come,
come then, my beloved cousin, for I am resolved, whatever king may
reign, you shall be vicar of Olney.’ He hopes their friendship will be
perpetuated for ever; ‘For I should not love you half so well if I did
not believe you would be my friend to all eternity. There is not room
for friendship to unfold itself in full bloom, in such a nook of life
as this; therefore I am, and must, and always will be yours for
ever.—W. COWPER.’

In another letter he prepares her for the aspect of his peculiar
abode: ‘The entrance hall: opposite you, stands a cupboard, once a
dove-cot, and a paralytic table, both the work of the same author.
Then you come to the parlour door, which we will open, and I will
present you to Mrs. Unwin; and we shall be as happy as the day is
long.’

Lady Hesketh preferred separate lodgings, and, following in the
footsteps of Lady Austen, became a tenant of the Vicarage, and
inhabited the rooms so lately vacated by her predecessor. ‘All is
settled, dear cousin, and now I only wish for June; and June, believe
me, was never so much wished for, since it was first made. To meet
again, after so long a separation, will be like a resurrection; but
there is no one in the other world whose reappearance would cause me
so much pleasure.’ He prepares her for the possible recurrence of his
fits of dejection, but is sure he will be cheerful when she comes. In
a letter to Unwin, speaking of the long-looked-for arrival, he says:
‘I have always loved the sound of church bells; but none ever seemed
to me so musical, as those which rang my sweet cousin into her new
habitation.’ Lady Hesketh, writing a description of Mrs. Unwin, says
she ‘is a very remarkable woman. She is far from being always grave;
on the contrary, she laughs _de bon cœur_ on the smallest provocation.
When she speaks on grave subjects, it is in a Puritanical tone, and
she makes use of Puritanical expressions; but otherwise she has a fund
of gaiety; indeed, but for that, she could not have gone through all
she has done. I do not like to say she idolises William, for she would
disapprove of the word; but she certainly has no will but his. It is
wonderful to think how she has supported the constant attendance and
responsibility for so many years.’ She goes on to describe the calm,
quiet, dignified old lady, sitting knitting stockings for her poet,
beside his chair, with ‘the finest needles imaginable.’

Cowper used to work in a little summer-house (which is still standing,
or was a few years since) of his own construction, where there were
two chairs indeed, but Lady Hesketh did not often intrude. He says of
himself about this time, that he was happier than he had been for
years. But there are some excellent people in the world, who consider
peace unwholesome, and like to throw stones into their neighbours’
lakes, as schoolboys do, for the pleasure of ruffling the surface.
Cowper writes to William Unwin: ‘Your mother has received a letter
from Mr. Newton, which she has not answered, and is not likely to
answer. It gave us both much concern; but it vexed her more than me,
because I am so much occupied with my work that I have less leisure to
browse on the wormwood. It contains an implied accusation, that she
and I have deviated into forbidden paths, and lead a life unbecoming
the Gospel; that many of our friends in London are grieved; that many
of our poor neighbours are shocked; in short, I converse with people
of the world, and take pleasure therein. Mr. Newton reminds us that
there is still intercourse between Olney and London, implying that he
hears of our doings. We do not doubt it; there never was a lie hatched
in Olney that waited long for a bearer. We do not wonder at the lies;
we only wonder he believes them. That your mother should be suspected
(and by Mr. Newton, of all people) of irregularities is indeed
wonderful.’

The extent of their crimes, the head and front of their offending,
were drives with Lady Hesketh in her carriage, and visits to the
Throckmortons. We suspect that was an unpardonable offence (on account
of their being Roman Catholics) in Mr. Newton’s eyes.

‘Sometimes, not often, we go as far as Gayhurst, or to the turnpike
and back; we have been known to reach as far as the cabinetmaker’s at
Newport!’ And, O crowning horror! Cowper confesses to having once or
twice taken a Sunday walk in the fields with his cousin, for Mrs.
Unwin had never been led so far into temptation. Speaking of Lady
Hesketh, who came in for her share of censure, he says: ‘Her only
crime in Olney has been to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and
nurse the sick.’ The letters to Mr. Newton were in the same strain,
but modified in their expressions; for it was evident Cowper feared
his spiritual adviser, and, like some of our Roman Catholic friends,
subscribed to the infallibility of his Pope, even while harbouring
some secret misgivings on the subject. He ventures to observe: ‘As to
the opinion of our poorer neighbours, uneducated people are seldom
well employed when judging one another, but when they undertake to
scan the motives, and estimate the behaviour, of those whom Providence
has placed a little above them, they are utterly out of their depth.’

Gentle-hearted, generous-hearted Cowper; he not only forgave, but
continued his friendship and intercourse with his severe censor. Mr.
and Mrs. Newton were his guests after he had left Olney, and was
settled in his new house; and though the correspondence between the
two men slackened in some measure, and lost some of its unreserved
character, it was not discontinued. Neither did the poet refer to the
difference which had arisen, unless we accept such a passage as this,
as an allusion to Mr. Newton’s censoriousness. Speaking of the narrow
escape which Mrs. Unwin had run of being burned to death, he says:
‘Had I been bereft of her, I should have had nothing left to lean on,
for all my other spiritual props have long since broken down under
me.’ It did indeed seem strange and cruel, that the only hand found to
throw a stone at the marble shrine of Cowper, and his Mary, should be
that of his own familiar friend.

When Lady Hesketh came to investigate the resources of Olney, she
decided in her own mind that it was a most unfit place for her cousin
to inhabit,—cold, damp, and dreary; and she was not long in arranging
that her two friends should change their abode for a pretty little
house called Weston, belonging to Sir John Throckmorton, and standing
in a picturesque neighbourhood on the skirts of his park. Lady Hesketh
took all the trouble and expense of the removal on herself; furnished
and embellished the little house; and on the day she left Olney for
London, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin drove over to settle at Weston. But they
had not been there above a fortnight, before a sad blow fell upon them
both. News came that William Unwin was no more,—‘the only son of his
mother, and she was a widow;’ the dearly loved friend and constant
correspondent of Cowper. William Unwin was travelling with a friend,
whom he nursed to recovery through a dangerous attack of typhus; but,
catching the disease himself, he died in the hotel at Winchester. The
mother bore her irreparable loss, ‘with her accustomed submission to
the Divine will.’ Cowper dared not give way to emotion, but the shock
was none the less severe. His letters began to show signs of returning
illness and dejection; he marks down for his intimate friends all the
variations of the mental barometer. Alas! the storm signal was already
hoisted, and the tempest was at hand. He complained of sleeplessness:
‘It is impossible, dear cousin,’ he writes, after explaining how
heavily the task of translation (he was busy on Homer) weighed on his
mind, ‘for a man who cannot sleep, to fight Homer’s battles.’
Religious despondency once more took possession of his distracted
mind. Speaking of a visit to his old home at Olney, he says: ‘Dreary,
dark, cold, empty—it seemed a fit emblem of a God-forgotten,
God-forsaken creature.’ Insanity returned in all its distressing
symptoms; he again attempted self-destruction. Poor Mrs. Unwin came
into the room one day, just in time to cut him down. He would scarcely
let her out of his sight for a moment, and would allow no other person
to enter his presence.

It is not our intention to dwell longer than necessary on these dark
passages in the sufferer’s life; suffice it to say, that, as on a
former occasion, the cure was instantaneous; and, after an interval of
several months, he once more took up the thread of his work and
correspondence. He tells Lady Hesketh he is mending in health and
spirits, speaks enthusiastically of the Throckmortons’ kindness, and
says that he has promised them she will soon be at Weston. ‘Come then;
thou art always welcome; all that is here is thine, together with the
hearts of those who dwell here.’ Alluding to her father’s declining
health, he ‘is happy not to have grown old before his time. Trouble
and anguish do that for some, which longevity alone does for others. A
few months ago I was older than he is now; and though I have lately
recovered, as Falstaff says, “some snatch of my youth,” I have but
little confidence, and expect, when I least expect it, to wither
again.’ In the midst of some melancholy reflections he breaks out
with: ‘Oh how I wish you could see the gambols of my kitten! They are
indescribable; but time, that spoils all, will, I fear, sooner or
later, make a cat of her.’ Then he relates, for his cousin’s
amusement, how a lady in Hampshire had invited him to her house,
bribing him with the promise of erecting a temple in her grounds ‘to
the best man in the world.’ Not only that, but, would she believe it,
a Welsh attorney has sent him his verses to revise and criticise! a
lady had stolen his poem of

‘A rose had been washed, just washed by a shower,
Which Mary (Mrs. Unwin) to Anna (Lady Austen) conveyed.’

‘You must excuse it, if you find me a little vain, for the poet whose
works are stolen, and who can charm an attorney, and a Welsh one into
the bargain, must be an Orpheus, if not something greater.’ He was at
work again on Homer, and, when urged not to overtax his mind in so
doing, says he considers employment essential to his wellbeing. But
writing was irksome to him, and he found innumerable volunteers for
the office of secretary,—Lady Hesketh, Mrs. Throckmorton, young Mr.
Rose—a new but true friend,—and his favourite kinsman John, or Johnny,
Johnson, of Norfolk.

Cowper and Mrs. Unwin had a succession of guests at The Hermitage, as
he sometimes called Weston; among others, Mr. Rose, an agreeable young
man, a great admirer of the poet’s, who writes his sister an account
of their life, and speaks of Lady Hesketh, ‘A pleasant and agreeable
woman, polite without ceremony;’ of Mrs. Unwin, ‘A kind angel;’ of
their amusing breakfasts, ‘which take an hour or more, to satisfy the
sentiment, not the appetite, for we talk, O heavens! how we talk!’

Cowper was much attached to Rose. Speaking of his departure: ‘When a
friend leaves me, I always feel at my heart a possibility that perhaps
we have met for the last time, and that before the return of summer,
robins may be whistling over the grave of one of us.’

Our poet was very fond of mere rhyming, and did not despise doggerel,
for we can call the Lines to his ‘dearest Coz,’ after the manner of
Shenstone, by no other name,—being an inventory of all his goods and
chattels, including the cap, so thoroughly identified with his image
in our minds. It was the fashion of the day, more especially for
literary men, to lay aside the heavy periwig, and don this most
unbecoming but, we imagine, more comfortable head-gear.

‘The cap which so stately appears,
With ribbon-bound tassel, on high,’

was the gift of his Harriet, and so were the bookshelves, the chairs,
tables,—all enumerated in verse—‘endearing his abode,’ by recalling
the memory of her, from whom he daily expects a visit, only she is in
attendance on

‘The oldest and dearest of friends,
Whose dial-plate points to eleven,...
And who waits but a passage to heaven.’

And the hour struck very shortly after, for Lady Hesketh’s father,
Ashley Cowper.

In the sylvan glades of Yardley Chase, rich in fine old timber, stood
an ancient oak, the frequent goal of the poet’s rambles, to which he
wrote an address. The tree still bears his name, and ‘Cowper’s Oak’ is
the meeting-place of two packs of hounds. Many a bright morning since
our poet’s time have the woods of old Yardley echoed to the sound of
the huntsman’s horn and the baying of the deep-mouthed ‘beauties.’

One of his letters contains a most graphic description of how he and
Mrs. Unwin, returning from a ramble, fell in with the hounds, and,
climbing the broad stump of an elm in order to have a better view of
the proceedings, were actually in ‘at the death.’ It is delightful to
think of the poet and his Mary in such unexpected circumstances, for
they seem both to have been much excited. ‘And thus, dear cousin,’ as
Virgil says, ‘what none of the gods would have ventured to promise me,
time, of its own accord, has presented me with.’

A letter to his friend Mr. Hill proves how much pleasure a visit from
the Dowager Lady Spencer had afforded him. This remarkable woman, the
daughter of Stephen Poyntz, a distinguished diplomate, was the widow
of the first Earl Spencer, and mother of the beautiful Duchess of
Devonshire. She had made a long _détour_ to call on the poet, whose
works she much admired. And he says: ‘She is one of the first women in
the world; I mean in point of character and accomplishments. If my
translation prove successful, I may perhaps receive some honours
hereafter, but none I shall esteem more highly than her approbation.
She is indeed worthy to whom I should dedicate, and may my _Odyssey_
prove as worthy of her.’

At length the happy hour arrived: Homer was translated and ready for
the press. The _Iliad_ was dedicated to his young relative, Earl
Cowper, and the _Odyssey_ to the Dowager Countess Spencer.

He expressed himself well satisfied with his publisher, Johnson. ‘I
verily believe that, though a bookseller, he has the soul of a
gentleman! Such strange combinations sometimes happen.’ We give an
extract from a letter which he wrote on the conclusion of his Homeric
labours to his amanuensis, Johnny Johnson: ‘Dearest Johnny: now I can
give you rest and joy,—joy of your resting from all your labours, in
my service. But I can foretell that, if you go on serving your friends
at this rate, your life will indeed be one of labour. Yet persevere;
your rest will be all the sweeter hereafter; in the meantime I wish
you (whenever you need him) just such a friend as you have been to
me.’

He was very much attached to Johnny, and it was in allusion to his
young kinsman that he said: ‘I agree with Lavater, “Looks are as
legible as books, take less time to peruse, and are less likely to
deceive.”’ Johnny did the poet a good turn, for it was he who
suggested to his aunt, Mrs. Bodham, what a welcome present it would be
if she sent Cowper his mother’s picture,—a subject to which we have
already alluded.

When Homer was concluded, Mrs. Unwin was most anxious that he should
undertake some new work, which would occupy his thoughts for some
considerable time. She dreaded the effect of idleness, or of the mere
desultory composition of occasional poems. And therefore she rejoices
that he has been prevailed upon to edit a magnificent edition of
Milton, to translate all his Latin and Italian poems, to select the
best notes of former commentators, and to add annotations of his own.
It was a wholesome task, though occasionally, under the pressure of
nervous dejection, Cowper cavilled at what he called the ‘Miltonic
trap.’ Mrs. Unwin, who had lately become enfeebled, had had a bad
fall, but fortunately escaped with some bruises, when one day she was
seized with giddiness, and would have again fallen to the ground, had
not Cowper saved her. There could be little doubt the attack was of a
paralytic nature, though her companion would not allow himself to
utter the fearful word. In this hour of utmost need an invaluable
friend was raised up in the person of William Hayley, whom Southey
designates as one of the most generous of men. We will let him speak
for himself, by giving an extract of his first letter to Cowper,
enclosing some complimentary lines. ‘Although I resisted the idea of
professing my friendship and admiration, from a fear of intrusion, I
cannot resist that of disclaiming an idea which I have heard has been
imputed to me, of considering myself your antagonist. Allow me to say,
I was solicited to write a Life of Milton before I had the least idea
that you and Mr. Fuseli were engaged on a similar project.’ He
concludes a most amiable letter to the man ‘whose poems have so often
delighted him,’ by saying, ‘If, in the course of your work, I have any
opportunity of serving and obliging you, I shall seize it with that
friendly spirit which has impelled me, both in prose and rhyme, to
assure you that I am your most cordial admirer.’ And thus, out of what
might have proved a misunderstanding, began that intercourse which
lasted Cowper’s life, and soothed his latter days.

Speaking of Hayley’s visit to Weston, he says: ‘Everybody here has
fallen in love with him—and everybody must. We have formed a
friendship which will, I hope, last for life, and prove an edifying
example to all future poets.’ Hayley, on his part, writing to his
friend Romney, the painter, describes at length the welcome he had
received at Weston, his delight in Cowper’s society; and then as to
the grand article of females,—‘for what is a scene without a woman in
it? Here is a Muse of seventy, whom I perfectly adore; the woman who,
for so many years, has devoted her time and fortune to the service of
this tender and sublime genius. Not many days after this letter was
written, the two authors were returning from a morning ramble, when
the news met them that Mrs. Unwin had had a second paralytic stroke.
Cowper rushed forward into the house, and returned in such a state of
agitation as made Hayley tremble for his reason; ‘but, by the blessing
of God, I was able to quiet him in a great measure, and from that
moment he rested on my friendship, and regards me as providentially
sent to support him in a season of deepest affliction.’

Cowper will not accept his cousin’s proposal to come to Weston; for he
wishes his dear Harriet’s visits thither to be made for pleasure. Mrs.
Unwin’s health improved. ‘It is a blessing to us both, that, poor
feeble thing as she is, she has an invincible courage. She always
tells me she is better, and probably will die saying so; and then it
will be true, for then she will be best of all.’ Hayley, before, and
since leaving Weston, had urged Cowper to pay him a visit at what his
friends called his ‘little paradise’ at Eartham, on the south coast,
as soon as Mrs. Unwin’s state would allow her to travel. It must have
seemed a tremendous undertaking for those who had not strayed further
than a thirteen miles’ drive for upwards of thirteen years! But Cowper
believed the change of air might benefit his invalid; and that
determined him.

In the interim he writes to his friend, Mr. Bull: ‘How do you think I
have been occupied the last few days? In sitting, not on cockatrice’s
eggs, but for my picture. Cousin Johnny has an aunt who is seized with
a desire to have my portrait, and so the said Johnny has brought down
an artist.’

To Hayley 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!’

It was much to be regretted that, with no lack of kind and judicious
friends—and Hayley in particular, with his good sense and true
affection,—Cowper should have fallen about this time under the baneful
influence of a fanatic, one Teedon, a schoolmaster, who had long been
a pensioner on his and Mrs. Unwin’s bounty, at Olney. Cowper
constantly spoke of him in his letters to William Unwin and others as
foolish Mr. Teedon’s ridiculous vanity and strange delusions, who
prided himself on the immediate answers to any prayer he might
consider it advisable to put up, as also on wonderful spiritual and
audible communications. This empty-headed man became an object of
reverence rather than contempt in the eyes of Cowper, and of poor Mrs.
Unwin herself, in her debilitated state of health. Cowper began to
believe in Teedon, and to bend beneath his influence. Had Mr. Newton
not strained the spiritual curb too tightly, he would, in all
probability, have retained his hold over the minds of his two friends,
and not exposed them to the subjugation of one uneducated as Samuel
Teedon. But enough of this contemptible man. The friends now began to
prepare for the great enterprise, and we are not surprised to hear
Cowper say, ‘A thousand lions, monsters, and giants, are in the way;
but I suppose they will vanish if I have the courage to face them.
Mrs. Unwin, whose weakness might justify such fears, has none.’ A
coach, with four steeds, is ordered from London to convey them on
their desperate way; the journey is to be a species of royal progress.
‘General Cowper, who lives at Ham—is Ham near Kingston?—is to meet me
on the road, ditto my friend Carwardine and others. When other men
leave home, they make no disturbance; when _I_ travel, houses are
turned upside down, people turned out of their beds at unearthly
hours, and every imaginable trouble given. All the counties through
which _I_ pass appear to be in an uproar. What a change for a man who
has seen no bustle, and made none for twenty years together!’ He is
scrupulous respecting the numbers that will accompany him,—‘for Johnny
of Norfolk, who is with us, would be broken-hearted if left behind.’
It would be the same with his dog Beau, who paid a wonderful tribute
to Abbot’s portrait of his master, by going up to it, and wagging his
tail furiously; while Sam, the gardener’s boy, made a low bow to the
same effigy.

The travellers reached Eartham at last, Hayley’s home, about six miles
from Chichester, and five from Arundel. ‘Here,’ writes Cowper on his
arrival, ‘we are as happy as it is possible for terrestrial good to
make us.’ He looked from the library window on a fine landscape,
bounded by the sea, a deep-wooded valley, and hills which we should
call mountains in Buckinghamshire. Hayley and Cowper were both very
busy with their several works in the morning, and Johnny, as usual,
was his cousin’s transcriber. The kind host, thinking to do honour to
his guest, invited the ex-Chancellor Thurlow to meet his old
acquaintance, but his Lordship would not come. There were, however,
pleasant visitors at Eartham, with whom Cowper fraternised,—Charlotte
Smith the novelist, and Romney the admirable painter. ‘Hayley has
given me a picture of himself by this charming artist, who is making
an excellent portrait of me in pastel.’

‘Mrs. Unwin,’ he says, ‘has benefited much by the change, and has many
young friends, who all volunteer to drag her chair round the pretty
grounds.’ In spite of all these pleasant surroundings, the two friends
became home-sick, and returned to Weston, where they found (after the
manner of less gifted mortals) that chaos had reigned in their
absence. Cowper resumed his Miltonic labours, and began preparing
Homer for a new edition. ‘I play at push-pin with Homer every morning
before breakfast, furbishing and polishing, as Paris did his armour.’
Speaking of his assurance in having undertaken works of such
importance, he quotes Ranger’s observation in the _Suspicious
Husband_: ‘There is a degree of assurance in your modest men, which we
impudent fellows never arrive at.’

Poor Cowper! He was again gradually sinking back into despondency,
though he combated the advances of the enemy as far as in him lay. ‘I
am cheerful on paper sometimes when I am actually the most dejected of
creatures. I keep melancholy out of my letters as much as I can, that
I may, if possible, by assuming a less gloomy air, deceive myself, and
improve fiction into reality.’ He is to sit for his portrait once more
to Lawrence, and he only wishes his face were moveable, to take off
and on at pleasure, so that he might pack it in a box, and send it to
the artist. On Hayley’s second visit to Weston, he found Cowper
tolerably well in appearance. Young Mr. Rose was there, the bearer of
an invitation from Lord Spencer, who wished Cowper to meet Gibbon. ‘We
did all we could to make him accept, urging the benefit he would
derive from such genial society, and the delight he would experience
from revelling in the treasures of the magnificent library. But our
arguments were all in vain; Cowper was unequal to the exertion.’ So
Rose and Hayley were his ambassadors to Althorp, laden with his
excuses. It is our intention to dwell as briefly as is consistent with
the narrative on the sad scenes now enacting at Weston. A fearful
relapse had befallen Cowper; Mrs. Unwin’s state bordered on
imbecility; and Lady Hesketh, who had lately taken up her abode with
her two afflicted friends, seemed powerless to cheer them, and Hayley,
whom she summoned to their aid, was shocked to find that Cowper
scarcely recognised him, and manifested no pleasure in his society. It
was with the greatest difficulty that he could now be induced to taste
food, and this system of course increased his malady, by reducing his
strength. One morning a letter arrived from Lord Spencer, announcing
that the long-looked-for pension had at length been granted,—a
circumstance which was a great relief to his friends, but, alas!
brought no satisfaction to the sufferer’s bewildered mind. Change of
air and scene were recommended. Lady Hesketh, whose own health was
greatly impaired, went to London, and Cowper and Mrs. Unwin were
conveyed into Norfolk under the kind charge of ‘Johnny’ Johnson. They
went first to a village called Tuddenham, and afterwards to Mundsley,
on the coast. Johnson accompanied Cowper in all his rambles, and one
day, calling on Mrs. Bodham, their cousin, to whom we have already
alluded, Cowper saw the portrait of himself painted by Abbot; he
looked at it for some time, and then, wringing his hands, uttered a
vehement wish that he were now as happy as when he sat for that
picture.

He had always been very fond of coast scenery; and in one of his early
letters to William Unwin he speaks of his astonishment at the number
of people who can look on the sea without emotion, or, indeed,
reflection of any kind. ‘In all its various forms, it is an object of
all others most calculated to affect us with lasting impressions of
that awful Power which created and controls it. Before I gave my mind
to religion, the waves used to preach to me, and I always listened.
One of Shakespeare’s characters, Lorenzo, says: “I am never merry when
I hear sweet music.” The sight and the sound of the ocean, produces
the same effect on me that harmony did on Jessica.’ He began to write
again to Lady Hesketh, but his letters were most gloomy, and must have
been painful in the extreme for the recipient.

In the first he thus expresses himself: ‘The most forlorn of beings, I
tread the shore, under the burthen of infinite despair, which I once
trod all cheerfulness and joy.’ He fancies the vessels he sees in the
offing were coming to seize him; he shrinks from the precipice of the
cliff on which he walks, though, perhaps, it would be better for him
to be dashed to pieces. A solitary pillar of rock seems an emblem of
himself: ‘Torn from my natural connections, I stand alone, in
expectation of the storm that shall displace me;’ and so on in the
same terrible strain. He begins to suspect his faithful friend Johnson
(whom he no longer calls ‘Johnny’) of wishing to control him, and
writes to Lady Hesketh, as if compelled to do so by stealth: ‘Dear
Weston! I shall never see Weston again, or you either. I have been
tossed like a ball to a far country, from which there is no rebound
for me.’ Johnson now moved his patients to a new residence, Dunham
Lodge, in the neighbourhood of Swaffham, and never slackened in his
attendance on his kinsman,—reading aloud to him for hours a series of
works of fiction, on which Cowper never made any comment, though they
appeared to rivet his attention. He tells Lady Hesketh,
notwithstanding, that he loses every other sentence, from the
inevitable wanderings of his mind. ‘My thoughts are like loose and dry
sand, which slips the sooner away the closer it is grasped.’ Cowper
could not bear now to be left alone, and if he were so for a short
time, he would watch on the hall door steps for the barking of dogs at
a distance, to announce his kinsman’s return. Mrs. Powley, Mrs.
Unwin’s daughter, came with her husband to visit her mother, and was
much touched by the affection which Cowper still manifested for his
Mary, even in moments of the deepest dejection. By degrees he was
induced to listen composedly, both to the reading of the Bible, and
also to family prayers, which at first his companions feared might
excite instead of soothing him. Johnson laid a kind trap in order to
coax the invalid into a renewal of his literary occupations. One day
he designedly mentioned in Cowper’s hearing, that, in the new edition
of Pope’s Homer, by Wakefield, there were some passages in which the
two translations were compared. The next morning he placed all the
volumes of the work in a large unfrequented room, through which Cowper
always passed on his way from his morning visit to Mrs. Unwin; and the
next day Johnson found, to his great satisfaction, that his kinsman
had examined the books, and made some corrections and revisions, an
occupation which Cowper continued for some little time with apparent
interest. But this improvement did not last long: the melancholy
household moved again to Mundsley, and then to Johnson’s own home, at
Dereham, which was considered less dreary than the house of Dunham
Lodge. It was there that, on the 17th of December, Mrs. Unwin,
Cowper’s faithful and devoted Mary, passed away from earth calmly and
peacefully. In the morning of that day, when the maid opened the
shutters, Cowper asked, ‘Is there still life upstairs?’ She died in
the afternoon, and he went up with Mr. Johnson to take a farewell
look; and, after silently gazing on the lifeless form for some time,
he burst into a paroxysm of tears, left the room, ‘and never,’ says
Hayley, ‘spoke of her more.’

Mrs. Unwin was buried by torchlight in the north aisle of Dereham
Church, where a marble tablet was placed to her memory.

After this event there was little improvement, though some
fluctuations, in Cowper’s state. His friends, Lady Spencer, Sir John
Throckmorton, and others, came to visit him, but he showed no pleasure
in seeing them. He occasionally wrote short verses, especially Latin,
suggested to him by Johnson, made revisions and corrections, and a
longer poem, embodying the most gloomy thoughts, ‘The Castaway,’ from
an incident in one of Anson’s voyages, the last and saddest of his
works.

‘For misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another’s case.’

The end was drawing near. Lady Hesketh was too unwell to go to him;
Hayley was in attendance on his dying son; Mr. Rose went to bid him
farewell, and Cowper, who had evinced no pleasure at his arrival,
mourned his departure.

Johnson thought it now incumbent on him to prepare his friend’s mind
for the impending danger, to which Cowper listened patiently. But when
his kinsman thought to soothe him by speaking of the blessed change
from earthly sorrow to the joys of heaven, the unhappy listener broke
forth into wild entreaties that he would desist from such topics.

On the 25th of April 1800, William Cowper expired, so quietly that not
one of the five persons who stood at his bedside was aware of the
exact moment. ‘From that time till he was hidden from our sight,’ says
his faithful and untiring watcher, Johnson, ‘his countenance was that
of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with _a holy
surprise_,’—words of deepest pathos, indissolubly connected with the
poet’s memory. They inspired Charles Tennyson Turner, our Laureate’s
worthy brother, with one of his most beautiful sonnets,—‘On Cowper’s
Death-smile’—

‘That orphan smile, born since our mourner died,
A lovely prelude of immortal peace.’

Cowper lies buried in the church at Dereham, where his cousin Harriet
placed a monument to his memory.

------------------

_No. 8._

A GIRL.

_In a tawny gown and white cap._

BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

------------------

_No. 9._

EMILY, WIFE OF THE FIFTH EARL COWPER, AFTERWARDS VISCOUNTESS
PALMERSTON.

_Yellowish-green gown. Pearl necklace. Floating scarf. Arms crossed.
She is holding a white hat and feathers. Background, a stormy sky._

BORN 1787, DIED 1869.

BY HOPPNER AND JACKSON.

THE only daughter and youngest child of the first Viscount Melbourne,
by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Ralph Milbanke. When only eighteen she
became the wife of Peter Leopold, fifth Lord Cowper, in the same year
that her brother William married Lady Caroline Ponsonby. We are
confident we cannot do better than quote some passages from an
article, published on Lady Palmerston’s death, by an eminent writer,
who was her personal friend: ‘On her marriage, Lady Cowper immediately
took her place amid that brilliant galaxy of beautiful and
accomplished women who continued to form the chief ornament of the
British Court, through successive reigns, till they were gradually
replaced (not outshone) by a younger race.’ He goes on to describe how
Lady Cowper was admired and distinguished in the brilliant seasons of
1814 and 1815, on the occasion of the Royal and Imperial visits to
England. While speaking of later years, after her second marriage, he
says at that time coteries, cliques, and, above all, party
exclusiveness in politics, prevailed. But at Cambridge House there
were no such limitations. All classes—political, diplomatic, literary,
scientific, artistic—found a welcome, even the proverbially dull
‘country cousin,’ who had any claim on Lady Palmerston’s notice; they
were all received with a gracious smile and a kind word by the amiable
hostess. Her country houses bore the same character for hospitality
and variety of attraction as the London dwelling, and foreigners, in
particular, were never tired of recording the delights of Panshanger,
Brocket (to which she succeeded on her brother’s death), and
Broadlands. The same biographer says of Lady Palmerston that she never
forgot a friend, or remembered an injury; and, speaking of her
devotion to her husband: ‘She was most jealous of his reputation, and
proud of his distinction as a Minister. Every night she sat up for him
until his return from the House of Commons, and her many anxieties on
his account were often hurtful to her health.’ After his death, her
circle was almost entirely restricted to her own family and
connections.

Lady Palmerston was esteemed a most excellent ‘_man_ of business,’
managing her vast property and large households with consummate skill.
She died in her eighty-second year.

London in her time was especially rich in courtly beauties, the fame
of whose charms still survives: the Duchess of Rutland, Ladies Jersey
and Tankerville, Charlotte Campbell, and many other names, well known
to those who read the memoirs of the period. Among such formidable
competitors Lady Cowper held her own for grace and beauty, while she
far surpassed most of her contemporaries in intellectual gifts. She
was much attached to her brother, whose upward career was a source of
pride and satisfaction to her. But in early life she evinced no
personal interest in politics.

Lord Cowper died in 1837; his widow married, in 1839, Lord Palmerston,
and from that moment she became immersed in political life, watching
with the keenest interest the public events which were passing around
her.

Her brother, Lord Melbourne, was at this period at the head of the
Government, and ere long her husband was destined to occupy the same
position. Lady Palmerston now formed a _salon_, which continued for
the lapse of many years to constitute one of the greatest attractions
of London society. We use the word _salon_ advisedly, for these
assemblies bore a nearer resemblance, in character and quality, to the
_salons_ of Paris, than most congregations of guests to be met with in
a London drawing-room.

This picture was begun by Hoppner, and finished after his death by
Jackson.

------------------

_No. 10._

BOY.

_In a dark grey coat. Buff waistcoat. White cravat._

BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

------------------

_No. 11._

GIRL.

_Brown gown. White muslin handkerchief. Large straw hat. Basket on her
arm. She is seated._

BY HOPPNER.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

BILLIARD ROOM.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

BILLIARD ROOM.

-------

_No. 1._

FREDERIC HENRY NASSAU, PRINCE OF ORANGE, STADTHOLDER.

_Black and gold dress. Ruff. Gold chain. Sword._

BORN 1584, DIED 1647.

BY MYTENS.

THE youngest child of William the Silent, Prince of Orange. Born at
Delft, christened with great rejoicings, and named after his two
godfathers, the kings of Denmark and Navarre. His mother, Louisa de
Coligny, had been early marked out for misfortune; her father, the
brave Gaspard de Chatillon, High Admiral of France, and her first
husband, the Sieur de Teligny, were both victims of the Massacre of
St. Bartholomew. So sad a fate has surely befallen few women, to see a
beloved parent and two husbands fall by the hands of cruel assassins.
When she was first left a widow, Louisa de Coligny escaped into
Switzerland, and after a time became the fourth wife of William the
Silent, Prince of Orange. During their short union, she endeared
herself to her husband and the whole country by the tender care she
bestowed on her step-children. At the time of William’s murder,
Frederic Henry was but an infant. ‘I am left,’ says the unhappy widow,
‘with a six-months’ child, sole pledge of my dead lord, my only
pleasure and consolation.’

A letter to England gives a most pathetic account of a visit paid to
her a short time after the Prince’s murder. ‘I found the Princess,’
says the writer, ‘in a most dark, melancholy little chamber; and it
was a twice sorrowful sight to behold her heaviness and apparel,
augmented by the wofulness of the place; and truly the perplexity I
found her in was not only for the consideration for things past, but
for that which might follow hereafter. The Princess de Chimay was with
her, herself a dolorous lady.’

The widow’s grief had been insulted by the discourse of an unfeeling
preacher at Leyden, who, alluding to the murder of the Prince,
attributed it to the vengeance of God on the ‘French marriage,’ and
the wicked pomp with which the child’s christening had been
solemnised.

Motley’s portrait of Louisa deserves to be transcribed: ‘A small,
well-formed woman, with delicate features, exquisite complexion, and
very beautiful dark eyes, that seemed in after years, as they looked
from beneath her coif, to be dim with unshed tears; remarkable powers
of mind, sweetness of disposition, a winning manner, and a gentle
voice.’

Such a woman soon became dear to the honest Hollanders, and was indeed
a good monitress, not only to her own child, but to Prince Maurice,
who loved and honoured her, and was inclined on most occasions to
listen to her counsels.

She devoted herself in the first years of her widowhood to
superintending the education of Frederic Henry or Henry Frederic, as
he is called by different historians. The Stadtholder, Maurice, seems
to have been much attached to his half-brother, who, while still a
child, proved his apt and willing scholar in the art of warfare. The
boy stood under fire for the first time when only thirteen, and was
with the army when the siege of Nieuport was projected. Now, this
enterprise was considered so hazardous, that Maurice determined his
brother should remain in a place of safety, on whom, in the event of
his own death, the hopes of the nation would be centred. But this
decision was most repugnant to the brave boy’s inclinations, and he
besought the General, with clasped hands and urgent prayers, to allow
him to share in the glory and danger of the day. There was too much
sympathy between those two noble spirits that Maurice should find it
in his heart to withstand the young soldier’s persistent supplication.
He sent for a new suit of armour, in which Frederic, bravely equipped,
side by side with his young kinsman, De Coligny, participated in the
honours of that memorable victory.

In the early days of his government, Maurice had pledged himself to
his stepmother to remain unmarried, by which means her son would
succeed as Stadtholder; but it was supposed that he went further, and
whispered to her that Frederic should inherit a kingly crown if the
Princess would assist him in obtaining the sovereignty, which he
(Maurice) so ardently desired.

In 1605 the young Prince was in command of a body of veterans in an
attack on the Spaniards, at Mühlheim, by the Rhine, when Maurice,
riding up on the opposite shore, perceived with dismay that a panic
had seized the usually steady and valiant troops. He saw his brother
fighting manfully in the thickest of the fray, his gilded armour and
waving orange plumes making him the aim of every marksman. On that
occasion, at all events, Maurice did not ‘keep silence.’ He tore up
and down the bank, taunting and cursing the soldiers who were
deserting their brave young commander, and his loud and angry
expostulations rallied the fugitives, and saved his brother’s life.

When the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia arrived at the Hague, to ask
shelter and protection from the House of Orange, Elizabeth brought in
her train the faithful and favourite Amelia de Solms, a young lady
whose intelligence and beauty made a deep impression on the heart of
Prince Frederic. There is some little difficulty in reconciling the
different accounts, as the Queen speaks of the lovers’ entire
devotion; yet we are told that Maurice threatened Frederic that, if he
did not make up his mind to marry the German lady, he would himself
espouse a Mademoiselle de Merck, by whom he had already had more than
one child, who would in that case be accepted by the law of that land
as legitimate.

The Queen of Bohemia, in writing to an English correspondent, says: ‘I
am sure you heere already of the Prince of Orange’s marriage with one
of my women, the daughter of Count de Solms, who served the King in
Heidelberg. She is verie handsome and goode. She has no money, but he
has enough for both.’