Chapter LV: Book II: As when from mountain tops, &c (1)

Line 488.

"The reader loses half the beauty of this charming simile, who does not give particular attention to the numbers. There is a majesty in them not often equalled, and never surpassed, even by this great poet himself; the movement is uncommonly slow; an effect produced by means already hinted at, the assemblage of a greater proportion of long syllables than usual. The pauses are also managed with great skill and judgment; while the clouds rise, and the heavens gather blackness, they fall in those parts of the verse, where they retard the reader most, and thus become expressive of the solemnity of the subject; but in the latter part of the simile, when the sun breaks out, and the scene brightens, they are so disposed as to allow the verse an easier and less interrupted flow, more suited to the cheerfulness of the occasion."

He concludes with the following summary of the great doctrines that form the foundation of the Paradise Lost.

"It may not be amiss, at the close of these admirable speeches--as admirable for their sound divinity as for the perspicuity with which it is expressed--to allow ourselves a moment's pause, for the purpose of taking a short retrospect of the doctrines contained in them. Man, in the beginning, is placed in a probationary state, and made the arbiter of his own destiny. By his own fault, he forfeits happiness, both for himself and his descendants. But mercy interposes for his restoration. That mercy is represented as perfectly free, as vouchsafed to the most unworthy; to creatures so entirely dead in sin as to be destitute even of a sense of their need of it, and consequently too stupid even to ask it. They are also as poor as they are unfeeling; and, were it possible that they could affect themselves with a just sense and apprehension of their lapsed condition, they would have no compensation to offer to their offended Maker, nothing with which they can satisfy the demands of his justice,--in short, no atonement. In this ruinous state of their affairs, and when all hope of reconciliation seems lost for ever, the Son of God voluntarily undertakes for them,--undertakes to become the son of man also, and to suffer, in man's stead, the penalty annexed to his transgression. In consequence of this self-substitution, Christ becomes the federal head of his church, and the sole author of salvation to his people. As Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity, so the faultless obedience of the second Adam is imputed to all, who, in the great concern of justification, shall renounce their own obedience as imperfect and therefore incompetent. The sentence is thus reversed as to all believers: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' The Saviour presents the redeemed before the throne of the Eternal Father, in whose countenance no longer any symptom of displeasure appears against them, but their joy and peace are thenceforth perfect. The general resurrection takes place; the saints are made assessors with Christ in the judgment, both of men and angels; the new heaven and earth, the destined habitation of the just, succeed; the Son of God, his whole undertaking accomplished, surrenders the kingdom to his Father: God becomes all in all! It is easy to see, that, among these doctrines, there are some which, in modern times, have been charged with novelty; but how new they are Milton is a witness."

Fuseli, whose labours were so unfortunately superseded, completed a series of admirable paintings from subjects furnished by the Paradise Lost; which were afterwards exhibited in London, under the name of the Milton Gallery. He thus acquired a reputation which placed him in the first rank of artists; and the amateur had the opportunity of seeing, in the Shakspeare and Milton galleries, the most distinguished painters engaged in illustrating the productions of the two greatest authors that ever adorned any age or country.[737]

[737] A popular writer paid the following eloquent tribute to
these masterly specimens of professional art.

Yet mark each willing Muse, where Boydell draws,
And calls the sister pow'rs in Shakspeare's cause!
By art controll'd the fire of Reynolds breaks,
And nature's pathos in her Northcote speaks;
The Grecian forms in Hamilton combine,
Parrhasian grace and Zeuxis' softest line,
There Barry's learning meets with Romney's strength,
And Smirke portrays Thalia at full length.

Lo! Fuseli (in whose tempestuous soul
The unnavigable tides of genius roll,)
Depicts the sulph'rous fire, the smould'ring light,
The bridge chaotic o'er the abyss of night,
With each accursed form and mystic spell,
And singly "bears up all the fame of hell!"

_Pursuits of Literature._

This projected edition of Milton is remarkable as having laid the foundation of the intercourse, which soon ripened into friendship, between Cowper and Hayley. The latter was at that time engaged in writing a life of Milton, which gave rise to his being represented as an opponent of Cowper. To exonerate himself from such an imputation, he wrote the letter which we subjoin in a note.[738]

[738]

Eartham, Feb. 1792.

Dear Sir,--I have often been tempted, by affectionate admiration
of your poetry, to trouble you with a letter; but I have
repeatedly checked myself in recollecting that the vanity of
believing ourselves distantly related in spirit to a man of
genius is but a sorry apology for intruding on his time.

Though I resisted my desire of professing myself your friend,
that I might not disturb you with intrusive familiarity, I cannot
resist a desire, equally affectionate, of disclaiming an idea
which I am told is imputed to me, of considering myself, on a
recent occasion, as an antagonist to you. Allow me, therefore,
to say, I was solicited to write a Life of Milton, for Boydell
and Nichol, before I had the least idea that you and Mr. Fuseli
were concerned in a project similar to theirs. When I first heard
of your intention, I was apprehensive that we might undesignedly
thwart each other; but, on seeing your proposals, I am agreeably
persuaded that our respective labours will be far from clashing;
as it is your design to illustrate Milton with a series of notes,
and I only mean to execute a more candid life of him than his
late biographer has given us, upon a plan that will, I flatter
myself, be particularly pleasing to those who love the author as
we do.

As to the pecuniary interest of those persons who venture large
sums in expensive decoration of Milton, I am persuaded his
expanding glory will support them all. Every splendid edition,
where the merits of the pencil are in any degree worthy of the
poet, will, I think, be secure of success. I wish it cordially
to all; as I have a great affection for the arts, and a sincere
regard for those whose talents reflect honour upon them.

To you, my dear sir, I have a grateful attachment, for the
infinite delight which your writings have afforded me; and if,
in the course of your work, I have any opportunity to serve or
oblige you, I shall seize it with that friendly spirit which has
impelled me at present to assure you, both in prose and rhyme,
that I am your cordial admirer,

W. HAYLEY.

P.S. I wrote the enclosed sonnet on being told that our names
had been idly printed together in a newspaper, _as hostile
competitors_. Pray forgive its partial defects for its
affectionate sincerity. From my ignorance of your address, I send
this to your bookseller's by a person commissioned to place my
name in the list of your subscribers; and let me add, if you ever
wish to form a new collection of names for any similar purpose,
I entreat you to honour me so far as to rank _mine_, of your own
accord, among those of your sincerest friends. Adieu!

SONNET.

TO WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ.

_On hearing that our names had been idly mentioned in a
newspaper, as competitors in a Life of Milton._

Cowper! delight of all who justly prize
The splendid magic of a strain divine,
That sweetly tempts th' enlighten'd soul to rise,
As sunbeams lure an eagle to the skies.
Poet! to whom I feel my heart incline
As to a friend endear'd by virtue's ties;
Ne'er shall my name in pride's contentious line
With hostile emulation cope with thine!
No, let us meet, with kind fraternal aim,
Where Milton's shrine invites a votive throng.
With thee I share a passion for his fame,
His zeal for truth, his scorn of venal blame:
But thou hast rarer gifts,--to thee belong
His harp of highest tone, his sanctity of song.

* * * * *

Having detailed the circumstances connected with the edition of Milton, we return to the regular correspondence.

TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.[739]

[739] Private correspondence.

Weston, Dec. 10, 1793.

You mentioned, my dear friend, in your last letter, an unfavourable sprain that you had received, which you apprehended might be very inconvenient to you for some time to come; and having learned also from Lady Hesketh the same unwelcome intelligence, in terms still more alarming than those in which you related the accident yourself, I cannot but be anxious, as well as my cousin, to know the present state of it; and shall truly rejoice to hear that it is in a state of recovery. Give us a line of information on this subject, as soon as you can conveniently, and you will much oblige us.

I write by morning candle-light; my literary business obliging me to be an early riser. Homer demands me: finished, indeed, but the alterations not transcribed: a work to which I am now hastening as fast as possible. The transcript ended, which is likely to amount to a good sizeable volume, I must write a new preface: and then farewell to Homer for ever! And if the remainder of my days be a little gilded with the profits of this long and laborious work, I shall not regret the time that I have bestowed on it.

I remain, my dear friend,
Affectionately yours,
W. C.

Can you give us any news of Lord Howe's Armada; concerning which we may inquire, as our forefathers did of the Spanish,--"an in coelum sublata sit, an in Tartarum depressa?"[740]

[740] Lord Howe was at this time in pursuit of the French fleet,
and absent six weeks, during which the public received no
intelligence of his movements. His lordship at length returned,
having only seen the enemy, but without having been able to
overtake and bring them to action. Though this furnished no
argument against him, but rather showed the terror that he
inspired, yet some of the wits of the day wrote the following
_jeu d'esprit_ on the occasion.

When Cæsar triumph'd o'er his Gallic foes,
Three words concise,* his gallant acts disclose;
But Howe, more brief, comprises his in _one_,
And _vidi_ tells us all that he has done.

*_Veni, vidi, vici._ I came, I saw, I conquered.

Lord Howe subsequently proved his claim to the whole of this
celebrated despatch of Cæsar, by the great victory which he
gained off Ushant over the French fleet, June 1, 1794, a victory
which forms one of the brightest triumphs of the British navy.

* * * * *

The reader may now be anxious to learn some particulars of the projected poem, which has been repeatedly mentioned under the title of _The Four Ages_; a poem to which the mind of Cowper looked eagerly forward, as to a new and highly promising field for his excursive fancy. The idea had been suggested to him in the year 1791, by his clerical neighbour, Mr. Buchanan, of Ravenstone, a small sequestered village within the distance of an easy walk from Weston. This gentleman, who had occasionally enjoyed the gratification of visiting Cowper, suggested to him, with a becoming diffidence, the project of a new poem on the four distinct periods of life--infancy, youth, manhood, and old age. He imparted his ideas to the poet by a letter, in which he observed, with equal modesty and truth, that Cowper was particularly qualified to relish, and to do justice to the subject; a subject which he supposed not hitherto treated expressly, as its importance deserved, by any poet ancient or modern.

Mr. Buchanan added to this letter a brief sketch of contents for the projected composition. This hasty sketch he enlarged, at the request of Cowper. How the poet appreciated the suggestion will appear from the following billet.

TO THE REV. MR. BUCHANAN.

Weston, May 11, 1793.

My dear Sir,--You have sent me a beautiful poem, wanting nothing but metre. I would to heaven that you would give it that requisite yourself; for he who could make the sketch, cannot but be well qualified to finish. But if you will not, I will; provided always nevertheless, that God gives me ability, for it will require no common share to do justice to your conceptions.

I am much yours,
W. C.

Your little messenger vanished before I could catch him.

* * * * *

This work, in his first conception of it, was greatly endeared to him, but he soon entertained an apprehension that he should never accomplish it. Writing to his friend of St. Paul's in 1793, the poet said--"_The Four Ages_ is a subject that delights me when I think of it; but I am ready to fear, that all my ages will be exhausted before I shall be at leisure to write upon it."

A fragment is all that he has left, for which we refer the reader to the Poems. In his happier days, it would have been expanded in a manner more commensurate with the copiousness of the subject, and the poetical powers of the author.

It may be interesting to add, that a modern poem on the Four Ages of Man was written by M. Werthmuller, a citizen of Zurich, and translated into Latin verse, by Dr. Olstrochi, librarian to the Ambrosian library at Milan. This performance gave rise to another German poem on the Four Ages of Woman, by M. Zacharie, professor of poetry at Brunswick.

The increasing infirmities of Cowper's aged companion, Mrs. Unwin, his filial solicitude to alleviate her sufferings, and the gathering clouds of deeper despondency that began to settle on his mind, in the first month of the year 1794, not only rendered it impossible for him to advance in any great original performance, but, to use his own expressive words, in the close of his correspondence with his highly-valued friend, Mr. Rose, made all composition either of poetry or prose impracticable. Writing to that friend in January 1794, he says, "I have just ability enough to transcribe, which is all that I have to do at present: God knows that I write, at this moment, under the pressure of sadness not to be described."

It was a spectacle that might awaken compassion in the sternest of human characters, to see the health, the comfort, and the little fortune of a man, so distinguished by intellectual endowments, and by moral excellence, perishing most deplorably. A sight so affecting made many friends of Cowper solicitous and importunate that his declining life should be honourably protected by public munificence. Men of all parties agreed that a pension might be granted to an author of his acknowledged merit, with graceful propriety.

But such is the difficulty of doing real good, experienced even by the great and powerful, or so apt are statesmen to forget the pressing exigence of meritorious individuals, in the distractions of official perplexity, that month after month elapsed, without the accomplishment of so desirable an object.

Imagination can hardly devise any human condition more truly affecting than the state of the poet at this period. His generous and faithful guardian, Mrs. Unwin, who had preserved him through seasons of the severest calamity, was now, with her faculties and fortune impaired, sinking fast into second childhood. The distress of heart that he felt in beholding the afflicting change in a companion so justly dear to him, conspiring with his constitutional melancholy, was gradually undermining the exquisite faculties of his mind. The disinterested and affectionate kindness of Lady Hesketh, at this crisis, deserves to be recorded in terms of the highest commendation. With a magnanimity of feeling to which it is difficult to do justice, and to the visible detriment of her health, she nobly devoted herself to the superintendence of a house, whose two interesting inhabitants were almost incapacitated from attending to the ordinary offices of life. Those only who have lived with the superannuated and the melancholy, can properly appreciate the value of such a sacrifice.

The two last of Cowper's letters to Hayley, that breathe a spirit of mental activity and cheerful friendship, were written in the close of the year 1793, and in the beginning of the next. They arose from an accident that it may be proper to relate, before we insert them.

On Hayley's return from Weston, he had given an account of the poet to his old friend, Lord Thurlow. That learned and powerful critic, in speaking of Cowper's Homer, declared himself not satisfied with his version of Hector's admirable prayer in caressing his child. Both ventured on new translations of this prayer, which were immediately sent to Cowper, and the following letters will prove with what just and manly freedom of spirit he was at this time able to criticize the composition of his friends and his own.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, Dec. 17, 1793.

Oh Jove! and all ye Gods! grant this my son
To prove, like me, pre-eminent in Troy!
In valour such, and firmness of command!
Be he extoll'd, when he returns from fight,
As far his sire's superior! may he slay
His enemy, bring home his gory spoils,
And may his mother's heart o'erflow with joy!

I rose this morning, at six o'clock, on purpose to translate this prayer again, and to write to my dear brother. Here you have it, such as it is, not perfectly according to my own liking, but as well as I could make it, and I think better than either yours or Lord Thurlow's. You with your six lines have made yourself stiff and ungraceful, and he with his seven has produced as good prose as heart can wish, but no poetry at all. A scrupulous attention to the letter has spoiled you both; you have neither the spirit nor the manner of Homer. A portion of both may be found, I believe, in my version, but not so much as I could wish--it is better however than the printed one. His lordship's two first lines I cannot very well understand; he seems to me to give a sense to the original that does not belong to it. Hector, I apprehend, does not say, "Grant that he may prove himself my son, and be eminent," &c.--but "grant that this my son may prove eminent"--which is a material difference. In the latter sense I find the simplicity of an ancient; in the former, that is to say, in the notion of a man proving himself his father's son by similar merit, the finesse and dexterity of a modern. His lordship too makes the man, who gives the young hero his commendation, the person who returns from battle; whereas Homer makes the young hero himself that person, at least if Clarke is a just interpreter, which I suppose is hardly to be disputed.

If my old friend would look into my Preface, he would find a principle laid down there, which perhaps it would not be easy to invalidate, and which properly attended to would equally secure a translation from stiffness and from wildness. The principle I mean is this--"Close, but not so close as to be servile! free, but not so free as to be licentious!" A superstitious fidelity loses the spirit, and a loose deviation the sense of the translated author--a happy moderation in either case is the only possible way of preserving both.

Thus I have disciplined you both, and now, if you please, you may both discipline me. I shall not enter my version in my book till it has undergone your strictures at least, and, should you write to the noble critic again, you are welcome to submit it to his. We are three awkward fellows indeed, if we cannot amongst us make a tolerable good translation of six lines of Homer.

Adieu!
W. C.

TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Weston, Jan. 5, 1794.

My dear Hayley,--I have waited, but waited in vain, for a propitious moment when I might give my old friend's objections the consideration they deserve; I shall at last be forced to send a vague answer, unworthy to be sent to a person accustomed, like him, to close reasoning and abstruse discussion; for I rise after ill rest, and with a frame of mind perfectly unsuited to the occasion. I sit too at the window for light's sake, where I am so cold that my pen slips out of my fingers. First, I will give you a translation, _de novo_, of this untranslateable prayer. It is shaped as nearly as I could contrive to his lordship's ideas, but I have little hope that it will satisfy him.

Grant Jove, and all ye Gods, that this my son
Be, as myself have been, illustrious here!
A valiant man! and let him reign in Troy!
May all who witness his return from fight
Hereafter, say--he far excels his sire;
And let him bring back gory trophies, stript
From foes slain by him, to his mother's joy.

Imlac in Rasselas says--I forget to whom, "You have convinced me that it is impossible to be a poet." In like manner I might say to his lordship, you have convinced me that it is impossible to be a translator; to be a translator, on his terms at least, is I am sure impossible. On his terms, I would defy Homer himself, were he alive, to translate the Paradise Lost into Greek. Yet Milton had Homer much in his eye when he composed that poem; whereas Homer never thought of me or my translation. There are minutiæ in every language, which, transfused into another, will spoil the version. Such extreme fidelity is in fact unfaithful. Such close resemblance takes away all likeness. The original is elegant, easy, natural; the copy is clumsy, constrained, unnatural: to what is this owing? To the adoption of terms not congenial to your purpose, and of a context, such as no man writing an original work would make use of. Homer is every thing that a poet should be. A translation of Homer, so made, will be every thing a translation of Homer should not be; because it will be written in no language under heaven. It will be English, and it will be Greek, and therefore it will be neither. He is the man, whoever he be, (I do not pretend to be that man myself,) he is the man best qualified as a translator of Homer, who has drenched, and steeped, and soaked himself in the effusions of his genius, till he has imbibed their colour to the bone, and who, when he is thus dyed through and through, distinguishing between what is essentially Greek, and what may be habited in English, rejects the former, and is faithful to the latter, as far as the purposes of fine poetry will permit, and no farther: this, I think, may be easily proved. Homer is everywhere remarkable either for ease, dignity, or energy of expression; for grandeur of conception, and a majestic flow of numbers. If we copy him so closely as to make every one of these excellent properties of his absolutely unattainable, which will certainly be the effect of too close a copy, instead of translating, we murder him. Therefore, after all his lordship has said, I still hold freedom to be an indispensable--freedom, I mean, with respect to the expression; freedom so limited, as never to leave behind the _matter_; but at the same time indulged with a sufficient scope to secure the spirit, and as much as possible of the manner. I say as much as possible, because an English manner must differ from a Greek one, in order to be graceful, and for this there is no remedy. Can an ungraceful, awkward, translation of Homer be a good one? No: but a graceful, easy, natural, faithful version of him, will not that be a good one? Yes: allow me but this, and I insist upon it, that such a one may be produced on my principles, and can be produced on no other.

I have not had time to criticise his lordship's other version. You know how little time I have for anything, and can tell him so.

Adieu! my dear brother. I have now tired both you and myself; and with the love of the whole trio, remain yours ever,

W. C.

Reading his lordship's sentiments over again, I am inclined to think, that in all I have said, I have only given him back the same in other terms. He disallows both the absolute _free_, and the absolute _close_--so do I, and, if I understand myself, I said so in my preface. He wishes to recommend a medium, though he will not call it so--so do I; only we express it differently. What is it then that we dispute about? My head is not good enough to-day to discover.

* * * * *

These letters were followed by such a silence on the part of Cowper, as excited the severest apprehensions, which were painfully confirmed by the intelligence conveyed in the ensuing letter:--

FROM THE REV. MR. GREATHEED--TO WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQ.

Newport Pagnel, April 8, 1794.

Dear Sir,--Lady Hesketh's correspondence acquainted you with the melancholy relapse of our dear friend at Weston; but I am uncertain whether you know, that in the last fortnight he has refused food of every kind, except now and then a very small piece of toasted bread dipped generally in water, sometimes mixed with a little wine. This, her ladyship informs me, was the case till last Saturday, since when he has eat a little at each family meal. He persists in refusing such medicines as are indispensable to his state of body. In such circumstances, his long continuance in life cannot be expected. How devoutly to be wished is the alleviation of his danger and distress! You, dear sir, who know so well the worth of our beloved and admired friend, sympathise with his affliction, and deprecate his loss doubtless in no ordinary degree: you have already most effectually expressed and proved the warmth of your friendship. I cannot think that anything but your society would have been sufficient, during the infirmity under which his mind has long been oppressed, to have supported him against the shock of Mrs. Unwin's paralytic attack. I am certain that nothing else could have prevailed upon him to undertake the journey to Eartham. You have succeeded where his other friends knew they could not, and where they apprehended no one could. How natural therefore, nay, how reasonable, is it for them to look to you, as most likely to be instrumental, under the blessing of God, for relief in the present distressing and alarming crisis! It is indeed scarcely attemptable to ask any person to take such a journey, and involve himself in so melancholy a scene, with an uncertainty of the desired success; increased as the apparent difficulty is by dear Mr. Cowper's aversion to all company, and by poor Mrs. Unwin's mental and bodily infirmities. On these accounts Lady Hesketh dares not ask it of you, rejoiced as she would be at your arrival. Am I not, dear sir, a very presumptuous person, who, in the face of all opposition, dare do this? I am emboldened by those two powerful supporters, conscience and experience. Was I at Eartham, I would certainly undertake the labour I presume to recommend, for the bare possibility of restoring Mr. Cowper to himself, to his friends, to the public, and to God.

* * * * *

Hayley, on the receipt of this letter, lost no time in repairing to Weston; but his unhappy friend was too much overwhelmed by his oppressive malady to show even the least glimmering of satisfaction at the appearance of a guest whom he used to receive with the most lively expressions of affectionate delight.

It is the nature of this tremendous melancholy, not only to enshroud and stifle the finest faculties of the mind, but it suspends, and apparently annihilates, for a time, the strongest and best-rooted affections of the heart.

Lady Hesketh, profiting by Hayley's presence, quitted her charge for a few days, that she might have a personal conference with Dr. Willis. A friendly letter from Lord Thurlow to that celebrated physician had requested his attention to the highly interesting sufferer. Dr. Willis prescribed for Cowper, and saw him at Weston, but not with that success and felicity which made his medical skill on another most awful occasion the source of national delight and exultation.

Indeed, the extraordinary state of Cowper appeared to abound with circumstances very unfavourable to his mental relief. The daily sight of a being reduced to such deplorable imbecility as now overwhelmed Mrs. Unwin, was in itself sufficient to plunge a tender spirit into extreme melancholy; yet to separate two friends, so long accustomed to minister, with the purest and most vigilant benevolence, to the infirmities of each other, was a measure so pregnant with complicated distraction, that it could not be advised or attempted. It remained only to palliate the suffering of each in their present most pitiable condition, and to trust in the mercy of that God, who had supported them together through periods of very dark affliction, though not so doubly deplorable as the present.

Who can contemplate this distressing spectacle without recalling the following pathetic exclamation in the Sampson Agonistes of Milton?

God of our fathers, what is man?
. . . . .
Since such as thou hast solemnly elected,
With gifts and graces eminently adorned;
. . . . .
Yet towards these thus dignified, thou oft
Amidst their height of noon,
Changest thy count'nance, and thy hand, with no regard
Of highest favours past
From thee on them, or them to thee of service.
. . . . .
So deal not with this once thy glorious champion!
What do I beg? How hast thou dealt already!
Behold him in this state calamitous, and turn
His labours, for thou canst, to peaceful end!

It was on the 23rd of April, 1794, in one of those melancholy mornings, when his kind and affectionate relation, Lady Hesketh, and Hayley, were watching together over this dejected sufferer, that a letter from Lord Spencer arrived at Weston, to announce the intended grant of a pension from his Majesty to Cowper, of 300_l._ per annum, rendered payable to his friend Mr. Rose, as the trustee of Cowper. This intelligence produced in the friends of the poet very lively emotions of delight, yet blended with pain almost as powerful; for it was painful, in no trifling degree, to reflect that these desirable smiles of good fortune could not impart even a faint glimmering of joy to the dejected poet.

From the time when Hayley left his unhappy friend at Weston, in the spring of the year 1794, he remained there under the tender vigilance of Lady Hesketh, till the latter end of July, 1795: a long season of the darkest depression! in which the best medical advice and the influence of time appeared equally unable to lighten that afflictive burthen which pressed incessantly on his spirits.

It was under these circumstances that my revered brother-in-law, with a generous disinterestedness and affection that must ever endear him to the admirers of Cowper, determined, with Lady Hesketh's concurrence, to remove the poet and his afflicted companion into Norfolk. In adopting this plan, he did not contemplate more than a year's absence from Weston: but what was intended to be only temporary, proved in the sequel to be a final removal.

Few events could have been more painful to Cowper than a separation from his beloved Weston. Every object was familiar to his eye, and had long engaged the affections of his heart. Its beautiful scenery had been traced with all the minuteness of description and the glow of poetic fancy. The slow-winding Ouse, "bashful, yet impatient to be seen," was henceforth to glide "in its sinuous course" unperceived. The spacious meads, the lengthened colonnade, the proud alcove, and the sound of the sweet village-bells--these memorials of past happy days were to be seen and heard no more. All have felt the pang excited by the separation or loss of friends; but who has not also experienced that even trees have tongues, and that every object in nature knows how to plead its empire over the heart?

What Cowper's sensations were on this occasion, may be collected from the following little incident.

On the morning of his departure from Weston, he wrote the following lines in pencil on the back of the shutter, in his bed-room.

"Farewell, dear scenes, for ever closed to me!
Oh! for what sorrows must I now exchange you!"

These lines have been carefully preserved as the expressive memorial of his feelings on leaving Weston. Nor can the following little poem fail to excite interest, not only as being the last original production which he composed at Weston, but from its deep and unaffected pathos. It is addressed to Mrs. Unwin. No language can exhibit a specimen of verse more exquisitely tender.

TO MARY.

The twentieth year is well-nigh past,
Since first our sky was overcast,
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!

Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow--
'Twas my distress that brought thee low,
My Mary!

Thy needles, once a shining store,
For my sake restless heretofore,
Now rust disus'd, and shine no more,
My Mary!

For, though thou gladly wouldst fulfil
The same kind office for me still,
Thy sight now seconds not thy will,
My Mary!

But well thou playd'st the housewife's part,
And all thy threads with magic art,
Have wound themselves about this heart,
My Mary!

Thy indistinct expressions seem
Like language utter'd in a dream;
Yet me they charm, whate'er the theme,
My Mary!

Thy silver locks, once auburn bright,
Are still more lovely in my sight
Than golden beams of orient light,
My Mary!

For, could I view nor them nor thee,
What sight worth seeing could I see?
The sun would rise in vain for me,
My Mary!

Partakers of thy sad decline,
Thy hands their little force resign;
Yet, gently prest, press gently mine,
My Mary!

Such feebleness of limbs thou prov'st,
That now at every step thou mov'st
Upheld by two, yet still thou lov'st,
My Mary!

And still to love, though prest with ill,
In wintry age to feel no chill,
With me is to be lovely still,
My Mary!

But, ah! by constant heed I know,
How oft the sadness that I show
Transforms thy smiles to looks of woe,
My Mary!

And, should my future lot be cast
With much resemblance of the past,
Thy worn-out heart will break at last,
My Mary!

On Tuesday, the twenty-eighth of July, 1795, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin removed, under the care and guidance of Mr. Johnson, from Weston to North-Tuddenham, in Norfolk, by a journey of three days, passing through Cambridge without stopping there. In the evening of the first day they rested at the village of Eaton, near St. Neot's. Cowper walked with his young kinsman in the churchyard by moonlight, and spoke with much composure on the subject of Thomson's Seasons, and the circumstances under which they were probably written. This conversation was almost his last glimmering of cheerfulness.

At North-Tuddenham the travellers were accommodated with a commodious, untenanted parsonage-house, by the kindness of the Rev. Leonard Shelford. Here they resided till the nineteenth of August. It was the considerate intention of Mr. Johnson not to remove them immediately to his own house, in the town of East-Dereham, lest the situation in a market-place should be distressing to the tender spirits of Cowper.

In their new temporary residence they were received by Miss Johnson and Miss Perowne, whose gentle and sympathizing spirit peculiarly qualified them to discharge so delicate an office, and to alleviate the sufferings of the dejected poet.

Severe as his depressive malady appeared at this period, he was still able to bear considerable exercise, and, before he left Tuddenham, he walked with Mr. Johnson to the neighbouring village of Mattishall, on a visit to his cousin, Mrs. Bodham. On surveying his own portrait by Abbot, in the house of that lady, he clasped his hands in a paroxysm of pain, and uttered a vehement wish, that his present sensations might be such as they were when that picture was painted.

In August 1795, Mr. Johnson conducted his two invalids to Mundsley, a village on the Norfolk coast, in the hope that a situation by the sea-side might prove salutary and amusing to Cowper. They continued to reside there till October, but without any apparent benefit to the health of the interesting sufferer.

He had long relinquished epistolary intercourse with his most intimate friends, but his tender solicitude to hear some tidings of his favourite Weston induced him, in September, to write a letter to Mr. Buchanan. It shows the severity of his depression, but proves also that transient gleams of pleasure could occasionally break through the brooding darkness of melancholy.

He begins with a poetical quotation:

"To interpose a little ease,
Let my frail thoughts dally with false surmise!"

"I will forget, for a moment, that to whomsoever I may address myself, a letter from me can no otherwise be welcome than as a curiosity. To you, sir, I address this; urged to it by extreme penury of employment, and the desire I feel to learn something of what is doing, and has been done, at Weston, (my beloved Weston!) since I left it.

"The coldness of these blasts, even in the hottest days, has been such, that, added to the irritation of the salt-spray, with which they are always charged, they have occasioned me an inflammation in the eye-lids, which threatened a few days since to confine me entirely, but, by absenting myself as much as possible from the beach, and guarding my face with an umbrella, that inconvenience is in some degree abated. My chamber commands a very near view of the ocean, and the ships at high water approach the coast so closely, that a man furnished with better eyes than mine might, I doubt not, discern the sailors from the window. No situation, at least when the weather is clear and bright, can be pleasanter; which you will easily credit, when I add, that it imparts something a little resembling pleasure even to me.--Gratify me with news of Weston! If Mr. Gregson, and your neighbours the Courtenays are there, mention me to them in such terms as you see good. Tell me if my poor birds are living! I never see the herbs I used to give them, without a recollection of them, and sometimes am ready to gather them, forgetting that I am not at home. Pardon this intrusion!

"Mrs. Unwin continues much as usual.

"Mundsley, Sept. 5, 1795."

* * * * *

Mr. Buchanan endeavoured, with great tenderness and ingenuity, to allure his dejected friend to prolong a correspondence, that seemed to promise some little alleviation to his melancholy; but this distressing malady baffled all the various expedients that could be devised to counteract its overwhelming influence.

Much hope was entertained from air and exercise, with a frequent change of scene.--In September, Mr. Johnson conducted his kinsman (to the promotion of whose recovery he devoted his most unwearied efforts) to take a survey of Dunham-Lodge, a seat at that time vacant; it is situated on high ground, in a park, about four miles from Swaffham. Cowper spoke of it as a house rather too spacious for him, yet such as he was not unwilling to inhabit--a remark which induced Mr. Johnson, at a subsequent period, to become the tenant of this mansion, as a scene more eligible for Cowper than the town of Dereham.--This town they also surveyed in their excursion; and, after passing a night there, returned to Mundsley, which they quitted for the season on the seventh of October.

They removed immediately to Dereham; but left it in the course of a month for Dunham-Lodge, which now became their settled residence.

The spirits of Cowper were not sufficiently revived to allow him to resume either his pen or his books; but the kindness of his young kinsman continued to furnish him with inexhaustible amusement, by reading to him almost incessantly; and, although he was not led to converse on what he heard, yet it failed not to rivet his attention, and so to prevent his afflicted mind from preying on itself.

In April, 1796, Mrs. Unwin, whose infirmities continued to engage the tender attention of Cowper, even in his darkest periods of depression, received a visit from her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Powley. On their departure, Mr. Johnson assumed the office which Mrs. Powley had tenderly performed for her venerable parent, and regularly read a chapter in the Bible every morning to Mrs. Unwin before she rose. It was the invariable custom of Cowper to visit his poor old friend the moment he had finished his breakfast, and to remain in her apartment while the chapter was read.

In June, the pressure of his melancholy appeared in some degree alleviated, for, on Mr. Johnson's receiving the edition of Pope's Homer, published by Wakefield, Cowper eagerly seized the book, and began to read the notes to himself with visible interest. They awakened his attention to his own version of Homer. In August he deliberately engaged in a revisal of the whole, and for some time produced almost sixty new lines a day.

This mental occupation animated all his intimate friends with a most lively hope of his progressive recovery. But autumn repressed the hope that summer had excited.

In September the family removed from Dunham-Lodge to try again the influence of the sea-side, in their favourite village of Mundsley.

Cowper walked frequently by the sea; but no apparent benefit arose, no mild relief from the incessant pressure of melancholy. He had relinquished his Homer again, and could not yet be induced to resume it.

Towards the end of October, this interesting party retired from the coast to the house of Mr. Johnson, in Dereham--a house now chosen for their winter residence, as Dunham-Lodge appeared to them too dreary.

The long and exemplary life of Mrs. Unwin was drawing towards a close:--the powers of nature were gradually exhausted, and on the seventeenth of December she ended a troubled existence, distinguished by a sublime spirit of piety and friendship, that shone through long periods of calamity, and continued to glimmer through the distressful twilight of her declining faculties. Her death was calm and tranquil. Cowper saw her about half an hour before the moment of expiration, which passed without a struggle or a groan, as the clock was striking one in the afternoon.

On the morning of that day, he said to the servant who opened the window of his chamber, "Sally, is there life above stairs?" A striking proof of his bestowing incessant attention on the sufferings of his aged friend, although he had long appeared almost totally absorbed in his own.

In the dusk of the evening he attended Mr. Johnson to survey the corpse; and after looking at it a very few moments he started suddenly away, with a vehement but unfinished sentence of passionate sorrow. He spoke of her no more.

She was buried by torch-light, on the twenty-third of December, in the north aisle of Dereham church; and two of her friends, impressed with a just and deep sense of her extraordinary merit, have raised a marble tablet to her memory with the following inscription:

IN MEMORY OF MARY,

WIDOW OF THE REV. MORLEY UNWIN,
AND
MOTHER OF THE REV. WILLIAM CAWTHORN UNWIN,
BORN AT ELY, 1724.
BURIED IN THIS CHURCH 1796.

Trusting in God, with all her heart and mind
This woman prov'd magnanimously kind;
Endur'd affliction's desolating hail,
And watch'd a poet thro' misfortune's vale.
Her spotless dust, angelic guards, defend!
It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper's friend!
That single title in itself is fame,
For all who read his verse revere her name.

It might have been anticipated that the death of Mrs. Unwin, in Cowper's enfeebled state, would have proved too severe a shock to his agitated nerves. But it is mercifully ordained that, while declining years incapacitate us for trials, they, at the same time, weaken the sensibility to suffering, and thereby render us less accessible to the influence of sorrow. It may be regarded as an instance of providential mercy to this afflicted poet, that his aged friend, whose life he had so long considered as essential to his own, was taken from him at a time when the pressure of his malady, a perpetual low fever, both of body and mind, had, in a great degree, diminished the native energy of his faculties and affections.

Owing to these causes, Cowper was so far preserved in this season of trial, that, instead of mourning the loss of a person in whose life he had seemed to live, all perception of that loss was mercifully taken from him; and, from the moment when he hurried away from the inanimate object of his filial attachment, he appeared to have no memory of her having existed, for he never asked a question concerning her funeral, nor ever mentioned her name.

Towards the summer of 1797, his bodily health appeared to improve, but not to such a degree as to restore any comfortable activity to his mind. In June he wrote a brief letter to Hayley, but such as too forcibly expressed the cruelty of his distemper.

The process of digestion never passed regularly in his frame during the years that he resided in Norfolk. Medicine appeared to have little or no influence on his complaint, and his aversion at the sight of it was extreme.

From asses' milk, of which he began a course on the twenty-first of June in this year, he gained a considerable acquisition of bodily strength, and was enabled to bear an airing in an open carriage, before breakfast, with Mr. Johnson.

A depression of mind, which suspended the studies of a writer so eminently endeared to the public, was considered by men of piety and learning as a national misfortune, and several individuals of this description, though personally unknown to Cowper, wrote to him in the benevolent hope that expressions of friendly praise, from persons who could be influenced only by the most laudable motives in bestowing it, might re-animate his dejected spirit. Among these might be enumerated Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff, who kindly addressed him in the language of encouragement and of soothing consolation; but the pressure of his malady had now made him utterly deaf to the most honourable praise.

He had long discontinued the revisal of his Homer, when his kinsman, dreading the effect of the cessation of bodily exercise upon his mind during a long winter, resolved, if possible, to engage him in the revisal of this work. One morning, therefore, after breakfast, in the month of September, he placed the Commentators on the table, one by one; namely, Villoison, Barnes, and Clarke, opening them all, together with the poet's translation, at the place where he had left off a twelvemonth before, but talking with him, as he paced the room upon a very different subject, namely, the impossibility of the things befalling him which his imagination had represented; when, as his companion had wished, he said to him, "And are you sure that I shall be here till the book you are reading is finished?" "Quite sure," replied his kinsman, "and that you will also be here to complete the revisal of your Homer," pointing to the books, "if you will resume it to-day." As he repeated these words he left the room, rejoicing in the well-known token of their having sunk into the poet's mind, namely, his seating himself on the sofa, taking up one of the books, and saying in a low and plaintive voice, "I may as well do this, for I can do nothing else."[741]

[741] Sketch of the Life of Cowper.

In this labour he persevered, oppressed as he was by indisposition, till March 1799. On Friday evening, the eighth of that month, he completed his revisal of the Odyssey, and the next morning wrote part of a new preface.

To watch over the disordered health of afflicted genius, and to lead a powerful, but oppressed, spirit by gentle encouragement, to exert itself in salutary occupation, is an office that requires a very rare union of tenderness, intelligence, and fortitude. To contemplate and minister to a great mind, in a state that borders on mental desolation, is like surveying, in the midst of a desert, the tottering ruins of palaces and temples, where the faculties of the spectator are almost absorbed in wonder and regret, and where every step is taken with awful apprehension.

Hayley, in alluding to Dr. Johnson's kind and affectionate offices, at this period, bears the following honourable testimony to his merits, which we are happy in transcribing. "It seemed as if Providence had expressly formed the young kinsman of Cowper to prove exactly such a guardian to his declining years as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. I never saw the human being that could, I think, have sustained the delicate and arduous office (in which the inexhaustible virtues of Mr. Johnson persevered to the last) through a period so long, with an equal portion of unvaried tenderness and unshaken fidelity. A man who wanted sensibility would have renounced the duty; and a man endowed with a particle too much of that valuable, though perilous, quality, must have felt his own health utterly undermined, by an excess of sympathy with the sufferings perpetually in his sight. Mr. Johnson has completely discharged, perhaps, the most trying of human duties; and I trust he will forgive me for this public declaration, that, in his mode of discharging it, he has merited the most cordial esteem from all, who love the memory of Cowper. Even a stranger may consider it as a strong proof of his tender dexterity in soothing and guiding the afflicted poet, that he was able to engage him steadily to pursue and finish the revisal and correction of his Homer, during a long period of bodily and mental sufferings, when his troubled mind recoiled from all intercourse with his most intimate friends, and laboured under a morbid abhorrence of all cheerful exertion."

In the summer of 1798, his kinsman was induced to vary his plan of remaining for some months in the marine village of Mundsley, and thought it more eligible to make frequent visits from Dereham to the coast, passing a week at a time by the sea-side.

Cowper, in his poem on "Retirement," seems to inform us what his own sentiments were, in a season of health, concerning the regimen most proper for the disease of melancholy.

Virtuous and faithful Heberden, whose skill
Attempts no task it cannot well fulfil,
Gives melancholy up to nature's care,
And sends the patient into purer air.

The frequent change of place, and the magnificence of marine scenery, produced at times a little relief to his depressed spirits. On the 7th of June 1798, he surveyed the light-house at Happisburgh, and expressed some pleasure on beholding, through a telescope, several ships at a distance. Yet, in his usual walk with his companion by the sea-side, he exemplified but too forcibly his own affecting description of melancholy silence:

That silent tongue
Could give advice, could censure, or commend,
Or charm the sorrows of a drooping friend;
Renounc'd alike its office and its sport,
Its brisker and its graver strains fall short:
Both fail beneath a fever's secret sway,
And, like a summer-brook, are past away.

On the twenty-fourth of July, Cowper had the honour of a visit from a lady, for whom he had long entertained affectionate respect, the Dowager Lady Spencer--and it was rather remarkable, that on the very morning she called upon him he had begun his revisal of the Odyssey, which was originally inscribed to her. Such an incident in a happier season would have produced a very enlivening effect on his spirits: but, in his present state, it had not even the power to lead him into any free conversation with his distinguished visitor.

The only amusement that he appeared to admit without reluctance was the reading of his kinsman, who, indefatigable in the supply of such amusement, had exhausted a successive series of works of fiction, and at this period began reading to the poet his own works. To these he listened also in silence, and heard all his poems recited in order, till the reader arrived at the history of John Gilpin, which he begged not to hear. Mr. Johnson proceeded to his manuscript poems; to these he willingly listened, but made not a single remark on any.