‘There is a bookBy seraphs writ in beams of heavenly light,On which the eyes of God not rarely look;A chronicle of actions just and bright.Here all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.’
‘There is a bookBy seraphs writ in beams of heavenly light,On which the eyes of God not rarely look;A chronicle of actions just and bright.Here all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.’
‘There is a bookBy seraphs writ in beams of heavenly light,On which the eyes of God not rarely look;A chronicle of actions just and bright.Here all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.’
‘There is a book
By seraphs writ in beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look;
A chronicle of actions just and bright.
Here all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And since thou own’st that praise, I spare thee mine.’
Mr. Newton was soon to leave Olney, which he did under circumstances that appear, at this time of writing, rather comic. He had a great dread of fire, and strictly prohibited every species of bonfire, illumination, or firework in the locality on Gunpowder Plot Day. Such an inroad on a time-honoured institution could not be tolerated. The parish roseen masse, and his reverence narrowly escaped with his life. Disgusted by the ingratitude and rebellion of his flock, the curate removed to London.
Cowper had before this returned to his own house, and gradually his bodily health improved and his mind regained its equilibrium; he now began to resume out-of-doors pursuits, walking and gardening, and the like. He was much addicted to reading out of doors, and said that external objects fixed the subject of his lecture on his memory. He wrote to William Unwin about this time, requesting him to procure a diamond for cutting glass, and expatiating at length on the joys of a glazier’s trade. He hardly knows a business in which a gentleman might more successfully employ himself. ‘Possibly the happy time may come,’ he goes on to say, ‘when I may be seen trudging off to the neighbouring towns, with a shelf of glass hanging at my back. A Chinese of ten times my fortune would avail himself of such an opportunity,—and why not I, who want money as much as any mandarin in China?’ He recommends the notion to his clerical friend, who, by mending the church windows, might increase hisincome, and his popularity in the parish into the bargain. How acceptable must these jocose passages in his letters have been to those who loved him, after the terrible period of gloomy hallucinations; but a bright vein of humour was generally interwoven with the darkest threads of Cowper’s life. He had always evinced a passion for animals, and had a fancy for pets; and besides the hares (whose lives and deaths, if we may be permitted a Hibernianism, he has rendered immortal), Cowper was the proprietor of a flock of pigeons, which perched every morning on the garden wall, awaiting the moment when their gentle master should appear to give them breakfast. Still writing to Unwin, he says: ‘If your wish should ever be fulfilled, and you obtain the wings of a dove, I shall assuredly find you some fine morning among my flock; but, in that case, pray announce yourself, as I am convinced your crop will require something better than tares to feed upon.’
There is something very refreshing in his outburst of indignation at the manner in which Dr. Johnson handles Milton, ‘plucking the brightest feathers’ (or at least so Cowper thought) ‘from the Muse’s wing, and trampling them under his great foot. I should like to thrash his old jacket till his pension jingled in his pockets.’ He gives a most amusing description of an unwelcome visitor at Olney, in which he carefully draws the line between a ‘travelled man’ and a ‘travelled gentleman.’ He speaks of the intruder’s long and voluble talk, which set their favourite robins twittering through rivalry, neither the birds nor the talker inclining to give in; but, ‘I am thankful to say the robins survived it, and so did we.’
A delightful ray of human sunshine crossed the monotonous path of Cowper’s life about this time, and for a period cheered and relieved its grey and sombre colouring. Looking out of the window one afternoon, he saw Mrs. Jones (the wife of a neighbouring clergyman) entering the opposite shop, incompany with a being (no other word could be applicable), whose appearance riveted him to the spot. He summoned Mrs. Unwin to his side, and requested she would ask both ladies to tea. The stranger proved to be Mrs. Jones’s sister, a widow, Lady Austen by name, lately returned from a lengthened sojourn in France, where she appeared, by all accounts, to have become imbued with a large portion of French vivacity, without losing any of those sterling qualities or earnestness of purpose, for which we (at least) give our fair countrywomen credit. The sisters accepted the invitation, and, as they entered the room, Cowper, with his characteristic timidity, made his escape at the other door. But the attraction was too great; he soon stole back to the tea-table, plunged headlong into conversation, and, when the ladies rose to take leave, craved permission to accompany them part of the way home. In fact, he had fallen in (Platonic) love at first sight. Lady Austen was soon in the receipt of poems and letters, addressed to ‘Sister Anna.’ Mrs. Jones having gone to join her husband in London, Lady Austen, finding herself lonely, and surrounded, she said, by burglars, was easily persuaded to settle at Olney, and at first under the same roof as Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. It was a large rambling house. ‘She has taken that part of the building formerly occupied by Dick Coleman, his wife, child, and a thousand rats.’
We confess to sharing the opinion of the author of a charming sketch of Cowper’s life, lately published, when he says, ‘That a woman of fashion, accustomed to Frenchsalons, should choose such an abode, with a couple of Puritans for her only society, surely proves that one of the Puritans, at least, possessed some great attraction for her.’
The Vicarage was too large for the requirements of Mr. Scott (Newton’s successor), whose sermons Lady Austen admired, though it was said he scolded rather than preachedthe Gospel; and so it was settled she should take rooms in his house, and the door of communication between the Scott and Cowper gardens was opened. Cowper writes to Unwin on the subject of the charming widow, and expatiates on the delightful change wrought in their daily life by her advent. ‘Our society,’ he says, ‘is not much increased, but the presence of one individual has made the whole difference. Lady Austen and we pass the day alternately at each other’s château. In the morning I walk with one or other of the ladies; in the evening I wind thread;—so did Hercules, and so, I opine, did Samson! Were either of these heroes living, I should not fear challenging them to a trial of skill.’
Lady Austen became as watchful as his older associate in marking the different phases of Cowper’s moods, and as assiduous in her endeavours to cheer and amuse him. She would sit by his side for hours, and tax her memory for anecdotes of foreign life, and the chequered scenes through which she had passed; and while Mrs. Unwin set him to work on moral satires, on ‘The Progress of Error,’ ‘Table-Talk,’ and, if we may so express it, sermons in verse, his younger companion suggested more lively themes for his Muse. One eventful evening, bent on cheering the drooping spirits of the invalid, Lady Austen related to him the wonderful adventures of John Gilpin. The poet laughed, laughed immoderately, went to bed, woke in the night and laughed again and again; and the next morning at breakfast he produced the immortal poem. How many generations, how many children of all ages have laughed since! how many artists have striven to portray their conception of that famous ride, till it was reserved for the pencil of Caldecott to embody (who can doubt it?) the very ideal of the poet’s fancy! Gilpin became widely known, even while the author continued unknown. Henderson, the popular actor, recited the ballad on the stage, and far and near it was read and re-read with delight.Cowper now frequently turned to Lady Austen for subjects, and followed her injunctions to the letter when she playfully bade him ‘sing the sofa,’ on which she sat. This poem swelled into ‘The Task’ and ‘The Task’ it was that made Cowper famous. There is no doubt that the first stone of his future fame was laid by the fair hand of that friend from whom he was so soon to be separated. ‘The Task,’ while inculcating piety and morality (the absence of which ingredients would have been impossible in any of Cowper’s lengthened writings), abounded in exquisite descriptions of life at home and abroad, paintings of Nature, of the quiet, homely, lovely, loveable nature of his own native land, some passages of which can scarcely be surpassed for calm beauty and musical rhythm. Let those readers unacquainted with ‘The Task’ turn to the lines where the poet stands, with the friend ‘whose arm has been close locked in his for twenty years,’ on the eminence, when their ‘pace had slackened to a pause,’ and judge for themselves of Cowper’s talents as a landscape painter. His interiors are as perfect in their way. How irresistible is the invitation to
‘Stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, draw the sofa round’!
‘Stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, draw the sofa round’!
‘Stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,Let fall the curtains, draw the sofa round’!
‘Stir the fire, and close the shutters fast,
Let fall the curtains, draw the sofa round’!
We feel, as we read, a glow of comfort and snugness, and would gladly make a fourth beside the table, on which stand the cups that cheer without inebriating.
The success of ‘The Task’ was immediate and complete; the author suddenly found himself famous and popular. The postmaster at the little office at Olney had double work: acquaintances who had neglected him for years now boasted of their intimacy with the lion of the day; visitors arrived at Olney to stare at him; anonymous letters and presents poured in on all sides. An amusing incident occurred one day, when the clerk of All Saints’ Church, Northampton, was ushered intoCowper’s presence. He had come, he said, with a petition to the new poet: Would he consent to contribute the mortuary verses, annually appended to the bills of mortality, in the capital of England’s most midland county?
Cowper advised the messenger to apply to Mr. Cox, a statuary in the town, who wrote verses. ‘Alas!’ replied the clerk, ‘I have already got help from him; but he is a gentleman of so much reading that our townspeople cannot understand him.’ The very doubtful compliment thus implied amused our poet into compliance, and he became a contributor to the lugubrious periodical.
It was characteristic of William Cowper that, a few years later, he forbade Lady Hesketh to apply in his behalf for the office of Poet-Laureate to the Court, yet he willingly accepted the office thus proposed to him by the clerk of Northampton!
We are now approaching one of the many sad episodes in Cowper’s sad life; we allude to his estrangement from Lady Austen,—she who had been for some time a vision of delight to his eye, and heart. Not long before he had written some most unprophetic lines to his ‘dear Anna.’ We do not quote them from any admiration for the verses, but because they bear painfully on the subject:—
‘Mysterious are His ways, whose powerBrings forth that unexpected hour,When minds that never met beforeShall meet, unite, and part no more.’
‘Mysterious are His ways, whose powerBrings forth that unexpected hour,When minds that never met beforeShall meet, unite, and part no more.’
‘Mysterious are His ways, whose powerBrings forth that unexpected hour,When minds that never met beforeShall meet, unite, and part no more.’
‘Mysterious are His ways, whose power
Brings forth that unexpected hour,
When minds that never met before
Shall meet, unite, and part no more.’
Further on, after describing the suddenness of their friendship, he says:—
‘And placed it in our power to prove,By long fidelity and love,That Solomon has wisely spoken,Athreefold cordcannot be broken!’
‘And placed it in our power to prove,By long fidelity and love,That Solomon has wisely spoken,Athreefold cordcannot be broken!’
‘And placed it in our power to prove,By long fidelity and love,That Solomon has wisely spoken,Athreefold cordcannot be broken!’
‘And placed it in our power to prove,
By long fidelity and love,
That Solomon has wisely spoken,
Athreefold cordcannot be broken!’
It appears that even the wisdom of Solomon is sometimes at fault, for it was but a few weeks after that the threefold cordwas rudely snapped asunder. ‘I enclose,’ writes Cowper to Mr. Unwin, ‘a letter from Lady Austen, which pray return. We are reconciled. She seized the first opportunity to embrace your mother, with tears of the tenderest affection, and I, of course, am satisfied.’
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 herwarmest approbation.’ We still quote the correspondence with William Unwin. ‘If you go to Bristol, you may possibly fall in with a lady whowashere 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’sinnocence and sportive pietywould agree that the verses inscribed to Anna might assuredly have been inspired by a real sister.’ To him they appeared ‘theeffusions 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 byan 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 thepasto 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 theconfidanteof 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 mydevoirsto 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 haveno 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 laughsde bon cœuron 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, andnurse 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 allthe 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 threadof 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.’
‘A rose had been washed, just washed by a shower,Which Mary (Mrs. Unwin) to Anna (Lady Austen) conveyed.’
‘A rose had been washed, just washed by a shower,Which Mary (Mrs. Unwin) to Anna (Lady Austen) conveyed.’
‘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,’
‘The cap which so stately appears,With ribbon-bound tassel, on high,’
‘The cap which so stately appears,With ribbon-bound tassel, on high,’
‘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.’
‘The oldest and dearest of friends,Whose dial-plate points to eleven,...And who waits but a passage to heaven.’
‘The oldest and dearest of friends,Whose dial-plate points to eleven,...And who waits but a passage to heaven.’
‘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 longdétourto 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 myOdysseyprove as worthy of her.’
At length the happy hour arrived: Homer was translated and ready for the press. TheIliadwas dedicated to his young relative, Earl Cowper, and theOdysseyto 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 littledoubt 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 themthat 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!’
‘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!’
‘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!’
‘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 kindand 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; whenItravel, houses are turned upside down, people turned out of their beds at unearthly hours, and every imaginable trouble given. All the counties through whichIpass 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 scrupulousrespecting 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 theSuspicious Husband: ‘There is a degree ofassurance 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 whichwas 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, tohis 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.