following playful and amusing description:-"You are not acquainted with the Rev. Mr. Bull, of Newport-perhaps it is as well for you that you are not. You would regret still more than you do, that there are so many miles interposed between us. He spends part of the day with us to-morrow. A dissenter, but a liberal one; a man of letters and of genius; master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it; an imagination which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs away with him into such fields of speculation, as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happiness to be of the party. At other times, he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for companions in such a world as this, than men of such a temperament. Every scene of life has two sides, a dark and a bright one; and the mind that has an equal mixture of melancholy and vivacity, is best of all qualified for the contemplation of either. He can be lively without levity, and pensive without dejection. Such a man is Mr. Bull: but-he smokes tobacco-nothing is perfect."

Mr. Bull, who probably regarded the want of some regular employment as one of the predisposing causes of Cowper's illness, prevailed upon him to translate several spiritual songs, from the poetry of Madame de la Mothe Guyon, the friend of the mild and amiable Fenelon. The devotion of these songs is not of that purely unexceptionable character which might be wished; and if devotional excitement had been the cause of Cowper's malady, no recommendation could have been more injudicious. The result, however, was beneficial to the poet, instead of being injurious, proving irresistibly that devotion had a soothing, rather than an irritating effect upon his mind.

Much as Cowper admired these songs, for that rich vein of pure and exalted devotion, which runs through the whole of them, he was not insensible to their defects, as will appear by the following remarks:-"The French poetess is certainly chargeable with the fault you mention, though I think it not so glaring in the piece sent you. I have endeavored, indeed, in all the translations I have made, to cure her of the evil, either by the suppression of exceptionable passages, or by a more sober manner of expression. Still, however, she will be found to have conversed familiarly with God, but I hope not fulsomely, nor so as to give reasonable disgust to a reli

H

gious reader. That God should deal familiarly with them, or, which is the same thing, that he should permit man to deal familiarly with him, seems not very difficult to conceive, or presumptuous to suppose, when some things are taken into consideration. Woe to the sinner, however, that shall dare to take a liberty with him that is not warranted by his word, or to which he himself has not encouraged him. When he assumed man's nature, he revealed himself as the friend of man. He conversed freely with him while he was upon earth, and as freely with him after his resurrection. I doubt not, therefore, that it is possible to enjoy an access to him even now, unencumbered with ceremonious awe, easy, delightful, and without restraint. This, however, can only be the lot of those who make it the business of their lives to please him, and to cultivate communion with him; and then I presume there can be no danger of offence, because such a habit of the soul is his own creation, and near as we come, we come no nearer to him than he is pleased to draw us: if we address him as children, it is because he tells us he is our Father; if we unbosom ourselves to him as our friend, it is because he calls us friends; if we speak to him in the language of love, it is because he first used it, thereby teaching us that it is the language he delights to hear from his people. But I confess, that through the weakness, the folly, and corruption of human nature, this privilege, like all other Christian privileges, is liable to abuse. There is a mixture of evil in everything we do; indulgence encourages us to encroach, and while we exercise the rights of children, we become childish. Here, I think, is the point in which my authoress failed, and here it is that I have particularly guarded my translation, not afraid of representing her as dealing with God familiarly, but foolishly, irreverently, and without due attention to his majesty, of which she is somewhat guilty. A wonderful fault for such a woman to fall into, who spent her life in the contemplation of his glory, who seems to have been always impressed with a sense of it, and sometimes quite absorbed by the views she had of it."

Mrs. Unwin, who still watched over her patient with the tenderest anxiety, saw, with inexpressible delight, the first efforts of his mind, after his long and painful depression; and perceiving that translation had a good effect, she wisely urged him to employ his mind in composing some original poem, which she thought more likely to become beneficial. Cowper now listened to her advice, and felt so powerfully

the obligations under which he was laid to her, for her continued attention and kindness, that he cheerfully complied with her request. The result exceeded her most sanguine expectation. A beautiful poem was produced, entitled Table Talk; another, called the Progress of Error, was shortly composed; TRUTH, as a pleasing contrast, followed it; this was succeeded by others of equal excellence, proving that the poet's mind had now completely emerged from that darkness in which it had so long been confined by his depressive malady.

It is interesting to observe, that Cowper's poems were almost invariably composed at the suggestion of friends. He wrote hymns to oblige Mr. Newton; translated Madame Guyon's songs, to gratify his friend Mr. Bull, and composed the greater part of his poems, to please Mrs. Unwin. The influence of friendship on his tender mind, was powerfully affecting; and he ever regarded it as his happiest inspiration. It kindled the warmth of his heart into a flame, intense and ardent, stimulated into activity the rich, but dormant powers of his mind, and produced those bursts of poetic feeling and beauty, which abound in his unrivalled compositions.

Cowper regained his admirable talent for composition, both in poetry and in prose, and renewed his correspondence with some of his more intimate friends, long before his mind was wholly convalescent; and his letters, written at this period. afford the best clue to the painful peculiarities of his case. On every other subject but that of his own feelings, his remarks are in the highest degree pleasing; and there was often a sprightliness and vivacity about them, that seemed to indicate a state of mind at the remotest distance from painful; but whenever he adverted to his own case, it was in a tone the most plaintive and melancholy.

Immediately after the removal of his esteemed friends, Mr. and Mrs. Newton, he commenced a correspondence with them, which he regularly kept up during almost the whole of his life. To Mrs. Newton, soon after this event, he thus describes his feelings on the occasion. "The vicarage-house became a melancholy object as soon as Mr. Newton had left it; when you left it, it became more melancholy; now it is actually occupied by another family, I cannot even look at it without being shocked. As I walked in the garden last evening, I saw the smoke issue from the study chimney, and said to myself, that used to be a sign that Mr. Newton was there; but it is so no longer. The walls of the house know

nothing of the change that has taken place, the bolt of the chamber door sounds just as it used to do, and when Mr. P goes up stairs, for aught I know, or ever shall know, the fall of his foot can hardly, perhaps, be distinguished from that of Mr. Newton. But Mr. Newton's foot will never be heard upon that staircase again. These reflections, and such as these, occurred to me on this occasion. If I were in a condition to leave Olney, I certainly would not stay in it. It is no attachment to the place that binds me here, but an unfitness for every other. I lived in it once, but now I am buried in it, and have no business with the world on the outside of my sepulchre; my appearance would startle them, and theirs would be shocking to me.'

In a letter to Mr. Newton, 3d May, 1780, he thus writes: "You indulge me in such a variety of subjects, and allow ine such a latitude of excursion, in this scribbling employment, that I have no excuse for silence. I am much obliged to you for swallowing such boluses as I send you, for the - sake of my gilding, and verily believe, am the only man alive, from whom they would be welcome, to a palate like yours. I wish I could make them more splendid than they are, more alluring to the eye, at least, if not more pleasing to the taste, but my leaf-gold is tarnished, and has received such a tinge from the vapors that are ever brooding over my mind, that I think it no small proof of your partiality to me, that you will read my letters. If every human being upon earth could think for one quarter of an hour, as I have thought for many years, there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not one unawakened one would be found, from the Arctic to the Antarctic circle. At present, the difference between them and me is greatly to their advantage. I delight in baubles, and know them to be so, for, rested in, and viewed without a reference to their author, what is the earth, what are the planets, what is the sun itself, but a bauble? Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say, The maker of these wonders is my friend!' Their eyes have never been opened, to see that they are trifles; mine have been, and will be, till they are closed for ever."

"I live in a world abounding with incidents, upon which many grave, and perhaps some profitable observations, might be made; but these incidents never reaching my unfortunate ears, both the entertaining narrative, and the reflections it

might suggest, are to be annihilated and lost. I look back on the past week, and say, what did it produce? I ask the same question of the week preceding, and duly receive the same answer from both-nothing! A situation like this, in which I am as unknown to the world, as I am ignorant of all that passes in it-in which I have nothing to do but to think, would exactly suit me, were my subjects of meditation as agreeable as my leisure is uninterrupted: my passion for retirement is not at all abated, after so many years spent in the most sequestered state, but rather increased; a circumstance I should esteem wonderful, to a degree not to be accounted for, considering the condition of my mind, did I not know that we think as we are made to think, and of course, approve and prefer, as Providence, who appoints the bounds of our habitation, chooses for us. Thus, I am both free, and a prisoner at the same time. The world is before me; I am not shut up in the Bastile; there are no moats about my castle, no locks upon my gates, of which I have not the keys; but an invisible, uncontrollable agency, a local attachment, an inclination, more forcible than I ever felt, even to the place of my birth, serves me for prison walls, and for bounds, which I cannot pass. In former years I have known sorrow, and before I had ever tasted of spiritual trouble. The effect as, an abhorrence of the scene in which I had suffered so auch, and a weariness of those objects which I had so long ooked at with an eye of despondency and dejection. But it s otherwise with me now. The same cause subsisting, and in a much more powerful degree, fails to produce its natural effect. The very stones in the garden walls, are my intimate acquaintance. I should miss almost the minutest object, and be disagreeably affected by its removal, and am persuaded, that were it possible I could leave this incommodious nook for a twelvemonth, I should return to it again with raptures, and be transported with the sight of objects, which, to all the world beside, would be at least indifferent; some of them, perhaps, such as the ragged thatch, and the tottering walls, disgusting. But so it is, and it is so, because here is to be my abode, and because such is the appointment of Him who placed me in it. It is the place of all the world I love the most, not for any happiness it affords me, but because here I can be miserable with most convenience to myself, and with least disturbance to others."

In a letter to Mrs. Unwin's son, with whom he had now commenced a correspondence, he thus describes his feelings.