"Rosanna, what are you going to do?'

"I must tell my father.'

"He'll be very angry. He'll send me away.' "I know he will, Richard.'

tree this summer and see if that won't find the thief. I guess that you did n't try very hard to earn that dollar, eh, Rosy?'

"Wall, not so very hard, father,' startin'

O, do n't tell him, Rosy, do n't!'

"But before I got there a voice held me back.

"Of course it was, Richard, and God is very angry with you, for you know he's seen you if father has n't.'

sprang up and went to my father and said to him in an earnest, clear voice, though it shook a little at the first words, 'Yes, Mr. Morris, Rosy did try very hard to find out who the thief was,

"I only thought it was good sport, Rosy,' he said.

to be me, for I picked the pears.

"I've been sorry enough for it ever since; but I did n't really think I was stealin' then, and

"Don't tell your father,' he said in a voice so full of entreaty that the tears rushed into my eyes. 'Don't you remember, Rosy, the day you went with me to the pond to get mint, and how you came near falling into the water and I jest saved you, and what good times we've had together all summer, and how I have n't got any mother or any friends in the whole world except your folks and you? Do n't tell your father, Rosy.'

"I sat down on a great stone in the grass and cried. Richard cried, too. At last I slipped my

arm around his neck.

"No, I won't tell my father, Richard, if you'll promise never to do so again, and to ask God to forgive you for this great sin.'

"I'll ask him, but he knows that I did n't think that it was really stealin',' and I knew that he spoke the truth.

"So we went up softly to the house, and there was a new bond betwixt us which neither could forget. Two days afterward my father discovered one of the pears lying at the foot of the treethe other had disappeared-and he concluded the thief had dropped it in sudden fear of being discovered. He was very angry, and Richard, who was in the room, quietly slid out of it, and I kept my eyes very steadily fastened on the book I was not reading.

"Wall, to make the story short, the winter went by, and the birds of May were singing once more in the trees, and the boughs were all frilled over with blossoms.

"One day my father came into dinner-he had been plowin' all the mornin'-and as he sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, he said suddenly, 'That bell pear-tree is covered as thick with blossoms as it was with icicles last winter. I shall put a trap under the

two months for Rosy when I could get courage to tell you the truth.'

"My father was completely dumbfoundered; he opened his lips to speak and shut 'em again. At last he said 'Richard' in a stern voice, but mother's hand crept up softly on his arm, and her eyes were full of tears. 'Now, father,' she said.

"That was all. He sat still a minute, and then he laid his hand on Richard's shoulder and said. very kindly, 'Richard, you've been a good, faithful boy to me ever since you've been under my roof, and I've grown a good deal attached to you, and because you 've owned the truth about them pears when there was no need for it, I'll forgive you, and we 'll never speak of it again.'"

Here my grandmother suddenly broke down. The knife, and the half-cleaved pepper fell to the floor, and, burying her face in her hands, she sobbed like a child, 'O, Richard Sears! Richard Sears!"

Then the

I looked on her in amazement. truth suddenly flashed into my mind. "Richard Sears! that was my grandfather's name!" I said.

"Yes, my child," sobbed the old woman, “it was the name of my dear husband, who has lain covered up under the grass more than twenty years, and a better man and a kinder husband never went from his home on earth to the home prepared for him in heaven."

And I cried, too, for my grandfather, who had been "covered up" half a score of years before my eyes beheld the light.

At last her eyes brightened, and her face glowed with more than the glow of its lost youth as she said, looking upward, "But the trees under which he sits now never grow old, no worm gnaws their roots, no wind tears down their boughs, and in a little while I shall see him again, and be with him forever and forever."

A

COWPER.

BY MINERVA OSBORN.

of prosecuting his studies as a candidate for the bar. It is said this profession was chosen for him; it certainly could not have been chosen by him, for it did not suit his tastes. Nature had her own way and made him a poet. Cowper is not the only one who has thwarted the designs of his friends by following the natural bent of his mind. Handel was intended for a lawyer, but nature gave him a soul in concord with sweet sounds, and he became a musician. Buffon, too, would have been a lawyer if inclination had not

ence.

At the age of six years Cowper met with a loss that was never made up to him in the death of his mother. Fifty years after her death he said of her, "Perhaps not a day passes in which I do not think of her." Surely a mother's care exercised during so short a time, and remembered so long, must have been uncommon. After this event he was immediately sent to boardingschool. It would have been injurious to have sent him even to the best of schools at this age, if by it he were deprived of home associations; but to commit him to a public school, where he was exposed to the rudeness of older and less sensitive boys, was cruel. We may judge what the public schools of England were, at that time, from Southey's remark that moral discipline seems to have been utterly disregarded in them. Our poet spent eight years of his life at a school in Westminster, which time his biographer speaks of as being the happiest part of his life. He had companions suited to him in literary taste at least, though the most of them were far beneath him in moral character. Says Southey, "He was exactly one of those boys who chose for themselves the good that may be gained at a public school, and eschew the evil, being preserved from it by their good instincts, or by the influence of virtuous principles inculcated in childhood." Among his companions were Lloyd, Churchill, and Thurlow, afterward Lord Thurlow. He considered Churchill a genius, and perhaps if any one in these his school days had predicted that Churchill's name, in fifty years, would be comparatively forgotten, while his own would be a treasured word, he would not have harbored the thought. He thought one poet the most competent judge of another, but this circumstance seems to contradict it. On leaving Westminster he began the study of the law, and for several years, perhaps twelve or fifteen, he resided in the Temple, as it was called, for the purpose

VOL. XX.-27

has been fretted and cramped because it could not exercise its powers in congenial employment! But when Nature endows a peculiar aptitude for any work, she generally bestows the will to break through the bonds of custom. Linnæus, who was intended for the ministry, was so dull that his teachers knew not what to do with him. But he finally got into the right track, and has, in the fields of botany, won a glory that any man might envy. It is doubtful whether Cowper ever would have made a successful lawyer, even if the affliction which separated him from his fellow-man had never fallen upon him. While in the Temple for the express purpose of studying law, "he wandered from the thorny road of jurisprudence into the primrose paths of literature and poetry."

During Cowper's residence in London he found recreation and society in the house of his aunt; especially with two cousins, daughters of Ashley Cowper. One, who afterward became Lady Hesketh, is spoken of as being, in her time, a brilliant beauty. From her childhood she regarded Cowper as a brother, and the most interesting letters he ever wrote are addressed to her. Her sister, Theodora, is the lady the poet would have married if ever he had married any body. She was called an accomplished lady, of an elegant person, and good understanding. She returned his affections, but her father opposed their union on the ground of relationship, and they submitted. Perhaps his objection was founded on a discovery of symptoms of that insanity which afterward befell his nephew. The circumstances under which Cowper gave up the profession of the law were mournful indeed. The clerkship of the Journals of the house of lords becoming vacant he was nominated to fill it. But meeting with opposition he was told to expect an examination before the house in regard to his qualifi cations. This threw him into terror. "They whose spirits are framed like mine," says he, "to whom a public exhibition of themselves is, on any occasion, mortal poison, may have some idea of my situation." His diffidence and sensitiveness magnified a mole-hill into a mountain,

and made that seem a terror which a person blessed with self-confidence would have looked upon as a good opportunity of gaining notice. Up to this time the life of Cowper had run on with that of others, but now the lines began to diverge. A strange barrier came between him and the world, and he became a recluse. He was attacked with that melancholy madness that cast a gloom over so large a portion of his life. He was thus rendered unfit for business, and this is the last we hear of him in connection with the law. Poor Cowper! this was a sorrowful reason to be assigned for his not appearing before his examiners. It is mournful to read the recital of his madness. He thought himself forever shut out from the favor of God and the enjoyment of heaven. Despair spread her dark wings over his troubled mind, and not till Religion shed her serene influence in his breast did Hope again set up her banner there.

After his insanity had passed away he left St. Albans where he had been placed under the care of a physician-and took lodgings in Huntingdon. About this time he penned the beautiful hymn, "Far from the world, O Lord, I flee!" His years at Huntingdon were spent in the closest retirement, though he here formed the acquaintance of one family-that of the Unwins-which resulted in the most ardent friendship. His next removal was to Olney. His biographer represents him as being at this time almost wholly engrossed with religious subjects. He formed very few acquaintances, and his correspondence almost ceased. He even suspended his letters to Lady Hesketh, his favorite relative, for a number of years. If Southey has correctly represented it, he became rather exclusive. If he addressed his friends at all by letter, his communication was brief and destitute of that playfulness that marked his former ones. Soon after recovering from a second attack of insanity, he resumed his literary pursuits for the purpose of occupying his mind, and he never afterward seems to have lost a taste for them. The friendship which Cowper gained in forming an acquaintance with the Unwins was a valuable one to him. Especially is this true in regard to Mrs. Unwin. From the time that she received him into her family, as a boarder, in Huntingdon, till her death, they were never long separated. Death deprived her of her husband, an only son and daughter were called by the voice of duty to distant fields of labor, but Cowper was her constant companion and friend. He describes her as being a woman of uncommon understanding, well read and polite. At one time he says, "Mrs. Unwin has almost a maternal affection for me, and I have something very like a filial one for her

her son and I are brothers." One of his biographers remarks that he never lacked a friend just suited to his wants and disposition, and refers to this as an evidence of his being an object of the peculiar care and providence of God. Mrs. Unwin was ever kind, appreciative, and agreeable. When his taste for literature began to revive, and he was about to turn his attention to authorship, Lady Austen fell in his way. She was a person of high spirits, lively fancy, and had seen much of the world. She was just the one to enliven his mind, for she possessed a great gift for conversation. Cowper seems to have been much pleased with her company; gloomy as he was, he could not only laugh at others' wit, but he could make others laugh at his own if he chose. His letters were very lively, even when he himself was suffering acutely from melancholy. It was Lady Austen that gave Cowper the subject of the Task. For a time, says Southey, her conversation had as good an effect upon the melancholy spirits of Cowper as David's harp did on Saul. Whenever the cloud seemed to be coming over his mind she exerted her sprightly powers to dispel it. "One afternoon, when he was more than usually depressed, she told him the story of John Gilpin, which had been told to her in childhood, and which in her relation tickled his fancy as much as it has that of thousands, since that, in his own. The next morning he said to her that he had been kept awake during the greater part of the night, thinking of and laughing at the story, and that he had turned it into a ballad. The ballad was sent to the younger Mr. Unwin; he said it made him laugh tears."

John Gilpin was very popular, and no doubt thousands have read the works of Cowper that would have remained ignorant of them if it had never been written. At first it did not come out with his name; but when it was published in connection with the Task, people read the latter because the author of John Gilpin wrote it. The bard himself says, "Serious poem, like a swan, flies heavily, and never very far; but a jest has the wings of a swallow, that never tire, and carry it into every nook and corner."

No one can read the Task without forming an exalted idea of the character of its author. In none of the active walks of business life could he have gained the laurels that decked his brow as a poet. Indeed, he never could have written his longest and best poem amid the strife and turmoil of the business world. He needed in a peculiar sense that serenity and composure of mind which retirement alone bestows. His couplet,

"Some minds by nature are averse to noise And hate the tumult half the world enjoys,"

patience, in the hope of a better day coming. His parents were not professors of religion, and neither could read. His father believed in honesty and moral worth, and rather credited the doctrine of God's providence and the power of prayer. His mother seldom went to Church; yet taught her children to admire and practice things of good report, and to shun idleness, theft, swearing, and kindred vices. They were trained to say their prayers regularly, and always met with a severe reproof from their mother if they spoke in slight or ridicule of any minister of the Gospel. John fully believed all his father said about prayer and Providence, and, with great simplicity, acted upon his convictions. He was scrupulously regular in saying his morning and evening prayers, and often, on leaving the house to go to work, would say quietly as he shut the door, "Peace be to this house," and so went on his way happy in the belief that his wish was heard above. In guileless consistency he prayed about all his little difficulties and fears. Thus he asked God to preserve him when he was frightened about thunder, or dogs, or Gipsies, or bad boys, or any thing else that alarmed him; and he always ascribed his safety to the protection of God.

When about sixteen he fell ill with a brain fever, which threatened to prove fatal. The thought of death being thus brought near, and feeling unprepared for the change, he pleaded earnestly to God for restoration, promising that his life should be consecrated, if only spared, to his service. Happily health returned, and true to his vow he began at once a new life. One evening he went into the house of a pious neighbor, close by, where a prayer meeting was in progress, and though the cross weighed like a mountain, he arose and begged an interest in their supplications. As he talked the tears flowed, and sobs and groans succeeded, and at the close the whole company present prayed for him.

A short time subsequently, through the suggestion of a young companion, a Wesleyan by profession, he went to hear Methodist preaching. The sermon was by a local preacher, but it and the hearty singing affected him powerfully, and he thenceforth became a regular attendant at the chapel, where his mind quickly opened to understand the Gospel. Few of the good people with whom he worshiped knew his real state, till the occurrence which he thus records:

"One Sunday night, after preaching, it was announced that on a certain night there would be a public band meeting. What this meant I could not imagine, and by this time I had lost my Methodist companion; but I concluded that a sermon would be preached on the occasion,

and determined to attend if possible. Accordingly at the appointed time I repaired to the chapel and found a leader standing at the door to prevent improper persons from entering. I was going in as usual, when he mildly stopped me, telling me it was a special not a general meeting, yet adding that he had no objection to my going in, as he believed I was seriously disposed. I went in and was much struck with the proceedings. The leader gave out a hymn and prayed, and then told his experience. Others followed, so that it appeared to me the rule of the meeting that all persons should speak. I felt it my imperative duty to arise and state what I knew and felt of religion; but the thought of doing so before a company of Christians made me tremble exceedingly. At length, however, I summoned sufficient courage, and told, in a few plain words, the exercises of my mind. All present seemed much encouraged, and did what they could to encourage me to continue seeking the Lord."

On the Lincoln circuit was a minister, a member of the Wesleyan conference, by name John Smith, who had a wide-spread reputation as a faithful and successful preacher. John Hunt hearing that he was to preach at Thorpe, a place not far from his home, determined to embrace the first opportunity of hearing him preach. He afterward referred to this remarkable occasion in these words: "There was nothing in Mr. Smith's preaching that particularly struck me. The text was, 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.' The sermon was plain, pointed, and powerful, and some parts of it awful; but the effect on my mind was rather hardening than otherwise. After the sermon a prayer meeting was commenced, and, after some time, concluded without any thing remarkable. I turned to go home, but at the instant a thought came to me that I ought to remain a little longer. To this the little party that I was with agreed. A prayer meeting of a select nature was still going on in the chapel, and some were seeking mercy. Mr. Smith was praying with a poor woman who could not believe in Christ; and, feeling what was needed, he cried out with all his soul and might, 'Send us more power!' I kneeled near him and remember, with some little feeling, I said, 'Amen.' Immediately a most overwhelming influence came upon me, so that I cried aloud for mercy for the sake of Christ; while I was, in a minute, as completely bathed with tears and perspiration as if I had been thrown into a river. I prayed, as in an agony, for a few minutes. Mr. Smith came to me and asked what I wanted. I answered, 'I want my