cuous instance of the transient and fading nature of all human accomplishments and attainments. Yours affectionately, W. COWPER. At this time his attention was irresistably recalled to his cousin, Mrs. Cowper, by hearing that she was deeply afflicted; and he wrote to her the following letter on the loss of her brother, Frederick Madan, a soldier, who died in America, after having distinguished himself by poetical talents, as well as by military virtues. LETTER XXIV. To Mrs. COWPER. MY DEAR COUSIN, May 10, 1780. I do not write to comfort you; that office is not likely to be well performed by one who has no comfort for himself; nor to comply with an impertinent ceremony, which, in general, might well be spared upon such occasions; but because I would not seem indifferent to the concerns of those I have so much reason to esteem and love. If I did not sorrow for your brother's death, I should expect that nobody would for mine: when I knew him he was much beloved, and I doubt not continued to be so. To live and die together is the lot of a few happy families, who hardly know what separation means, and one sepulchre serves them all; but the ashes of our kindred are dispersed indeed. Whether the American gulf has swallowed up any other of my relations I know not; it has made · many mourners.. Believe me, my dear cousin, though after a long silence, which perhaps nothing less than the present concern could have prevailed with me to interrupt, as much as ever, Your affectionate kinsman, W. C. The next letter to Mr. Hill affords a striking proof of Cowper's compassionate feelings towards the poor around him. MON AMI, LETTER XXV. July 8, 1780. If ever you take the tip of the Chancellor's ear between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the opportunity to better purpose, than if you should whisper into it the voice of compassion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye witness of their poverty, and do know, that hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unremitting industry is but barely sufficient to keep them from it. I know that the bill by which they would have been so fatally affected is thrown out; but Lord Stormont threatens them with another; and if another like it should pass, they are undone. We lately sent a petition from hence to Lord Dartmouth: I signed it, and am sure the contents are true. The purport of it was to inform him that there are very near one thousand two hundred lace-makers in this beggarly town, the most of whom had reason enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look upon every loaf they bought as the last they should ever be able to earn. I can never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of ruining thirty-thousand, in order to prevent a remote and possible damage, though to a much greater number. The measure is like a scythe, and the poor lace-makers are the sickly crop that trembles before the edge of it. The prospect of peace with America is like the streak of dawn in their horizon; but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that threatens their hope of a comfortable day with utter extinction. I did not perceive till this moment that I had tacked two similies together, a practice, which, though warranted by the example of Homer, and allowable in an epic poem, is rather luxuriant and licentious in a letter; lest I should add another, I conclude. His affectionate effort in renewing his correspondence with Mrs. Cowper, to whom he had been accustomed to pour forth his heart without reserve, appears to have had a beneficial effect on his reviving spirits. This pathetic letter was followed, in the course of two months, by a letter of a more lively cast, in which the reader will find some touches of his native humour, and a vein of pleasantry peculiar to himself. LETTER XXVI. To Mrs. COWPER, Park-Street, Grosvenor-Square. July 20, 1780. MY DEAR COUSIN, Mr. Newton having desired me to be of the party, I am come to meet him. You see me sixteen years older, at least, than when I saw you last; but the effects of time seem to have taken place rather on the outside of my head than within it. What was brown is become grey, but what was foolish remains foolish still. Green fruit must rot before it ripens, if the season is such as to afford it nothing but cold winds and dark clouds, that interrupt every ray of sunshine. My days steal away silently, and march on (as poor mad King Lear would have made his soldiers march) as if they were shod with felt; not so silently but that I hear them; yet were it not that I am always listening to their flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I was much younger, I should deceive myself with an imagination that I am still young. I am fond of writing, as an amusement, but I do not always find it one. Being rather scantily furnished with subjects that are good for any thing, and corresponding only with those who have no relish for such as are good for nothing, I find myself reduced to the necessity, the disagreeble necessity, of writing about myself. This does not mend the matter much, for though in a description of my own condition, I discover abundant materials to employ my pen upon, yet as the task is not very agreeable to me, so I am sufficiently aware, that it is likely to prove irksome to others. A painter who should confine himself, in the exercise of his art, to the drawing of his own picture, must be a wonderful coxcomb, if he did not grow sick of his occupation, and be peculiarly fortunate, if he did not make others as sick as himself. Remote as your dwelling is from the late scene of riot and confusion, I hope that though you could not but hear the report, you heard no more, and that the roarings of the mad multitude did not reach you. That was a day of terror to the innocent, and the present is a day of still greater terror to the guilty. The law was for a few moments like an arrow in the quiver, seemed to be of no use, and did no exccution; now it is an ar row upon the string, and many who despised it lately, are trembling as they stand before the point of it. I have talked more already than I have formerly done in three visits; you remember my taciturnity, never to be forgotten by those who knew me; not to depart entirely from what might be, for aught I know, the most shining part of my character. I here shut my mouth, make my bow, and return to Olney. W. C. The next is a little more serious than its predecessor, yet equally a proof that the affections of his heart, and the energy of his mind, were now happily restored. LETTER XXVII. To Mrs. COWPER, Park-Street, Grosvenor-Square. August 31, 1780. MY DEAR COUSIN, I I am obliged to you for your long letter, which did not seem so, and for your short one, which was more than I had reason to expect. Short as it was, it conveyed two interesting articles of intelligence. An account of your recovery from a fever, and of Lady Cowper's death. The latter was, suppose, to be expected, for by what remembrance I have of her Ladyship, who was never much acquainted with her, she had reached those years that are always found on the borders of another world. As for you, your time of life is comparatively of a youthful date. You may think of death as much as you please (you cannot think of it too much), but I hope you will live to think of it many years. |