"animated, by his prayers!"-After the removal of Mr. Newton to London, and the departure of Lady Austen, Olney had no particular attractions for Cowper; and Lady Hesketh was happy in promoting the project, which had occurred to him, of removing, with Mrs. Unwin, to the near and pleasant village of Weston. A scene highly favourable to his health and amusement! For, with a very comfortable mansion, it afforded him a garden, and a field of considerable extent, which he delighted to cultivate and embellish. With these he had advantages still more desirable-easy, perpetual access to the spacious and tranquil pleasure grounds of his accomplished and benevolent landlord, Mr. Throckmorton, whose neighbouring house supplied him with society peculiarly suited to his gentle and delicate spirit.

He removed from Olney to Weston, in November 1786. The course of his life in his new situation (the spot most pleasing to his fancy!) will be best described by the subsequent series of his Letters to that amiable Relation, to whom he considered himself as particularly indebted for this improvement in his domestic scenery. With these I shall occasionally connect a selection of his Letters to particular friends, and particularly the Letters addressed to one of his most intimate correspondents, who happily commenced an acquaintance with the Poet, in the beginning of the year 1787. I add, with pleasure, the name of Mr. Rose, the Barrister, whose friendship I was so fortunate as to share, by meeting him at

Weston,

Weston, in a subsequent period, and whom I instantly learnt to regard by finding that he held very justly a place of the most desirable distinction in the heart of Cowper.

LETTER LXI.

To Lady HESKETH.

Weston Lodge, Nov. 26th, 1786.

It is my birth-day, my beloved Cousin,

and I determine to employ a part of it that it may not be destitute of festivity, in writing to you. The dark, thick fog that has ob scured it, would have been a burthen to me at Olney, but here I have hardly attended to it. The neatness and snugness of our abode, compensates all the dreariness of the season, and whether the ways are wet or dry, our house at least is always warm and commodious. Oh! for you, my Cousin, to partake these comforts with us! I will not begin already to tease you upon that subject, but Mrs. Unwin remembers to have heard from your own lips, that you hate London in the spring. Perhaps, therefore, by that time, you may be glad to escape from a scene which will be every day growing more disagreeable, that you may enjoy the comforts of the Lodge. You well know that the best house has a desolate appearance, unfurnished. This house accordingly, since it has been occupied by us, and our Meubles, is as much superior GG 2

to

to what it was when you saw it, as you can imagine. The parlour is even elegant. When I say that the parlour is elegant, I do not mean to insinuate that the study is not so. It is neat, warm, and silent, and a much better study than I deserve, if I do not produce in it, an incomparable Translation of Homer. I think every day of those Lines of Milton, and congratulate myself on having obtained, before I am quite superannuated, what he seems not to have hoped for sooner.

For if it is not a hermitage, at least it is a much better thing, and you must always understand, my dear, that when Poets talk of cottages, hermitages, and such like things, they mean a house with six sashes in front, two comfortable parlours, a smart stair-case, and three bed chambers of convenient dimensions; in short, exactly such a house as this.

The Throckmortons continue the most obliging neighbours in the world. One morning last week, they both went with me to the Cliffs-a scene, my dear, in which you would delight beyond measure, but which you cannot visit except in the spring or autumn. The heat of summer, and the clinging dirt of winter, would destroy you. What is called the Cliff, is no cliff, nor at all like one, but a beautiful terrace, sloping gently down to the Ouse, and from the brow

brow of which, though not lofty, you have a view of such a valley, as makes that which you see from the hills near Olney, and which I have had the honour to celebrate, an affair of no consideration.

Wintry as the weather is, do not suspect that it confines me: I ramble daily, and every day change my ramble. Wherever I go, I find short grass under my feet, and when I have travelled perhaps five miles, come home with shoes not at all too dirty for a drawing-room. I was pacing yesterday under the elms, that surround the field in which stands the great alcove, when lifting my eyes I saw two black genteel figures bolt through a hedge into the path where I was walking. You guess already who they were, and that they could be nobody but our neighbours. They had seen me from a hill at a distance, and had traversed a great turnipfield to get at me. You see therefore, my dear, that I am in some request. Alas! in too much request with some people. verses of Cadwallader have found me at last.

The

I am charmed with your account of our little Cousin* at Kensington. If the world does not spoil him hereafter, he will be a valuable man.

Good night, and may God bless thee,

LETTER LXII.

To Lady HESKETH.

The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1786.

I sent you, my dear, a melancholy Letter,

and I do not know that I shall now send you one very unlike it. Not that any thing occurs in consequence of our late loss, more afflictive than was to be expected, but the mind does not perfectly recover its tone after a shock like that which has been felt so lately. This, I observe, that though my experience has long since taught me that this world is a world of shadows, and that it is the more prudent, as well as the more Christian course, to possess the comforts that we find in it, as if we possessed them not, it is no easy matter to reduce this doctrine into practice. We forget that that God who gave it, may, when he pleases, take it away; and that perhaps it may please him to take it at a time when we least expect it, or are least disposed to part from it. Thus it has happened in the present case. There never was a moment in Unwin's life, when there seemed to be more urgent want of him, than the moment in which he died. He had attained to an age, when, if they are at any time useful, men become more useful to their families, their friends, and the world. His parish began to feel, and to be sensible of the advantages of his ministry. The Clergy around him were many of them awed by his example. His children were

thriving