regarded two gentlemen, who devoted themselves to different branches of the law, the late Lord Thurlow, and Joseph Hill, Esq., whose name appears in the second volume of Cowper's Poems, prefixed to a few verses of exquisite beauty; a brief epistle, that seems to have more of the genuine ease, spirit, and moral gaiety of Horace, than any original epistle in the English language! From these two confidential associates of the poet, in his unclouded I expected materials for the display of his early genius; but in the torrent of busy and splendid life, which bore the first of them to a mighty distance from his less ambitious fellow-student of the Temple, the private letters and verses that arose from their youthful intimacy have perished.

years,

Mr. Hill has kindly favoured me with a very copious collection of Cowper's letters to himself, through a long period of time; and although many of them are of a nature not suited to publication, yet many others will illustrate and embellish this work. The steadiness and integrity of Mr. Hill's regard for a person so much sequestered from his sight, gives him a particular title to be distinguished among those whom Cowper has honoured by addressing to them his highly interesting and affectionate letters. Many of these, which I shall occasionally introduce in the parts of the nar rative to which they belong, may tend to confirm a truth, not unpleasing to the majority of readers, that the temperate zone of moderate fortune, equally removed from high and low life, is most favourable to the permanence of friendship.

DEAR JOE,

II. TO JOSEPH HILL, Esq.

Huntingdon, June 24, 1765. The only recompense I can make you for your kind attention to my affairs during my illness is, to tell you, that, by the mercy of God, I am restored to perfect health, both of mind and body. This, I believe, will give you pleasure, and I would gladly do any thing from which you could receive it.

I left St. Alban's on the 17th, and arrived that day at Cambridge, spent some time there with my brother, and came hither on the 22nd. I have a lodging that puts me continually in mind of our summer excursions; we have had many worse, and except the size of it (which however is sufficient for a single man) but few better. I am not quite alone, having brought a servant with me from St. Alban's, who is the very mirror of fidelity and affection for his master. And whereas the Turkish Spy says, he kept no servant, because he would not have an enemy in his house, I hired mine, because I would have a friend. Men do not usually bestow these encomiums on their lackeys, nor do they usually deserve them, but I have had experience of mine, both in sickness and in health, and never saw his fellow.

The river Ouse, I forget how they spell it, is the most agreeable circumstance in this part of the world; at this town, it is I believe as wide as the Thames at Windsor; nor does the silver Thames better deserve that epithet, nor has it more flowers upon its banks, these being attributes, which, in strict truth, belong to neither. Fluellin would say, they are as like as my fingers to my fingers, and there is salmon in both. It is a noble stream to bathe in, and I shall make that use of it three times a week, having introduced myself to it for the first time this morning.

I beg you will remember me to all my friends, which is a task will cost you no great pains to execute-particularly remember me to those of your own house, and believe me Your very affectionate

III. TO LADY HESKETH.

W. C.

MY DEAR LADY HESKETH, Huntingdon, July 1, 1765. Since the visit you were so kind to pay me in the Temple (the only time I ever saw you without pleasure), what have I not suffered? And since it has pleased God to restore me to the use of my reason, what have I not enjoyed? You know by experience, how pleasant it is to feel the first approaches of health after a fever; but, Oh, the fever of the brain! To feel the quenching of that fire is indeed a blessing which I think it impossible to receive without the most consummate gratitude. Terrible as this chastisement is, I acknowledge in it the hand of an infinite justice; nor is it at all more difficult for me to perceive in it the hand of an infinite mercy likewise when I consider the effect it has had upon me, I am exceedingly thankful for it, and without hypocrisy, esteem it the greatest blessing, next to life itself, I ever received from the divine bounty. I pray God, that I may ever retain this sense of it, and then I am sure I shall continue to be, as I am at present, really happy.

I write thus to you, that you may not think me a forlorn and wretched creature; which you might be apt to do, considering my very distant removal from every friend I have in the world—a circumstance which, before this event befel me, would undoubtedly have made me so; but my affliction has taught me a road to happiness, which, without it, I should never have found; and I know, and have experience of it every day, that the mercy of God, to him who believes himself the object of it, is more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of every other blessing.

You may now inform all those whom you think really interested in my welfare, that they have no need to be apprehensive on the score of my happiness at present. And you yourself will believe that my happiness is no dream, because I have told you the foundation on which it is built. What I have written would appear like enthusiasm to many, for we are apt to give that name to every

warm affection of the mind in others, which we have not experienced in ourselves; but to you, who have so much to be thankful for, and a temper inclined to gratitude, it will not appear so.

I beg you will give my love to Sir Thomas, and believe that I am obliged to you both for inquiring after me at St. Alban's. Yours ever, W. C.

IV. To LADY HESKETH.

Huntingdon, July 4, 1764.

Being just emerged from the Ouse, I sit down to thank you, my dear Cousin, for your friendly and comfortable letter. What could you think of my unaccountable behaviour to you in that visit I mentioned in my last? I remember I neither spoke to you nor looked at you. The solution of the mystery, indeed, followed soon after, but at the time it must have been inexplicable. The uproar within was even then begun, and my silence was only the sulkiness of a thunder-storm before it opens. I am glad, however, that the only instance in which I knew not how to value your company was, when I was not in my senses. It was the first of the kind, and I trust in God it will be the last. How naturally does affliction make us Christians! and how impossible is it, when all human help is vain, and the whole earth too poor and trifling to furnish us with one moment's peace, how impossible is it then to avoid looking at the Gospel! It gives me some concern, though, at the same time, it increases my gratitude, to reflect that a convert made in Bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling-block to others, than to advance their faith. But if it has that effect upon any, it is owing to their reasoning amiss, and drawing their conclusions from false premises. He who can ascribe an amendment of life and manners, and a reformation of the heart itself, to madness, is guilty of an absurdity that, in any other case, would fasten the imputation of madness upon himself; for, by so doing, he ascribes a reasonable effect to an unreasonable cause, and a positive effect to a negative. But when Christianity only is to be sacrificed, he that stabs deepest is always the wisest man. You, my dear Cousin, yourself will be apt to think I carry the matter too far, and that, in the present warmth of my heart, I make too ample a concession in saying that I am only now a convert. You think I always believed, and I thought so too; but you were deceived, and so was I. I called myself, indeed, a Christian, but He who knows my heart knows that I never did a right thing, nor abstained from a wrong one, because I was so. But if I did either, it was under the influence of some other motive. And it is such seeming Christians, such pretending believers, that do most mischief to the cause, and furnish the strongest arguments to support the infidelity of its enemies: unless professions and conduct go together the man's life is a lie, and the validity of what he professes itself is called in ques

tion.

The difference between a Christian and an unbeliever would be so striking, if the treacherous allies of the church would go over at once to the other side, that I am satisfied religion would be no loser by the bargain.

I reckon it one instance of the Providence that has attended me throughout this whole event, that instead of being delivered into the hands of one of the London physicians, who were so much nearer that I wonder I was not, I was carried to Dr. Cotton. I was not only treated by him with the greatest tenderness while I was ill, and attended with the utmost diligence, but when my reason was restored to me, and I had so much need of a religious friend to converse with, to whom I could open my mind on the subject without reserve, I could hardly have found a fitter person for the purpose. My eagerness and anxiety to settle my opinions upon that long-neglected point, made it necessary that, while my mind was yet weak, and my spirits uncertain, I should have some assistance. The doctor was as ready to administer relief to me in this article likewise, and as well qualified to do it, as in that which was more immediately his province. How many physicians would have thought this an irregular appetite, and a symptom of remaining madness! But if it were so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it is well for me that

he was so.

My dear Cousin, you know not half the deliverances I have received; my brother is the only one in the family who does. My recovery is, indeed, a signal one; but a greater, if possible, went before it. My future life must express my thankfulness, for by words I cannot do it.

I pray God to bless you, and my friend Sir Thomas.

Yours ever,

W. C.

V.-To LADY HESKETH.

MY DEAR LADY HESKETH, Huntingdon, July 5, 1765. My pen runs so fast, you will begin to wish you had not put it in motion; but you must consider we have not met, even by letter, almost these two years, which will account, in some measure, for my pestering you in this manner; besides, my last was no answer to yours, and, therefore, I consider myself as still in your debt. To say truth, I have this long time promised myself a correspondence with you as one of my principal pleasures.

I should have written to you from St. Alban's long since, but was willing to perform quarantine first, both for my own sake, and because I thought my letters would be more satisfactory to you from any other quarter. You will perceive I allowed myself a very sufficient time for the purpose, for I date my recovery from the 25th of last July, having been ill seven months and well twelve months. It was on that day my brother came to see me; I was far from well when he came in: yet though he only staid one day with me, his

company served to put to flight a thousand deliriums and delusions which I still laboured under, and the next morning I found myself a new creature. But to the present purpose.

As far as I am acquainted with this place, I like it extremely, Mr. Hodgson, the minister of the parish, made me a visit the day before yesterday. He is very sensible, a good preacher, and conscientious in the discharge of his duty. He is very well known to Dr. Newton, bishop of Bristol, the author of the treatise on the Prophecies-one of our best bishops, and who has written the most demonstrative proof of the truth of Christianity, in my mind, that ever was published.

There is a village called Hertford, about a mile and a half from hence; the church there is very prettily situated upon a rising ground, so close to the river that it washes the wall of the churchyard. I found an epitaph there the other morning, the two first lines of which being better than anything else I saw there, I made shift to remember. It is by a widow on her husband.

Thou wast too good to live on earth with me,

And I not good enough to die with thee.

The distance of this place from Cambridge is the worst circumstance belonging to it. My brother and I are fifteen miles asunder, which, considering that I came hither for the sake of being near him, is rather too much. I wish that young man was better known in the family. He has as many good qualities as his nearest kindred could wish to find in him.

As Mr. Quin very roundly expressed himself upon some such occasion, "here is very plentiful accommodation, and great happiness of provision." So that if I starve it must be through forgetfulness, rather than scarcity.

Fare thee well, my good and dear Cousin.
Ever yours,

VI. TO LADY HESKETH.

W. C.

MY DEAR COUSIN, July 12, 1765. You are very good to me, and if you will only continue to write at such intervals as you find convenient, I shall receive all that pleasure which I proposed myself from our correspondence. I desire no more than that you would never drop me for any length of time together, for I shall then think you only write because something happened to put you in mind of me, or for some other reason equally mortifying. I am not, however, so unreasonable as to expect you should perform this act of friendship so frequently as myself, for you live in a world swarming with engagements, and my hours are almost all my own. You must every day be employed in doing what is expected from you by a thousand others, and I have nothing to do but what is most agreeable to myself.

Our mentioning Newton's treatise on the Prophecies brings to my