incidents of my life have given an entire new turn to my whole character and conduct, and rendered me incapable of receiving pleasure from the same employments and amusements of which could readily partake in former days.

I love you and yours; I thank you for your continued remembrance of me, and shall not cease to be their and your

Affectionate Friend,

and Servant,

W. C.

His retirement was ennobled by many private acts of beneficence, and his exemplary virtue was such, that the opulent sometimes delighted to make him their almoner. In his sequestered life at Olney he ministered abundantly to the wants of the poor, from a fund, with which he was supplied by that model of extensive and unostentatious philanthropy, the late John Thornton, Esq., whose name he has immortalized in his Poem on Charity; still honouring his memory by an additional tribute to his virtues, in the following unpublished poem, written immediately on his decease, in the year 1790.

Poets attempt the noblest task they can,
Praising the Author of all good in man;
And next, commemorating worthies lost,
The dead, in whom that good abounded most.
Thee, therefore, of commercial fame, but more
Fam'd for thy probity, from shore to shore,
Thee, THORNTON, worthy in some page to shine,
As honest, and more eloquent than mine,
I mourn; or, since thrice happy thou must be,
The world, no longer thy abode, not thee;
Thee to deplore were grief mis-spent indeed;
It were to weep, that goodness has its meed,
That there is bliss prepar'd in yonder sky,
And glory for the virtuous when they die.

What pleasure can the miser's fondled hoard,
Or spendthrift's prodigal excess, afford,
Sweet, as the privilege of healing woe
Suffer d by virtue, combating below?

That privilege was thine; Heaven gave thee means
To illumine with delight the saddest scenes,
Till thy appearance chas'd the gloom, forlorn
As midnight, and despairing of a morn.
Thou hadst an industry in doing good,
Restless as his who toils and sweats for food.
Av rice in thee was the desire of wealth
By rust unperishable, or by stealth.

And if the genuine worth of gold depend

On application to its noblest end,

Thine had a value in the scales of Heaven,

Surpassing all, that mine, or mint, have given;
And tho' God made thee of a nature prone
To distribution, boundless, of thy own;

E

And still, by motives of religious force,
Impell'd thee more to that heroic course;
Yet was thy liberality discreet;

Nice in its choice, and of a temp'rate heat;
And, though in act unwearied, secret still,
As, in some solitude, the summer rill
Refreshes, where it winds, the faded green,
And cheers the drooping flowers, unheard, unseen.

Such was thy Charity; no sudden start
After long sleep of passion in the heart,
But steadfast principle, and, in its kind,
Of close alliance with th' Eternal Mind;
Trac'd easily to its true Source above,

To Him whose works bespeak his nature,-love.
Thy bounties all were Christian, and I make
This record of thee for the Gospel's sake;
That the incredulous themselves may see
Its use and power exemplified in thee.

This simple and sublime eulogy was perfectly merited; and among the happiest actions of this truly liberal man, we may reckon his furnishing to a character so reserved and so retired as Cowper, the means of his enjoying the gratification of active and costly beneficence; a gratification in which the sequestered poet had nobly indulged himself before his acquaintance with Mr. Newton afforded him an opportunity of being concerned in distributing the private, yet extensive bounty of an opulent and exemplary merchant.

Cowper, before he quitted St. Alban's, assumed the charge of a necessitous child, to extricate him from the perils of being educated by very profligate parents; he put him to school at Huntingdon, removed him, on his own removal, to Olney, and finally settled him as an apprentice at Oundle in Northamptonshire.

The warm, benevolent, and cheerful enthusiasm of Mr. Newton induced his friend Cowper to participate so abundantly in his devout occupation, that the poet's time and thoughts were more and more engrossed by religious pursuits. He wrote many hymns, and occasionally directed the prayers of the poor. Where the nerves are tender and the imagination tremblingly alive, any fervid excess in the exercise of the purest piety may be attended with such perils to corporeal and mental health, as men of a more firm and hardy fibre would be far from apprehending. Perhaps the life that Cowper led, on his settling in Olney, had a tendency to increase the morbid propensity of his frame, though it was a life of admirable sanctity.

Absorbed as he was in devotion, he forgot not his distant friends, and particularly his amiable relation and correspondent of the Park-house, near Hartford. The following letter to that lady has no date, but it was probably written soon after his establishment at Olney. The remarkable memento in the postscript was undoubtedly introduced to counteract an idle rumour, arising from the circumstance of his having settled himself under the roof of a female friend,

whose age and whose virtues he considered as sufficient securities to ensure her reputation.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

XXIX.-To MRS. COWPER.

I have not been behindhand in reproaching myself with neglect, but desire to take shame to myself for my unprofitableness in this, as well as in all other respects. I take the next immediate opportunity, however, of thanking you for yours, and of assuring you, that instead of being surprised at your silence, I rather wonder that you, or any of my friends, have any room left for so careless and negligent a correspondent in your memories. I am obliged to you for the intelligence you send me of my kindred, and rejoice to hear of their welfare. He who settles the bounds of our habitations has at length cast our lot at a great distance from each other, but I do not therefore forget their former kindness to me, or cease to be interested in their well being. You live in the centre of a world I know you do not delight in. Happy are you, my dear friend, in being able to discern the insufficiency of all it can afford, to fill and satisfy the desires of an immortal soul. That God who created us for the enjoyment of himself, has determined in mercy that it shall fail us here, in order that the blessed result of all our inquiries after happiness in the creature may be a warm pursuit, and a close attachment to our true interests in fellowship and communion with Him, through the name and mediation of a dear Redeemer. I bless his goodness and that I have any reason to hope I am a partaker with you in the desire after better things than are to be found in a world polluted with sin, and therefore devoted to destruction. May he enable us both to consider our present life in its only true light, as an oppor tunity put into our hands to glorify Him amongst men, by a conduct suited to his word and will. I am miserably defective in this holy and blessed art, but I hope there is at the bottom of all my sinful infirmities a sincere desire to live just so long as I may be enabled, in some poor measure, to answer the end of my existence in this respect, and then to obey the summons, and attend him in a world where they who are his servants here shall pay him an unsinful obedience for ever. Your dear Mother is too good to me, and puts a more charitable construction upon my silence than the fact will warrant. I am not better employed than I should be in corresponding with her. I have that within which hinders me wretchedly in every thing that I ought to do, but is prone to trifle, and let time and every good thing run to waste. I hope, however, to write

to her soon.

grace

My love and best wishes attend Mr. Cowper, and all that inquire after me. May God be with you to bless you, and do you good, by all his dispensations; don't forget me when you are speaking to our best Friend before his Mercy-seat.

W. C.

In the year 1769, the lady to whom the preceding letters are addressed, was involved in domestic affliction; and the following, which the poet wrote to her on the occasion, is so full of genuine piety, and true pathos, that it would be an injury to his memory to suppress it.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

I

XXX.-To MRS. COWPER.

Olney, Aug. 31, 1769. A letter from your brother Frederick brought me yesterday the most afflicting intelligence that has reached me these many years. pray to God to comfort you, and to enable you to sustain this heavy stroke with that resignation to his will which none but Himself can give, and which he gives to none but his own children. How blessed and happy is your lot, my dear friend, beyond the common lot of the greater part of mankind, that you know what it is to draw near to God in prayer, and are acquainted with a Throne of Grace! You have resources in the infinite love of a dear Redeemer, which are withheld from millions: and the promises of God, which are yea and amen in Jesus, are sufficient to answer all your necessities, and to sweeten the bitterest cup which your heavenly Father will ever put into your hand. May He now give you liberty to drink at these wells of salvation, till you are filled with consolation and peace, in the midst of trouble. He has said, when thou passest through the fire I will be with thee, and when through the floods they shall not overflow thee. You have need of such a word as this, and he knows your need of it, and the time of necessity is the time when he will be sure to appear in behalf of those who trust in him. I bear you and yours upon my heart before him night and day, for I never expect to hear of distress which shall call upon me with a louder voice, to pray for the sufferer. I know the Lord hears me for myself, vile and sinful as I am; and believe, and am sure, that he will hear me for you also. He is the friend of the widow, and the father of the fatherless, even God in his holy habitation; in all our afflictions he is afflicted, and chastens us in his mercy. Surely he will sanctify this dispensation to you, do you great and everlasting good by it, make the world appear like dust and vanity in your sight, as it truly is, and open to your view the glories of a better country, where there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor pain; but God shall wipe away all tears from your eyes for ever. O that comfortable word! I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction," so that our very sorrows are evidences of our calling, and he chastens us, because we are his children.

My dear Cousin, I commit you to the word of his grace, and to the comforts of his Holy Spirit. Your life is needful for your family, may God, in mercy to them, prolong it, and may he preserve you from the dangerous effects which a stroke like this might have upon a frame so tender as yours! I grieve with you, I pray for you; could I do more I would, but God must comfort you.

Yours, in our dear Lord Jesus,

W. C.

In the following year, the tender feelings of Cowper were called forth by family affliction, that pressed more immediately on himself; he was hurried to Cambridge by the dangerous illness of his brother. An affection truly fraternal had ever subsisted between the brothers, and the reader will recollect what the poet has said in one of his letters concerning their social intercourse while he resided at Huntingdon.

In the two first years of his residence at Olney, he had been repeatedly visited by Mr. John Cowper; and how cordially he returned that kindness and attention, will appear from the following letter, which was probably written in the chamber of the invalid whom the writer so fervently wishes to restore.

gerous one.

XXXI. TO MRS. COWPER.

March 5, 1770.

a very

My brother continues much as he was. His case is danAn imposthume of the liver, attended by an asthma and dropsy. The physician has little hope of his recovery, I believe I might say none at all, only being a friend he does not formally give him over by ceasing to visit him, lest it should sink his spirits. For my own part I have no expectation of his recovery, except by a signal interposition of Providence in answer to prayer. His case is clearly out of the reach of medicine; but I have seen many a sickness healed, where the danger has been equally threatening, by the only physician of value. I doubt not he will have an interest in your prayers, as he has in the prayers of many. May the Lord incline his ear, and give an answer of peace! I know it is good to be afflicted. I trust that you have found it so, and that under the teaching of God's own Spirit, we shall both be purified. It is the desire of my soul to seek a better country, where God shall wipe away all tears from the eyes of his people: and where, looking back upon the ways by which he has led us, we shall be filled with everlasting wonder, love, and praise. I must add no more.

Yours, ever,

W. C.

The sickness and death of his learned, pious, and affectionate brother, made a very strong impression on the tender heart and mind of Cowper-an impression so strong, that it induced him to write a narrative of the remarkable circumstances which occurred at the time. He sent a copy of this narrative to Mr. Newton. The paper is curious in every point of view, and so likely to awaken sentiments of piety in minds where it may be most desirable to have them awakened, that Mr. Newton has thought it his duty to print it.

The following letter displays, in a manner so tender and so forcible, the feelings of piety which reigned at this awful season in the hearts of the two affectionate brothers, that it seems to claim a place in this volume.