tears of joy, and groanings which cannot be uttered. I could say, indeed, with Jacob, not "how dreadful," but how lovely, "is this place! This is none other than the house of God." Four months I continued in my lodging. Some few of the neighbors came to see me, but their visits were not very frequent; and, in general, I had but little intercourse, except with my God in Christ Jesus. It was he who made my solitude sweet, and the wilderness to bloom and blossom as the rose; and my meditation of him was so delightful that, if I had few other comforts, neither did I want any. One day, however, towards the expiration of this period, I found myself in a state of desertion. That communion which I had so long been able to maintain with the Lord was suddenly interrupted. I began to dislike my solitary situation, and to fear I should never be able to weather out the winter in so lonely a dwelling. Suddenly a thought struck me, which I shall not fear to call a suggestion of the good providence which had brought me to Huntingdon. A few months before, I had formed an acquaintance with the Rev. Mr. Unwin's family. His son, though he had heard that I rather declined society than sought it, and though Mrs. Unwin herself dissuaded him from visiting me on that account, was yet so strongly inclined to it, that, notwithstanding all objections and arguments to the contrary, he one day engaged himself, as we were coming out of church, after morning prayers, to drink tea with me that afternoon. To my inexpressible joy, I found him one whose notions of religion were spiritual and lively; one whom the Lord had been training up from his infancy for the service of the temple. We opened our hearts to each other at the first interview, and, when we parted, I immediately retired to my chamber, and prayed the Lord, who had been the author, to be the guardian of our friendship, and to grant to it fervency and perpetuity even unto death; and I doubt not that my gracious Father heard this prayer also. The Sunday following I dined with him. That afternoon, while the rest of the family was withdrawn, I had much discourse with Mrs. Unwin. I am not at liberty to describe the pleasure I had in conversing with her, because she will be one of the first who will have the perusal of this narrative. Let it suffice to say, I found we had one faith, and had been baptized with the same baptism. When I returned home, I gave thanks to God, who had so graciously answered my prayers, by bringing me into the society of Christians. She has since been a means in the hand of God of supporting, quickening, and strengthening me, in my walk with him. It was long before I thought of any other connexion with this family than as a friend and neighbor. On the day, however, above mentioned, while I was revolving in my mind the nature of my situation, and beginning, for the first time, to find an irksomeness in such retirement, suddenly it occurred to me that I might probably find a place in Mr Unwin's family as a boarder. A young gen tleman, who had lived with him as a pupil, was the day before gone to Cambridge. It appeared to me, at least, possible, that I might be allowed to succeed him. From the mo ment this thought struck me, such a tumult of anxious solicitude seized me, that for two or three days I could not divert my mind to any other subject. I blamed and condemned myself for want of submission to the Lord's will; but still the language of my mutinous and disobedient heart was, "Give me the blessing, or else I die." About the third evening after I had deter mined upon the measure, I, at length, made shift to fasten my thoughts upon a theme which had no manner of connexion with it, While I was pursuing my meditations, Mr. Unwin and family quite out of sight, my at tention was suddenly called home again by the words which had been continually playing in my mind, and were, at length, repeated with such importunity that I could not help regarding them:-"The Lord God of truth will do this." I was effectually convinced, that they were not of my own production, and accordingly I received from them some as surance of success; but my unbelief and fearfulness robbed me of much of the comfort they were intended to convey; though I have since had many a blessed experience of the same kind, for which I can never be sufficiently thankful. I immediately began to negotiate the affair, and in a few days it was entirely concluded. I took possession of my new abode, Nov. 11, 1765. I have found it a place of rest prepared for me by God's own hand, where he has blessed me with a thousand mercies, and instances of his fatherly protection; and where he has given me abundant means of furtherance in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus, both by the study of his own word, and communion with his dear disciples. May nothing but death interrupt our union! Peace be with the reader, through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen! Painful as this memoir is in some of its earlier details, yet we know nothing more simple and beautiful in narrative, more touching and ingenuous in sentiment than its happy sequel and consummation. It resembles the storm that desolates the plain, but which is afterwards succeeded by the glowing beauties toil itself a powerful alleviation to his sufferings, and the exercise of all his faculties the road to competency, to usefulness, and honor. Two events contributed to exercise a most injurious influence on the morbid mind of Cowper, not recorded in his own Memoir. We allude to the death of his friend, Sir William Russel, and his hopeless attachment to Miss Theodora Cowper. of the renovated landscape. No document ever furnished an ampler refutation of the remark that ascribes his malady to the operation of religious causes. On the contrary, it appears that his first relief, under the tyranny of an unfeeling school-boy, was in the exercise of prayer, and that some of his happiest moments, in the enjoyment of the Divine presence, were experienced in the frame of mind which he describes, when at Southampton-that in proportion as he forgot the Sir William was the contemporary of Cowheavenly Monitor, his peace vanished, his per at Westminster, and his most intimate passions resumed the ascendency, and he friend. This intercourse was continued in presented an unhappy compound of guilt and their riper years, on the footing of the most enwretchedness. The history of his malady is dearing friendship. Unhappily, young Rusdeveloped in his own memoir with all the sel was cut off by a premature death,* while clearness of the most circumstantial evidence. bathing in the Thames, amidst all the openA morbid temperament laid the foundation; ing prospects of life, and with accomplishan extreme susceptibility exposed him to con- ments and virtues that adorned his rank and tinual nervous irritation; and early disap- station. This occurrence inflicted a great pointments deepened the impression. At moral shock on the sensitive mind of Cowper. length, with a mind unoccupied by study, and undisciplined by self-command-contemplating a "public exhibition of himself as mortal poison," he sank under an offer which a more buoyant spirit would have grasped as an object of honorable ambition. In this state religion found him, and administered the happy cure. That a morbid temperament was the originating cause of his depression, is confirmed by an affecting passage in one of his poems. In the beautiful and much admired lines on his mother's picture, there is the following pathetic remark: My mother! when I learn'd that thou wast dead, In dwelling on these predisposing causes, the * pensable to health and happiness. He who lives without an allotted occupation is seldom either wise, virtuous, or happy. The mind recoils upon itself, and is consumed by its own fires. Providence, after the Fall, in mercy, not less than in justice, decreed that man should live by the sweat of his brow; that, in the same moment that he was reminded of his punishment, he might find the • Cowper adopted a profession, but never pursued it with perseverance. But it was his attachment to Miss Theodora Jane Cowper that formed the eventful era in his early life, and clouded all his future prospects. The relation of this fact is wholly omitted by Hayley, in compliance, we presume, with the express wishes of the family. It was, indeed, understood to be a prohibited subject, and involved in much mystery. The name of this lady was never uttered by Cowper, nor mentioned in his presence; and, after his death, delicacy towards the survivor equally imposed the duty of silence. The brother-in-law of the Editor, the Rev. Dr. Johnson, conscious that a correspondand the fair object of his attachment, reence must have existed between the poet quested to know whether he could be furnished with any documents, and permitted, without a violation of delicacy, to lay them before the public. The writer was also commissioned by him to solicit an interview, and to urge the same request, but without success. An intimation was at length conveyed that no documents could see the light till after the decease of the owner. The death of this lady, in the year 1824, at a very advanced age, removed the veil of secrecy, though the leading facts were known by a small circle of friends, through the confidential communications of Lady Hesketh and Dr. Johnson. We now proceed to the de family. The writer well remembers the two last baro * Shortness of life seems to have been peculiar to this nets, viz., Sir John Russel, whose form was so weak and fragile, that, when resident at the University of Oxat the early age of twenty-one. 2ndly. Sir George Russel, ford, he was supported by instruments of steel. He died his brother, who survived only till his twenty-second year. The editor followed him to his grave. The family residence was at Chequers, in Buckinghamshire, an ancient seat, and restored at great expense by these last direct descendants of their race. Chequers was formerly noted as the place where Hampden, Cromwell, and a few others, held their secret meetings, and concerted their measures of opposition against the government of Charles I. The estate afterwards devolved to Robert Greenhill, Esq. tails of this transaction. Miss Theodora Cowper was the second daughter of Ashley Cowper, Esq., the poet's uncle, and sister to Lady Hesketh; she was, consequently, own cousin to Cowper. She is described as having been a young lady possessed of great personal attractions, highly accomplished, and distinguished by the qualities that engage affection and regard. It is no wonder that a person of Cowper's susceptibility yielded to so powerful an influence. She soon became the theme of his poetical effusions, which have since been communicated to the public.* They are juvenile compositions, but interesting, as forming the earliest productions of his muse, and recording his attachment to his cousin. Miss Theodora Cowper was by no means insensible to the regards of her admirer, and the father was eventually solicited to ratify her choice. But Mr. Ashley Cowper, attached as he was to his nephew, and anxious to promote the happiness of his daughter, could by no means be induced to listen to the proposition. His objections were founded, first, on the near degree of relationship in which they stood to each other; and secondly, on the inadequacy of Cowper's fortune. From this resolution no entreaty could induce him to depart. The poet, therefore, was compelled to cherish a hopeless passion, which no lapse of time was capable of effacing; and his fair cousin, on her part, discovered a corresponding fidelity. The subsequent melancholy event, recorded in the Memoir, at once extinguished all further hopes on the subject. How powerfully his feelings were affected by the death of his friend, Sir William, and by his disappointment in love, may be seen by the following pathetic lines, referring to Miss Theodora Cowper: Doom'd as I am, in solitude to waste pain Fix'd in her choice and faithful-but in vain! Whose eye ne'er yet refused the wretch a tear; Such were the preparatory causes that weakened and depressed the mind of Cowper. The immediate and exciting cause of his unhappy derangement has already been * Poems, the Early Productions of William Cowper. faithfully disclosed as well as the occasion that ministered to its cure. Pursuing this interesting and yet painful subject in the order of events, it appears that, after spending nearly ten years in the enjoy ment of much inward peace, he was visited in the year 1773, at Olney, with a return, not of his original derangement, but with a severe nervous fever, and a settled depression of spirits. This attack began to subside at the close of the year 1776, though his full pow. ers were not recovered till some time after. What he suffered is feelingly expressed in a letter to Mr. Hill. "Other distempers only batter the walls; but they (nervous fevers) creep silently into the citadel, and put the garrison to the sword."* The death of his brother, the Rev. John Cowper, may have been instrumental to this long indisposition. At the same time we think that his situation at Olney was by no means favorable to his health; and that more time should have been allotted for relaxation and exercise. In January, 1787, he experienced a fresh attack, though surrounded by the beautiful scenery of Weston; which seems to prove that local causes were not so influential as some have suggested. A much better reason may be assigned in the lamented death of his endeared friend, Mr. Unwin. This illness continued eight months, and greatly enfee bled his health and spirits. "This last tempest," he remarks, in a letter to Mr. Newton, "has left my nerves in a worse condition than it found them; my head, especially, though better informed, is more infirm than ever." In December, 1791, Mrs. Unwin experienced her first attack: and in May, 1792, it was renewed with aggravated symptoms, dur ing Hayley's visit to Weston. He describes its powerful effect on Cowper's nerves in expressive language, and none can be more expressive than his own, at the close of the same year. "The year ninety-two shall stand chronicled in my remembrance as the most melancholy that I have ever known, except the few weeks that I spent at Eartham."! the spectacle of her increasing imbecility, till Cowper's mental depression kept pace with at length, yielding to the pressure of these accumulating sorrows, he sank under the violence of the shock. The coincidence of these facts is worthy of observation, as they seem to prove that the embers of the original constitutional malady never became extinct, and required only some powerful stimulant to revive the flame. Religious feelings unquestionably concurred, because whatever predominates in the mind furnishes the materials of excitement: but it was not the religion of a creed, for what creed ever proclaimed the delusion under which Cowper labored?* His persuasion was in opposition to his creed, for he knew that he was once saved, and yet believed that he should be lost, though his creed assured him that, where divine grace had once revealed its saving power, it never failed to perfect its work in mercy-that the Saviour's love is unchangeable, and that whom he hath loved he loveth unto the end (John xiii. 1). His case, therefore, was an exception to his creed, and consequently must be imputed to the operation of other causes. We trust we have now succeeded in tracing to its true source the origin of Cowper's malady, and that the numerous facts which have been urged must preclude the possibility of future misconception. There are some distinguishing features in this mysterious malady which are too extraordinary not to be specified. We notice the following: 1st. The free exercise of his mental powers continued during the whole period of his depression, with the exception of two intervals, from 1773 to 1776, and a season of eight months in the year 1787. With these intermissions of study, all his works were written in moments of depression and unceasing nervous excitement. It still further shows the singular mechanism of his wonderful mind, that his Montes Glaciales, or Ice Islands, exhibiting decided marks of vigor of genius, were composed in the last stage of his malady-within five weeks of his decease-when his heart was lacerated by sorrow, his imagination scared by dreams, and the heavens over his head were as brass. The public papers had announced a phenomenon, which the voyages of Captains Ross and Parry have now made more familiar, viz., the disruption of immense masses of ice in the North Pole, and their appearance in the German Ocean. Cowper seized this incident as a fit subject for his poetic powers, and produced the poem from which we make the following extract:— What portents, from what distant region. ride, Unseen till now in ours, th' astonish'd tide ?What view we now? more wondrous still! Be hold! Like burnish'd brass they shine, or beaten gold; And all around the pearl's pure splendor show, And all around the ruby's fiery glow. Come they from India, where the burning earth, All bounteous, gives her richest treasures birth; And where the costly gems, that beam around The brows of mightiest potentates, are found? No. Never such a countless dazzling store Had left, unseen, the Ganges' peopled shoreWhence sprang they then? Cowper believed that he had incurred the Divine displeasure, because he did not commit the crime of selfdestruction; a persuasion so manifestly absurd as to afford undeniable proof of derangement. | Far hence, where most severe Bleak Winter well-nigh saddens all the year, Their infant growth began. He bade arise Oft, as dissolv'd by transient suns, the snow Their uncouth forms, potentous in our eyes. Left the tall cliff to join the flood below. He caught, and curdled with a freezing blast The current, ere it reach'd the boundless waste. By slow degrees uprose the wondrous pile And long successive ages roll'd the while, Till, ceaseless in its growth, it claim'd to stand Tall as its rival mountains on the land. Or force of man, had stood the structure still; Thus stood, and, unremovable by skill But that, though firmly fixt, supplanted yet By pressure of its own enormous weight, It left the shelving beach-and, with a sound That shook the bellowing waves and rocks around, Self-launch'd, and swiftly, to the briny wave, As if instinct with strong desire to lave, Down went the pond rous mass. See Poems. 2ndly. His malady, however oppressive to himself, was not perceptible to others. The Editor is enabled to state this remarkable fact on the authority of Dr. Johnson, confirmed by the testimony of Lady Throckmorton, and John Higgins, Esq., of Turvey Abbey, formerly of Weston. There was nothing in his general manner, or intercourse with society, to excite the suspicion of the wretchedness that dwelt within. Among strangers he was at all times reserved and silent, but in the circle of familiar friends, where restraint was banished, not only did he exhibit no marks of gloom, but he could par ticipate in the mirth of others, or inspire it from his own fertile resources of wit and humo'. The prismatic colors, so to speak, were discernible through the descending shower. The bow in the heavens was not only emblematic of his imagination, but might be interpreted as the pledge of promised mercy. For it seemed to be graciously ordered that his lively and sportive imagination should be a relief to the gloomy forebodings of his mind; and that, in vouchsafing to him this alleviation, God proclaimed, “Behold, I do set my bow in the cloud, it shall be for a covenant between me and thee." 3rdly. The rare union, in the same mind, of a rich vein of humor with a spirit of profound melancholy was never perhaps so strikingly exemplified as in the celebrated production of John Gilpin. The town resounded with its praises. Henderson recited it to overflowing auditories; Mr. Henry Thornton addressed it to a large party of friends at Mr. Newton's. Laughter might be said to hold both his sides, and the gravest were compelled to acknowledge the power of comic wit. We scarcely know a more extraordinary phenomenon than what is furnished by the history of this performance. For it appears, by the author's own testimony, that it was written "in the saddest mood, and but for that saddest mood, perhaps, had never been written at Look where he comes-in this embowered alcove See Poem on Retirement. The minute and mournful delineation of mental trouble here submitted to the eye of the reader, and the fact of this living image of woe being a portrait of Cowper drawn by his own hand, impart to it a character of inimitable pathos, and of singular and indescribable interest. The physical and moral solution of this evil, and its painful influence on the mind, till the cure is administered by an almighty Physician, are beautifully and affectionately de scribed. Man is a harp whose chords elude the sight, * See p. 143. The lines which follow are important, as proving by his own testimony that, so far from his religious views being the occasion of his wretchedness, it was to this source alone that he looked for consolation and support. And thou, sad sufferer under nameless ill. That yields not to the touch of human skill; Improve the kind occasion, understand A Father's frown, and kiss his chastening hand To thee the day-spring and the blaze of noon, The purple evening and resplendent moon, The stars, that, sprinkled o'er the vault of night, Seem drops descending in a shower of light, Shine not, or undesired and hated shine, Seen through the medium of a cloud like thine: Yet seek Him, in his favor life is found, All bliss beside, a shadow or a sound: Then heaven, eclipsed so long, and this dull earth Shall seem to start into a second birth! Nature, assuming a more lovely face. Borrowing a beauty from the works of grace, Shall be despised and overlooked no more, Shall fill thee with delights unfelt before, Impart to things inanimate a voice, And bid her mountains and her hills rejoice; The sound shall run along the winding vales, And thou enjoy an Eden ere it fails. Retirement. The Editor has entered thus largely into the consideration of Cowper's depressive malady, because it has been least understood, and subject to the most erroneous misrepre and the honor of religion. One leading ob sentations, affecting the character of Cowper ject of the writer's, in engaging in the present undertaking, has been to vindicate both from so injurious an imputation. We have now to lay before the reader another most interesting document, of which Cowper is the acknowledged author. It con tains the affecting account of the last illness and peaceful end of his brother, the Rev. John Cowper, Fellow of Bennet College, Cambridge. The original manuscript was faithfully transcribed by Newton, and then published with a preface, which we have thought proper to retain. It cannot fail to be resd with deep interest and edification; and, while it is a monument of Cowper's pious zeal and fraternal love, it is a striking record of the power of divine grace in producing that great change of heart which we deem to be essen tial to every professing Christian. This document is now extremely scarce, and not acces sible but through private sources.* We are indebted for this copy to a much esteered and highly valued friend, the Rev. Charles Bridges |