hall in most inconvenient abundance. But I have long fince discontinued this practice, and many others which I found it neceffary to adopt, that I might escape the worst of all evils, both in itself and in its confequences-an idle life. Many arts I have exercised with this view, for which nature never defigned me; though among them were fome in which I arrived at confiderable proficiency, by mere dint of the most heroic perfeverance. There is not a 'fquire in all this country who can boast of having made better squirrel-houses, hutches for rabbits, or bird-cages, than myself; and in the article of cabbage-nets I had no fuperior. I even had the hardiness to take in hand the pencil, and ftudied a whole year the art of drawing. Many figures were the fruit of my labours, which had, at least, the merit of being unparalleled by any production either of art or nature. But before the year was ended, I had occafion to wonder at the progress that may be made, in defpite of natural deficiency, by dint alone of practice; for I actually produced three landscapes, which a lady thought worthy to be framed and glazed. I then judged it high time to exchange this occupation for another, left, by any subsequent productions of inferior merit, I should forfeit the honour I had so fortunately acquired. But gardening was, of all employments, that in which I fucceeded beft; though even in this I did not fuddenly attain perfection. I began with lettuces and cauliflowers from them I proceeded to cucumbers; next to melons. I then purchased an orange-tree, to which, in due time, I added two or three myrtles. These ferved me day and night with employment during a whole fevere winter. To defend them from the froft, in a fituation that exposed them to its feverity, coft me much ingenuity and much attendance. I contrived to give them a fire-heat; and have waded night after night through the fnow, with the bellows under my arm, just before going to bed, to give the latest poffible puff to the embers, lest the frost should seize them before morning. Very minute beginnings have sometimes important confequences. From nursing two or three little evergreens, I became ambitious of a greenhouse, and accordingly built one; which, verfe excepted, afforded me amusement for a longer time than any expedient of all the many to which I have fled for refuge from the mifery of having nothing to do."

It was scarcely poffible without exceeding the neceffary limits

of this memoir to infert extracts from Cowper's letters on political subjects, and had it been poffible, remarks on events of only temporary intereft, however important the fubject or clever the obfervations, would not be acceptable to readers, when the affairs adverted to have become mere matter of history. That he was a ftaunch whig is apparent from a letter written to Lady Hesketh in March, 1790: "I am neither Tory nor High Churchman, but an old Whig, as my Father was before me: and an enemy, confequently, to all tyrannical impofitions."

A diftant relation of the Poet, through his mother, a Mr. Johnfon, and who fubfequently took Orders, and has diftinguished himself as the ableft of his biographers, inspired him with great affection. His letters to that gentleman, who was then a very young man, are among the moft pleafing of his correfpondence. There is much warmth of heart in the following, written in March, 1790:

"My boy, I long to see thee again. It has happened, some way or other, that Mrs. Unwin and I have conceived a great affection for thee. That I fhould is the lefs to be wondered at, because thou art a fhred of my own mother; neither is the wonder great that she should fall into the fame predicament, for she loves every thing that I love. You will obferve that your own personal right to be beloved makes no part of the confideration. There is nothing that I touch with so much tenderness as the vanity of a young man; because I know how extremely fufceptible he is of impreffions that might hurt him in that particular part of his compofition. If you should ever prove a coxcomb, from which character you ftand juft now at a greater distance than any young man I know, it fhall never be faid that I have made you one; no, you will gain nothing by me but the honour of being much valued by a poor poet, who can do you no good while he lives, and has nothing to leave you when he dies. If you can be contented to be dear to me on these conditions, so you fhall; but other terms more advantageous than these, or more inviting, none have I to propofe. Farewell. Puzzle not yourself about a fubject when you write to either of us; every thing is subject enough from those we love."

In May in that year the Laureat died, and Lady Hesketh offered Cowper all her intereft to get him nominated his fucceffor. His reply indicates either that he was little influenced

by ambition, or that he entertained a low opinion of the proposed diftinction.

"MY DEAREST Coz,

"The Lodge, May 28, 1790.

“I THANK thee for the offer of thy best services on this occafion. But Heaven guard my brows from the wreath you mention, whatever wreath befide may hereafter adorn them! It would be a leaden extinguisher, clapped on all the fire of my genius, and I should never more produce a line worth reading. To speak seriously, it would make me miserable, and therefore I am sure that thou, of all my friends, wouldst least wish me to wear it.

"Adieu, ever thine-in Homer-hurry,

"W. C."

There is so much good fenfe in the advice which he gave to his young kinfman, Mr. Johnson, on the fubject of academical distinctions, that it cannot be too widely circulated. How many young men are there who make University honours the goal of their ambition, and imagine that the fame which is produced by distinguishing themselves at College, is fufficient for the rest of their lives, and of whom confequently no more is known!

"You never pleased me more than when you told me you had abandoned your mathematical pursuits. It grieved me to think that you were wafting your time merely to gain a little Cambridge fame, not worth your having. I cannot be contented that your renown should thrive no where but on the banks of the Cam. Conceive a nobler ambition, and never let your honour be circumfcribed by the paltry dimenfions of a University!"

In July in that year he informed Mr. Johnson that he had finished the Iliad. Like Pope, he was accustomed to write parts of it on scraps of paper and backs of letters, as appears from a letter to Mrs. King, in which he enclosed his translation of some Latin letters by a Dutch clergyman at the Cape of Good Hope, which were published in 1792:

"I have hardly a scrap of paper belonging to me that is not scribbled over with blank verfe; and taking out your letter from a bundle of others this moment, I find it thus infcribed on the feal fide.

meantime his steeds

Snorted, by Myrmidions detain'd, and loosed
From their own mafter's chariot, foam'd to fly.

You will eafily guess to what they belong; and I mention the circumftance merely in proof of my perpetual engagement to Homer, whether at home or abroad; for when I committed these lines to the back of your letter, I was rambling at a confiderable distance from home. I fet one foot on a mole-hill, placed my hat with the crown upward on my knee, laid your letter upon it, and with a pencil wrote the fragment that I have fent you. In the fame pofture I have written many and many a paffage of a work which I hope foon to have done with. But all this is foreign to what I intended when I first took pen in hand. My purpose then was, to excufe my long filence as well as I could, by telling you that I am at prefent not only a labourer in verse, but in prose also, having been requested by a friend, to whom I could not refuse it, to tranflate for him a series of Latin letters received from a Dutch minifter of the gospel at the Cape of Good Hope. With this additional occupation you will be fenfible that my hands are full; and it is a truth that, except to yourself, I would, juft at this time, have written to nobody."

The principal reference in his correfpondence, in 1790, to his mental ailment, is in a letter to Mr. Newton, in October:

"The only confolation left me on this fubject is, that the voice of the Almighty can in one moment cure me of this mental infirmity. That He can, I know by experience; and there are reasons for which I ought to believe that He will. But from hope to despair is a tranfition that I have made so often, that I can only confider the hope that may come, and that sometimes I believe will, as a short prelude of joy to a miserable conclufion of forrow that fhall never end. Thus are my brighteft profpects clouded, and thus to me is hope itself become like a withered flower, that has loft both its hue and its fragrance."

Few authors will difpute the juftice of the following remark on the unwillingness of the Univerfities to patronize literature by applying part of their funds to the purchase of books:

"You have not, I hope, forgot to tell Mr. Frog,* how much

His familiar defignation of his friend Mr. Throckmorton.

I am obliged to him for his kind, though unsuccessful attempt in my favour at Oxford. It seems not a little extraordinary that perfons so nobly patronized themselves, on the score of literature, fhould refolve to give no encouragement to it in return. Should I find a fair opportunity to thank them hereafter, I will not neg

lect it.

"Could Homer come himself, distress'd and
And tune his harp at Rhedicina's door,
The rich old vixen would exclaim, I fear,
'Begone! no tramper gets a farthing here.'"

poor,

In another letter Cowper fays, the answer of the University of Oxford to the requeft was, "that they fubfcribe to nothing!" The translation of the Iliad and Odyssey, on which he bestowed five years, was published in two quarto volumes, in July, 1791. The Iliad was infcribed to his kinsman, Earl Cowper, and the Odyffey was dedicated to the Dowager Lady Spencer, who has shown him many marks of kindness. Succefs was not, however, the immediate reward of his toil, and the revisions which he made for the second edition were attended by scarcely less labour than the original compofition.

Cowper had learnt from experience that intense literary application was the only remedy for his malady, and foon after his tranflation of Homer appeared, he gladly accepted the propofition of his publisher to fuperintend a new and splendid edition of Milton's works, with notes and a tranflation of his Latin and Italian Poems. This undertaking accidentally produced him the acquaintance of Hayley, who was then engaged on a Life of that Poet. A correfpondence commenced, and the greatest intimacy was in a very short time the result: before they had ever seen each other, Cowper told him in a letter dated in April, 1792:

“God grant that this friendship of ours may be a comfort to us all the rest of our days, in a world where true friendships are rarities, and especially where fuddenly formed they are apt foon to terminate! But, as I faid before, I feel a difpofition of heart toward you, that I never felt for one whom I had never seen: and that shall prove itself, I trust, in the event a propitious omen."

In the next month, Hayley paid a vifit to Weston, and was received with the warmest regard, but his reception is best described in his own words, because they afford a graphic idea of Cowper's home :