deplorably." Mrs. Unwin had passed into a state of second childhood, and something seemed wanting to cheer the mind of Cowper, if possible, against the prospect of decaying comforts and competence. Application was accordingly made to those who had it in their power to procure what so much merit must have dignified, a pension; but many months elapsed before effectual attention could be obtained. What power refused, however, was in some degree performed by friendship. Lady Hesketh, with her accustomed benevolence of character, and with an affection of which the instances are very rare, removed to Weston, and became the tender nurse of the two drooping invalids; of Mrs. Unwin, who was declining by years and infirmities, and of Cowper, who, in April, 1794, relapsed into his worst state of mental inquietude.

At this time, in consequence of a humane and judicious letter from the Rev. Mr. Greathead, of Newport Pagnell, Mr. Hayley paid a visit to this house of mourning, but found his poor friend "too much overwhelmed by his oppressive malady to show even the least glimmering of satisfaction at the appearance of a guest, whom he used to receive with the most lively expressions of affectionate delight." In this deplorable state he continued during Mr. Hayley's visit of some weeks, and the only circumstance which contributed in any degree to cheer the hearts of the friends who were now watching over him, was the intelligence that the king had been pleased to confer upon him such a pension as would insure an honourable competence for his life. Earl Spencer was the immediate agent in procuring this favour, and it would no doubt have added to its value, had the object of it known that he was indebted to one, who, of all his noble friends, stood the highest in his esteem. But he was now, for the remainder of his unhappy

life, beyond the power of knowing or acknowledging the benevolence in which his heart would have delighted. Mr. Hayley left him for the last time, in the spring of 1794, and from that period till the latter end of July, 1795, Cowper remained in a state of the deepest melancholy.

His removal from Weston now appeared to his friends a necessary experiment, to try what change of air and of objects might produce: and his young kinsman, the Rev. Mr. Johnson, undertook to convey him and Mrs. Unwin from that place to North Tuddenham, in Norfolk, where they arrived in the beginning of August, 1795, and resided till the nineteenth. Of Cowper's state during this time, all that we are told is, that he exhibited some regret on leaving Weston, and some composure of mind during a conversation of which the poet Thomson was the subject. He was able to bear considerable exercise, and on one occasion walked with Mr. Johnson to the neighbouring village of Mattishall, on a visit to his cousin, Mrs. Bodham. "On surveying his own portrait by Abbot, in the house of that lady, he clasped his hands in a paroxysm of pain, and uttered a vehement wish, that his present sensations might be such as they were when that picture was painted."

After a short residence at Tuddenham, Mr. Johnson conducted his two invalids to Mundsley, a village on the Norfolk coast, where they continued till October, but without deriving any apparent benefit from the sea air. Some calm recollection of past scenes, however, returned enough to prompt him to write a letter to Mr. Buchannan, inquiring after matters at Weston. But this was almost the last of his correspondence. In October, Mr. Johnson removed him and Mrs. Unwin to Deerham, which they left in November for Dunham Lodge, a house situated on high ground, in a park about four miles from Swaffam.

Here his affectionate kinsman endeavoured, by various means, to rouse in him an attention to literary or common subjects, such as might prevent his mind from preying on itself; and on some occasions he appears to have succeeded in a small degree; but the recurrence of melancholy was so frequent as to destroy the transient hopes which these promising appearances excited. In the following year, change of scene was again adopted, and not without such effect as justified the measure, even when all prospect of permanent advantage had vanished. In December, 1796, death removed Mrs. Unwin by a change as tranquil as her decayed body and mind promised. Cowper, about an hour after her departure, looked at the corpse, but started suddenly away, with a broken sentence of passionate sorrow, and spoke of her

no more.

His subsequent intervals of bodily health, few as they were, appear to have been attended with some return of attention to his favourite pursuits. His anxious and tender friend, Mr. Johnson, embraced such opportunities to lead him to take delight in the revision of his Homer, and from September, 1797, to March, 1799, he completed, by snatches, the revisal of the Odyssey. Of the returns of his disorder, he appears to have been sensible, and could describe it on its commencement, and before it totally overpowered his faculties. In a letter to Lady Hesketh, dated Oct. 13, 1798, which Mr. Hayley has preserved, he describes himself as one to whom nature "in one day, in one minute, became an universal blank." On this, his biographer notices the opinion of some of his friends, that his disorder arose from a scorbutic habit, which, when perspiration was obstructed, occasioned an unsearchable obstruction in the fine parts of his frame.

At intervals he still wrote a few original verses,

of which The Cast-away, his too favourite subject, was the last that came from his pen, but he amused himself occasionally with translations from Latin and Greek epigrams. His last effort of the literary kind, was an improved version of a passage in Homer, which he wrote at Mr. Hayley's suggestion, and which that gentleman received on the thirtyfirst of January, 1800. In the following month, he exhibited all the symptoms of dropsy, which soon made a rapid progress. On the 25th of April, about five in the afternoon, he expired, so quietly, that not one of his friends who were present perceived his departure, but from the awful stillness which succeeded. On Saturday, May 3, he was buried in St. Edmund's chapel, in Durham church, where Lady Hesketh caused a marble tablet to be erected, with the following inscription:

IN MEMORY

OF

WILLIAM COWPER, Esq.

BORN IN HERTFORDSHIRE,

1731.

BURIED IN THIS CHURCH,
1800.

Ye who with warmth the public triumph feel

Of talents dignified by sacred zeal,

Here to devotion's bard devoutly just,

Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust!

England, exulting in his spotless fame,

Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name:
Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise

So clear a title to affection's praise :
His highest honours to the heart belong;
His virtues form'd the magic of his song.

To add much to this sketch, respecting the merit of Cowper as a poet, would be superfluous. After passing through the many trials which criticism has instituted, he remains, by universal acknowledgment, one of the first poets of the eighteenth cen

tury. Even without awaiting the issue of such trials, he attained a degree of popularity which is almost without a precedent, while the species of popularity which he has acquired is yet more honourable than the extent of it. No man's works ever appeared with less of artificial preparation: no venal heralds proclaimed the approach of a new poet, nor told the world what it was to admire. He emerged from obscurity, the object of no patronage, and the adherent of no party. His fame, great and extensive as it is, arose from gradual conviction, and gratitude for pleasure received. The genius, the scholar, the critic, the man of the world, and the man of piety, each found in Cowper's works something to excite their surprise and their admiration-something congenial with their habits and feelings-something which taste readily selected, and judgment decidedly confirmed. Cowper was found to possess that combination of energies which marks the comprehensive mind of a great and inventive genius, and to furnish examples of the sublime, the pathetic, the descriptive, the moral, and the satirical, so numerous, that nothing seemed beyond his grasp, and so original, that nothing reminds us of any former poet.

If this praise be admitted, it will be needless to inquire in what peculiar charms Cowper's poems consist, or why he, above all poets of recent times, has become the universal favourite of his nation. Yet as he appears to have been formed not only to be an ornament but a model to his brethren, it may not be useless to remind them, that in him the virtues of the man and the genius of the poet were inseparable; that in every thing he respected the highest interests of human kind, the promotion of religion, morality, and benevolence; and that while he enchants the imagination by the decorations of genuine poetry, and even condescends to trifle with innocent gaiety, his serious purposes are all of the