The letters addressed to Mr. Hill at this period express, in a most pleasing manner, the sensibility of Cowper. LETTER XXXVII. MY DEAR FRIEND, Sept. 11, 1784. I have never seen Dr. Cotton's book, concerning which your sisters question me; nor did I know, 'till you mentioned it, that he had written any thing newer than his Visions: I have no doubt that it is so far worthy of him as to be pious and sensible, and I believe no man living is better qualified to write on such subjects as his title seems to announce. Some years have passed since I heard from him, and, considering his great age, it is probable that Í shall hear from him no more; but I shall always respect him. He is truly a philosopher, according to my judgment of the character; every tittle of his knowledge in natural subjects being connected, in his mind, with the firm belief of an Omnipotent Agent. Yours, &c. W. C. LETTER XXXVIII. MY DEAR FRIEND, To condole with you on the death of a mother aged eighty-seven would be absurd— Rather, therefore, as is reasonable, I congratulate you on the almost singular felicity of having enjoyed the company of so amiable and so near a relation so long. Your lot and mine, in this respect, have been very different, as, indeed, in almost every other. Your mother lived to see you rise, at least to see you comfortably established in the world. Mine dying when I was six years old, did not live to see me sink in it. You may remember, with pleasure, while you live, a blessing vouchsafed to you so long, and I, while I live, must regret a comfort of which I was deprived so early. I can truly say that not a week passes, (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day) in which I do not think of her. Such was the impression her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short. But the ways of God are equal-and when I reflect on the pangs she would have suffered had she been a witness of all mine, I see more cause to rejoice than to mourn that she was hidden in the grave so soon. We have, as you say, lost a lively and sensible neighbour in Lady Austen; but we have been so long accustomed to a state of retirement, within one degree of solitude, and being naturally lovers of still life, can relapse into our former duality without being unhappy at the change. To me, indeed, a third is not necessary, while I can have the companion I have had these twenty years. I am gone to the press again; a volume of mine will greet your hands some time either in the course of the winter or early in the spring. You will find it, perhaps, on the whole, more entertaining than the former, as it treats of a greater variety of subjects, and those, at least the most, of a sublunary kind. It will consist of a Poem in six books, called the Task. which will be added another, which I finished yesterday, called, I believe, Tirocinium, on the subject of Education. To You perceive that I have taken your advice, and gi• ven the pen no rest. LETTER XXXIX. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 25, 1785. I write in a nook that I call my Boudoir. It is a summer-house not much bigger than a sedan-chair, the door of which opens into the garden that is now crowded with pinks, roses and honey-suckles, and the window into my neighbour's orchard. It formerly served an apothecary, now dead, as a smoking-room, and under my feet is a trap-door, which once covered a hole in the ground, where he kept his bottles. At present, however, it is dedicated to sublimer uses. Having lined it with garden mats, and furnished it with a table and two chairs, here I write all that I write in summer time, whether to my friends, or to the public. It is secure from all noise, and a refuge from all intrusion; for intruders sometimes trouble me in the winter evenings at Olney. But thanks to my Boudoir, I can now hide myself from them. A Poet's retreat is sacred: they acknowledge the truth of that proposition, and never presume to violate it. The last sentence puts me in mind to tell you, that I have ordered my volume to your door. My bookseller is the most dilatory of all his fraternity, or you would have received it long since: it is more than a month. since I returned him the last proof, and consequently since the printing was finished. I sent him the manuscript at the beginning of last November, that he might publish while the town is full, and he will hit the exact moment when it is entirely empty. Patience you will perceive is in no situation exempted from the severest trials; a remark that may serve to comfort you under the numberless trials of your own. W. C. His second volume, of whose delay in the press he speaks so feelingly, was published in the summer of 1785. It not only raised him to the summit of poetical reputation, but obtained for him a blessing infinitely dearer to his affectionate heart, another female friend, and lively associate, now providentially led to contribute to his comfort, when the advanced age and infirmities of Mrs. Unwin made such an acquisition of new, or rather revived friendship, a matter of infinite importance to the tranquillity and welfare of the sequestered Poet. The Lady to whom I allude had the advantage of be ing nearly related to Cowper. Their intercourse had been frequent, and endeared by reciprocal esteem in their early years; but the whirlwinds of life had driven them far from the sight of each other. During the Poet's long retirement his fair cousin had passed some years with her husband abroad, and others, after her return, in a variety of mournful duties. She was at this time a widow, and her indelible regard for her poetical relation, being agreeably inspirited by the publication of his recent works, she wrote to him, on that occasion, a very kind letter. It gave rise to many from him, which I am particularly happy in being enabled to make a part of this work, because they give a minute account of their admirable author, at a very interesting period of his life; and because I persuade myself they will reflect peculiar honour on my departed friend in various points of view, and lead the public to join with me in thinking that his letters are rivals to his Poems, in the rare excellence of representing life and nature with graceful and endearing fidelity. LETTER XL. To Lady HESKETH, New Norfolk Street, Grosvenor-Square. MY DEAR COUSIN, October 12, 1785. It is no new thing with you to give pleasure, but I will venture to say that you do not often give more than you gave me this morning. When I came down to breakfast, and found upon the table a letter franked by my uncle, and when opening that frank I found that it contained a letter from you, I said within myself, this is just as it should be; we are all grown young again, and the days that I thought I should see no more, are actually returned. You perceive therefore that you judged well when you conjectured that a line from you would not be disagreeable to me. It could not be otherwise than, as in fact it proved, a most agreeable surprize, for I can truly boast of an affection for you that neither years nor interrupted intercourse have at all abated. I need only recollect how much I valued you once, and with how much cause, immediately to feel a revival of the same value; if that can be said to revive, which at the most has only been dormant for want of employment. But I slander it when I say that it has slept. A thousand times have I recollected a thousand scenes in which our two selves have formed the whole of the drama, with the greatest pleasure; at times too when I had no reason to suppose that I should ever hear from you again. I have laughed with you at the Arabian Nights Entertainment, which afforded us, as you well know, a fund of merriment that deserves never to be forgot. I have walked with you to Nettley Abbey, and have scrambled with you over hedges in every direction, and many other feats |