It is in this awful and instructive light that Cowper himself teaches us to consider the calamity of which I am now speaking, and of which he, like his illustrious brother of Parnassus, the younger Tasso, was occasionally a most affecting example. Heaven appears to have given a striking lesson to mankind, to guard both virtue and genius against pride of heart, and pride of intellect, by thus suspending the affections and the talents of two most tender and sublime poets, who, in the purity of their lives, and in the splendour of their intellectual powers, will be ever deservedly reckoned among the pre-eminent of the earth.

From December, 1763, to the following July, the pure mind of Cowper appears to have laboured under the severest sufferings of morbid depression; but the medical skill of Dr. Cotton, and the cheerful, benignant manners of that accomplished physician, gradually succeeded, with the blessing of Heaven, in removing the undescribable load of religious despondency which had clouded the admirable faculties of this innocent and upright man. His ideas of religion were changed from the gloom of terror and despair to the lustre of comfort and delight.

This juster and happier view of Evangelical truth is said to have arisen in his mind while he was reading the third chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Devout contemplation became more and more dear to his reviving spirit :resolving to relinquish all thoughts of a laborious profession, and all intercourse with the bu sy world, he acquiesced in a plan of settling at Huntingdon, by the advice of his brother, who, as minister of the Gospel, and a Fellow of Bennet College, in Cambridge, resided in that University; a situation so near to the place chosen for Cowper's retirement, that it

afforded to these affectionate brothers opportunities of easy and frequent intercourse. I regret that all the letters which passed between them have perished, more so as they sometimes corresponded in verse. John Cowper was also a poet. He had engaged to execute a translation of Voltaire's Henriade; and, in the course of the work, requested and obtained the assistance of William, who translated, as he informed me himself, two entire Cantos of the Poem. A specimen of this fraternal production, which appeared in a Magazine of the year 1759, will be found in the Appendix to these volumes.

In June, 1765, the reviving invalid removed to a private lodging in the town of Huntingdon; but Providence soon introduced him into a family which afforded him one of the most singular and valuable friends that ever watched an afflicted mortal in seasons of overwhelming adversity; that friend to whom the Poet exclaims, in the commencement of the Task,

And witness, dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm this twentieth winter, I perceive
Fast lock'd in my mine, with pleasure, such as love,
Confirm'd by long experience of thy worth,
And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire;
Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long!
Thou know'st my raptures are not conjured up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine, and art partner of them all.

These verses would be alone sufficient to make every poetical reader take a lively interest in the lady they describe; but these are far from being the only tribute which the gratitude of Cowper has paid to the endearing virtues of his female companion. More poetical

memorials of her merit will be found in these volumes, and in verse so exquisite, that it may be questioned if the most passionate love ever gave rise to poetry more tender or more sublime.

Yet, in this place, it appears proper to apprize the reader that it was not love, in the common acceptation of the word, which inspired these admirable eulogies. The attachment of Cowper to Mrs. Unwin, the Mary of the Poet! was an attachment perhaps unparalleled. Their domestic union, though not sanctioned by the common forms of life, was supported with perfect innocence, and endeared to them both, by their having struggled together through a series of sorrow. A spectator of sensibility, who had contemplated the uncommon tenderness of their attention to the wants and infirmities of each other in the decline of life, might have said of their singular attachment,

L'Amour n'a rien de si tendre,
Ni L'Amitiè de si doux.

As a connection so extraordinary forms a striking feature in the history of the Poet, the reader will probably be anxious to investigate its origin and progress. It arose from the following little incident.

The countenance and deportment of Cowper, though they indicated his native shyness, had yet very singular powers of attraction. On his first appearance in one of the churches at Huntingdon, he engaged the notice and respect of an amiable young man, William Cawthorne Unwin, then a student at Cambridge, who, haying observed, after divine service, that the interesting stranger was taking a solitary turn under a row of trees, was irresistably led to share his walk, and to solicit his acquaintance.

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They were soon pleased with each other; and the intelligent youth, charmed with the acquisition of such a friend, was eager to communicate the treasure to his parents, who had long resided in Huntingdon.

Mr. Unwin, the father, had, some years, been mas ter of a free-school in the town; but, as he advanced in life, he quitted that laborious situation, and, settling in a large convenient house, in the High-Street, contented himself with a few domestic pupils, whom he instructed in classical literature.

This worthy Divine, who was now far advanced in years, had been Lecturer to the two Churches in Huntingdon, before he obtained, from his College at Cambridge, the living of Grimston. While he lived in expectation of this preferment, he had attached himself to a young lady of lively talents, and remarkably fond of reading. This lady, who, in the process of time, and by a series of singular events, became the friend and guardian of Cowper, was the daughter of Mr. Cawthorne, a draper in Ely. She was married to Mr. Unwin on his succeeding to the preferment that he expected from his College, and settled with him on his Living of Grimston; but not liking the situation and society of that sequestered scene, she prevailed on her husband to establish himself in the town of Huntingdon, where he was known and respected.

They had resided there many years; and with their two only children, a son and a daughter (whom I remember to have noticed at Cambridge, in the year 1763, as a youth and a damsel of countenances uncommonly pleasing), they formed a cheerful and social family, when the younger Unwin, described by Cowper as

"A friend,

Whose worth deserves the warmest lay
That ever friendship penn'd,

presented to his parents the solitary stranger, on whose retirement he had benevolently intruded, and whose welfare he became more and more anxious to promote. An event highly pleasing and comfortable to Cowper soon followed this introduction: he was affectionately solicited by all the Unwins to relinquish his lonely lodging, and become a part of their family.

I am now arrived at that period in the personal history of my friend, when I am fortunately enabled to employ his now descriptive powers in recording the events and characters that particularly interested him, and in displaying the state of his mind at a remarkable season of his checkered life. The following are the most early Letters of this affectionate writer with which time and chance, with the kindness of his friends and relations, have afforded me the advantage of adorning this work. Among his juvenile intimates and correspondents he particularly regarded two gentlemen, who devoted themselves to dffferent branches of the law, the present Lord Thurlow, and Joseph Hill, Esq. whose name appears in the second volume of Cowper's Poems, prefixed to a few verses of exquisite beauty; a brief epistle, that seems to have more of the genuine ease, spirit, and moral gaiety of Horace than any original epistle in the English language! From these two confidential associates of the Poet, in his unclouded years, I expected materials for the display of his early genius; but in the torrent of busy and splendid life, which bore the first of them to a mighty distance from his less ambitious fellowstudent of the Temple, the private letters and verses that arose from their youthful intimacy have perished.

Mr. Hill has kindly favoured me with a very copious collection of Cowper's letters to himself, through a long period of time; and although many of them are of a nature not suited to publication, yet many others