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BIOGRAPHICAL

ANECDOTES AND CHARACTERS.

The Earlier STUDIES, PURSUITS, and PROPENSITIES, of Mr. CowPER.

[From Mr. HAYLEY'S Account of his Life.]

PEAKING of his own early

of his family, he had prospects of

"S life, in a letter to Mr. Park emolument, in a line of public life,

(dated March 1792) Cowper says, with that extreme modesty which was one of his most remarkable characteristics, From the age of twenty to thirty-three, I was occupied, or ought to have been, in the study of the law; from thirtythree to sixty, I have spent my time in the country, where my reading has been only an apology for idleness, and where, when I had not either a magazine or a review, I was sometimes a carpenter, at others a bird-cage maker, or a gardener, or a drawer of landscapes. At fifty years of age I commenced an author:-it is a whim that has served me longest, and best, and will probably be my last.'

"Though extreme diffidence, and a tendency to despond, seemed early to preclude Cowper from the expectation of climbing to the splendid summit of the profession he had chosen yet, by the interest

that appeared better suited to the modesty of his nature, and to his moderate ambition.

"In his thirty-first year, he was nominated to the offices of reading clerk, and clerk of the private committees, in the house of lords: a situation the more desirable, as such an establishment might enable him to marry early in life; a measure to which he was doubly disposed by judgement and inclination. But the peculiarities of his wonderful mind rendered him unable to support the ordinary duties of his new office; for the idea of reading in public proved a source of torture to his tender and appre hensive spirit. An expedient was devised to promote his interest, without wounding his feelings. Resigning his situation as reading clerk, he was appointed clerk of the journals in the same house of parliament, with a hope that his personal appearance in that assem4 2

bly

bly might not be required; but a parliamentary dispute made it necessary for him to appear at the bar of the house of lords, to entitle himself publicly to the office.

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"Speaking of this important incident in a sketch, which he once formed himself, of passages in his early life, he expresses what he endured at the time in these remarkable words: They whose spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public exhibition of themselves is mortal poison, may have some idea of the horrors of my situation-others can have none.' "His terrors on this occasion arose to such an astonishing height, that they utterly overwhelmed his reason-for, although he had en deavoured to prepare himself for his public duty, by attending closely at the office, for several months, to examine the parliamentary journals, his application was rendered useless by that excess of diffidence, which made him conceive, that, whatever knowledge he might previously acquire, it would all forsake him at the bar of the house. This distressing apprehension increased to such a degrce, as the time for his appearance approached, that when the day so anxiously dreaded arrived, he was unable to make the experiment. The very friends who called on him for the purpose of attending him to the house of lords, acquiesced in the cruel necessity of his relinquishing the prospect of a station so severely formidable to a frame of such singular sensibility.

"The conflict between the wishes of just affectionate ambition, and the terrors of diffidence, so entirely overwhelmed his health and facul. ties, that, after two learned and benevolent divines (Mr. John Cow per his brother, and the celebrated

Mr. Martin Madan, his first cousin) had vainly endeavoured to establish a lasting tranquillity in his mind, by friendly and religious conversation, it was found necessary to remove him to St. Alban's, where he resided a considerable time, under the care of that eminent physician Dr. Cotton, a scholar and a poet, who added to many accomplishments a peculiar sweetness of manners, in very advanced life, when I had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him.

"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 busy world, he acquiesced in a plan of settling at Huntingdon, by the advice of his brother, who, as a 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 bro

thers

The Earlier STUDIES, PURSUITS, and PROPENSITIES, of Mr. CowPER. [5]

thers opportunities of easy and frequent intercourse. I regret that all the letters which passed between them have perished, and the 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 cantoes 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 invalide 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 mine; with pleasure, such

as love,

Confirm'd by long experience of thy worth,

And well-tried virtues, could alone in

spire;

Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long!

Thou know'st my praise of Nature most sincere;

And that my raptures are not conjur'd

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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 apprise 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 unparallelled. Their domestic union, though not sanctioned by the common forms of life, was supported with perfect innocence; and endeared to them both, by their hav ing 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'amitié de si doux.'

"Asa connexion 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, having ob served, after divine service, that

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