the interesting stranger was taking a solitary turn under a row of trees, was irresistibly led to share his walk, and to solicit his acquaint ance. "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 for some years been master 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 F 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 se questered 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." Mr. CowPER's Later CONNEXIONS, INFIRMITIES, and DEATH. ROM the time when I left my unhappy friend at Weston, in the spring of the year 1794, he remained there, under the tender vigilance of his affectionate relation, lady Hesketh, till the latter end of July 1795; a long season of the darkest depression! in which the best medical advice, and the influence of time, appeared equally unable to lighten that afflictive burthen which pressed incessantly on his spirits. "At this period it became absolutely lutely necessary to make a great and painful exertion, for the mental relief of the various sufferers at Weston. Mrs. Unwin was sinking very fast into second childhood; the health of lady. Hesketh was much impaired; and the dejection of Cowper was so severe, that a change of scene was considered as essential to the preservation of his life. "Under circumstances so deplorable, his kinsman of Norfolk most tenderly and generously undertook to conduct the two vene rable invalides from Buckinghamshire into Norfolk; and so to regulate their future lives, that every, possible expedient might be tried. for the recovery of his revered relation.. "It is hardly possible for friendship to undertake a charge more delicate and arduous, or to sustain all the pains that must necessarily attend it, with a more constant exertion of gentle fortitude and affectionate fidelity. "On Tuesday, the 28th of July, 1795, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin removed, under the care and guidance of Mr. Johnson, from Weston to North-Tuddenham, in Norfolk, by a journey of three days, passing through Cambridge without stop - ping there. In the evening of the first day they rested at the village of Eaton, near St. Neot's. Cowper walked with his young kinsman in the church-yard by moonlight, and spoke of the poet Thomson with more composure of mind than he had discovered for many. months. "This conversation was almost his last glimmering of cheerfulness. "At North-Tuddenham the travellers were accommodated with a commodious untenanted parsonage-house, by the kindness of the reverend Leonard Shelford. Here they resided till the 19th of August. It was the considerate in tention of Mr. Johnson not to remove the two invalides immediate ly to his own house in the town of East-Dereham, lest the situation in a market-place should be distress, ing to the tender spirits of Cowper. "In their new temporary residence they were received by miss Johnson, and miss Perowne; and here I am irresistibly led to remark the kindness of Providence towards Cowper, in his darkest seasons of calamity, by supplying him with attendants peculiarly suited to the exigencies of mental dejection. "Miss Perowne is one of those excellent beings, whom nature seems to have formed expressly for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of the afflicted; tenderly vigilant in providing for the wants of sickness, and resolutely firm in administering such relief as the most intelligent compassion can supply. Cowper speedily observed and felt, the invaluable virtues of his new, attendant, and during the last years, of his life he honoured her so far, as to prefer her personal assistance, to that of every individual around him. "Severe as his depressive ma-, lady appeared at this period, he, was still able to bear considerable exercise; and before he left Tuddenham, he 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. In August A4 1795, 1795, Mr. Johnson conducted his two invalides to Mundsley, a village on the Norfolk coast, in the some degree abated. My chamber commands a very near view of the ocean, and the ships at high hope that a situation by the sea-water approach the coast so closeside might prove salutary and amusing to Cowper. They continued to reside there till October, but without any apparent benefit to the health of the interesting sufferer. "He had long relinquished epistolary intercourse with his most intimate friends; but his tender solicitude to hear some tidings of his favorite Weston induced him, in September, to write a letter to Mr. Buchanan. It shows the severity of his depression, but shows also that faint gleams of pleasure could occasionally break through the settled darkness of melancholy. "He begins with a poetical quotation: "To interpose a little ease, 'Let my frail thoughts dally with false surmise!' I will forget, for a moment, "that to whomsoever I may address myself, a letter from me can no otherwise be welcome than as a curiosity. To you, sir, I address this, urged to it by extreme penury of employment, and the desire I feel to learn 'something of what is doing, and has been done, at Weston (my 'beloved Weston!) since I left it. "The coldness of these blasts, even in the hottest days, has been such, that, added to the irritation of the salt-spray, with which they are always charged, they have oc"casioned me an inflammation in the "eye-lids, which threatened a few days since to confine me entirely; but, by absenting myself as much as possible from the beach, and guarding my face with an umbrella, that inconvenience is in ly, that a man furnished with better eyes than mine, might, I doubt not, discern the sailors from the window. No situation, at least when the weather is clear and 'bright, can be pleasanter; which you will easily credit, when I add that it imparts something a little resembling pleasure even to me.— Gratify me with news of Weston! If Mr. Gregson, and your neighbours the Courteneys, are there, mention me to them in such terms as you see good. Tell me if my poor birds are living! I never see the herbs I used to give 'them without a recollection of them, and sometimes am ready 'to gather them, forgetting that I ' am not at home. Pardon this in'trusion! "Mrs. Unwin continues much ' as usual. "Mundsley, Sept. 5, 1795.' "The compassionate and accomplished clergyman, to whom this letter is addressed, endeavoured, with great tenderness and ingenuity, to allure his dejected friend to prolong a correspondence that seemed to promise some little alleviation to his melancholy; but that cruel distemper baffled all the various expedients that could be devised to counteract its overwhelming influence. "Much hope was entertained from air and exercise, with a frequent change of scene. In September Mr. Johnson conducted his kinsman (to the promotion of whose recovery he devoted all the faculties of his affectionate spirit) to take a survey of DunhamLodge, a seat that happened to be vacant; it is seated on a high ground ground in a park, about four miles from Swaffham. Cowper spoke of it as a house rather too spacious for him, yet such as he was not unwilling to inhabit: a remark that induced Mr. Johnson, at a subsequent period, to become the tenant of this mansion, as a scene more eligible for Cowper than the town of Dereham. This town they also surveyed in their excursion; and after passing a night there, returned to Mundsley, which they quitted for the season on the 7th of October. "They removed immediately to Dereham; but left it in the course of the month for Dunham-Lodge, which now became their settled residence. "The spirits of Cowper were not sufficiently revived to allow him to resume either his pen or his books; but the kindness of his young kinsman continued to furnish him with inexhaustible amusement, by reading to him almost incessantly a series of novels, which, although they did not lead him to converse on what he heard, yet failed not to rivet his attention; and so to prevent his afflicted mind from preying on itself. "In April 1796, the good, infirm, old lady, whose infirmities continued to engage the tender attention of Cowper, even in his darkest periods of depression, received a visit from her daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Powley. On their departure Mr. Johnson assumed the office which Mrs. Powley had tenderly perform. ed for her venerable parent, and regularly read a chapter in the Bible every morning to Mrs. Unwin before she rose. It was the invariable custom of Cowper to visit his poor old friend the moment he had finished his breakfast, and to 8 remain in her apartment while the chapter was read. some "In June the pressure of his melancholy appeared to be in little degree alleviated; for on Mr. Johnson's receiving the edition of Pope's Homer, published by Mr. Wakefield, Cowper eagerly seized the book, and began to read the notes to himself with visible interest. They awakened his attention to his own version of Homer. In August he deliberately engaged in a revisal of the whole, and for some time produced almost sixty new lines a day. "This mental occupation animated all his intimate friends with a most lively hope of his speedy and perfect recovery. But autumn repressed the hope that summer had excited. "In September the family removed from Dunham-Lodge to try again the influence of the seaside, in their favourite village of Mundsley. "Cowper walked frequently by the sea; but no apparent benefit arose, no mild relief from the incessant pressure of his melancholy. He had relinquished his Homer again, and could not yet be induced to resume it. "Towards the end of October this interesting family of disabled invalides and their affectionate attendants, retired from the coast to the house of Mr. Johnson in Dereham:-a house now chosen for their winter residence, as Dunham-Lodge appeared to them too dreary. "The long and exemplary life of Mrs. Unwin was drawing to wards a close: the powers of na ture were gradually exhausted, and on the 17th of December she ended a troubled existence, distinguished by a sublime spirit of piety and and friendship, that shone through long periods of calamity, and continued to glimmer through the distressful twilight of her declining faculties. Her death was uncommonly tranquil. Cowper saw her about half an hour before the moment of expiration, which passed without a struggle or a groan as the clock was striking one in the afternoon. "On the morning of that day he said to the servant who opened the window of his chamber, Sally, is there life above stairs?' A striking proof of his bestowing incessant attention on the sufferings of his aged friend, although he had long appeared almost totally absorbed in his own. "In the dusk of the evening he attended Mr. Johnson to survey the corpse; and, after looking at it a few moments, he started suddenly away, with a vehement but unfinished sentence of passionate sorrow. "He spoke of her no more. "She was buried by torch-light, on the 23d of December, in the north aisle of Dereham church; and two of her friends, impressed with a just and deep sense of her extraordinary merit, have raised a marble tablet to her memory, with the following inscription: In Memory of Mary (Widow of the rev. Morley Unwin, and Mother of the Rev. William Cawthorne Unwin), born at Ely 1724, buried in this Church 1796.. "Trusting in God with all her heart and mind, This woman prov'd magnanimously kind; vale. Her spotless dust, angelic guards, defend! It is the dust of Unwin, Cowper's friend! "The infinitely tender and deep sense of gratitude that Cowper, m his seasons of health, invariably manifested towards this zealous and faithful guardian of his troubled existence; the agonies he suffered on our finding her under the oppression of a paralytic disease, during my first visit to Weston; and all his expressions to me concerning the comfort and support that his spirits had derived from her friendship; all made me peculiarly anxious to know how he sustained the event of her death. It may be regarded as an instance of providential mercy to this af flicted poet, whose sensibility of heart was so wonderfully acute, that his aged friend, whose life he had so long considered as essential to his own, was taken from him at a time when the pressure of his malady, a perpetual low fever both of body and mind, had in a great degree diminished the native energy of his faculties and affections. "Severe as the sufferings of melancholy were to his disordered frame, I am strongly inclined to believe that the anguish of heart which he would otherwise have endured, must have been infinitely more severe. From this anguish he was so far preserved by the marvellous state of his own disturbed health that instead of mourning the less of a person in whose life he had seemed to live, all perception of that loss was mercifully taken from him; and, from the moment when he hurried his filial attachment, he appeared away from the inanimate object of to have no memory of her having existed, for he never asked a que |