BOOKS.

COWPER AND MARY UNWIN.*

THIS latest memoir of one of our most thoroughly English poets does not pretend to be a literary biography, but a study of character. It would be a melancholy record were it not

for the moral beauty of the principal actors in the drama of Cowper's life,—we except the sour Calvinist Newton, who seems to have played the part of Cowper's evil genius.

The poet was one of those who exercise a magnetic influence on all who approach them ; the devotion that surrounded him was not a manifest duty, like that of a wife, or child, or parent, but the spontaneous outcome of love, admiration, and sympathy on the part of men and women only slightly connected with him. Perhaps if he had been born a hundred years later he might have escaped the agonising mental torment, the results of the bitter creed of the period, which clouded an existence so pure and blameless; but then he would have been swept into active life, and we should have lost the poems, grave and gay, which have delighted successive generations of his countrymen.

The appalling nature of his delusions would have rendered his companionship almost too painful if they had been per- petually present to his mind. But his friends must usually have seen him in a happier hour. The very thought of them probably put to flight the demons which tortured him, and allowed his gentle cheerfulness and sense of fun to come to the surface, and this we gather from his laters. They are almost always gay. We wish we could give long extracts from them ; but unless the whole letter were transcribed the charm would be lost, for it does not consist in a series of epigrams, but in a natural flow of humorous ideas. If one rashly opens a volume containing them one goes on reading as one stands, oblivious of all else like Dominie Samp- son. Whether he is making a cupboard, or meditating a new cravat, or anticipating with delight the arrival of a friend, he is equally charming. It seems impossible that a man so genial, so full of fun, and so capable of enjoyment should have fallen a victim to melancholy mania.

William Cowper was born in 1731. His father, rector of Berkhampstead, descended from an ancient family, belonged to what we may be permitted to call the upper working class, —the name "middle class" suggests hard money making and spending, to which the professional class who earn their bread by their brains are seldom addicted. His early childhood was very happy. He adored his gentle mother, but at six years old he sustained in her loss the heaviest blow that can fall upon a child. Perhaps the most exquisite among his many ex- quisite lines are those he wrote years afterwards on receiving her picture: describing a love and grief almost too great for a child to bear. Henceforth the world was changed for him; no more, he writes-

" The Gardener, Robin, day by day Drew me to school along the public way, Delighted with my bauble coach and wrapt In scarlet mantle warm and velvet capt."

He was sent to a boarding-school, where the tyranny of an elder boy did him probably lasting injury. At ten years old he went to Westminster School. His strong religious im- pressions early showed themselves, for his only objection to Westminster was the inadequacy of the religious teaching. He was articled to a solicitor at eighteen. One of his fellow- clerks was Lord Chancellor Thurlow, who even at that time was persuaded of his own future distinction, and made many promises to Cowper, not one of which was kept.

Law, however, had little interest for him, and he spent most of his time in the house of his uncle, Ashley Cooper, in Southampton Row. Here he fell in love with his beautiful cousin. Theodora, to whom were addressed the "Poems to • CeleTe and Mary Unwin. By Caroline Geary. London : Dean and Co. [68.] Delia," but soon afterwards the poet was visited by one of his fits of despondency, and her father refused to sanction their engagement. The shock of parting was transient to Cowper;

he had a genius for friendship (love without wings), but love as a passion did not trouble him. The young people never met again, although her sister, Lady Hesketh, was ,the Joy of his later years. With Theodora it was different; he was the love of her life, she never married, she watched his career with unflagging interest, and bestowed on him to the end many valuable anonymous gifts, the donor of which he never suspected. His cousin, Major Cowper, offered him the appointment of Clerk of Committees in the House of Lords. For a moment he was enchanted, but then came the reaction. He was plunged in grief, followed by fever. Three times he attempted suicide. His brother, with whom, after the death of their father in 1756, he had been closely united, put him into an asylum at St. Albans. Seven wretched months passed, how wretched is expressed by the lines he wrote when there :—

"Damned below Judas: more abhorred than he was, Who for a few pence sold his holy Master !

Twice betrayed ; Jesus me, the last delinquent, Deems the profanest !"

Skilful care and a visit from his brother, who tried to imbue his troubled mind with the thought of God's Fatherhood, brought him to his senses, and on his recovery he took lodgings in Huntingdon. One day, coming out of church, a young man came up to him and expressed a wish to make his acquaintance.

This young man was William Unwin. He introduced Cowper to his parents, and his mother Mary afterwards became the

guardian angel of the poet's life. Their house was always open to him. The happy circle was broken up by the death of the father in 1769, but Cowper resolved not to separate from the widow and her son and daughter. Her friend, John Newton, curate of Olney, found them a house in his parish, which became their home for eighteen years.

Here Cowper wrote the sixty beautiful hymns, some of which still keep their places in our Prayer-book :—" God moves in a mysterious way," "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord," d:c. Here, too, later on he wrote "The Task," and translated Homer and Milton's sonnets, and also studied drawing, and worked bard in his garden. William Unwin obtaiwd a distant living, his sister was engaged to be married it was no wonder therefore that in 1772 the poet and Mrs.

Unwin resolved to marry, when a most alarming return of Cowper's malady banished all such projects for evermore. It was then that he experienced the awful dream which darkened the rest of his life. Henceforth he considered him- self a doomed man. His life was miserable, but he dreaded death still more, as it would consign him to everlasting per- dition.

For sixteen months Mrs. Unwin tended him with the most affectionate care, almost unaided, for Cowper could bear the sight of no one else. He had been staying with the Newtons at the vicarage when he was first taken ill, and thither Mrs. Unwin hastened. He could not be persuaded to go home. He was a sore trial, but the Newtons bore it with great kindness. To the surprise of every one, he suddenly in May, 1774, consented to return to Orchardside after an absence of a year and five months. From this time he gradually recovered. In 1781 a ray of sunshine illumined

the lives of Cowper and his admirable companion. Looking out of the window one day, the poet saw two ladies come out of a shop opposite, of whom one, Mrs. Jones, of Clifton, a village near Olney, was known to him. The other was her sister, Lady Austen. He persuaded Mrs. Unwin to invite them to tea, but when they arrived dared not at first face them. He forced himself to do so, and found Lady Austen so sympa- thetic that he lost all shyness. Their intimacy grew by leaps and bounds. Southey says in his Life of Cowper :—" The most fortunate incident in his literary life was that which introduced him to this lady." She roused him from the depths of despair, she inspired "The Task" and other poems. One evening, when he was hopelessly depressed, she told him

the story of John Gilpin, which amused him so much that he shook off his misery, laughed long and loud, and next morning produced the ballad which has made so many laugh ever since. But Cowper, abstemious in most things, could not be moderate in his friendship. If he

, - loved people (" liked " would be an inadequate expression) he must be always with them. Lady Austen came to live next door. They made excursions and dined with each other every day. She was gay, pretty, young, and brilliant, and full of admiration' for the poet. No wonder that Mrs. Unwin became uneasy and Lady Austen exigeante. She insisted on his coming to see her every morning, which was incompatible with - his literary work. She wrote to him passionate re- monstrances. They called each other brother and sister. At last he discovered that she wanted to be all in all to him, and that he must sacrifice the old friend or the new. He did not hesitate, and in 1782 a breach took place, and though repaired for a time, again fell apart, and they finally separated in 1784. About the time that this meteoric friendship came to an end Cowper renewed acquaintance with the Throckmortons, who had a fine place, Weston Park, near Olney. Mr. and Mrs. Frog, as he playfully called them, made great friends with the poet and Mrs. Unwin; threw open to them their park, "of which," he writes, "we are never weary " ; and even when in 1786 they were persuaded to migrate to Weston Lodge, one of Mr. Frog's houses close to the Park, no cloud obscured their constant friendship. When one reads of the parlour at Olney one wonders how any affection could survive such dose juxtaposition. It was 13 ft. square. In the evening three harm, a dog, a cat, and a squirrel made it their playground. Cowper sat at his desk at one corner of the table,—an ancient card-table, on which they took all their meals. Mrs. Unwin sat knitting at another corner, and 4ady Austen sang to the' piano. Sometimes Cowper read aloud to the ladies.

The publication of Cowper's poems recalled him to the memory of his relations, and a letter from Lady Hesketh filled him with joy. She proved a most valuable acquisition, frill of fun, wit, and gaiety, as was Lady Austen, but without that lady's extravagant affection and demands upon his time. She took the vicarage of Olney, brought her carriage and drove the poet and Mrs. Unwin about to distant neighbours. Some busybody noting these proceedings, felt it his duty to inform Newton that "the poet had become a confirmed pleasure- seeker, if not an out-and-out debauchee." A bitter remonstrance from Newton to Mrs. Unwin was the result: She and Cowper were deeply wounded, and the latter repudiated the accusation with much dignity. This unwonted dissipation ceased a few weeks later with the departure of Lady Hesketh and her carriage; but before she went she left everything in readiness for their occupation of Weston Lodge,—" a change," the poet writes, "as great as from St. Giles's to Grosvenor Square." They were expecting William Unwin and his family, but instead of this pleasure they received the news of his death after a three days' illness. The poet solaced himself with writing long letters to his cousin, which in spite of his sorrow have flashes of his ineradicable wit and playfulness ; but in the following January, 1787; he broke down utterly under a severe attack of mania and attempted suicide, from which Mrs. Unwin again saved him, and never left him until he suddenly recovered and entreated Lady Hesketh to visit the home she had arranged for them. "Ho was happier now," says his biographer, "than he had been for many years, his cousin's spirits were infectious, and he enjoyed the pleasure of being a popular author." Before Lady Hesketh's visit ended, Mrs. Unwin slipped on the gravel walk and injured herself severely. She was laid up for weeks, and never entirely recovered. Now the tables were turned, and Cowper was as unremitting in his attentions to her as she had been to him. But the strain told heavily upon him.

Women played so large a part in the poet's life that we have no space to say much of the men friends,—Mr. Rose, Mr. Bull, Mr. Bagot, and others who were devoted to him. Mr. Johnson (Johnny of Norfolk), and Hayley, the poet and painter, deserve a longer notice. " Johnny " was the son of the poet's cousin on the mothers side. He deter- mined (in 1790) to seek his kinsman out, and was received by Cowper with great affection. He became to both the sad invalids as devoted and as beloved as if he had been a child of their own. William Hayley was acquainted with the most distinguished men of the period, who were 'frequent guests at his charming place, Eartham, in Sussex. In May, 1792, Hayley paid his first visit to Weston. Both parties were charmed with each other, but towards the end Mrs. Unwin was seized

with another and more serious attack of paralysis. Hayley left them with great regret, having extorted a promise from Cowper to visit Eartham. Mrs. Unwin was in a pitiable state; however, she gradually improved, and the two with their attendants, Johnny, Sam the servant, and Bean the dog, set off with heroical determination on August 1st. Consider- in," the length (three days), the difficulties and dangers, it was really a tremendous effort in their condition, but they found much nutriment at Eartham for ntind and body, and came back all the better towards the end of September.

From this time, however, the gloom deepens. He began to hear voices and dream dreams, which he communi- cated to the schoolmaster at Olney, Teedon, a man of neither ability nor cultivation. Mrs. Unwin's improvement was only temporary. The most melancholy part of her illness was the total change in her moral nature. She became selfish, capricious, and exacting, but the more unreasonable she grew the more Cowper was devoted to her. It would be too sad to follow the sad decline of these two interesting and devoted friends step by step. Their friends did not desert them. Hayley came in November, 1793, followed by Lady Hesketh, who spent the whole of the year 1794 at Weston, and in April Hayley once more joined the sad little circle. He brought the good news of a pension from the Sing to Cowper of 2300 a year, but the poet was too far gone to exhibit even a glimmering of joy. " Johnny " came and persuaded them to remove with him into Norfolk in July, 1795. From that time he never left them. He took them from one place to another, hoping for a good effect from change of scene, and at length to his own house at East Dereham, and here Mrs. Unwin died in 1796. Cowper's malady saved him from the grief which he otherwise would have suffered. After one last look at her beloved face he turned away and never again mentioned her name. He survived her until April, 1800, when his pure and much-tried spirit passed away. "From the time of his death till the coffin was closed," Mr. Johnson wrote, "the expression with which his countenance settled was that of calmness and com- posure, mingled as it were with holy surprise,"—surprise, we trust, at finding a loving Father in the place of the jealous, revengeful Being whom he so long had feared :— " After Life's fitful fever he sleeps well."