ance he finds among the people of Ravenstone I have not heard, but at Olney, where he has preached once, he was hailed as the sun by the Greenlanders after half a year of lamp-light.

Providence interposed to preserve me from the heaviest affliction that I can now suffer, or I had lately lost Mrs. Unwin, and in a way the most shocking imaginable. Having kindled her fire in the room where she dresses (an office that she always performs for herself), she placed the candle on the hearth, and, kneeling, addressed herself to her devotions. A thought struck her, while thus occupied, that the candle, being short, might possibly catch her clothes. She pinched it out with the tongs, and set it on the table. In a few minutes the chamber was so filled with smoke that her eyes watered, and it was hardly possible to see across it. Supposing that it proceeded from the chimney, she pushed the billets backward, and, while she did so, casting her eye downward, perceived that her dress was on fire. In fact, before she extinguished the candle, the mischief that she apprehended was begun; and when she related the matter to me, she showed me her clothes with a hole burnt in them as large as this sheet of paper. It is not possible, perhaps, that so tragical a death should overtake a person actually engaged in prayer, for her escape seems almost a miracle. Her presence of mind, by which she was enabled, without calling for help or waiting for it, to gather up her clothes and plunge them, burning as they were, in water, seems as wonderful a part of the occurrence as any. The very report of fire, though distant, has rendered hundreds torpid and incapable of self-succor; how much more was such a disability to be expected, when the fire had not seized a neighbor's house, or begun its devastations on our own, but was actually consuming the apparel that she wore, and seemed in possession of her

person.

It draws toward supper-time. I therefore heartily wish you a good night; and, with our best affections to yourself, Mrs. Newton, and Miss Catlett, I remain, my dear friend, truly and warmly yours,

W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, Jan. 30, 1788. My dearest Coz.,—It is a fortnight since I heard from you, that is to say, a week longer than you have accustomed me to wait for a letter. I do not forget that you have recommended it to me, on occasions somewhat similar, to banish all anxiety, and to ascribe your silence only to the interruptions of company. Good advice, my dear, but not easily taken by a man circumstanced as I

am. I have lear, ed in the school of adver sity, a school from which I have no expecta tion that I shall ever be dismissed, to appre bend the worst, and have ever found it the only course in which I can indulge myself without the least danger of incurring a dis appointment. This kind of experience, continued through many years, has given me such an habitual bias to the gloomy side of everything, that I never have a moment's ease on any subject to which I am not indifferent. How then can I be easy when I am left afloat upon a sea of endless conjectures, of which you furnish the occasion. Write, I beseech you, and do not forget that I am now a battered actor upon this turbulent stage; that what little vigor of mind I ever had, of the self-supporting kind I mean, has long since been broken; and that, though I can bear nothing well, yet anything better than a state of ignorance concerning your welfare. I have spent hours in the night leaning upon my elbow, and wondering what your silence means. I entreat you once more to put an end to these speculations, which cost me more animal spirits than I can spare; if you cannot, without great trouble to yourself, which in your situation may very possibly be the case, contrive opportunities of writing so frequently as usual, only say it, and I am content. I will wait, if you desire it, as long for every letter, but then let them arrive at the period once fixed, exactly at the time, for my patience will not hold out an hour beyond it.* W. C.

TO LADY HESKETH. The Lodge, Feb 1, 1788. Pardon me, my dearest cousin, the mournful ditty that I sent you last. There are times when I see everything through a medium that distresses me to an insupportable degree, and that letter was written in one of them. A fog that had for three days obliterated all the beauties of Weston, and a north-east wind, might possibly contribute not a little to the melancholy that indited it. But my mind is now easy; your letter has made it so, and I feel myself as blithe as a bird in comparison. I love you, my cousin, and cannot suspect, either with or without cause, the least evil in which you may be concerned, without being greatly troubled! Oh, trouble! The portion of all mortalsbut mine in particular; would I had never known thee, or could bid thee farewell forever; for I meet thee at every turn: my pillows are stuffed with thee, my very roses smell of thee, and even my cousin, who

*This letter proves how much the sensitive mind of Cowper was liable to be ruffled by external incidents Life presents too many real sources of anxiety, to Justify

us in adding those which are imaginary and of our own creation.

would come ae of all trouble if she could, is sometimes innocently the cause of trouble

to me.

I now see the unreasonableness of my late trouble, and would, if I could trust myself so far, promise never again to trouble either myself or you in the same manner, unless warranted by some more substantial ground of apprehension.

What I said concerning Homer, my dear, was spoken, or rather written, merely under the influence of a certain jocularity that I felt at that moment. I am in reality so far from thinking myself an ass, and my translation a sand-cart, that I rather seem, in my own account of the matter, one of those flaming steeds harnessed to the chariot of Apollo, of which we read in the works of the ancients. I have lately, I know not how, acquired a certain superiority to myself in this business, and in this last revisal have elevated the expression to a degree far surpassing its former boast. A few evenings since, I had an opportunity to try how far I might venture to expect such success of my labors as can alone repay them, by reading the first book of my Iliad to a friend of ours. He dined with you once at Olney. His name is Greatheed, a man of letters and of taste. He dined with us, and, the evening proving dark and dirty, we persuaded him to take a bed. I entertained him as I tell you. He heard me with great attention, and with evident symptoms of the highest satisfaction, which, when I had finished the exhibition, he put out of all doubt by expressions which I cannot repeat. Only this he said to Mrs. Unwin, while I was in another room, that he had never entered into the spirit of Homer before, nor had anything like a due conception of his manner. This I have said, knowing that it will please you, and will now say

no more.

Adieu! my dear, will you never speak of coming to Weston more? W. C.

Mrs. King, to whom the following letter is addressed, was the wife of Mr. King, Rector of Perten Hall, near Kimbolton, and a connexion of the late Professor Martyn, well known for his botanical researches. The perusal of Cowper's Poems had been the means of conveying impressions of piety to her mind; and it was to record her grattude, and to cultivate his acquaintance, that she wrote a letter, to which this is the reply.

T MRS. ING, PERTEN HALL, NEAR KIMBOL* TON, HUNTS.* Weston Lodge, Feb. 12, 1788. Pes Madam,-A letter from a lady who was once intimate with my brother could not Private correspondence.

fail of being most acceptable to me. I lost him just in the moment when those truths which have recommended my volumes to your approbation were become his daily sus tenance, as they had long been mine. But the will of God was done. I have sometimes thought that had his life been spared, being made brothers by a stricter tie than ever in the bonds of the same faith, hope, and love, we should have been happier in each other than it was in the power of mere natural affection to make us. But it was his blessing to be taken from a world in which he had no longer any wish to continue, and it will be mine, if, while I dwell in it, my time may not be altogether wasted. In order to effect that good end, I wrote what I am happy to find it has given you pleasure to read. But for that pleasure, madam, you are indebted neither to me, nor to my Muse; but (as you are well aware) to Him who alone can make divine truths palatable, in whatever vehicle conveyed. It is an established philosophical axiom, that nothing can communicate what it has not in itself; but, in the effects of Christian communion, a very strong exception is found to this general rule, however self-evident it may seem. A man himself destitute of all spiritual consolation may, by occasion, impart it to others. Thus I, it seems, who wrote those very poems to amuse a mind oppressed with melancholy, and who have myself derived from them no other benefit (for mere success in authorship will do me no good), have, nevertheless, by so doing, comforted others, at the same time that they administer to me no consolation. But I will proceed no farther in this strain, lest my prose should damp a pleasure that my verse has happily excited. On the contrary, I will endeavor to rejoice in your joy, and especially because I have been myself the instrument of conveying it.

Since the receipt of your obliging letter, 1 have naturally had recourse to my recollection, to try if it would furnish me with the name that I find at the bottom of it. At the same time I am aware that there is nothing more probable than that my brother might be honored with your friendship without mentioning it to me; for, except a very short period before his death, we lived necessarily at a considerable distance from each other. Ascribe it, madam, not to an impertinent curiosity, but to a desire of better acquaintance with you, if I take the liberty to ack (since ladies' names, at least, are changeable) whether yours was at that time the same

as now.

Sincerely wishing you all happiness, and especially that which I am sure you covet most, the happiness which is from above, I remain, dear madam-early as it may seem to say it, Affectionately vours. W. C.

TO SAMUEL. ROSE, ESQ.

The Lodge, Feb. 14, 1788. Dear Sir, Though it be long since I received your last, I have not yet forgotten the impression it made upon me, nor how sensibly I felt myself obliged by your unreserved and friendly communications. I will not apologize for my silence in the interim, because, apprized as you are of my present occupation, the excuse that I might allege will present itself to you of course, and to dilate upon it would therefore be waste of paper.

You are in possession of the best security imaginable for the due improvement of your time, which is a just sense of its value. Had I been, when at your age, as much affected by that important consideration as I am at present, I should not have devoted, as I did, all the earliest parts of my life to amusement only. I am now in the predicament into which the thoughtlessness of youth betrays nine-tenths of mankind, who never discover that the health and good spirits which generally accompany it are, in reality, blessings only according to the use we make of them, till adadvanced years begin to threaten them with the loss of both. How much wiser would thousands have been than now they ever will be, had a puny constitution, or some occasional infirmity, constrained them to devote those hours to study and reflection, which for want of some such check they had given entirely to dissipation! I, therefore, account you happy, who, young as you are, need not be informed that you cannot always be so, and who already know that the materials upon which age can alone build its comfort should be brought together at an earlier period. You have, indeed, in losing a father, lost a friend, but you have not lost his instructions. His example was not buried with him, but happily for you (happily because you are desirous to avail yourself of it), still lives in your remembrance, and is cherished in your

best affections.

Your last letter was dated from the house of a gentleman who was, I believe, my schoolfellow. For the Mr. C, who lived at Watford, while I had any connexion with Hertfordshire, must have been the father of the present, and, according to his age and the state of his health when I saw him last, must have been long dead. I never was acquainted with the family further than by report, which always spoke honorably of them, though, in all my journeys to and from my father's, I must have passed the door. The circumstance, however, reminds me of the beautiful reflection of Glaucus in the sixth Iliad; beautiful as well for the affecting nature of the observation as for the justness of the comparison and the incomparable simplicity of the expression. I feel that I shall not be satisfied without transcribing it, and

yet perhaps my Greek may be difficult te decipher.

Οιη περ φύλλων γενεη, τοιηδε και ανδρων.
Φυλλα τα μεν -' ανεμος χαμάδις χεει, αλλα δε θ' υλη
Τηλεθύωσι φύει, εαρις ¿ επιγίγνεται ώρη.
Ως ανδρων γενεη, η μεν ψυει, η δ' απολήγει, *

Excuse this piece of pedantry in a man whose Homer is always before him! What would I give that he were living now, and within my reach! I, of all men living, have the best excuse for indulging such a wish, unreasonable as it may seem; for I have no doubt that the fire of his eye, and the smile of his lips would put me now and then in possession of his full meaning more effectually than any commentator. I return you many thanks for the elegies which you sent me, both which I think deserving of much commendation. I should requite you but ill by sending you my mortuary verses, neither at present can I prevail on myself to do it, having no frank, and being conscious that they are not worth carriage without one. I have one copy left, and that copy I will keep for you. W. C.

excited by the slave trade-that nefarious The public mind was, at this time, greatıy House of Lords, by Bishop Horsley, as “the system, which was once characterized in the greatest moral pestilence that ever withered the happiness of mankind." The honor of inthe interest of humanity and justice were so troducing this momentous question, in which deeply involved, was reserved for William Wilberforce, Esq. How he executed that task, is too well known to require either detail or panegyric. The final abolition of the slave trade was an era in the history of Great Britain, never to be forgotten; and the subsequent legislative enactments for wanting, in this noble triumph of national abolishing slavery itself completed what was

benevolence.

The following letter alludes to this inter esting subject.

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, Feb. 16, 1788. I have now three letters of yours, my dear est cousin, before me, all written in the space of a week; and must be indeed insensible of kindness did I not feel yours on this occasion I cannot describe to you, neither could you comprehend it if I should, the manner in which

We insert Pope's translation, as being the ros familiar to the reader.

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay,
So flourish these, when those have pass'd away."
Pope's Version.

my mind is sometimes impressed with melancholy on particular subjects. Your late silence was such a subject. I heard, saw, and felt, a thousand terrible things, which had no real existence, and was haunted by them night and day, till they at last extorted from me the doleful epistle which I have since wished had been burned before I sent it. But the cloud has passed, and, as far as you are concerned, my heart is once more at rest.

Before you gave me the hint, I had once or twice, as I lay on my bed, watching the break of day, ruminated on the subject which, in your last but one, you recommend to me. Slavery, or a release from slavery, such as the poor negroes have endured, or perhaps both these topics together, appeared to me a theme so important at the present juncture, and at the same time so susceptible of poetical management, that I more than once perceived myself ready to start in that career, could I have allowed myself to desert Homer for so long a time as it would have cost me to do them justice.

While I was pondering these things, the public prints informed me that Miss More was on the point of publication, having actually finished what I had not yet begun.*

The sight of her advertisement convinced me that my best course would be that to which I felt myself most inclined, to persevere without turning aside to attend to any other call, however alluring, in the business I

have in hand.

It occurred to me likewise, that I have already bone my testimony in favor of my black brethren, and that I was one of the earliest, if not the first, of those, who have in the present day expressed their detestation of the diabolical traffic in question.t

*For the gratification of those who are not in possession of this poem, we insert the following extract:"Whene'er to Afric's shores I turn my eyes, Horrors of deepest, deadliest guilt arise; I see, by more than Fancy's mirror shown, The burning village and the blazing town: See the dire victim torn from social life, The shrieking babe, the agonizing wife;

By felon hands, by one relentless stroke, See the fond links of feeling nature broke! The fibres twisting round a parent's heart Torn from their grasp, and bleeding as they part." We add one more passage, as it contains an animated ppeal against the injustice of this nefarious traffic. What wrongs, what injuries does Oppression plead, To smooth the crime, and sanctify the deed? What strange offence, what aggravated sin? They stand convicted--of a darker skin! Barbarians, huld! the opprobrious commerce spare, Respect His sacred image which they bear. Though dark and savage, ignorant and blind, They claim the common privilege of kind; Let malice strip them of each other plea, They still are men, and men should still be free."

See Miss More's Poem, entitled The Slave Trade. With respect to the claim of priority, or who first denounced the injustice and horrors of slavery, we believe the following is a correct historical narrative on this important subject.

The celebrated De Las Casas (born at Seville in 1474, and who accompanied Columbus in his voyage in 1493)

On all these accounts I judged it best to be silent, and especially because I cannot doubt that some effectual measure will now be taken to alleviate the miseries of their condition, the whole nation being in possession of the case, and it being impossible also to allege an argument in behalf of man-merchandise that can deserve a hearing. I should be glad to see Hannah More's poem; she is a favorite writer with me, and has more nerve and energy both in her thoughts and language than half the he-rhymers in the kingdom. The "Thoughts on the Manners of the Great" will likewise be most acceptable. I want to learn as much of the world as I can, but to acquire that learning at a distance; and a book with such a title promises fair to serve the purpose effectually.

I recommend it to you, my dear, by all means to embrace the fair occasion, and to put yourself in the way of being squeezed and incommoded a few hours, for the sake of hearing and seeing what you will never have an opportunity to see and hear hereafter, the trial of a man who has been greater and more feared than the great Mogul himself. Whatever we are at home, we have certainly been tyrants in the East, and if these men have, as they are charged, rioted in the miseries of the Innocent, and dealt death to the guiltless, with an unsparing hand, may they receive a retribution that shall in future make all governors and judges of ours, in those distant regions, tremble. While I speak thus, I equally wish them acquitted. They were both my school-fellows, and for Hast ings I had a particular value. Farewell.* W. C. was so deeply impressed with the cruelties and oppressions of slavery, that he returned to Europe, and pleaded the cause of humanity before the Emperor Charles V. This prince was so far moved by his representations as to pass royal ordinances to mitigate the evil; but his intentions were unhappily defeated. The Rev. Morgan Godwyn, a Welshman, is the next in order. About the middle of the last century, John Woolman and Anthony Benezet, belonging to the society of Friends, endeavored to rouse the public attention. In 1754, the Society itself took up the cause with so much zeal and success, that there is not at this day a single slave in the possession of any acknowledged Quaker in Pennsylvania. In 1776, Granville Sharp addressed to the British public his "Just Limitation of Slavery," his "Essay on Slavery," and his "Law of Retribution, or a Serious Warning to Great Britain and her Colonies." The poet Shenstone also wrote an elegy on the subject, beginning:

"See the poor native quit the Lybian shores," &c. &c. Ramsey and Clarkson bring down the list to the time of Cowper, whose indignant muse in 1782 poured forth his detestation of this traffic in his poem on Charity, an extract of which we shall shortly lay before the reader. The distinguished honor was, however, reserved for Thomas Clarkson, to be the instrument of first engaging the zeal and eloquence of Mr. Wilberforce in the grea cause of the abolition of the Slave Trade. The per severing exertions of Mr. Fowell Buxton and those of the Anti-slavery Society achieved the final triumph, and led to the great legislative enactment which abolished slavery itself in the British colonies; and nothing now remains but to associate France, the Brazils, and America, in the noble enterprise of proclaiming the blessings of liberty to five remaining millions of this degraded race. *The trial of Warren Hastings excited universal inter est, from the official rank of the accused, as Governor

TO LADY HESKETH.

The Lodge, Feb. 22, 1788.

I do not wonder that your ears and feelings were hurt by Mr. Burke's severe invective. But you are to know, my dear, or probably you know it already, that the prosecution of public delinquents has always, and in all countries, been thus conducted. The style of a criminal charge of this kind has been an affair settled among orators from the days of Tully to the present, and, like all other practices that have obtained for ages, this in ticular seems to have been founded originally in reason and in the necessity of the case.

He who accuses another to the state must not appear himself unmoved by the view of crimes with which he charges him, lest he should be suspected of fiction, or of precipitancy, or of a consciousness that after all he shall not be able to prove his allegations. On the contrary, in order to impress the minds of his hearers with a persuasion that he himself at least is convinced of the criminality of the prisoner, he must be vehement, energetic, rapid; must call him tyrant, and traitor, and everything else that is odious, and all this to his face, because all this, bad as it is, is no more than he undertakes to prove in the sequel, and if he cannot prove it he must himself appear in a light very little more desirable, and at the best to have trifled with the tribunal to which he has summoned him.

Thus Tully, in the very first sentence of his oration against Catiline, calls him a monster; a manner of address in which he persisted till said monster, unable to support the fury of his accuser's eloquence any longer, rose from his seat, elbowed for himself a passage through the crowd, and at last burst from the senate house in an agony, as if the Furies themselves had followed him.

And now, my dear, though I have thus spoken, and have seemed to plead the cause of that species of eloquence which you, and every creature who has your sentiments, must necessarily dislike, perhaps I am not altogether convinced of its propriety. Perhaps, at the bottom, I am much more of opinion, that if the charge, unaccompanied by any in

General of India, the number and magnitude of the articles of impeachment, the splendor of the scene, (which was in Westminster Hall,) and the impassioned eloquence of Mr. Burke, who conducted the prosecution. The proceedings were protracted for nine successive years, when Mr. Hastings was finally acquitted. He is said to have incurred an expense of £30,000 on this occasion, a painful proof of the costly character and delays of British jurisprudence. Some of the highest specimens of eloquence that ever adorned any age or country were delivered during this trial; among which ought to be specified the address of the celebrated Mr. Sheridan, who captivated the attention of the assembly in a speech of three hours and a half, distinguished by all the graces and powers of the most finished oratory. At the close of this speech, Mr. Pitt rose and proposed an adjournment, observing that they were then too much under the Influence of the wand of the enchanter to be capable of exercising the functions of a sound and deliberate judg

ment.

otherwise.

I was glad to learn from the papers that our cousin Henry shone as he did in reading the charge. This must have given much pleasure to the General.*

Thy ever affectionate

W.C

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.† Weston, March 1, 1788. My dear Friend, That my letters may not be exactly an echo to those which I receive, I seldom read a letter immediately before I answer it; trusting to my memory to suggest to me such of its contents as may call for particular notice. Thus I dealt with your last, which lay in my desk, while I was writing to you. But my memory, or rather my recollection failed me, in that instance. I had not forgotten Mr. Bean's letter, nor my bligations to you for the communication of it; but they did not happen to present themselves to me in the proper moment, nor till some hours after my own had been despatchel. I now return it, with many thanks for so favorable a specimen of its author. That he is a good man, and a wise man, its testimory proves sufficiently; and I doubt not, that when he shall speak for himself he will be found an agreeable one. For it is possible to be very good, and in many respects very wise; yet at the same time not the most delightful companion. Excuse the shortness of an occasions scratch, which I send in such haste; anc believe me, my dear friend, with our united love to yourself and Mrs. Newton, of whose health we hope to hear a more favorable account as the year rises,

Your truly affectionate

W. C.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON †
Weston Lodge, March 3 1788.‡

9

My dear Friend,--I had not, as yo may *The poet addressed some complimentary WS OF this occasion to Mr. Henry Cowper, beginning t 18:-"Cowper, whose silver voice, tasked sometimes h Henry Cowper, Esq., was reading clerk in the Lords.

† Private correspondence.

The date having been probably written on t steer