preserved in this season of trial, that, instead of mourning the loss 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 away from the inanimate object of his filial attachment, he appeared to have no memory of her having existed, for he never asked a question concerning her funeral, nor ever mentioned her name. Towards the summer of 1797, his bodily health appeared to improve, but not to such a degree as to restore any comfortable activity to his mind. In June he wrote a brief letter to Hayley, but such as too forcibly expressed the cruelty of his distemper. The process of digestion never passed regularly in his frame during the years that he resided in Norfolk. Medicine appeared to have little or no influence on his complaint, and his aversion at the sight of it was exCreme. From asses' milk, of which he began a course on the twenty-first of June in this year, he gained a considerable acquisition of bodily strength, and was enabled to bear an airing in an open carriage, before breakfast, with Mr. Johnson. A depression of mind, which suspended the studies of a writer so eminently endeared to the public, was considered by men of piety and learning as a national misfortune, and several individuals of this description, though personally unknown to Cowper, wrote to him in the benevolent hope that expressions of friendly praise, from persons who could be influenced only by the most laudable motives in bestowing it, might re-animate his dejected spirit. Among these might be enumerated Dr. Watson, the Bishop of Llandaff, who kindly addressed him in the language of encouragement and of soothing consolation; but the pressure of his malady had now made him utterly deaf to the most honorable praise. He had long discontinued the revisal of his Homer, when his kinsman, dreading the effect of the cessation of bodily exercise upon his mind during a long winter, resolved, if possible, to engage him in the revisal of this work. One morning, therefore, after breakfast, in the month of September, he placed the Commentators on the table, one by one; namely, Villoison, Barnes, and Clarke, opening them all, together with the poet's translation, at the place where he had left off a twelvemonth before, but talking with him, as he paced the room, upon a very different subject, namely, the impossibility of the things befalling him which his imagination had represented when, as his companion had wished, he said to him, "And are you sure that I shall be here till the book you are reading is finished?" "Quite sure," replied his kins man," and that you will also be here to com plete the revisal of your Homer," pointing to the books, "if you will resume it to day." As he repeated these words he left the room, rejoicing in the well-known token of their having sunk into the poet's mind, namely, his seating himself on the sofa, taking up one of the books, and saying in a low and plaintive voice, "I may as well do this, for I can do nothing else."* In this labor he persevered, oppressed as he was by indisposition, till March 1799. On Friday evening, the eighth of that month, he completed his revisal of the Odyssey, and the next morning wrote part of a new preface. To watch over the disordered health of afflicted genius, and to lead a powerful, but oppressed, spirit by gentle encouragement, to exert itself in salutary occupation, is an office that requires a very rare union of tenderness, intelligence, and fortitude. To contemplate and minister to a great mind, in a state that borders on mental desolation, is like surveying, in the midst of a desert, the tottering ruins of palaces and temples, where the faculties of the spectator are almost absorbed in wonder and regret, and where every step is taken with awful apprehension. Hayley, in alluding to Dr. Johnson's kind and affectionate offices, at this period, bears the following honorable testimony to his merits, which we are happy in transcribing. "It seemed as if Providence had expressly formed the young kinsman of Cowper to prove exactly such a guardian of his declining years as the peculiar exigencies of his situation required. I never saw the human being that could, I think, have sustained the delicate and arduous office (in which the inexhaustible virtues of Mr. Johnson persevered to the last) through a period so long, with an equal portion of unwearied tenderness and unshaken fidelity. A man who wanted sensibility would have renounced the duty; and a man endowed with a particle too much of that valuable, though perilous. quality, must have felt his own health utterly undermined, by an excess of sympathy with the sufferings perpetually in his sight. Mr. Johnson has completely discharged, perhaps, the most trying of human duties; and I trust he will forgive me for this public declaration. that, in his mode of discharging it, he has merited the most cordial esteem from all who love the memory of Cowper. Even a stranger may consider it as a strong proof of his tender dexterity in soothing and guiding the afflicted poet, that he was able to engage him steadily to pursue and finish the revisal and correction of his Homer, during a long period of bodily and mental sufferings, when his troubled mind recoiled from all intercourse * Sketch of the Life of Cowper. with his most intimate friends, and labored under a morbid abhorrence of all cheerful exertion." In the summer of 1798, his kinsman was induced to vary his plan of remaining for some months in the marine village of Mundsley, and thought it more eligible to make frequent visits from Dereham to the coast, passing a week at a time by the sea-side. Cowper, in his poem on "Retirement," seems to inform us what his own sentiments were, in a season of health, concerning the regimen most proper for the disease of melancholy. Virtuous and faithful Heberden, whose skill The frequent change of place, and the magnificence of marine scenery, produced at times a little relief to his depressed spirits. On the 7th of June 1798, he surveyed the light-house at Happisburgh, and expressed some pleasure on beholding, through a telescope, several ships at a distance. Yet, in his usual walk with his companion by the sca-side, he exemplified but too forcibly his own affecting description of melancholy silence: That silent tongue On the twenty-fourth of July, Cowper had the honor of a visit from a lady, for whom he had long entertained affectionate respect,, the Dowager Lady Spencer-and it was rather remarkable, that on the very morning she called upon him he had begun his revisal of the Odyssey, which was originally inscribed to her. Such an incident in a happier season would have produced a very enlivening effect on his spirits: but, in his present state, it had not even the power to lead him into any free conversation with his distinguished visitor. tle degree, for he exerted himself so far a to write the following letter, without solicitation, to Lady Hesketh. Dear Cousin,-You describe delightfu scenes, but you describe them to one, who if he even saw them, could receive no de light from them: who has a faint recollec tion, and so faint, as to be like an almost forgotten dream, that once he was susceptible of pleasure from such causes. The country that you have had in prospect has been always famed for its beauties; but the wretch who can derive no gratification from a view of nature, even under the disadvantage of her most ordinary dress, will have no eyes to admire her in any. In one day, in one minute, I should rather have said, she became an universal blank to me, and though from a different cause, yet with an effect as difficult to remove as blind ness itself. Mundsley, Oct. 13, 1798. On his return from Mundsley to Dereham, in an evening towards the end of October, Cowper, with Miss Perowne and Mr. Johnson, was overturned in a post-chaise: he discovered no terror on the occasion, and escaped without injury from the accident. In December he received a visit from his highly esteemed friend, Sir John Throckmorton, but his malady was at that time so oppressive that it rendered him almost insensible to the kind solicitude of friendship. He still continued to exercise the powers of his astonishing mind: upon his finishing the revisal of his Homer, in March, 1799, his kinsman endeavored in the gentlest manner to lead him into new literary occupation. For this purpose, on the eleventh of March he laid before him the paper containing the commencement of his poem on "The Four Ages." Cowper altered a few lines; he also added a few, but soon observed to his kind attendant-" that it was too great a work for him to attempt in his present situation." At supper Mr. Johnson suggested to him several literary projects that he might execute more easily. He replied—“ that he had just thought of six Latin verses, and if he could compose anything it must be in pursuing that composition." The next morning he wrote the six verses he had mentioned, and subsequently added the remainder, entitling the poem, "Montes Glaciales." The only amusement that he appeared to admit without reluctance was the reading of his kinsman, who, indefatigable in the supply of such amusement, had exhausted a successive series of works of fiction, and at this period began reading to the poet his own works. To these he listened also in silence, and heard all his poems recited in order, till the reader arrived at the history of John Gilpin, which he begged not to hear. Mr. Johnson proceeded to his manuscript poems; to these he willingly listened, but made noting to notice it. This poem he translated into a single remark on any. English verse, on the nineteenth of March, to It proved a versification of a circumstance recorded in a newspaper, which had been read to him a few weeks before, without his appear In October, 1798, the pressure of his mel-oblige Miss Perowne. Both the original and ancholy seemed to be mitigated in some lit- the translation appear in the Poems. Some succor yet they could afford; And such as storms allow, The cask, the coop. the floated cord, Their haste himself condemn, Alone could rescue them; Could catch the sound no more. To these the glorious artist added next A varied dance, resembling that of old In Crete's broad isle, by Daedalus, compos'd For bright-hair'd Ariadne. There the youths And youth-alluring maidens, hand in hand, Danc'd jocund, ev'ry maiden neat attir'd In finest linen, and the youths in vests Well-woven, glossy as the glaze of oil. These all wore garlands, and bright falcions those Of burnish'd gold, in silver trappings hung;They, with well-tutor'd step, now nimbly ran The circle, swift, as when, before his wheel Seated, the potter twirls it with both hands For trial of its speed; now, crossing quick, They pass'd at once into each other's place. A circling crowd surveyed the lovely dance. Delighted; two, the leading pair, their heads On the very day that this endearing mark of his kindness reached Hayley, a dropsical appearance in his legs induced Mr. Johnson to have recourse to fresh medical assistance. Cowper was with great difficulty persuaded to take the remedies prescribed, and to try the exercise of a post-chaise, an exercise which he could not bear beyond the twentysecond of February. In March, when his decline became more and more visible, he was visited by Mr. Rose. He hardly expressed any pleasure on the arrival of a friend whom he had so long and so tenderly regarded, yet he showed evident signs of regret at his departure, on the sixth of April. The illness and impending death of his talented son precluded Hayley from sharing with Mr. Rose in these last marks of affectionate attention towards the man, whose genius and virtues they had once contemplated together with mutual veneration and delight; whose approaching dissolution they felt, not only as an irreparable loss to themselves, but as a national misfortune. On the nineteenth of April, Dr. Johnson remarks, the weakness of this truly pitiable sufferer had so much increased, that his kinsman apprehended his death to be near. Adverting, therefore, to the affliction, as well of body as of mind, which his beloved inmate was then enduring, he ventured to speak of his approaching dissolution as the signal of his deliverance from both these miseries. After a pause of a few moments, which was less interrupted by the objections of his desponding relative than he had dared to hope, he proceeded to an observation more consolatory still; namely, that, in the world to which he was hastening, a merciful Redeemer had prepared unspeakable happiness for all his children-and therefore for him. To the first part of this sentence, he had listened with composure, but the concluding words were no sooner uttered, than his passionately expressed entreaties, that his companion would desist from any further observations of a similar kind, clearly proved that, though it was on the eve of being invested with angelic light, the darkness of delusion still veiled his spirit.* On Sunday, the twentieth, he seemed a little revived. On Monday he appeared dying, but recovered so much as to eat a slight dinner. Tuesday and Wednesday he grew apparently weaker every hour. On Thursday he sat up as usual in the evening. Sketch of the Life of Cowper, by Dr. Johnson. In the course of the night, when exceed ingly exhausted, Miss Perowne offered him some refreshment. He rejected it with these words, the very last that he was heard to utter, "What can it signify?" Dr. Johnson closes the affecting account in the following words. "At five in the morning of Friday 25th, a deadly change in his features was observed to take place. He remained in an insensible state from that time till about five minutes before five in the afternoon, when he ceased to breathe. And in so mild and gentle a manner did his spirit take its flight, that though the writer of this Memoir, his medical attendant Mr. Woods, and three other persons, were standing at the foot and side of the bed, with their eyes fixed upon his dying countenance, the precise moment of his departure was unobserved by any." From this mournful period, till the features of his deceased friend were closed from his view, the expression which the kinsman of Cowper observed in them, and which he was affectionately delighted to suppose "an index of the last thoughts and enjoyments of his soul, in its gradual escape from the depths of despondence, was that of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise." He was buried in St. Edmund's Chapel, in the church of East Dereham, on Saturday, May 2nd, attended by several of his relations. He left a will, but without appointing his executor. The administration, therefore, of the little property he possessed devolved on his affectionate relative, Lady Hesketh; but not having been carried into effect by that Lady, the office, on her decease, was undertaken by his cousin german, Mrs. Bodham. Lady Hesketh raised a marble tablet to his memory, with the following inscription from the pen of Hayley: IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. BURIED IN THIS CHURCH, Ye, who with warmth the public triumph feel We have now conducted the endeared subject of this biography through the various scenes of his chequered and eventful life, till its last solemn termination; and it is impos sible that any other feelings can have been awakened than those of admiration for his genius, homage for his virtues, and profound sympathy for his sufferings. It was fully anticipated by his friends, that the hour of final liberation, at least, would have been cheered by that calm sense of the divine presence, which is the delightful foretaste of eternal rest and glory. Young beautifully observes: The chamber where the good man meets his fate Is privileged beyond the common walk Of virtuous life, quite on the verge of heaven. The Bible proclaims the same animating truth. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace!" The divine faithfulness is an ample security for the fulfilment of these declarations; but the promises of God, firm and unchangeable as they are in themselves, after all, can be realized only in a mind disposed for their reception; as the light cannot pass through a medium that is incapable of admitting it. Such, alas! is the influence of physical causes and of a morbid temperament on the inward perceptions of the soul, that it is possible to be a child of God, without a consciousness of the blessing, and to have a title to a crown, and yet feel to be immured in the depths of a dungeon. My share of duties decently fulfill'd, May some disease, not tardy to perform Its destined office, yet with gentle stroke, Dismiss me weary to a safe retreat, Beneath the turf that I have often trod.* God mercifully granted the best portion of his prayer, but saw fit to deny the rest. No conscious guilt or open transgression stained his life; his heart was the seat of every beneficent and kind affection. As an author, he was blessed with an honorable career of usefulness; the public voice conferred upon him the title to immortality, and succeeding times have ratified the claim. But if perception be necessary to enjoyment, he was not "peaceful in his end;" for he died without this conviction. He did not, like Elijah, ascend in a chariot of fire; it was his lot rather to realize the quaint remark of some of the old divines, "God sometimes puts his children to bed in the dark," that they may have nothing whereof to boast; that their salvation may appear to be more fully the result of his own free and unmerited mercy, and that in this, as in all things, he may be known to act as a sovereign, who "giveth no account of his matters." But the severest exercises of faith are always mingled with some gracious purpose; and God may perhaps see fit to appoint these dark dispensations, that the transition into eternity may be more glorious; and that the emancipated spirit, bursting the shackles of death and sin, and delivered from the bondage of its fears, may rise with a nobler triumph from the depths of humiliation into the very presence-chamber of its God. These remarks are so closely connected with the subject of Cowper's afflicting malady, that the time is now arrived when it is necessary to enter into a more detailed view of its nature and character; to trace its origin and progress, and to disengage this complicated question from that prejudice and misrepresentation which have so inveterately attached to it. At the same time, it is with profound reluctance that the Editor enters upon this painful theme, from a deep conviction that it does not form a proper subject for discussion, and that the veil of secrecy is never more suitably employed, than when it is thrown over infirmities which are too sacred to meet the gaze of public observation. This inquiry is now, however, no longer optional. Cowper himself has, unfortunately, suffered in the public estimation by the manner in which his earliest biographer, Hayley, has presented him before the public. Bv suppressing some very important letters, which tended to elucidate his real character, deeply affects its consistency: while, by attri an air of mystery has been imparted which buting what he could not sufficiently concea *The Task, book vi. Job xxxiii. 13. |