of Homer, and allowable in an Epic Poem, is rather luxuriant and licentious in a letter; lest I should add another, I conclude.

His affectionate effort in renewing his correspondence with Mrs. Cowper, to whom he had been accustomed to pour forth his heart without reserve, appears to have had a beneficial effect on his reviving spirits. This pathetic Letter was followed, in the course of two months, by a Letter of a more lively cast, in which the reader will find some touches of his native humour, and a vein of pleasantry peculiar to himself.

LETTER XXVI.

To Mrs. COWPER, Park-Street, Grosvenor-Square.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

July 20, 1780.

Mr. Newton having desired me to be

of the party, I am come to meet him. You see me sixteen years older, at the least, than when I saw you last; but the effects of time seem to have taken place rather on the outside of my head, than within it. What was brown is become grey, but what was foolish remains foolish still. Green fruit must rot before it ripens, if the season is such as to afford it nothing but cold winds and dark clouds, that interrupt every ray of sunshine. My days steal away silently, and march on (as poor mad King Lear would have made

his

his soldiers march,) as if they were shod with felt; not so silently but that I hear them, yet were it not that I am always listening to their flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I was much younger, I should deceive myself with an imagination that I am still young.

I am fond of writing, as an amusement, but I do not always find it one. Being rather scantily furnished with subjects, that are good for any thing, and corresponding only with those, who have no relish for such as are good for nothing; I often find myself reduced to the necessity, the disagreeable necessity, of writing about myself. This does not mend the matter much, for though in a description of my own condition, I discover abundant materials to employ my pen upon, yet as the task is not very agreeable to me, so I am sufficiently aware, that it is likely to prove irksome to others. A painter who should confine himself in the exercise of his art to the drawing of his own picture, must be a wonderful coxcomb if he did not soon grow sick of his occupation, and be peculiarly fortunate, if he did not make others as sick as himself.

Remote as your dwelling is from the late scene of riot and confusion, I hope that though you could not but hear the report, you heard no more, and that the roarings of the mad multitude did not reach you. That was a day of terror to the innocent, and the

VOL. I.

the present is a day of still greater terror to the guilty.

The law was for a few moments like an arrow in the quiver, seemed to be of no use, and did no execution, now it is an arrow upon the string, and many who despised it lately, are trembling as they stand before the point of it.

I have talked more already than I have formerly done in three visits, you remember my taciturnity, never to be forgotten by those who knew me; not to depart entirely from what might be for aught I know, the most shining part of my character, I here shut my mouth, make my bow, and return to Olney.

W: C.

The next is a little more serious than its predecessor, yet equally a proof that the affections of his heart, and the energy of his mind, were now happily restored,

LETTER XXVII.

To Mrs. COWPER, Park-Street, Grosvenor-Square,

August 31, 1780.

MY DEAR COUSIN,

I am obliged to you for your long

Letter, which did not seem so, and for your short one, which was more than I had any reason to expect. Short as it was, it conveyed to me two interesting articles of intelligence. An account of your recovering from a fever, and of Lady Cowper's death.

The

The latter was, I suppose, to be expected, for by what remembrance I have of her Ladyship, who was never much acquainted with her, she had reached those years, that are always found upon the borders of another world. As for you, your time of life is comparatively of a youthful date. You may think of Death as much as you please (you cannot think of it too much) but I hope you will live to think of it many years.

It costs me not much difficulty to suppose that my friends who were already grown old, when I saw them last, are old still, but it costs me a good deal sometimes to think of those who were at that time young, as being older than they were. Not having been an eye-witness of the change that time has made in them, and my former idea of them not being corrected by observation, it remains the same; my memory presents me with this image unimpaired, and while it retains the resemblance of what they were, forgets that by this time the picture may have lost much of its likeness, through the alteration that succeeding years have made in the original. I know not what impressions time may have made upon your person, for while his claws (as our Grannams called them) strike deep furrows in some faces, he seems to sheath them with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing injury to others. But though an enemy to the person, he is a friend to the mind, and you have found him Though even in this respect his treatment of us depends upon what he meets with at our hands; if we use him well, and listen

so.

to his admonitions, he is a friend indeed, but otherwise the worst of enemics, who takes from us daily something that we valued, and gives us nothing better in its stead. It is well with them, who like you can stand a tip-toe on the mountain-top of human life, look down with pleasure upon the valley they have passed, and sometimes stretch their wings in joyful hope of a happy flight into Eternity. Yet a little while, and your hope will be accomplished.

When you can favour me with a little account of your own family without inconvenience, I shall be glad to receive it, for though separated from my kindred by little more than half a century of miles, I know as little of their concerns as if oceans and continents were interposed between us.

Yours, my dear Cousin,

W. COWPER.

The following Letter to Mr. Hill contains a Poem already printed in the Works of Cowper; but the reader will probably be gratified in finding a little favourite piece of pleasantry introduced to him, as it was originally dispatched by the Author for the amusement of a friend.

LETTER XXVIII.

To JOSEPH HILL, Esqr.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

snow,

December 25, 1780.

Weary with rather a long walk in the

I am not likely to write a very sprightly Letter, or to produce

any