interesting specimens, and says, with great truth, that Cowper's letters are rivals to his poems in the rare excellence of representing life and nature with graceful and endearing fidelity." In explaining the nature of his situation to lady Hesketh, who came to reside at Olney in the month of June 1786, be informs her, that he had lived twenty years with Mrs. Unwin, to whose affectionate care it was owing that he lived at all, but that for thirteen of those years he had been in a state of mind which made all her care and attention necessary. He informs her at the same time that dejection of spirits, which may have prevented many a man from becoming an author, made him one. He found employment necessary, and therefore took care to be constantly employed. Manual occupations do not engage the mind sufficiently, as he knew by experience, having tried many. But composition, especially of verse, absorbs it wholly. It was his practice, therefore, to write generally three hours in a morning, and in an evening he transcribed. He read also, but less than he wrote, for bodily exercise was necessary, and he never passed a day without it. All this shows that Cowper understood his own case most exactly, and that he was not one of those melancholics who are said to give way to their disorder. No man could have discussed the subject with more perspicuity, or treated himself with more judgment. The returns of his malady, therefore, appear to have been wholly unavoidable, and wholly independent of his employment, whether of a religious or literary kind.

In October 1785, he had reached the twentieth book of his translation of Homer, although probably no part was finished as he could have wished. His stated number was forty lines each day, with transcription and revision. His immediate object was to publish the Homer by subscription, in order to add something to his income, which appears to have been always scanty, and in this resolution he persisted, notwithstanding offers from his liberal bookseller far more advantageous than a subscription was then likely to have produced. He seems to have felt a certain degree of pleasure, not wholly unmixed, in watching the progress of his subscription, and the gradual accession of names known to the learned world, or dear to himself by past recollections.

During the composition of this work, he at first declined what he had done before, shewing specimens to his friends, and on this subject, indeed, his opinion seems to have undergone a complete change. To his friend Mr. Unwin, who informed him that a gentleman wanted a sample, he says with some humour, "When I deal in wine, cloth, or cheese, I will give samples, but of verse, never. No consideration would have induced me to comply with the gentleman's demand, unless he could have assured me that his wife had longed." From this resolution he afterwards departed in a variety of instances. He first sent a specimeu, with the proposals, to his relation general Cowper: it consisted of one hundred and seven lines, taken from the interview between Priam and Achilles in the last book. This specimen fell into the hands of Mr. Fuseli, the celebrated painter, whose critical knowledge of Homer is universally acknowledged and Cowper likewise agreed that if Mr. Maty, who then published a Review, wished to see a book of Homer, he should be welcome; and the first book and a part of the second were accordingly sent. Mr. Fuseli afterwards was permitted

3 There is some confusion in the account of this matter in Cowper's Letters. It would appear that a specimen was printed before Maty saw this manuscript, and the severity of his remarks is insinuated to have arisen from this circumstance. Hayley's Cowper, vol. ii. p. 391.

*

to revise the whole of the manuscript, and how well Cowper was satisfied in falling in with such a critic, appears (among other proofs of his high esteem) from the short character he gives of him in one of his letters. "For his knowledge of Homer, he has, I verily believe, no fellow." Colman, likewise, his old companion, with whom he had renewed an epistolary intimacy, revised some parts in a manner which afforded the author much satisfaction, and appears to have corrected the sheets for the press. With Maty he was less pleased, as his criticisms appeared “ unjust and in part illiberal.” While thus intent on his Homer, he was enabled, by the kindness of lady Hesketh, to remove in November 1796, from Olney to Weston, about two miles distant, where the house provided for him was more sequestered and commodious. Here too he had access to the society of Mr. Throckmorton, a gentleman of fortune in that neighbourhood, whose family had for some time studied to add to his comforts in a manner the most delicate and affectionate. It is, indeed, not easy to speak of the conduct of Cowper's friends in terms adequate to their merit, their kindness, sensibility and judgment. Their attentions exceeded much of what we read, and perhaps all that we commonly meet with under the name of friendship. In the midst of these fair prospects, however, he lost his steady and beloved friend Mr. Unwin, who died in December of this year.

The translation of Homer, after innumerable interruptions, was sent to press about November 1790, and published on the first of July 1791, in two quarto volumes, the Iliad being inscribed to earl Cowper, his young kinsman, and the Odyssey to the dowager lady Spencer. Such was its success with the subscribers and non-subscribers that the edition was nearly out of print in less than six months. Yet after all the labour he had employed, and all the anxiety he felt for this work, it fell so short of the expectation formed by the public, and of the perfection which he hoped he had attained, that instead of a second edition, he began, at no long distance of time, what may be termed a new translation. To himself, however, his first attempt had been of great advantage, nor were any number of his years spent in more general tranquillity, than the five which he had dedicated to Homer.

One of the greatest benefits he derived from his attention to this translation, was the renewed conviction that labour of this kind, although with intermissions sometimes of relaxation and sometimes of anxiety, was necessary to his health and happiness; and this conviction led him very soon to accede to a proposal made by his bookseller, to undertake a magnificent edition of Milton's poetical works, the beauties of which had engaged his wonder at a very early period of life. These he was now to illustrate by notes, original and selected, and to translate the Latin and Italian poems, while Mr. Fuseli was to paint a series of pictures to be engraven by the first artists. To this scheme, when yet in its infancy, the public is indebted for the friendship which Mr. Hayley contracted with Cowper, and one of its happiest consequences, such a specimen of biography, minute, elegant and highly instructive, as can seldom be expected. Mr. Hayley about this time had written a life of Milton to accompany the splendid edition published by Messrs. Boydells: and having been represented, in a newspaper, as the rival of Cowper, he immediately wrote to him on the subject. Cowper answered him in such a manner as drew on a closer correspondence, which soon terminated in mutual esteem and cordial friendship. Personal interviews followed, and Mr, Hayley has gratified his readers with a very interesting account of his first visit to Wes

ton, and of the return by Cowper and Mrs. Unwin at his seat Eartham, in Sussex, but in a style so peculiarly affectionate as to be wholly incapable of abridgment. On Cowper's journey to Eartham, he passed through London, but without stopping, the only time he had seen it for nearly thirty years; thirty such years! What his feelings were on this occasion, who would not wish to be informed?

The edition of Milton went on but slowly. A revisal of Homer presented itself in the mean time, as a more urgent as well as pleasing undertaking, and from 1792 we find our author employed in correcting, re-writing and adding notes. In 1793 he appears to have been solely occupied in these labours, and wished to engage Mr. Hayley with him in a regular and complete revisal of his Homer. Mr. Hayley, with every inclination for an office so agreeable, and a partnership so honourable, still imagined that at this time he might render more essential service to the poet by an application to his more powerful friends. This delicate office was undertaken in consequence of what he had observed in Cowper on a late visit to Weston. "He possessed completely at this period," says his biographer, "all the admirable faculties of his mind, and all the native tenderness of his heart; but there was something indescribable in his appearance, which led me to apprehend, that without some signal event in his favour, to re-animate his spirits, they would gradually sink into hopeless dejection. The state of his aged and infirm companion (Mrs. Unwin) afforded additional ground for increasing solicitude. Her cheerful and beneficent spirit could hardly resist her own accumulated maladies, so far as to preserve ability sufficient to watch over the tender health of him, whom she had watched and guarded so long. Imbecility of body and mind must gradually render this tender and heroic woman unfit for the charge which she had so laudably sustained. The signs of such imbecility were beginning to be painfully visible: nor can nature present a spectacle more truly pitiable than imbecility in such a shape eagerly grasping for dominion, which it knows neither how to retain, or how to relinquish." For some time, however, the fears of Mr. Cowper's affectionate friend, appeared to be groundless. His correspondence after the departure of Mr. Hayley, in November 1793, bespoke a mind considerably at ease, and even cheerful and active. From various circumstances, the scheme of publishing an edition of Milton appears to have been totally relinquished, and as his enthusiasm for this undertaking had abated, he expresses considerable satisfaction that he could devote the whole of his time to the improvement of his translation of Homer. A new scheme, more suitable to his original talents, had been suggested in 1791, by the rev. Mr. Buchanan, curate of Ravenstone, a man of worth and genius. This was a poem to be entitled The Four Ages, or the four distinct periods of Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Old Age. For some time our poet meditated with great satisfaction on this design, and probably revolved many of the subordinate subjects in his mind. It seems to have been particularly calculated for his powers of reflection, his knowledge of the human heart, and his exquisite talent for depicting life and manners, and it was intended likewise to unite the fascinations of the graphic art. Mr. Hayley has published a fragment of this work, imperfect as the author left it, but more than enough to make us regret that his situation and the situation of his aged companion soon forbade all hopes of its being executed 6.

Mr. Hayley mentions two modern poems on The Four Ages of Man, the one by M. Warthmuller, a citizen of Zurich, and another by M. Zacharie, professor of poetry at Brunswick. To these I may