In January 1794, he informed his friend Mr. Rose", that he had just ability enough to transcribe, and that he wrote at that moment under the pressure of sadness not to be described. In the expressive language of his biographer," his health, his comfort, and his little fortune, were perishing most deplorably." Mrs. Unwin had passed into a state of second childhood, and something seemed wanting to cheer the mind of Cowper, if possible, against the prospect of decaying comforts and competence. Application was accordingly made to those who had it in their power to procure, what so much merit must have dignified, a pension; but many months elapsed before effectual attention could be obtained. What power refused, however, was in some degree performed by friendship; lady Hesketh, with her accustomed benevolence of character, and with an affection of which the instances are very rare, removed to Weston, aud became the tender nurse of the two drooping invalids, of Mrs. Unwin, who was declining by years and infirmities, and of Cowper, who, in April 1794, had relapsed into his worst state of mental inquietude.

At this time, in consequence of a humane and judicious letter from the rev. Mr.Greathead of Newport Pagnell, Mr. Hayley paid a visit to this house of mourning, but found his poor friend," too much overwhelmed by his oppressive malady to shew even the least glimmering of satisfaction at the appearance of a guest, whom he used to receive with the most lively expressions of affectionate delight." In this deplorable state he conti nued during Mr. Hayley's visit of some weeks, and the only circumstance which contributed in any degree to cheer the hearts of the friends who were now watching over him, was the intelligence that his majesty had been pleased to confer upon him such a pension as would insure an honourable competence for his life. Earl Spencer was the immediate agent in procuring this favour, and it would no doubt have added to its value, had the object of it known that he was indebted to one, who of all his noble friends, stood the highest in his esteem. But he was now, and for the remainder of his unhappy life, beyond the power of knowing or acknowledging the benevolence in which his heart delighted. Mr. Hayley left him for the last time, in the spring of 1794, and from that period till the latter end of July 1795, Cowper remained in a state of the deepest melancholy.

His removal from Weston now appeared to his friends a necessary experiment, to try what change of air and of objects might produce: and his young kinsman, the rev. Mr. Johnson, undertook to convey him and Mrs. Unwin from that place to North Tuddenham in Norfolk, where they arrived in the beginning of August 1795, and resided till the nineteenth. Of Cowper's state during this time, all that we are told is, that he exhibited some regret on leaving Weston, and some composure of mind during a conversation of which the poet Thomson was the subject. He was able also to bear considerable exercise, and on one occasion walked with Mr. Johnson to

add a third by my venerable friend the rev. Dr. John Ogilvie, entitled Human Life, published, without his name, in 1806. C.

7 Another of those friends whom Providence raised up to reconcile Cowper with the world, which has since had to lament his loss. Mr. Hayley has given a very interesting account of this amiable young man, who promised to be an ornament to his profession and to the republic of letters. He was honoured with Cowper's esteem and confidence for some years. After this, it is poor praise to add that I never knew a man more justly endeared to a numerous circle of friends, by the most valuable qualities of head or heart, or one whom, among the many whom I have survived, I more frequently miss. C.

the neighbouring village of Mattishall, on a visit to his cousin Mrs. Bodham. "On surveying his own portrait by Abbot, in the house of that lady, he clasped his hands in a paroxysm of pain, and uttered a vehement wish, that his present sensations might be such as they were when that picture was painted."

After this short residence at Tuddenham, Mr. Jolinson conducted his two invalids to Mundsley, a village on the Norfolk coast, where they continued till October, but without deriving any apparent benefit from the sea air. Some calm recollection of past scenes, however, returned, enough to prompt him to write a letter to Mr. Buchanan, enquiring after matters at Weston. But this was almost the last of his correspondence. In October, Mr. Johnson removed him and Mrs. Unwin to Dereham, which they left in November for Dunham Lodge, a house situated on high ground in a park about four miles from Swaffam.

Here his affectionate kinsman endeavoured by various means to rouse in him an attention to literary or common subjects, such as might prevent his mind from preying on itself, and on some occasions he appears to have succeeded in a small degree; but the recurrence of fixed melancholy was so frequent as to destroy the transient hopes which these promising appearances excited. In the following year, change of scene was again adopted, and not without such effect as justified the measure, even when all prospect of permanent advantage had vanished. In December 1796, death removed Mrs. Unwin by a change as tranquil as her decayed body and mind promised. Cówper, about an hour after her departure, looked at the corpse, but started suddenly away with a broken sentence of passionate sorrow, and spoke of her no more. He was now in that state and at that age, when grief is neither exasperated by memory, nor relieved by consolation, and was mercifully relieved from feelings which neither religion nor reason could any longer regulate.

His subsequent intervals of bodily health, few as they were, appear to have been attended with some return of attention to his favourite pursuits. His anxious and tender friend Mr. Johnson embraced such opportunities to lead him to take delight in the revision of his Homer, and from September 1797, to March 1799, he completed, by snatches, the revisal of the Odyssey. Of the returns of his disorder, he appears to have been sensible, and could describe it on its commencement, and before it totally overpowered his faculties. In a letter to lady Hesketh, dated Oct. 13, 1798, which Mr. Hayley has preserved, he describes himself as one to whom nature" in one day, in one minute, became an universal blank." On this his biographer notices the opinion of some of his friends, that his disorder arose from a scorbutic habit, which, when perspiration was obstructed, occasioned an unsearchable obstruction in the fine parts of his frame.

At intervals he still wrote a few original verses, of which The Cast-away, his too favourite subject, was the last that came from his pen, but he amused himself occasionally with translations from Latin and Greek epigrams. His last effort of the literary kind, was an improved version of a passage in Homer, which he wrote at Mr. Hayley's suggestion, and which that gentleman received on the thirty-first of January 1800. In the following month he exhibited all the symptoms of dropsy, which soon made a rapid progress. On April 25, about five in the afternoon, he expired so quietly that

not one of his friends who were present perceived his departure, but from the awful stillness which succeeded.

On Saturday, May 3, he was buried in St. Edmund's chapel in Dereham church, where lady Hesketh caused a marble tablet to be erected, with the following inscription:

In Memory
of

WILLIAM COWPER, Esq.

Born in Hertfordshire

1731,

Buried in this church

1800.

YE who with warmth the public triumph feel

Of talents, dignified by sacred zeal,

Here to devotion's bard devoutly just,

Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust!
England, exulting in his spotless fame,

Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name:
Sense, fancy, wit, suffice not all to raise
So clear a title to affection's praise:
His highest honours to the heart belong;
His virtues form'd the magic of his song.

That such a man should have been doomed to endure a life of mental distraction, relieved by few intervals, will probably ever be the subject of wonder; but that won der will not be removed by curious inquiries into the state of Cowper's mind, as displaying circumstances that have never occurred before. Awful as his case was, and most deeply as it ever must be deplored, there was nothing singular in the dispensation, unless that it befel one of more than common powers of genius, and consequently excited more general sympathy. Mr. Hayley, who has often endeavoured to reason on the subject, seems to resolve it at last into a bodily disorder, a sort of scorbutic affection which, when repelled, brought on derangement of more or less duration. It appears to the present writer, from a careful perusal of that instructive piece of biography published by Mr. Hayley, that Cowper, from his infancy, had a tendency to errations of mind; and without admitting this fact in some degree, it must seem extremely improbable that the mere dread of appearing as a reader in the house of lords should have brought on his first settled fit of lunacy. Much, indeed, has been said of his uncommon shyness and diffidence, and more, perhaps, than the history of his early life will justify. Shyness and diffidence are common to all young persons who have not been early introduced into company, and Cowper, who had not, perhaps, that advantage at home, might have continued to be shy when other boys are forward. But had his mind been, even in this early period, in a healthful state, he must have gradually assumed the free manners of an ingenuous youth, conscious of no unusual imperfection that should keep him back. At school, we are told, he was trampled upon by ruder boys who took advantage of his weakness, yet we find that he mixed in their amusements, which must in some degree have advanced him on a level with them: and what is yet more extraordinary, we find him for some years associating with men of more gaiety than pure