it was found necessary to remove him to St. Alban's, where he resided a considerable time, under the care of that eminent physician, Dr. Cotton, a scholar, and a poet, who added to many accomplishments a peculiar sweetness of manners in very advanced life, when I had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance with him.

The misfortune of mental derangement is a topic of such awful delicacy, that I consider it as the duty of a Biographer rather to sink, in tender silence, than to proclaim, with circumstantial, and offensive temerity, the minute particulars of a calamity, to which all human beings are exposed, and perhaps in proportion as they have received from nature those delightful, but dangerous gifts, a heart of exquisite tenderness, and a mind of creative energy.

This is a sight for pity to peruse,

'Till she resembles, faintly, what she views;
'Till sympathy contracts a kindred pain,
Pierc'd with the woes, that she laments in vain.
This, of all maladies, that man infest,

Claims most compassion and receives the least.

But with a soul, that ever felt the sting
Of sorrow, sorrow is a sacred thing.

'Tis not, as heads that never ache suppose,
Forg'ry of fancy, and a dream of woes.

Man is a harp, whose chords elude the sight,
Each yielding harmony, dispos'd aright;

The screws revers'd (a task, which if He please
God, in a moment, executes with ease ;)
Ten thousand, thousand, strings at once go loose;
Lost, 'till He tune them, all their pow'r and use,

No wounds like those, a wounded spirit feels;
No cure for such, 'till God, who makes them, heals.
And thou, sad sufferer, under nameless ill,
That yields not to the touch of human skill,
Improve the kind occasion, understand,

A Father's frown, and kiss the chast'ning hand!

It is in this awful, and instructive light, that Cowper himself teaches us to consider the calamity of which I am now speaking; and of which he, like his illustrious brother of Parnassus, the younger Tasso, was occasionally a most affecting example. Heaven appears to have given a striking lesson to mankind, to guard both virtue, and genius, against pride of heart, and pride of intellect, by thus suspending the affections, and the talents of two most tender and sublime Poets, who, in the purity of their lives, and in the splendour of their intellectual powers, will be ever deservedly reckoned among the pre-eminent of the earth.

From December 1763, to the following July, the pure mind

of Cowper appears to have laboured under the severest sufferings of morbid depression; but the medical skill of Dr Cotton, and the cheerful, benignant manners of that accomplished physician, gradually succeeded, with the blessing of Heaven, in removing the undescribable load of religious despondency, which had clouded the admirable faculties of this innocent, and upright man. His ideas of religion were changed from the gloom of terror and despair, to the lustre of comfort and delight.

This juster and happier view of Evangelical truth is said to have arisen in his mind while he was reading the third Chapter of Saint Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Devout contemplation became more and more dear to his reviving spirit: resolving to relinquish all thoughts of a labourious profession, and all intercourse with the busy world, he acquiesced in a plan of settling at Huntingdon, by the advice of his brother, who, as a minister of the Gospel, and a fellow of Bennet College, in Cambridge, resided in that University; a situation so near to the place chosen for Cowper's retirement, that it afforded to these affectionate brothers opportunities of easy and frequent intercourse. I regret that all the letters which passed between them have perished, and the more so as they sometimes corresponded in verse. John Cowper was also a Poet. He had engaged to execute a translation of Voltaire's Henriade, and in the course of the work requested and obtained the assistance of William, who translated, as he informed me himself, two entire

Cantos

Cantos of the Poem. This fraternal production, is said to have appeared in a Magazine of the year 1759. I have discovered a rival, and probably an inferior translation, so published, but the joint work of the poetical Brothers has hitherto eluded all my researches.

In June 1765, the reviving invalide removed to a private lodg ing in the town of Huntingdon, but Providence soon introduced him into a family, which afforded him one of the most singular, and valuable friends, that ever watched an afflicted mortal in seasons of overwhelming adversity; that friend, to whom the Poet exclaims in the commencement of the Task,

And witness, dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm, this twentieth winter, I perceive-
Fast lock'd in mine, with pleasure such as love,
Confirmed by long experience of thy worth,
And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire;
Witness a joy, that thou hast doubled long! ·
Thou knowest my praise of nature most ‘sincere ;
And that my raptures are not conjured up

To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine, and art partner of them all.

These verses would be alone sufficient to make every poetical reader take a lively interest in the lady they describe, but these are far from being the only tribute, which the gratitude of Cowper has paid to the endearing virtues of his female companion. More poetical memorials of her merit will be found in these Volumes,

and

and in verse so exquisite, that it may be questioned, if the most passionate love ever gave rise to poetry more tender, or more sublime.

Yet, in this place, it appears proper to apprize the reader, that it was not love, in the common acceptation of the word, which inspired these admirable eulogies. The attachment of Cowper to Mrs. Unwin, the Mary of the Poet! was an attachment perhaps unparalleled. Their domestic union, though not sanctioned by the common forms of life, was supported with perfect innocence, and endeared to them both, by their having struggled together through a series of sorrow. A spectator of sensibility, who had contemplated the uncommon tenderness of their attention to the wants and infirmities of each other in the decline of life, might have said of their singular attachment,

L'Amour n'a rien de si tendre,

Ni L'Amitie de si doux.

As a connexion so extraordinary forms a striking feature in the history of the Poet, the reader will probably be anxious to investigate its origin and progress.—It arose from the following little incident.

The countenance and deportment of Cowper, though they indicated his native shyness, had yet very singular powers of attraction. On his first appearance in one of the churches at Huntingdon,

he