me with wonder. It is not in general, till reading and observation have settled the taste, that we can. give the prize to the best writing, in preference to the worst. Much less are we able to execute what is good ourselves. But Lowth seems to have stepped into excellence at once, and to have gained by intuition, what we little folks are happy if we can learn at last, after much labour of our own, and instruction of others. The compliments he pays to the memory of King Charles, he would probably now retract, though he be a bishop, and his majesty's zeal for episcopacy was one of the causes of his ruin. An age or two must pass, before some characters can be properly understood. The spirit of party employs itself in veiling their faults, and ascribing to them virtues, which they never possessed. See Charles's face drawn by Clarendon, and it is an handsome portrait. See it more justly exhibited by Mrs. Macaulay, and it is deformed to a degree that shocks us. Every feature expresses cunning, employing itself in the maintaining of tyranny; and dissimulation, pretending itself an advocate for truth. My Letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne's street, and us. Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement. She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the same house, and educated together. At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and because writing does not agree with your Mother, proposed a correspondence with me. By her own desire I wrote to her under the assumed relation of a brother, and she to me as my sister. I thank you for the search you have made after my intended motto, but I no longer need it. Our love is always with yourself and family, Yours, my dear friend. W. C. Lady Austen returned in the following summer to the house of her sister, situated on the brow of a hill, the foot of which is washed by the river Ouse, as it flows between Clifton and Olney. Her benevolent ingenuity was exerted to guard the spirits of Cowper from sinking again into that hypochondriacal dejection, to which, even in her company, he still some times discovered an alarming tendency. To promote his occupation and amusement, she furnished him with a small portable printing-press, and he gratefully sent her the following verses printed by himself, and enclosed in a billet, that alludes to the occasion, on which they were composed-a very unseasonable floed, that interrupted the communication between Clifton and Olney! To shake with cold, and see the plains Should be a clod, and not a man; My mind out of its proper quag; Should have the genius of a boor, And no ambition to have more. MY DEAR SISTER, You see my beginning—I do not know, but in time, I may proceed even to the printing of halfpenny ballads-excuse the coarseness of my paper--I wasted such a quantity, before I could accomplish any thing legible, that I could not afford finer. I intend to employ an ingenious mechanic of the town to make me a longer case: for you may observe, that my lines turn up their tails like Dutch mastiffs, so difficult do I find it to make the two halves exactly coincide with each other. We wait with impatience for the departure of this unseasonable flood. We think of you, and talk of you, but we can do no more, till the waters shall subside. I do not think our correspondence should drop because we are within a mile of each other. It is but an imaginary approximation, the flood having in reality as effectually parted us, as if the British Channel rolled between us. love. Yours, my dear Sister, with Mrs. Unwin's best August 12, 1782. W. C. A flood that precluded him from the conversation of such an enlivening friend, was to Cowper a serious evil; but he was happily relieved from the apprehension of such disappointment in future, by seeing the friend so pleasing and so useful to him very comfortably settled, as his next door neighbour. An event so agreeable to the poet, was occasioned by circumstances of a painful nature, related in a Letter to Mr. Unwin, which, though it bears no date of month or year, I am induced by these circumstances to introduce at present, though it was probably written after some of the subsequent Letters. LETTER IV. To the Revd. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR WILLIAM, The modest terms in which you express yourself on the subject of Lady Austen's commendation, embolden me to add my suffrage to hers, and to confirm it by assuring you, that I think her just, and well founded in her opinion of you. The compliment indeed glances at myself; for were you less than she accounts you, I ought not to afford you |