died in America, after having distinguished himself by poetical talents, as well as by military virtues. MY DEAR COUSIN, LETTER XXIV. To Mrs. COWPER. May 10, 1780.. I DO not write to comfort you; that of fice is not likely to be well performed by one, who has no comfort for himself; nor to comply with an impertinent ceremony, which in general might well be spared upon fuch occafions: but becaufe I would not seem indifferent to the concerns of thofe I have fo much reafon to esteem and love. If I did not forrow for your broth er's death, I fhould expect that nobody would for mine When I knew him he was much beloved, and I doubt not continued to be fo. To live and die together is the lot of a few happy families, who hardly know what a feparation means, and one fepulchre ferves them all; but the afhes of our kindred are difperfed indeed. Whether the American gulph has fwallowed up any other of my relations I know not, it has made many mourners. Believe me, my dear coufin, though after long filence, which perhaps nothing less than the prefent concern could have prevailed with me to interrupt, as much as ever, Your affectionate Kinfman, W. C The next letter to Mr. Hill affords a ftriking proof of Cowper's compaffionate feelings towards the poor around him. MON AMI, LETTER XXV. To JOSEPH HILL, Efq. July 8, 1780. IF you ever take the tip of the Chancellor's ear between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the opportunity to better purpofe, than if you should whisper into it the voice of compaffion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye witness of their poverty, and do know, that hundreds in this little town are upon the point of starving, and that the most unremitting industry is but barely fufficient to keep them from it. I know that the bill by which they would have been fo fatally affected is thrown out, but Lord Stormont threatens them with another; and if another like it fhould pafs, they are undone. We lately fent a petition from hence to Lord Dartmouth; I figned it, and am fure the contents are true. The purport of it was to inform him that there are very near 1200 lacemakers in this beggarly town, the most of whom had reafon enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look upon every loaf they bought, as the laft they should be ever able to earn. I can never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of ruining 30,000, in order to prevent a remote and poffible damage, though to a much greater number. The meafure is like a fcythe, and the poor lace-makers are the fickly crop that trembles before the edge of it. The profpect of peace with America is like the ftreak of dawn in their horizon, but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that threatens their hope of a comfortable day with utter extinction. I did not perceive till this moment that I had tacked two fimilies together, a practice, which though warranted by the example of Homer, and allowable in an Epic Po em, is rather luxuriant and licentious in a letter; left I * fhould add another, I conclude. His affectionate effort in renewing his correfpondence 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 fpirits. This pathetic letter was followed, in the course of two months, by a letter of a more lively caft, in which the reader will find fome touches of his native humour, and a vein of pleafantry peculiar to himself. LETTER XXVI. To Mrs. COWPER, Park-Street, Grofvenor Square. July 20, 1780. MY DEAR COUSIN, defired me to be of You fee me fixteen I faw you laft; but MR. Newton having the party, I am come to meet him. years older, at the leaft, than when the effects of time seem to have taken place rather on the outfide 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 fuch as to afford it nothing but cold winds and dark clouds, that interrupt every ray of sunshine. My days fteal away filently, and march on (as poor mad king Lear would have made his foldiers march, as if they were shod with felt ;) not fo filently but that I hear them, yet were it not that I am always liftening to their flight, having no infirmity that I had not when I was much younger, I fhould deceive myfelf with an imagination that I am still young. I am fond of writing, as an amufement, but I do not always find it one. Being rather fcantily furnished with fubjects, that are good for any thing, and corref ponding only with thofe, who have no relish for such as · are good for nothing; I often find myself reduced to the neceffity, the disagreeable neceffity, of writing about myfelf. This does not mend the matter much, for though in a defcription of my own condition, I discover abundant materials to employ my pen upon, yet as the task is not very agreeable to me, fo I am fufficiently 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 foon grow fick of his occupation, and be peculiarly fortunate, if he did not make. others as fick as himself. Remote as your dwelling is from the late fcene of riot and confufion, 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 prefent 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 vifits, 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 fhining part of my character, I here fhut my mouth, make my bow, and return to Olney. WM. COWPER. The next is a little more ferious than its predeceffor, 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, Grofvenor-Square. MY DEAR COUSIN, August 31, 1780. one, I AM obliged to you for your long letter, which did not seem so, and for your fhort 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 latter was, I fuppofe, 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 fuppofe that my friends, who were already grown old, when I faw 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 fame; my memory prefents me with this image unimpaired, and while it retains the refemblance of what they were, forgets that by this time the picture may have loft much of its likeness, through the alteration that fucceeding years have made in the original. I know not what impreffions time may have made upon your person, for while his claws (as our Grannams called them) ftrike deep furrows in fome faces, he seems to fheath them with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing injury to others. But though an enemy to the perfon, |