the completest that ever I saw, and the watch-chain the most brilliant. Adieu for a little while.

Now for

Homer. My dear, yours,

W. C.

In his next letter 47, he says, "Dearest cousin, my desk is always pleasant, but never so pleasant as when I am writing to you. If I am not obliged to you for the thing itself, at least I am for your having decided the matter against me, and resolving that it should come in spite of all objections. If I must not know to whom I am primarily indebted for it, at least let me entreat you to make my acknowledgments of gratitude and love."

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Some womanly present usually accompanied the half-yearly remittance, and on one of these occasions further cause appeared for suspecting from what quarter they came. By the post of yesterday," he says to Lady Hesketh 48, "I received a letter from Anonymous, giving me advice of the kind present which I have just particularized, in which letter allusion is made to a certain piece by me composed, entitled, I believe, the Drop of Ink. The only copy I ever gave of that piece, I gave to yourself. It is possible, therefore, that between you and Anonymous there may be some communication. If that should be the case, I will beg you just to signify to him, as opportunity may occur, the safe arrival of his most acceptable present, and my most grateful sense of it." Who but Theodora could it have been who was thus intimate 47 Dec. 15, 1785. 48 Dec. 19, 1787.

with Lady Hesketh, and felt this deep and lively and constant regard for Cowper?

Cowper's reflections upon the unexpected accession made by this annuity to his scanty means, express a cheerful trust in Providence, showing that then, at least, his mind was perfectly sane upon that point. “Wonder with me," he says, my beloved cousin, at the goodness of God, who, according to Dr. Watts's beautiful stanza,

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Can clear the darkest skies,

Can give us day for night,

Make drops of sacred sorrow rise

To rivers of delight.

As I said once before, so say I again, my heart is as light as a bird on the subject of Homer. Neither without prayer, nor without confidence in the providential goodness of God, has that work been undertaken or continued. I am not so dim-sighted, sad as my spirit is at times, but that I can plainly discern his Providence going before me in the way. Unforeseen, unhoped for advantages have sprung at his bidding, and a prospect at first cloudy indeed, and discouraging enough, has been continually brightening ever since I announced my intentions. But suppose the worst. Suppose that I should not succeed in any measure proportioned to my hopes. How then? Why then, my dear, I will hold this language with myself, ' To write was necessary to me. I undertook an honourable task, and with upright intentions. It served me more than two years for an amusement, and as such

6

was of infinite service to my spirits. But God did not see it good for me that I should be very famous. If he did not, it is better for me that I am not. Fame is neither my meat nor my drink. I lived fifty years without it, and should I live fifty more, and get to heaven at last, then I shall be sure not to want it. So, my dear, you see that I am armed at all points. I do not mean that I should feel nothing, but that, thus thinking, I should feel supportably."

No letters ever bore the stamp of sincerity more distinctly than Cowper's. In thus expressing himself, he wrote as he thought, and would, in the event, have felt as he expected. Yet he had an ardent thirst for fame. "I am not ashamed," he says, "to confess, that having commenced an author, I am most abundantly desirous to succeed as such. I have (what perhaps you little suspect me of) in my nature an infinite share of ambition. But with it, I have, at the same time, as you well know, an equal share of diffidence. To this combination of opposite qualities it has been owing, that, till lately, I stole through life without undertaking any thing, yet always wishing to distinguish myself. At last I ventured, ventured too in the only path, that, at so late a period, was yet open to me; and am determined, if God have not determined otherwise, to work my way through the obscurity that has been so long my portion, into notice. Every thing, therefore, that seems to threaten this my favourite purpose with disappointment, affects me nearly. I suppose that all ambitious minds are in the same predicament. He who seeks distinction must be sensible of disapprobation, exactly in the same proportion

as he desires applause. And now, my precious cousin, I have unfolded my heart to you in this particular, without a speck of dissimulation. good people too, would blame me.

Some people, and But will not; you

and they, I think, would blame without just cause. We certainly do not honour God, when we bury, or when we neglect to improve, as far as we may, whatever talent he may have bestowed on us, whether it be little or much. In natural things, as well as in spiritual, it is a never-failing truth, that to him, who hath, (that is to him that occupies what he hath diligently, and so as to increase it,) more shall be given. Set me down, therefore, my dear, for an industrious rhymer, so long as I shall have the ability. For in this only way is it possible for me, so far as I can see, either to honour God, or to serve man, or even to serve myself."

Cowper was happier at this time than he had ever been since the days of his youth. He was engaged in an undertaking not unworthy of his talents, and of the reputation he had acquired; it accorded equally with his inclination, his habits, and his health; and in the intervals of employment he had the expectation of seeing his cousin after the lapse of so many years, and the pleasure of making preparations for her reception. They would fain have had her for their guest, and have fitted up the room which served him for a study, as her chamber; but to this Lady Hesketh objected. It would not have been easy to find accommodation in Olney, if the greater part of the vicarage, which was "much too good for the living," had not been unoccupied and unfurnished. Mr. Scott, who was highly

esteemed among persons of his own persuasion, had left this curacy to officiate at the Lock Hospital; and his successor in the cure being a bachelor, reserving two rooms for himself, was glad to let the rest of the house, which a shopkeeper engaged to furnish for the time of her abode. "The whole affair," said Cowper, "is thus commodiously adjusted; and now I have nothing to do but to wish for June; and June, my cousin, was never so wished for since June was made. I shall have a thousand things to hear, and a thousand to say; and they will all rush into my mind together, but it will be so crowded with things impatient to be said, that for some time I shall say nothing. But no matter, sooner or later they will all come out; and since we shall have you the longer for not having you under our roof, (a circumstance that more than any thing reconciles us to that measure,) they will stand the better chance. After so long a separation, a separation that of late seemed likely to last for life, we shall meet each other as alive from the dead; and for my own part, I can truly say, that I have not a friend in the other world, whose resurrection would give me greater pleasure.”

A house at Weston, belonging to the Throckmortons, was at that time vacant, and these kind neighbours expressed an earnest wish that Mrs. Unwin and Cowper would take it for the sake of being near them. "If you, my cousin," said he, "were not so well provided for as you are, and at our very elbow, I verily believe I should have mustered all my rhetoric to recommend it to you. You might have it for ever, without danger of ejectment, whereas your possession