She sits knitting on one side of the table in her spectacles, and he on the other reading to her (when he is not employed in writing) in his. In winter, his morning studies are always carried on in a room by himself; but as his evenings are spent in the winter in transcribing, he usually, I find, does them vis-a-vis Mrs. Unwin. At this time of the year he writes always in the morning in what he calls his boudoir; this is in the garden: it has a door and a window; just holds a small table with a desk and two chairs; but though there are two chairs, and two persons might be contained therein, it would be with a degree of difficulty. For this cause, -as I make a point of not disturbing a poet in his retreat, I go not there."

It was said by Dr. Johnson, that "nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat, and drank, and lived in social intercourse with him." Personal knowledge is, indeed, the greatest of all advantages for such an undertaking, notwithstanding the degree of restraint which must generally be regarded as one of its conditions. But when his letters are accessible, the writer may in great part be made his own biographer, more fully, and perhaps more faithfully than if he had composed his own memoirs, even with the most sincere intentions. For in letters, feelings and views and motives are related as they existed at the time; whereas in retrospect much must of necessity be overlooked, and much be lost. Some of Cowper's letters at this time are peculiarly interesting both as illustrating his own character and Mr. Newton's. He wrote to that sincere but injudicious friend upon his approaching change of residence.

TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Aug. 5, 1786.

You have heard of our intended removal. The house that is to receive us is in a state of preparation, and, when finished, will be both smarter and more commodious than our present abode. But the circumstance that recommends it chiefly is its situation. Long confinement in the winter, and indeed for the most part in the autumn too, has hurt us both. A gravel walk, thirty yards long, affords but indifferent scope to the locomotive faculty: yet it is all that we have had to move in for eight months in the year, during thirteen years that I have been a prisoner. Had I been confined in the Tower, the battlements of it would have furnished me with a larger space. You say well, that there was a time when I was happy at Olney; and I am now as happy at Olney as I expect to be any where without the presence of God. Change of situation is with me no otherwise an object than as both Mrs. Unwin's health and mine may happen to be concerned in it. A fever of the slow and spirit-oppressing kind seems to belong to all, except the natives, who have dwelt in Olney many years; and the natives have putrid fevers. Both they and we, I believe, are immediately indebted for our respective maladies to an atmosphere encumbered with raw vapours issuing from flooded meadows; and we in particular, perhaps, have fared the worse, for sitting so often, and sometimes for months, over a cellar filled with water. These ills we shall escape in the uplands; and as we may reasonably hope, of course, their consequences. But as for hap

piness, he that has once had communion with his Maker must be more frantic than ever I was yet, if he can dream of finding it at a distance from Him. I no more expect happiness at Weston than here, or than I should expect it, in company with felons and outlaws, in the hold of a ballast-lighter. Animal spirits, however, have their value, and are especially desirable to him who is condemned to carry a burthen, which at any rate will tire him, but which, without their aid, cannot fail to crush him. The dealings of God with me are to myself utterly unintelligible. I have never met, either in books or in conversation, with an experience at all similar to my own. More than a twelvemonth has passed since I began to hope that, having walked the whole breadth of the bottom of this Red Sea, I was beginning to climb the opposite shore; and I prepared to sing the song of Moses. But I have been disappointed: those hopes have been blasted; those comforts have been wrested from me. I could not be so duped even by the arch-enemy himself, as to be made to question the divine nature of them; but I have been made to believe (which, you will say, is being duped still more) that God gave them to me in derision, and took them away in vengeance. Such, however is, and has been my persuasion many a long day; and when I shall think on that subject more comfortably, or, as you will be inclined to tell me, more rationally and scripturally, I know not. In the mean time, I embrace with alacrity every alleviation of my case, and with the more alacrity, because, whatsoever proves a relief of my distress, is a cordial to Mrs. Unwin, whose sympathy with me, through the

whole of it, has been such, that, despair excepted, her burthen has been as heavy as mine. Lady Hesketh, by her affectionate behaviour, the cheerfulness of her conversation, and the constant sweetness of her temper, has cheered us both; and Mrs. Unwin not less than me. By her help we get change of air and of scene, though still resident at Olney; and by her means, have intercourse with some families in this country, with whom, but for her, we could never have been acquainted. Her presence here would, at any time, even in my happiest days, have been a comfort to me; but, in the present day, I am doubly sensible of its value. She leaves nothing unsaid, nothing undone, that she thinks will be conducive to our wellbeing; and, so far as she is concerned, I have nothing to wish, but that I could believe her sent hither in mercy to myself, then I should be thankful.

I am, my dear friend, with Mrs. Unwin's love to Mrs. N. and yourself, hers and yours, as ever,

W. C.

Though this letter could not but draw tears from one who knew the writer so intimately, and loved him so well as Mr. Newton must have known and loved him, it might be supposed that the predominant feeling, which it would excite, would be pleasure at the favourable change that had taken place in his poor friend's external circumstances. The disappearance of Cowper's papers renders it impossible to say what, or whether any direct answer was made to it; but about a month after its date, Mr. Newton wrote to Mrs. Unwin in a spirit, which, though the letter itself has been

destroyed, or lost, may be perfectly understood by what Cowper says concerning it to her son 60.

"You have had your troubles, and we ours. This day three weeks, your mother received a letter from Mr. Newton, which she has not yet answered, nor is likely to answer hereafter. It gave us both much concern, but her more than me; I suppose, because my mind being necessarily occupied in my work, I had not so much leisure to browze upon the wormwood that it contained. The purport of it is, a direct accusation of me, and of her an accusation implied, that we have both deviated into forbidden paths, and lead a life unbecoming the Gospel; that many of my friends in London are grieved, and the simple people of Olney astonished; that he never so much doubted of my restoration to Christian privileges as now;—in short, that I converse too much with people of the world, and find too much pleasure in doing so. He concludes with putting your mother in mind, that there is still an intercourse between London and Olney, by which he means to insinuate that we cannot offend against the decorum that we are bound to observe, but the news of it will most certainly be conveyed to him.

-We do not at all doubt it. We never knew a lie hatched at Olney that waited long for a bearer; and though we do not wonder to find ourselves made the subjects of false accusation in a place ever fruitful in such productions, we do, and must wonder a little, that he should listen to them with so much credulity. I say this, because if he had heard only the truth, or had believed no more than the truth, he would not, I 60 Sept. 24, 1786.