in writing, perspicuity is always more than half the battle. The want of it is the ruin of more than half the poetry that is published. A meaning that does not stare you in the face is as bad as no meaning, because nobody will take the pains to poke for it."

This ardent youth took with him, on his departure, several books of Homer to transcribe, volunteering his services in this way; he took also a letter of introduction to Lady Hesketh, who was as much pleased with him as Cowper had been. He had observed with what affection Cowper spoke of his mother; the only portrait of her was in possession of her niece, Mrs. Bodham, who had been a favourite cousin of Cowper's, in her childhood; and upon the youth's report of his visit, on his return home, this picture was sent to Weston, as a present, with a letter from his kinswoman, written in the fulness of her heart. It was replied to with kindred feeling, thus:

MY DEAREST ROSE,

TO MRS. BODHAM.

Weston, Feb. 27, 1790. WHOM I thought withered, and fallen from the stalk, but whom I find still alive: nothing could give me greater pleasure than to know it, and to learn it from yourself. I loved you dearly when you were a child, and love you not a jot the less for having ceased to be so. Every creature that bears any affinity to my mother is dear to me, and you, the daughter of her brother, are but one remove distant from her: I love you, therefore, and love you much, both for her sake, and for your own. The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me, as the picture

which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hung it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning. She died when I completed my sixth year; yet I remember her well, and am an ocular witness of the great fidelity of the copy. I remember, too, a multitude of the maternal tendernesses which I received from her, and which have endeared her memory to me beyond expression. There is in me, I believe, more of the Donne than of the Cowper; and though I love all of both names, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my own name, yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently to your side. I was thought in the days of my childhood much to resemble my mother; and in my natural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I must be supposed to be a competent judge, can trace both her, and my late uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability; and a little, I would hope, both of his and of her- -, I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but speaking to you, I will even speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at all points. The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all.

I account it a happy event that brought the dear boy, your nephew, to my knowledge; and that break

ing through all the restraints which his natural bashfulness imposed on him, he determined to find me out. He is amiable to a degree that I have seldom seen, and I often long with impatience to see him again.

My dearest cousin, what shall I say in answer to your affectionate invitation ? I must say this, I cannot come now, nor soon, and I wish with all my heart I could. But I will tell you what may be done, perhaps, and it will answer to us just as well: you and Mr. Bodham can come to Weston, can you not? The summer is at hand, there are roads and wheels to bring you, and you are neither of you translating Homer. I am crazed that I cannot ask you all together, for want of house-room; but for Mr. Bodham and yourself we have good room, and equally good for any third, in the shape of a Donne, whether named Hewitt, Bodham, Balls, or Johnson, or by whatever name distinguished. Mrs. Hewitt has particular claims upon me; she was my playfellow at Berkhamstead, and has a share in my warmest affections. Pray tell her so! Neither do I at all forget my Cousin Harriet. She and I have been many a time merry at Catfield, and have made the parsonage ring with laughter. Give my love to her. Assure yourself, my dearest cousin, that I shall receive you as if you were my sister, and Mrs. Unwin is, for my sake, prepared to do the same. When she has seen you, she will love you for your own.

I am much obliged to Mr. Bodham for his kindness to my Homer, and with my love to you all, and with Mrs. Unwin's kind respects, am,

My dear, dear Rose, ever yours,

W. C.

P. S.-I mourn the death of your poor brother Castres, whom I should have seen had he lived, and should have seen with the greatest pleasure. He was

an amiable boy, and I was very fond of him.

Still another P. S.-I find on consulting Mrs. Unwin, that I have underrated our capabilities, and that we have not only room for you, and Mr. Bodham, but for two of your sex, and even for your nephew into the bargain. We shall be happy to have it all so occupied.

Your nephew tells me, that his sister, in the qualities of the mind, resembles you; that is enough to make her dear to me, and I beg you will assure her that she is so. Let it not be long before I hear from you.

Upon receiving this portrait of his mother, Cowper composed the most beautiful of his minor poems, poem which he tells us he had more pleasure in writing than that he had ever wrote, one excepted; "that any one," he says, 66 was addressed to a lady who has supplied to me the place of my own mother,—my own invaluable mother, these six and twenty years. Some sons may be said to have had many fathers; but a plurality of mothers is not common The following

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Sonnet must be the piece to which he thus alludes.

Mary! I want a lyre with other strings;

Such aid from Heaven as some have feign'd they drew !
An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new

And undebased by praise of meaner things!

69 To Mrs. King, March 12, 1790. Certainly Cowper would not thus have spoken of Mrs. Unwin, if there had ever been any matrimonial engagement between them.

That ere through age or woe I shed my wings
I may record thy worth, with honour due,
In verse as musical as thou art true,-
Verse that immortalizes whom it sings!

But thou hast little need; there is a book
By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light,
On which the eyes of God not rarely look!
A chronicle of actions, just and bright!

There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine,
And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.

At this time Mrs. Unwin was afflicted with almost constant headaches, and a pain in the side, the cause of which was not understood; her lameness consequent upon her fall was very little amended, but her looks had not altered for the worse, "and her spirits," Cowper said, "were good, because supported by comforts which depend not on the state of the body." The time came when she was rendered, by infirmities of mind and body, as unlike her former self in other things, as she now was in strength.

There must have appeared a great amendment in Cowper's notions concerning his own spiritual state, after his last recovery; otherwise Mr. Bull, who was always a judicious friend, would not have requested him to compose a hymn. The application reached him, however, in a dark hour, and he replied thus 70, "My dear friend, ask possibilities and they shall be performed, but ask not hymns from a man suffering by despair as I do. I could not sing the Lord's song were it to save my life, banished as I am, not to a strange land, but to a remoteness from his presence, in comparison with which the distance from east to

70 May 25, 1788.