as being older then 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 same; my memory presents me with this image unimpaired, and while it retains the resemblance of what they were, forgets that, by this time, the picture may have lost much of its likeness, through the alteration, that succeeding years have made in the original. I know not what impressions Time may have made upon your person, for while his claws strike deep furrows in some faces, he seems to sheath them with much tenderness, as if fearful of doing injury, to others. But though an enemy to the person, he is a friend to the mind; and you have found him so yet, even in this respect, his treatment of us depends upon what he meets with at our hands. If we use him well, and listen to his admonitions, he is a friend indeed; but otherwise he is the worst of enemies, who takes from us daily something that we valued, and gives us nothing better in its stead. It is well with them, who, like you, can stand a tip-toe on the mountain top of human life; look down with pleasure upon the valley which they have passed; and sometimes stretch their wings in joyful hope of a happy flight into eternity. Yet a little while, and your hope will be accomplished.

When you can without inconvenience, favour me with a little account of your own family, I shall be glad to receive it; for, though separated from my kindred by scarcely more than half a century of miles, I know as little of their concerns, as if oceans and continents were interposed between us.

Yours, my dear cousin,

William Cowper.

My dear cousin,

It is long since I received your last letter; and yet I believe I can say truly that not a post has gone by since the receipt of it, that has not reminded me of the debt I owe you, for your obliging and unreserved communications both in prose and verse; especially for the latter, because I consider them as marks of your peculiar confidence. The truth is, I have been such a verse maker myself, and so busy in preparing a volume for the press, which I imagine will make its appearance in the course of the winter, that I hardly had leisure to listen to the calls of any other engagement. It is however finished; and I have nothing now to do with it, but to consign it over to the judgment of the public.

When so many writers of the greatest abilities have gone before, who seem to have anticipated every valuable subject, as well as all the graces of poetical embellishment, it is a bold undertaking to step forth into the world in the character of a bard; especially when it is considered that luxury, idleness, and vice, have debauched the public taste, and that scarcely any thing is welcome, but childish fiction, or what has, at least, a tendency to excite a laugh. I thought, however, that I had stumbled upon some subjects that had never before been poetically treated; and upon some others, to which I imagined it would not be difficult to give an air of novelty, by the manner of treating them. My sole drift is to be useful: a point, which I knew, I should in vain aim at, unless I could be likewise entertaining. I have therefore fixed these two strings upon my bow; and, by the help of both, I have done my best to send my arrow to the mark.

My readers will hardly have begun to laugh, before they will be called upon to correct that levity, and peruse me with a more serious air. As to the effect, I leave it in His hands who can alone produce it: neither prose nor verse can reform the manners of a dissolute age, much less can they inspire a sense of religious obligation, unless assisted, and made efficacious, by the Power who superintends the truth, which he has vouchsafed to impart.

You made my heart ache with sympathetic sorrow, when you described the state of your mind on occasion of your late visit into Hertfordshire. Had I been informed of your journey before you made it, I should have foretold all your feelings with unerring certainty of prediction. You will never cease to feel upon that subject; but with your principles of resignation, and of acquiescence in the Divine will, you will always feel as becomes a Christian. We are forbidden to murmur, but we are not forbidden to regret; and them whom we loved tenderly while living, we may still pursue with an affectionate remembrance, without having any occasion to charge ourselves with rebellion against the Sovereignty that appointed a separation. A day is coming, when I am confident, you will see and know, that mercy to both parties was the principal agent in a scene, the recollection of which is still painful. Yours, my dear cousin,

William Cowper.

LETTER XXI.

To Joseph Hill, esq.

November, 1784.

My dear friend,

To condole with you, on the death

of a mother aged eighty seven would be absurd: rather,

therefore, as is reasonable, I congratulate you, on the almost singular felicity of having so long enjoyed the company of so amiable, and so near a relation. Your lot and mine, in this respect, have been very different t; as, indeed, in almost every other. Your mother lived to see you rise, at least to see you comfortably established, in the world; mine, dying when I was six years old, did not live to see me sink in it. You may remember with pleasure while you live, a blessing vouchsafed to you so long; and I, while I live, must regret a comfort, of which I was deprived so early. I can truly say, that not a week passes, (perhaps I might with equal veracity say a day,) in which I do not think of her such was the impression which her tenderness made upon me, though the opportunity she had for showing it was so short. But the ways of God are equal: and when I reflect on the pangs which she would have suffered had she been a witness of all mine, I see more cause to rejoice, than to mourn, that she was hidden in the grave so soon.

We have, as you say, lost a lively and sensible neighbour in lady Austen: but we have been long accustomed to a state of retirement, within one degree of solitude; and being naturally lovers of still life, we can relapse into our former duality, without being unhappy at the change. To me, indeed, a third is not necessary, while I can have the companion I have had these twenty years.

A volume of mine will greet you, some time either in the course of the winter, or early in the spring. You will find it perhaps, on the whole, more entertaining than the former; as, it treats on a greater variety of subjects, and those, at least for the most part, of a sublunary kind. It will consist of a poem in six

books, called the Task. To which will be added another, which I finished yesterday, called, I believe, Tirocinium, on the subject of education.

You perceive that I have taken your advice, and given the pen no rest.

Yours,

William Cowper.

LETTER XXII.

To lady Hesketh.

The Lodge, Dec. 4, 1786.

I sent you, my dear, a melancholy letter, and

I do not know that I shall now send you one very unlike it. Not that any thing occurs in consequence of our late loss more afflictive than was to be expected; but the mind does not perfectly recover its tone after a shock like that which we felt so lately.

My experience has long taught me, that this world is a world of shadows; and that it is the more prudent, as well as the more Christian course, to possess the comforts which we find in it, as if we possessed them not: but it is no easy matter to reduce this doctrine into practice. We forget that the God who gave them, may, when he pleases, take them away; and that perhaps it may please him to take them, at a time when we least expect, or are least disposed, to part from them. Thus it has happened in the present case. There never was a moment in Unwin's life, when there seemed to be more urgent want of him, than the moment in which he died. He had attained to an age, when, (if they are at any time useful,) men become most useful to their families, their friends, and the world. His parish began to feel, and to be sen