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COW. The future poet and the future peer became friends, and the former introduced the latter to his uncle's family at Southampton Row, where their time was spent more pleasantly than in chambers. An additional attraction, which drew Cowper thither, was his handsome and accomplished cousin Theodora. Their intimacy soon assumed the tender form of mutual love, a love forbidden by the lady's father, and at length sacrificed to his commands. The separation is said to have affected Cowper less deeply and less permanently than his cousin. The lady, during a long and unwedded life, gave abundant and generous proofs of her interest in her lover's welfare. Meantime he passed from the solicitor's to chambers in the middle temple. Solitary and uninterested in the profession for which he was designed; the shadow of that dark phantom which was to pursue him through life and embitter his existence, now first cast its gloom over his mind. "I was struck," he says, "with such a dejection of spirits as none but they who have felt the same can have the least conception of. Day and night I was upon the rack; lying down in horror and rising up in despair." A twelvemonth spent in this state is succeeded by a state of constant humiliation and prayer; then a change of scene dispels the misery of the poor self-tormentor, and makes his heart buoyant once more, but the dark phantom is again near him, turning this very blessing into poison. Cowper so far obeyed the wishes of his father as to become a member of the bar in 1754, but the membership was little more than nominal; the study was uncongenial to the poetic mind of Cowper, as it has been and will be to such men in all times. The death of his father, two years after, released him from even the semblance of legal study, and though he continued to live, first, in the middle, and afterwards in the inner temple, his time was spent in the society of wits, poets, and men of general literature, with which these ancient seats of jurisprudence were abundantly stocked. Thus time was running by for Cowper unprofitably enough; the indulgence of literary tastes brought no gain, but the reverse; and, at two and thirty years of age, he found himself with his little patrimony well-nigh spent, and no appearance that he should ever repair the damage by a fortune of his own getting. In fact he was all but in want, and in his distress he expressed to a friend his hope that the clerk of the house of lords should die, the gift being in the appointment of his kinsman, Major Cowper. The wish spoken, as Cowper afterwards penitently said, "in the spirit of a murderer," was shortly accomplished. Major Cowper offered that and two other more lucrative appointments. to his cousin, William, who ultimately accepted the former. The fitness of the nominee was, however, to be tested by an examination before the house. To one so shy and sensitive this prospect was full of terror; the preparation for the ordeal but increased his discomposure, and brought on a nervous fever; and in its train came the terrible malady, now fully developed, which thenceforth was to trouble his life. The details of this period we pass over as lightly as our duty permits. One shudders over the dark record which the poet himself left us, over-charged no doubt though it be by his too sensitive feelings. To evade the examination by self-destruction became the absorbing desire of his mind. Poison, drowning, and hanging, each were determined on—the former was partially attempted but interrupted; the second prevented by the state of the river; the third he essayed three times with terrible pertinacity, but each and all were over-ruled, even when life was almost extinct, so marvellously, that we cannot but concur in his own observation—"My life, which I had called my own, and claimed a right to dispose of, was kept for me by Him whose property indeed it was, and who alone had a right to dispose of it." Then followed the horrors of a half-awakening to a sense of his crime, days of agony, nights of despair; vain were the ministration of friends, vainer the relief sought in books. At length the pressure on the mind and the brain was too great for reason. The intellect wavered, reeled, broke down, and he was placed in a private asylum at St. Albans, under the care of Dr. Cotton (see ) in December, 1763. Seven months passed ere his recovery. To profit by the kind and judicious care of his physician he prolonged his stay at St. Albans a year longer, and he then left it with a signal change wrought in him; reason restored, spiritual delusions dissolved, and hopeful and healthy views of religion to cheer and sustain him. Some poems which he composed during his residence at Dr. Cotton's exhibit this change, and contrast agreeably with the fearful sapphics which he wrote just before his restraint. He became and continued to the end of his life a thoughtful, earnest, practical christian. But the world, especially the world of London, was no longer a congenial place for Cowper. "I remembered the pollution which is in the world, and the sad share I had in it myself, and my heart ached at the thought of entering it again." His brother John procured him a quiet lodging in the town of Huntingdon, whither he repaired in June, 1765. Here he improved in health and spirits, passing his time in reading, walking, and the society of a few friends, amongst whom were the Unwins, who thenceforth occupy a prominent place in his life. This happy mode of life was interrupted by the death of the elder Mr. Unwin, in July, 1767, the result of a fall from his horse. This led to the removal of Mrs. Unwin and her son with Cowper, to whose happiness the former were essential, to the neighbouring village of Olney, attracted thither by the desire to be near the Rev. John Newton, then its curate. Newton was no ordinary character; vigorous in mind and body, earnest in the discharge of his duties, he was exacting upon those who laboured with him or were under his ministrations. The change was not a beneficial one to Cowper, from the calm domestic worship to the public prayer meetings, the active, embarrassing, and exciting ministrations in visiting the sick and the dying, and caring for the wants of a poor and populous district. Newton did not understand, or pause to consider the delicate organization of his new friend; he pressed him as he would a man of strength of mind and body in the service of the cause which he had himself so much at heart. The death of John Cowper in 1770 was a blow that almost crushed him. Then it was that Newton, injudiciously, but with the kind intention of stimulating and diverting his mind, persuaded Cowper to join him in the composition of those hymns, afterwards so well-known as the Olney hymns, one of the most valuable contributions which an uninspired muse has bestowed upon the christian church. How far this occupation conduced to the state of mental derangement that soon followed, it is not easy to say. That the effect was prejudicial there can be no doubt. Other causes combined; he had, in a great degree, abandoned the pleasant habit of reading, which was so soothing at Huntingdon; he ceased almost entirely to communicate with his friends; the younger Unwin had gone to his curacy; and thus his only society was Mrs. Unwin and Newton. We may incidentally refer here to the surmise that Cowper at this time made proposals of marriage with Mrs. Unwin. The intimate intercourse and tender attachment subsisting between them were, no doubt, sufficient to justify such a conjuncture under ordinary circumstances, but their case was exceptional; the disparity of years and the infirmity of the man made the interest of the lady rather that of the tenderest of mothers. At all events there is no evidence of the fact of any offer ever having been made, and Southey disbelieves it. In January, 1773, the old malady showed itself, but it was not till July that Dr. Cotton visited him, and then followed the second act in the terrible drama—longer, darker, than the first—ending in imbecility of the mind; and during all this time with incessant and unwearied love Mrs. Unwin watched over and soothed him. The hours of his tedious recovery were occupied in gardening, carpentry, and the taming of hares and familiarizing himself with their character. His old love of poetry, too, revived, and he composed some verses and made some translations. Newton had now removed to Newport Pagnell, and Mrs. Unwin, to divert his mind from this new deprivation, urged Cowper to undertake a poem of greater scope and magnitude than the occasional pieces with which he had heretofore occupied himself. The theme suggested by her was "The Progress of Error." Happily for the fame of Cowper the suggestion was at once acted on. Cowper set to work diligently in December, 1780, and by the following March that poem and three others, "Truth," "Table Talk," and "Expostulation," were completed. A publisher was found to undertake the publication at his own risk, and in 1782 a volume containing these four poems and some other pieces appeared with the name of Cowper as their author. The reception of the volume was not overflattering. It was coldly noticed except by the Monthly Review, which had the sagacity to discover in it the true poetic genius.

It was while preparing for publication that Cowper formed an acquaintance which exercised no small influence upon him. In a neighbouring village lived a Mrs. Jones, the wife of a clergyman, and with her was a sister, the widow of Sir Robert Austen.