Page:The poetical works of William Cowper (IA poeticalworksof00cowp).pdf/35

Rh besides this, but I believe that his love-affair affected the whole of his life very deeply. For a while the course of love ran tolerably smooth. But when, on the expira- tion of his clerkship, he went into residence at the Temple, in 1 752, a fresh shadow soon fell upon his course. Seclusion had its natural effect upon the nervous sensitive youth, and he had hard work to drive melancholy away. He tried first medicine, then religiosity, reading George Herbert, and "composing a set of prayers." Herbert, he says, relieved him a good deal : "I found in him a strain of piety which I could not but admire." But "a very near and dear relation" (probably Madan) disapproved of Herbert, and he was laid aside. His friends found a better cure for morbidness in taking him away for change of scene. He went with Mr. Hesketh, the affianced lover of his cousin Harriet,, to Southampton, and re- mained some months there. In his autobiography he gives more of his morbid feelings and thoughts here, which we again pass by. At length, much relieved, he returned to London in 1754, and was called to the Bar. But Ashley Cowper soon saw, or had already seen, enough of his nephew's aptitude for business to induce him to take an important step. He refused to sanction his daughter's engagement. The young lady pleaded with such earnestness as to shake his resolution for a while, but he returned to it, and after a considerable interval, during which some communication was still allowed, he forbade the lovers from meeting. The young lady regretfully submitted, and they never saw each other again. And Cowper never mentions her in any of his poems or letters. Nor does he write of love in any of his future poems. That he was mortified and angry appears from several slight but unmistakeable proofs. Meanwhile few will read without pity the effusions belonging to the latter part of his courtship, evidently the faithful picture of his alternating hopes and fears, until all hope was at an end.* The effect upon Theodora was deep and lasting. She never loved again, but always took the deepest interest in hearing about him. She read his poems with eagerness, and afterwards, as we shall see, showed her unaltered affection in a more substantial way. The verses which he had written to her she treasured up until the close of her life. Then, at a time when she also had apparently sunk into melancholy, she gave them in a sealed packet, for reasons which can only be guessed at, to a friend, directing that the packet should be opened after her death. The friend and she died nearly together, in 1824, and the sealed packet was then sent to her nephew Mr. Croft. He published them the following year, as we have already told.f Other sorrows had fallen on Cowper besides the loss of his love. His father died in July 1756; and although Cowper's connexion with Berkhamstead had never been continuous since his mother's death, he had always retained a warm affection for it. The connexion now ceased entirely ; and he says the parting with it was most bitter to him. His father had married again, and the widow


 * Pages 11 — 15.

t P. xviii. No. 12.