on the death of her husband, and there he formed the friendship with the Rev. John Newton, which exercised so important an influence on his mind. It was at his desire that Cowper first took up the pen as a poet, subsequent to the few efforts of his juvenile muse, as a contributor to the well-known collection styled the Olney Hymns. The death of his brother in 1770, at a time when his mind was labouring under gloomy impressions, had the effect of increasing the malady, which thus began to show itself, and from that time till towards the close of 1776, he was rarely able to compose his mind to any continuous effort, and for many months was again entirely prostrate under his dreadful malady. Now, however, he was watched over with all the solicitude of affection by his faithful friend, Mrs. Unwin, and she at length enjoyed her ample reward in seeing him restored to bodily and mental health. He was, indeed, peculiarly susceptible of the gentle and sympathizing attentions of woman; and the effect which such society produced on his later life adds to the conviction of the irreparable nature of the loss which he sustained by the death of his mother in his early years. Along with Mrs. Unwin, his cousin, Lady Hesketh, and his "sister Anne," Lady Austin, were his most favourite friends, and to their influence we owe the remarkable fact, that at the comparatively advanced age of fifty years, when the vigour of life must begin to lose some of its freshness and elasticity, Cowper began the great poems which have exercised so important an influence on English literature. It was at Mrs. Unwin's request that he prepared for the press the various poems, entitled, "Table Talk," "Hope," "Expostulation," &c., which were first published in 1782; and it was under the dictation of Lady Austin he began

his great poem, "The Task," as well as undertook the translation of "Homer;" nor is it unworthy to be mentioned along with these, that from her narrative, related to cheer him while suffering under one of his fits of mental depression, he afterwards constructed the humorous ballad of "John Gilpin."

The poet's translation of Homer has been frequently criticised, and the regret expressed that he should have devoted to such work the labour which might have sufficed to produce another "Task." It was, however, a congenial pastime, and to it we owe many of the most lively of Cowper's letters, productions which are scarcely less valuable contributions to English literature than his poems. Previous to the publication of Cowper's translation of Homer, he had removed with Mrs. Unwin to Weston, a beautiful village, distant about a mile from Olney. Here, however, his malady returned upon him, aggravated by the loss of his faithful nurse, Mrs. Unwin, who was now rendered helpless by palsy, and stood in need of the kind nursing she had formerly bestowed. A deep gloom settled on his mind, though leaving his intellect still vigorous, and occasionally cheered by bright intervals. In 1794, the exertions of his friends were effectual in securing for him a pension of £300 from the Crown. But it came too late to be fully appreciated or enjoyed. Mrs. Unwin died at the close of 1796, while on a visit, with the poet, to some of his relatives in Norfolk; and though he lingered on for upwards of three years, he was never again entirely free from the dark cloud of religious despondency, which, under the influence of his terrible malady, led him to regard himself as forsaken by God. Under this strange hallucination, he wrote his last poem, "The Castaway"— '-a most sad, and touching production, yet

abundantly proving, by its great beauty and vigour, that his poetical powers had suffered no decay. He expired on the 25th of April 1800, at the beginning of a new century, the whole literature of which may most truly be said to be affected by his influence. He lies interred in the parish church of East Dereham, Norfolk, where a monument from the chisel of Flaxman was erected to his memory by his cousin, Lady Hesketh, and inscribed with the lines contributed by Hayley, which not inaptly close with the couplet―

"His highest honours to the heart belong;
His virtues formed the magic of his song."

ROBERT BURNS.

BORN, 1759; DIED, 1796.

ROBERT BURNS, the peasant bard, and national poet of Scotland, differed no less widely in the circumstances of his birth than in those of his later career, from the author of the Task. Yet he too has exercised no slight influence on the literature of the present century. The birth-place of Burns was a humble clay-built cottage, in so frail a condition, that it threatened to involve the new-born infant in its ruins, almost as soon as he had opened his eyes on the light. The parents of Burns were such examples of virtuous piety and honest persevering independence, as are still occasionally to be met with among the Scottish peasantry. Both his father and mother appear to have been possessed of unusual powers of mind; and laboured with all the means of their limited sphere to promote the moral and intellectual improvement of their children. Their lot,

however, was one of poverty and trial, and it would be difficult to conceive of a poet nurtured under sterner disadvantages than those which surrounded the cradle of Burns, and influenced all his early years. Whether all the advantages of books and teachers, which he would have enjoyed in a higher rank of life, would have compensated for the freshness and vigour of untutored genius, has been frequently questioned. It is far more to be regretted, than the absence of such advantages, that he should have profited less than he might have done by the pure lessons and the noble example of his virtuous parents; and that, as he himself has sung:

"Thoughtless follies laid him low,

And stained his name."

The career of Burns was a brief, and, in many respects, a very sad one. While yet a mere lad, he was doing the work of a man on his father's and his brother Gilbert's farms, struggling amid the severest toil and privations to obtain the bare necessaries of life; and to the sufferings and trials which he witnessed and endured in youth, his brother ascribed the habitual melancholy which characterized his later years, when not excited by congenial society. Such schooling, however, was no unfit training for the poet who was destined to paint the Scottish cottar's home, and to associate his name with the glens, and streams, and hills of Ayrshire, as "The Land of Burns." His genius early displayed itself. Some of his poems which now command universal admiration, were written in his sixteenth year; nor must we forget, when comparing him with other poets who have won for themselves an enduring fame, that, while Cowper was fifty before he began the labours which have placed him so high among the great poets of England, Burns was laid in his grave at the early age of thirty

B

eight. Up to the age of twenty-three, when the poet went to reside in Irvine to learn the trade of a flax-dresser, he appears to have lived a laborious, yet cheerful and virtuous life. Sad as were the sufferings and privations which he witnessed and shared, he was at a period of life in which hope will predominate under the most adverse circumstances, and he still contrived to snatch some moments of leisure for the muse, as well as for the cultivation of his own mind. His brother Gilbert dates a serious change in his habits and moral conduct, from his removal to Irvine. He was entirely set loose from the wholesome restraints of the domestic circle, where the pious precepts and examples of the good old couple continued to be felt after they themselves were removed from the scene of so many cares and trials. "He contracted some acquaintance," his brother remarks, "of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue, which had hitherto restrained him."

The death of Burns's father in 1784 saved the good old man from the bitter sorrow of witnessing the disgrace of his favourite son, and mourning over such deep stains on his moral character. It was during his residence at Mossgiel, after his return from Irvine on the failure of the flaxdressing scheme, that Burns formed an attachment for Jean Armour, who afterwards became his wife. It has been usual for the poet's biographers to glose over her failings, and to represent her only in the character of the faithful partner of his later and sadder years. It may be doubted, however, if his connection with Jean Armour was not, from first to last, among the greatest sources of evil to him. We cannot free him from the charge of deficiency in moral virtue and purity, the exercise of which