as in my own. I have the free use of their library, an acquisition of great value to me, as I cannot live without books. By this means, I have been so well supplied, that I have not yet even looked at the Lounger, which you were so kind as to send me. His turn comes next, and I shall probably begin him to-morrow."

Cowper's correspondence with Mr. Newton had now been suspended for some months. In the beginning of the ensuing October he renewed it; and the following extracts will afford some interesting information respecting the peculiarity of his case:-"My Dear Friend-After a long but necessary interruption of our correspondence, I return to it again, in one respect, at least, better qualified for it than before; I mean by a belief of your identity, which, for thirteen years, strange and unaccountable as it may appear, I did not believe. The acquisition of this light, if light it may be called, which leaves me as much in the dark as ever, on the most interesting subjects, releases me, however, from the most disagreeable suspicion that I am addressing myself to you as the friend whom I loved and valued so highly in my better days, while in fact you are not that friend but a stranger. I can now write to you without seeming to act a part, and without having any need to charge myself with dissimulation-a charge from which, in that state of mind, and under such an uncomfortable persuasion, I know not how to exculpate myself, and which, as you will easily conceive, not seldom made my correspondence with you a burden. Still, indeed, it wants, and is likely to want, that best ingredient, which alone can make it truly pleasant, either to myself or you that spirituality which once enlivened all our intercourse. You will tell me, no doubt, that the knowledge 1 have gained is an earnest of more, and more valuable information too; and that the dispersion of the clouds in part, promises, in due time, their complete dispersion. I should be hap py to believe it; but the power to do so is at present far from me. Never was the mind of man benighted to the degree that mine has been. The storms that have assailed me would have overset the faith of every man that ever had any; and the very remembrance of them, even after they have been long passed by, makes hope impossible. Mrs. Unwin, whose poor bark is still held together, though much shattered by being tossed and agitated so long at the side of mine, does not forget yours and Mrs. Newton's kindness on this last occasion. Mrs. Newton's offer to come to her assistance,

and your readiness to have rendered us the same service, could you have hoped for any salutary effect of your presence, neither Mrs. Unwin nor myself undervalue, nor shall presently forget. But you judged right when you supposed that even your company would have been no relief to me; the company of my father or my brother, could they have been returned from the dead to visit me, would have been none. We are now busy in preparing for the reception of Lady Hesketh, whom we expect here shortly. Mrs. Unwin's time has, of course, been lately occupied to a degree that made writing to her impracticable; and she excused herself the rather, knowing my intentions to take her office. It does not, however, suit me to write much at a time. This last tempest has left my nerves in a worse condition than it found them; my head especially, though better informed, is more infirm than ever; I will therefore only add, that I rejoice to hear Mrs. Cowper has been so comfortably supported under her heavy trial. She must have severely felt the loss of her son. She has an affectionate heart towards her children, and could not but be sensible of the bitterness of such a cup. But God's presence sweetens every bitter. Desertion is the only

evil that a Christian cannot bear."

Cowper's friends were all delighted to see him again in full possession of his mental powers; and, as many of them attributed his last attack to the irritation and fatigue occasioned by his translation of Homer, they endeavored to dissuade him from pursuing it, and recommended him to confine his attention to original poetry. Cowper was not, however, to be diverted from his purpose without an irrefragable proof of its injurious tendency, and he had formed a very different opinion on the subject to that of his friends. In a letter to Mr. Newton, he particularly adverts to it."I have many kind friends, who, like yourself, wish that, instead of turning my endeavors to a translation of Homer, I had proceeded in the way of original poetry. But I can truly say, that it was ordered otherwise, not by me, but by that God who governs all my thoughts and directs all their intentions as he pleases. It may seem strange, but it is true, that after having written a volume, in general, with great ease to myself, I found it impossible to write another page. The mind of man is not a fountain, but a cistern; and mine, God knows, a broken one. It is my creed, that the intellect depends as much, both for the energy and the multitude of its exertions, upon the operations of God's agency upon it, as the heart, for the

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exercise of its graces, upon the influence of the Holy Spirit. According to this persuasion, I may very reasonably affirm, that it was not God's good pleasure that I should proceed in the same track, because he did not enable me to do it. A whole year I waited, and waited in circumstances of mind that made a state of mere employment peculiarly irksome to me. I longed for the pen as the only remedy, but I could find no subject: extreme distress, at last, drove me, as, if I mistake not, I told you some time since, to lay Homer before me, and translate for amusement. Why it pleased God that I should be hunted into such a business, of such enormous length and labor, by miseries for which he did not see good to afford me any other remedy, I know not. But so it was; and jejune as the consolation may be, and unsuited to the exigencies of a mind that once was spiritual, yet a thousand times have I been glad of it, for a thousand times it has served, at least, to divert my attention, in some degree, from such terrible tempests as I believe have seldom been permitted to beat upon a human mind. Let my friends, therefore, who wish me some little measure of tranquillity in the performance of the most turbulent voyage that ever Christian mariner made, be contented, that having Homer's mountains and forests to windward, I escape, under their shelter, from many a gust of melancholy depression that would almost overset me, especially when they consider that, not by choice, but by necessity, I make them my refuge. As to the fame, and honor, and glory, that may be acquired by poetical feats of any sort, God knows, that if I could lay me down in my grave with hope at my side, or sit with this companion in a dungeon all the residue of my days, I would cheerfully waive them all. For, the little fame that I have already earned, has never saved me from one distressing night, or from one despairing day, since I first acquired it. For what I am reserved, or to what, is a mystery; I would fain hope, not merely that I may amuse others, or only to be a translator of Homer."

Ten months had now elapsed since Cowper had laid aside his translation, and as Johnston, the publisher, had been informed of his recovery, he wrote to require him to persevere in the work with as little delay as possible.-Cowper immediately recommenced the undertaking, and again entered upon it with all his former spirit and activity. The following extracts will show that his affliction had not deprived him of the vigor of his mind, or produced in him the slightest dis

inclination to engage in this laborious work. "I am as heretofore occupied with Homer; my present occupation is the revisal of all I have done, which is the first fifteen books. I stand amazed at my own increasing dexterity in the business, being verily persuaded that as far as I have gone, I have improved the work to double its value. I will assure you, that it engages, unavoidably, my whole attention. The length of it, the spirit of it, and the exactness requisite to its due performance, are so many most interesting subjects of consideration to me, who find that my best attempts are only introductory to others, and, that what to-day I supposed finished, to-morrow I must begin again. Thus it fares with a translator of Homer.-To exhibit the majesty of such a poet in a modern language, is a task that no man can estimate the difficulty of till he attempts it. To paraphrase him loosely, to hang him with trappings that do not belong to him, all this is comparatively easy. But to represent him with only his own ornaments, and still to preserve his dignity, is a labor that if I hope in any measure to achieve it, I am sensible can only be achieved by the most assiduous and most unremitting attention; a perseverance that nothing can discourage, a minuteness of observation that suffers nothing to escape, and a determination not to be seduced from the straight line that lies before us, by any images which fancy may present. There are perhaps, few arduous undertakings that are not, in fact, more arduous than we at first supposed them. As we proceed, difficulties increase upon us, but our hopes gather strength also, and we conquer difficulties, which, could we have foreseen them, we should never have had the boldness to encounter. You possess by nature all that is necessary to success in the profession you have chosen. What remains is in your own power. They say of poets, that they must be born such; so must mathematicians, so must great generals, so must lawyers, and so indeed must men of all denominations, or it is not possible that they should excel. But with whatever faculties we are born, and to whatever studies our genius may direct us, studies they must still be. I am persuaded that Milton did not write his Paradise Lost, nor Homer his Iliad, nor Newton his Principia, without immense labor. Nature gave them a bent to their respective pursuits, and that strong propensity, I suppose, is what we mean by genius. The rest they gave themselves."

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My first thirteen books of Homer have been criticised in London; have been by me accommodated to those criticisms,

returned to London in their improved state, and sent back to Weston with an imprimatur. This would satisfy some poets less anxious than myself about what they expose in public, but it has not satisfied me. I am now revising them again, by the light of my own critical taper, and make more alterations than at the first. But are they improvements? you will ask. Is not the spirit of the work endangered by all this correctness? I think and hope that it is not. Being well aware of the possibility of such a catastrophe, I guard particularly against it. Where I find a servile adherence to the original would render the passage less animated than it would be, I still, as at the first, allow myself a liberty. On all other occasions, I prune with an unsparing hand, determined that there shall not be found in the whole translation an idea that is not Homer's. My ambition is, to produce the closest copy possible, and at the same time, as harmonious as I can possibly make it.-This being my object, you will no longer think, if indeed you had thought it at all, that I am unnecessarily, and over-much industrious. The original surpasses everything; it is of an immense length, is composed in the best language ever used upon earth, and deserves, indeed demands, all the labor that any translator, be he who he may, can possibly bestow upon it. At present, mere English readers know no more of Homer in reality, than if he had never been translated. That consideration indeed it was, which mainly induced me to the undertaking; and if after all, either through idleness or dotage upon what I have already done, I leave it chargeable with the same incorrectness as my predecessors, or, indeed, with any other that I may be able to amend, I had much better have amused myself otherwise. I am now in the nineteenth book of the Iliad, and on the point of displaying such feats of heroism, performed by Achilles, as make all other achievements trivial. I may well exclain, Oh, for a muse of fire! especially, having not only a great host to cope with, but a great river also; much, however, may be done when Homer leads the way. What would I give if he were now living, and within my reach! I, of all men living, have the best excuse for indulging such a wish, unreasonable as it may seem, for I have no doubt the fire of his eyes, and the smile of his lips, would put me, now and then, in possession of his full meaning more effectually than any commentator."

The close application of Cowper, to the translation of Homer, was not allowed to suspend, though it in some mea