Mrs. Unwin. About this time it was that he addressed to her one of the most touching, and certainly the most widely known of all his poems, for it has been read by thousands and tens of thousands who have never perused the Task, nor perhaps seen or heard of any other of his works. Hayley believed it to be the last original piece which he produced at Weston, and says, he questioned whether any language on earth can exhibit a specimen of verse more exquisitely tender.* In November, 1793, Cowper was visited by his friend Hayley, who says that he entreated him to remain the whole winter at Weston, and engage with him in a regular and complete revisal of Homer; and that inclination on his part was not wanting, but he thought it possible to render him a more essential service, as he returned through London, by quickening in the minds of his more powerful friends a seasonable attention to his interests. With this intention he left him towards the close of November, after somewhat more than a fortnight's tarriance. Cowper's spirits were immediately afterwards relieved, as regarded Milton, by a letter from Johnson, saying, that he might still postpone his labours. But in other respects the gloom darkened. Lady Hesketh came to him at the close of November, soon after Hayley's departure, and her intention was to remain till February. Knowing as she did the awful change that had taken place in Mrs. Unwin, and the injurious manner in which he was necessarily affected by it, she thought him on her arrival better than she had expected; but in the second week of the month which he always dreaded, his malady returned in full force, and in its worst form. Towards the end of February his cousin Johnson came from Norfolk, and assisted in attending on him as long as he could be absent from his professional duties. Soon after his departure, Mr. Greatheed thought it necessary to let Hayley know the extent of the evil. The man who would have hesitated to obey his summons must have had a harder heart than Hayley. Nothing, he says, could be more unseasonable to him in point of personal convenience; he was even forced to borrow money for the journey. Cowper, who used to welcome him so warmly, manifested now no pleasure at his arrival; but after a few days, he sometimes received medicine and food from his hand, which he would take from no other person. His presence enabled Lady Hesketh to quit what had now become her charge for a few days, that she might consult Dr. Willis, who was then in the highest repute for his skill in such cases, and to whom Thurlow had kindly written, requesting his attention to his unhappy old friend. But nothing could now dispel or even lighten the settled gloom by which Cowper was oppressed. A letter from Lord For these verses addressed to " Mary," sec p. 496. Spencer arrived at this time, to announce that a pension of three hundred pounds was about to be granted to him by the king; and he was not in a state either to open the letter, or to be informed by Lady Hesketh of its contents. The pension was rendered payable to Mr. Rose as his trustee. In the spring of 1795, Cowper's cousin Johnson thought that perhaps a summer's residence by the sea-side might restore his poor kinsman; and after very much difficulty he conducted them to the village of North Tuddenham, in Norfolk. There, "by the kindness of the Rev. Leonard Shelford, they were comfortably accommodated with an untenanted parsonage house, in which they were received by Miss Johnson and Miss Perowne; the residence of their conductor, in the market-place of East Dereham, being thought unfavourable to the tender spirit of Cowper. As the time of the year was favourable, and Cowper was capable of taking considerable exercise, Mr. Johnson took many walks with him in the retired neighbourhood of Tuddenham. In one of these they reached the house of his cousin, Mrs. Bodham, at Mattishall. At the sight of his own portrait by Abbot, he clasped his hands passionately, and uttered a vehement wish that his feelings were, or could again be, such as they were when that picture was painted. In August, hoping that both the invalids might derive some benefit from sea air, Mr. Johnson took them to the village of Mundsley, on the Norfolk coast. From this place Cowper began the last series of his letters to Lady Hesketh. They begin gloomily, and grow darker and darker to their close. Mr. Johnson had found that, "shattered as Cowper's frame was, and reduced even to a consumptive thinness, it yet retained a considerable portion of muscular strength." When they had explored all the walks within reach of Mundsley, they made a journey of fifty miles, by way of Cromer, Holt, and Fakenham, to look at Dunham Lodge, a house then vacant, standing on high ground in the neighbourhood of Swaffham. Cowper observed that it was rather too spacious for his requirements; but Mr. Johnson thought that he did not seem unwilling to inhabit it, and as he thought also that the situation would be more suitable for him than his own house in the market-place at East Dereham, he determined to treat for it. In the course of October, Mr. Johnson removed his charge to Dunham Lodge, as their settled residence. Dunham Lodge being found an inconvenient place of abode, Mr. Johnson looked out for a house equally retired, but nearer the scene of his ministerial duties. The inquiry was unsuccessful. He then ventured to ask Cowper whether he should object to reside in Dereham, and to his surprise it appeared that he not only preferred it to his present situation, but if the question had been put to him in the first instance, would never have wished to reside any where else. It was agreed, therefore, that they should remain where they were only till they went to Mundsley for the summer, and that when they left the coast, they should establish themselves at Dereham. It was towards the end of October that Mr. Johnson brought his helpless charge from the sea-coast to his own house at Dereham, and there, on the 17th of December, Mrs. Unwin expired, without the slightest struggle or appearance of pain. Cowper, though he had never hitherto appeared to notice it, was aware that her dissolution was expected; and when the servant opened his window on the morning of the day of her death, he said to her, "Sally, is there life above-stairs?"-He went to her bedside that morning as usual; and when he returned to the room below, Mr. Johnson, at his desire, immediately began to read to him, which his kinsman, though he had not been desired, would have done, because it was generally found to compose him. This however was no sane composure. A few hours after Mrs. Unwin had breathed her last, he said he was sure that she was not actually dead, but would come to life again in the grave, and then undergo the horrors of suffocation on his account, for he was the occasion of all that she or any other creature upon earth ever did or could suffer. He then seemed to wish to see her. Mr. Johnson accompanied him to the room; at first he fancied that he saw her stir,.. but having looked about a moment at her countenance, changed now from what it was when he had seen it in the morning, and settled into the placidity of death,.. he flung himself to the other side of the room with a passionate expression of feeling,.. the first that he had uttered, or that had been perceived in him, since the last return of his malady at Weston. Toward the close of the year 1798, his old and kind and highly esteemed friend, Sir John Throckmorton, who was then on a visit to Lord Petre, rode over to see him. Cowper manifested no pleasure at his sight; yet he mentioned him to Lady Hesketh in a letter, as if he had beheld him with more interest than he had expressed. Hayley has remarked how providentially friend after friend was raised up for Cowper as he needed them, and that in his darkest seasons of calamity he was never without some affectionate attendant. He speaks of Miss Perowne, and Mr. Johnson vouches for the truth of the description, as "one of those excellent beings whom nature seems to have formed expressly for the purpose of alleviating the sufferings of the afflicted, tenderly vigilant in providing for the wants of sickness, and resolutely firm in administering such relief as the most intelligent compassion can supply." Notwithstanding the great aversion which he had latterly had to medicine, Cowper would take it from her hands, and he preferred her assistance to that of any other person. He was not less fortunate in his kinsman. never saw," says Hayley, "the human being that would, I think, have sustained the delicate and arduous office in which "I Mr. Johnson persevered to the last, through a period so long, with an equal portion of unvaried tenderness and unshaken fidelity. A man who wanted sensibility would have renounced the duty; and a man endowed with a particle too much must have felt his own health utterly undermined by an excess of sympathy with the sufferings perpetually in his sight." The last reading to which Cowper listened appears to have been that of his own works. Beginning with the first volume, Mr. Johnson went through them, and he listened to them in silence till they came to John Gilpin, which he begged not to hear. It reminded him of cheerful days, and of those of whom he could not bear to think. His kinsman then proceeded to his unpublished poems; these he heard willingly, but made no remark on them. One day Mr. Johnson laid his old favourite Vincent Bourne before him; and from time to time invited, in like manner, his attention to many Greek and Latin pieces of the minor poets. From employment of this kind he seems never to have shrunk again till utterly incapacitated by bodily weakness. He translated also a few of Gay's Fables into Latin; among them was the Hare and many Friends: "Oh," said he, "that I could recall the days when I could repeat this fable by heart,-when I used to be called upon to do so for the amusement of company!"Better and happier days were now rapidly drawing near. Decided appearances of dropsy were now observed in his ankles and feet. A physician was called in; it was with difficulty that he could be induced to follow his prescriptions, and by the last week in February his weakness was such that he could no longer bear the motion of a carriage. He now ceased to come down-stairs; but was still able, after breakfasting in bed, to remove into another room, and remain there till evening. Before the end of March he was confined altogether to his chamber; but, except at breakfast, he sate up to his meals. Nothing could be gloomier than his state of mind. Dr. Lubbock, of Norwich, happening to visit a patient in an adjoining village, was requested to see him; and upon asking him how he felt,-"Feel!" said Cowper, "I feel unutterable despair!" near. On the 19th of April it was apprehended that his death was He lingered five days longer. In the course of Thursday night, when he was exceedingly exhausted, Miss Perowne offered him some cordial; he rejected it, saying, "What can it signify!" and these were the last words he was heard to utter. At five in the ensuing morning, April 25, 1800, that change in the features which betokens approaching death was observed; he became insensible, and remained so till the same hour in the afternoon, when he expired so peacefully that, of the five persons who were standing at the foot and side of the bed, no one perceived the moment of his departure. "From that moment till the coffin was closed," Mr. Johnson says, 66 the expression with which his countenance had settled, was that of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise." In sure and certain hope indeed for the deceased, might the remains of Cowper be committed to the ground. And never was there a burial at which the mourners might, with more sincerity of feeling, give their hearty thanks to Almighty God, that it had pleased Him to deliver the departed out of the miseries of this sinful world. He was buried in that part of Dereham church called St. Edmund's Chapel. Lady Hesketh, who administered to his effects, caused a monument to be erected there; for which Hayley supplied this inscription :- IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. BORN IN HERTFORDSHIRE, 1731. BURIED IN THIS CHURCH, 1800. YE, who with warmth the public triumph feel Here, to devotion's bard devoutly just, Pay your fond tribute due to Cowper's dust! Ranks with her dearest sons his favourite name. |