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whether they acted from a questionable idea of biographical fidelity, or a desire to make his story more captivating, and to exhibit some new view of his power in his calm and vigorous and most searching descriptions of his religious frenzy; or, idlest of all, to account for a supposed inconsistency between gloomy passages in his poems and his sprightly letters to his friends; it is too late to enter a complaint now. Mr. Sharp says to Dr. Southey, "The painful facts are so well known, that you must fairly tell the whole story of his derangement;" and our author has addressed himself diligently to his work.

With a number of difficult questions brought before him for judgment, Dr. Southey shows patience, fairness, and sagacity in informing himself of the truth, and making up his decision. He is evidently fond of his undertaking, and aware of the singular advantages not less than of the embarrassments of his subject, and desirous of enabling the reader to form a satisfactory opinion of the whole life of a man, who had been made a frequent topic of controversy, but never, it is believed, on any point connected with his genius, his moral character, his taste, or the popular influence of the books published by his own authority. The Biography is an elaborate, skilful mosaic, and more in this style than the author wished, for reasons stated in the Preface. Detached particulars are collected from Cowper's extensive correspondence, from his private narratives and notes, from the recollections of the living, from the papers of deceased relatives, and from contemporary biographies; and this variety of materials is wrought into a continuous narrative, requiring, no doubt, greater labor of comparison and selection than many an admiring reader will think of, and a steady activity of imagination to enable the relater of details to see and present something like a consistent whole, or preserve that natural unity which belongs to truth.

While we acknowledge the skill with which the work is put together, we perceive also signs of the care that was necessary to give it shape. Dr. Southey writes with the confidence of one who knows that he has made all safe, and yet not with the perfect ease of one who has gathered his knowledge of a man from intimacy and sympathy. He is seeking for truth in records, and not arranging the results of personal observation. He encounters difficulties which must be explained, and representations and opinions of others which need correction, and hence the work often has marks of a critical examination

instead of unembarrassed narrative. Under the circumstances, all this was inevitable; and it is only surprising that what is strictly of an argumentative or speculative character should be introduced so easily and conducted so rapidly, as rather to fall in with the narrative than appear to be added to it, and that there is so well-connected a story where there was so much to break it in pieces.

We do not allude here to his setting apart certain portions of his work for the consideration of particular topics, connected with the literary history of Cowper's time; for instance, the ample notice of Churchill, and of Cowper's companions of the Nonsense Club. These are understood to be of the nature of episodes, and to have their privilege. But it is observable even of these and other digressions, where the strict biography is interrupted for the sake of critical dissertations or summaries of literature, or to place before us passages in the literary history of the period that are little known, but important in connexion with the growth of Cowper's mind and the formation of his taste, and with his habits of life before and after he retired from the world, that the main interest is far from being painfully broken, and the reader returns to the story with increased light thrown upon its progress, and grateful for the author's free use of his almost boundless information. Joined to these and other qualifications of a biographer, which place him in the first rank of this class of writers, is a calm, unaffected, transparent style, the result not merely of his mastery of English, but also of his possession of his subject, and a devotion to it as sincere as if he were preparing an account of himself. It is delightful to have a memoir of Cowper from one who resembles him in purity of diction and in simple elegance.

When the services of an editor and biographer, every way so competent to the business, had been secured, it would have been gratifying to add that we were at last put in possession of a complete edition of Cowper's writings. But the embarrassment of copy-right in different hands is not yet wholly removed. The reader will learn from the Preface that Dr. Southey, while he brings valuable additions to the former collection, is debarred from inserting entire an important series of letters already published.

Such a variety of topics is presented in the Life alone, that it seems advisable to set limits to the range of our remarks;

and perhaps by dwelling chiefly on Cowper's personal character and private habits, we may give a clearer idea of him in every relation, than by any summary we could make of the Biography.

Cowper's natural temper was scarcely less remarkable than his genius, if indeed it can be considered as not making a part of it. A gentle, inoffensive disposition, averse to action, but in perfect harmony with vivacity of mind and gayety of spirits, seemed for a time to promise him a happy life of literary and social leisure. In a beautiful letter to Mrs. Bodham, thanking her for the present of his mother's picture, he says; "I was thought in the days of my childhood much to resemble my mother; and in my natural temper, of which at the age of fifty-eight I must be supposed to be a competent judge, can trace both her, and my late uncle, your father. Somewhat of his irritability; and a little, I would hope, both of his and her

-, I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but speaking to you, I will even speak out, and say, good nature." Giving our own interpretation to his share of the family irritability, we read in this passage, what indeed is legible in his whole life, that his amiableness was not a weak or indolent passiveness; for he was alive to injuries, neglect, and ingratitude, and could express his resentments; not indeed querulously, as if he thought of himself more than of the wrong, but feelingly, like a man instinctively tender of the rights of another, and duly mindful of his own. It was not in his nature however to retain ill-will, or support the bearing of a proud man who remembers a wrong for the purpose of keeping up his dignity and vindicating his rights. Thurlow and Colman might neglect him in his retirement and incur his resentment; and his connexions, those whom he loved dearest, might separate themselves from him, because they could not sympathize with him in his religious sentiments. But his heart yearned towards them, and he delighted in the occasion, though at a distant day, of renewing his intimacy with them. Years of separation and silence had not impaired his memory of their looks and manner, or of those trifling incidents of their intercourse, which are generally the most strongly associated with old friendships, and most expressive of the terms on which people live.

To what but the charm of his disposition can we ascribe

the affection he inspired in minds the most various and the most diversely occupied. It was not his sufferings that first bound them to him, nor sympathy with his religious opinions and experiences, nor homage to his genius, nor a wish to be known as familiar with an eminent man. Entire strangers, men of the world, Romanists and Protestants, females of apostolic sanctity buried in the shades of a country village, and females, the wittiest and most accomplished, from the capital; Hayley, in the splendor of his fame; Rose, a youth just from College; and Hill, loaded with the business of his office, are all drawn alike to the recluse at Olney and Weston Lodge. The spot is not visited because of its celebrity; the visits make no noise in the journals, and probably would not now be known but for his description of them in his familiar letters. Some of his most valued friends discovered him by accident; and though they might well deem it the great event of their lives, they could scarcely dream that the terms on which they lived with him were to associate their names with his for ever. Before he was at all known as a writer, and when long sequestration had made him as one dead and out of mind to the intimates of his youth and early manhood, the same charm had won him friends, which secured those who visited him in the days of his far-spread fame.

So far from courting attention himself, his excessive shyness made him apprehensive at the approach of a stranger, and even of his dearest friend after long separation; and though dependent upon society, he wished it small and of the most domestic kind. But when the countenance beamed upon him or the voice was heard that harmonized with his spirit, let it happen ever so casually, his heart opened to them, and confidence was given and established. The ways in which his friends showed their devotedness are deserving of the particular notice which Dr. Southey has taken of them, for they are tokens of their character and of his ; and in many points they are illustrative of his habits, taste, and circumstances. Sometimes these offices were imprudent and exceedingly injurious, but they were not the less affectionate and well intended. We cannot but observe in almost every case how unpretending and considerate are the attentions he received. Mrs. Unwin's maternal devotion of her life to him, and the prudence and overflowing tenderness of Lady Hesketh's care, call for higher language. We refer to humbler

services; to the charge taken of his little property by an early and constant friend, while others, who had a right to confer such a favor, are engaged to make up any deficiency. A neighbour offers him the free use of his grounds for his retired walks, where none shall intrude upon him. Delicacies are constantly sent to him from the seashore; seeds and plants are remembered in season for his garden; some are urging him to write, and proposing subjects, and transcribing his verses, and others are finding him a better residence, and furnishing his study, or tempting him to journey. Take his years of illness and health together, and his life seems to be one continued reception of kindness, and his poetry, the fruit and return of friendship.

We may see in this nothing but proofs of his helplessness and their compassion. But does mere helplessness draw forth such various and cheerful service, and from strangers? It would be wrong, however, to speak of Cowper as a mere burden to others, or, at best, as rewarding their care with his letters only, or his muse, or his conversation. He was far from being wholly inactive, though his power was every way small to serve a friend or the people of the village. He was in no respect a selfish man, though with every temptation to become one. It is particularly to our purpose here, to name his devotion to Mrs. Unwin in the feebleness of her old age. It forms one of the most affecting passages in his own or in any life; and to feel all its beauty and sadness, we should read every particular of their long intimacy. He had been as dependent upon her as a sick child, and had contemplated the possibility of her death with a childlike dread of desertion. And when he saw her mind, which had been his guardian and cheering light, failing, and the support and even the restraint of religious principle growing feeble with her own weakness; when he saw her, whose charge he had been, now impatiently exacting attentions from him, which his depression at her changed state, and his common infirmities, made it next to impossible that he should render; though himself old, he went to her with a child's love, and in his turn gave himself wholly to her comfort. "I cannot," he says, sit with my pen in my hand and my books before me, while she is in effect in solitude, silent, and looking at the fire." His strength sunk under his care of her and the absence of his customary supports. A mournful scene follows of impotent

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