HAYLEY’S LIFE AND POSTHUMOUS Wabrincs OF WILLIAM COWPER. 
énce under which he so long laboured. 
This was the narrative which he drew 
up, and which Mr. Newton thought fit 
to publish, of the sickness and death of 
his brother, the Rev.. John Cowper.— 
This brother, who is recorded in the 
Task, as 
«© A man of worth, 
A man of letters, and of manners too! 
Of manners, sweet as virtue always wears, 
' When gay good-humour dresses her in 
smiles,” 
was persecuted on his death-bed by his 
truly affectionate but deluded relative, 
in order to alarm him with the desperate 
state of his soul, because he had not yet 
been impressed with that sense of his own 
vileness, and of the exclusive efficacy of 
the Redeemer’s blood to avert the wrath 
of God, which his sect supposes essential 
to salvation. Weconfess that this nar- 
rative, which Mr. Hayley represents as 
* so likely to awaken sentiments of piety, 
where it may be most desirable to have 
them awakened,” affected us with a more 
humiliating and shuddering sense of the 
dangerous nature of enthusiasm, than 
almost any thing we had before perused ; 
nor could we in the least wonder, that a 
mind so haunted by terrific imagés, soon 
again fell into a state of derangement, 
which rendered a long period of years a 
series of the most exquisite sufferings. 
His recovery, or rather the remission 
of his paroxysm (for, poor man! he ne- 
ner recovered ), was marked by the com- 
position of those poems which form his 
first volume. They exhibit both the ne- 
ligence of an earnest and full-fraught 
mind, and the gloom and bile of religious 
austerity; yet they display a fund of 
poetical powers which Mr, Hayley has 
justly appreciated, and which must hence 
forth secure them from that neglect 
which they at first experienced from the 
_ public. 
_ A new era in the poet’s life com- 
mencences from his acquaintance with 
the lively Lady Austen, the inspirer of 
“the Task,” and “John Gilpin.” We 
¢annot but wonder that the biographer, 
notwithstanding his systematic care to 
offend nobody, could forbear, on the 
: tert with this lady, Lady Hes- 
‘manifest change in the spirits and pur- 
of Cowper, when he enjoyed a so- 
. , the:'L‘hrogmortons, and other per 
sons of polished and liberal manners, to 
‘speculate a little on the probable diffe- 
sence in his character and fate, had ‘he 
459 
fortunately, on his first recovery from 
mental derangement, escaped the gloom 
of methodism, and soberly partaken of 
the ordinary pleasures of cultivated so- 
ciety. That he would ever have been a 
tranquilly happy man, we do not sup- 
pose; his spirits were naturally too in- 
firm and variable, for the attainment of 
equanimity; but that horrid phantom of 
final reprobation, which never, but at in- 
tervals, was absent from his fancy, would 
probably not have existed under a dif- 
ferent course of mental discipline. It 
seems, however, for a considerable time 
to have faded before the sunshine of 
cheerful converse and literary reputation; 
and-his letters, at this period, are illumi- 
nated with that pleasantry and sportive 
humour, which formed a radical part of 
his singular composition. 
The most fortunate change in his si- 
tuation and circumstances, was occa- 
sioned by the kindness and attachment 
of his cousin, Lady Hesketh ; who, after 
having long lost sight of him in a’ resi- 
dence abroad, and’ the pérformance’ of 
domestic duties, was reminded of him by 
the celebrity he was acquiring from the 
publication of his second volume of 
poems. She was now a widow, in afflu- 
ent circumstances; and by a very kind 
letter, recommenced the frank and affec- 
tionate intercourse which had subsisted 
between them in their juvenile years. 
Of all the admirable letters of the poet, 
with which this publication is enriched 
(and which, indeed, constitute its chief 
value), none are more pleasing than 
those written to this amiable and worthy 
relative. We shall transcribe part of 
one, as the most delightful display we 
ever remember to have seen, of the .feel- 
ings of a noble mind in accepting a ge- 
nerous offer. We trust we have no rea- 
ders, whose hearts:will not beat with af- 
fection both to the giver and the re- 
ceiver. das 7 
«« My dearest cousin, G& sf 
«« Whose last most affectionate letter has 
run in my head ever since I received it, and 
which I now sit down to answer two days 
soover than the post will serve me. I thank 
you forit,and with a warmth for which Lam 
sure you will give me credit, though | do not 
spend many wordsin describing it. . Idonot 
seek ‘new friends, not being altogether. ‘sure 
that I should find them, ‘but have unspeak- 
able pleasure in being: still;beloved by an. old 
one. I hope that now our correspondence 
has ‘suffered its last interruption, and that we 
shili go down together to the grave, chatting 
