The strain of affectionate feeling that pervades the following letters to Lady Hesketh, is strongly characteristic of the stability of Cowper's friendships.

TO LADY HESKETH.

Olney, May 25, 1786.

I have at length, my Cousin, found my way into my summer abode. I believe that I described it to you some time since, and will therefore now leave it undescribed. I will only say that I am writing in a band-box, situated, at least in my account, delightfully, because it has a window on one side that opens into that orchard through which, as I am sitting here, I shall see you often pass, and which therefore I already prefer to all the orchards in the world. You do well to prepare me for all possible delays, because in this life all sorts of disappointments are possible, and I shall do well, if any such delay of your journey should happen, to practise that lesson of patience which you inculcate. But it is a lesson which, even with you for my teacher, I shall be slow to learn. Being sure however that you will not procrastinate without cause, I will make myself as easy as I can about it, and hope the best. To convince you how much I am under discipline and good advice, I will lay aside a favourite measure, influenced in doing so by nothing but the good sense of your contrary opinion. I had set my heart on meeting you at Newport: in my haste to see you once again, I was willing to overlook many awkwardnesses I

could not but foresee would attend it. I put them aside so long as I only foresaw them myself, but since I find that you foresee them too, I can no longer deal so slightly with them: it is therefore determined that we meet at Olney. Much I shall feel, but I will not die if I can help it, and I beg that you will take all possible care to outlive it likewise, for I know what it is to be balked in the moment of acquisition, and should be loth to know it again.

an

Last Monday, in the evening, we walked to Wes ton, according to our usual custom. It happened, owing to a mistake of time, that we set out half hour sooner than usual. This mistake we discovered while we were in the Wilderness: so finding that we had time before us, as they say, Mrs. Unwin proposed that we should go into the village, and take a view of the house that I had just mentioned to you. We did so, and found it such a one as in most respects would suit you well.* But Moses Brown, our vicar, who, as I told you, is in his eighty-sixth year, is not bound to die for that reason. He said himself, when he was here last summer, that he should live ten years longer, and for aught that appears so he may. In which case, for the sake of its near neighbourhood to us, the vicarage has charms for me that no other place can rival. But this, and a thousand things more, shall be talked over when you come, 10

We have been industriously cultivating our, ac

The lodge at Weston to which Cowper removed in the November following. to un

quaintance with our Weston neighbours since I wrote last, and they on their part have been equally diligent in the same cause. I have a notion that we shall all suit well. I see much in them both that I admire. You know perhaps that they are Catholics.

It is a delightful bundle of praise, my Cousin, that you have sent me all jasmine and lavender. Whoever the lady is, she has evidently an admirable pen and a cultivated mind. If a person reads, it is no matter in what language, and if the mind be informed, it is no matter whether that mind belongs to a man or a woman: the taste and the judgment will receive the benefit alike in both. Long before the Task was published, I made an experiment one day, being in a frolicsome mood, upon my friend:—we were walking in the garden, and conversing on a subject similar to these lines

fo. The few that pray at all, pray oft' amiss,

And, seeking grace t' improve the present good,
Would urge a wiser suit than asking more.

Prepeated them, and said to him with an air of nonchalance, "Do you recollect those lines? I have seen them somewhere, where are they?" He put on a considering face, and after some deliberation replied, "Oh, I will tell you where they must be in the Night Thoughts." I was glad my trial turned out so well, and did not undeceive him. I mention this occurrence only in confirmation of the letter. writer's opinion, but at the same time I do assure you, on the faith of an honest man, that I never in my life designed an imitation of Young or of any

other writer; for mimicry is my abhorrence, at least

in poetry.

Assure yourself, my dearest Cousin, that, both for your sake, since you make a point of it, and for my own, I will be as philosophically careful as possible that these fine nerves of mine shall not be beyond measure agitated when you arrive. In truth, there is much greater probability that they will be benefited, and greatly too. Joy of heart, from whatever occasion it may arise, is the best of all nervous medicines, and I should not wonder if such a turn given to my spirits should have even a lasting effect, of the most advantageous kind, upon them. You must not imagine neither that I am on the whole in any great degree subject to nervous affections; occasionally I am, and have been these many years, much liable to dejection. But, at intervals, and sometimes for an interval of weeks, no creature would suspect it; for I have not that which commonly is a symptom of such a case belonging to me: I mean extraordinary elevation in the absence of Mr. Bluedevil. When I am in the best health, my tide of animal sprightliness flows with great equality, so that I am never at any time exalted in proportion as I am sometimes depressed. My depression has a cause, and if that cause were to cease, I should be as cheerful thenceforth, and perhaps for ever, as any man need be. But, as I have often said, Mrs. Unwin shall be my expositor.

Adieu, my beloved Cousin. God grant that our friendship which, while we could see each other, never suffered a moment's interruption, and which

so long a separation has not in the least abated, may glow in us to our last hour, and be renewed in a better world, there to be perpetuated for ever.

For you must know, that I should not love you half so well, if I did not believe you would be my friend to eternity. There is not room enough for friendship to unfold itself in full bloom in such a nook of life as this. Therefore I am, and must and will be,

Thou dear, comfortable Cousin, whose letters, among all that I receive, have this property peculiarly their own-that I expect them without trembling, and never find any thing in them that does not give me pleasure-for which, therefore, I would take nothing in exchange that the world could give me, save and except that for which I must exchange them soon-(and happy shall I be to do so)—your own company. That indeed is delayed a little too long; to my impatience, at least, it seems so, who find the spring, backward as it is, too forward, because many of its beauties will have faded before you will have an opportunity to see them. We took our customary walk yesterday in the Wilderness at Weston, and saw, with regret, the laburnums, syringas, and guelder-roses some of them blown, and others just upon