ing the old woods, with their solitude and the cries of woodland birds. The fame which he has conferred on this tree has nearly proved its destruction. Whole arms and great pieces of its trunk have been cut away with knife and axe and saw to prepare different articles from. The Marquis of Northampton, to whom the chase belongs, has had multitudes of nails driven in to stop the progress of this destruction, but, finding that not sufficient, has affixed a board bearing this inscription: "Out of respect to the memory of the poet Cowper, the Marquis of Northampton is particularly desirous of preserving this oak. Notice is hereby given that any person defacing or otherwise injuring it will be prosecuted according to law." In stepping around the Yardley Oak it appeared to me to be, at the foot, about thirteen yards in circumference. - HOWITT: Homes and Haunts of the British Poets. COWPER'S FRIENDS. Westminster School-fellows. At Westminster Cowper's friendships with Lloyd, Churchill, and Colman began, but his favorite companion was Sir William Russell, alluded to in the lines "Still, still, I mourn with each returning day, Among his associates there were Warren Hastings, the future celebrated governor-general of India, and Cumberland, the subsequent author. Nonsense Club. During his residence in the Temple, Cowper belonged to this club, composed of seven Westminster men, who met together every Thursday. Among its members were Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, and Joseph Hill. Thornton and Colman were intimate friends at Oxford, and joint-partners in the publication of several periodicals. They were men of true literary genius and possessed of great satirical powers. Thornton died at an early age, while engaged in a skilful translation of Plautus, and Cowper commemorated him in the verses entitled "To the Memory of the late John Thornton, Esq." (1790). Lloyd was also a man of literary talent, but wanting in moral strength and principles. His life, full of disappointment and gloom, was closely linked to that of Charles Churchill, his friend, and a man closely resembling himself. Churchill was the author of the popular "Rosciad," and, in the opinion of Cowper, the greatest writer of the time. Their short lives of dissipation and disappointment were terminated by an early and almost simultaneous death. Cowper's intercourse with these friends ended with his removal from London, but with Joseph Hill he maintained a friendship for life. Hill is known in literature only as the correspondent of Cowper. He was a man of strong intellect, and, like the poet, cherished a deep love for retirement. In 1786 Cowper wrote to him: "The noble institution of the Nonsense Club will be forgotten when we are gone who composed it; but I often think of your most heroic line, written at one of our meetings, and especially think of it when I am translating Homer: ""To whom replied the Devil yard-long-tailed.' There was never anything more truly Grecian than that triple epithet, and were it possible to introduce it into either 'Iliad' or 'Odyssey' I should certainly steal it." Rev. John Newton. - It was at the invitation of this clergyman that the poet and Mary Unwin retired to Olney, and took up their abode near his parsonage. By the payment of £I a year, Cowper secured the privilege of crossing the orchard which separated his own grounds from those of his friend, and thus their connection was rendered more intimate. Mr. Newton was a man of strong intellect, but his severe religious opinions and Calvinistic belief proved to have a very depressing effect on the melancholy temperament of Cowper. He was, however, a genuine and sincere friend to the poet, and the separation, on his removal to another parish, after twelve years of the most intimate intercourse, was deeply lamented by Cowper. Mr. Newton made frequent visits to Olney, and many of Cowper's poems were subjected to his perusal before publication. Lady Austen. It was not long after the rector's departure that the parsonage received another occupant. This was the brilliant and witty Lady Austen, to whom we owe "John Gilpin" and "The Task." She was the widow of a baronet, and sister to the wife of a clergyman in the vicinity of Olney. Attracted by the poet, and desirous of leading a more quiet life for a time, she took up her abode in the retired village. Cowper has described her in a letter to Mr. Unwin: "She has many features in her character which you will admire; but one in particular, on account of the rarity of it, will engage your attention and esteem. She has a degree of gratitude in her composition, so quick a sense of obligation as is hardly to be found in any rank of life; and, if report says true, is scarce indeed in the superior. Discover but a wish to please her and she never forgets it; not only thanks you, but the tears will start into her eyes at the recollection of the smallest service. With these fine feelings she has the most, and the most harmless, vivacity you can imagine." In October Lady Austen returned to London, and Cowper addressed to her a poetical epistle which is contained in the volumes of his poems. Soon after this she became offended at a letter written by the poet, in which he reproved her for entertaining too fanciful ideas of their relation, and their correspondence abruptly ceased. This friendship, though brief, is interesting because of its literary results. Had it not been for Cowper's acquaintance with this lady, the famous ballad of "John Gilpin" and the immortal poem "The Task" would never have been written. Lady Hesketh. - While Cowper was pursuing his law studies in the Temple, he fell in love with his cousin, Theodora Cowper. Their connection was, however, broken off by the opposition of her father, and he never saw her again. But with her sister, Lady Hesketh, he had a lifelong friendship. On her return to England, a widow, after many years spent abroad, she found her cousin a famous poet, and hastened to renew the acquaintance of her youth. She watched over and cared for him; it was through her that Cowper and Mary Unwin removed to the pleasanter house and neighborhood of Weston, and it was owing to her own infirm health that she was not present during his last illness. The monument over his grave was erected by her. William Hayley. Cowper and Hayley saw each other for the first time in 1792, and the interview was commemorated by the poet in the "Sonnet" addressed to his new friend. Hayley was something of a dramatist, an essayist, and the author of several epistles, as he was also the friend of Romney, Mason, and Edward Gibbon, the historian. He was a man of very attractive and generous disposition, and completely won the hearts of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. His magnificent mansion at Eartham, with its elegant pleasure-grounds which Gibbon called the little paradise of Eartham, had received many distinguished guests, and now the great poet was lodged beneath its enclosures. Hayley watched over Cowper during his last years, and after his death became his biographer. THE PERSONAL CHARACTER OF Cowper. I may be suspected of speaking with the fond, partial, the unperceived exaggeration of friendship; but the fear of such censure shall not deter me from bearing my most deliberate testimony to the excellence of him whose memory I revere, and saying that, as a man, he made, of all men whom I have ever had opportunities to observe so minutely, the nearest approaches to moral perfection. Indeed a much more experienced judge of mankind, and Cowper's associate in early life, Lord Thurlow, has expressed the same idea of his character; for being once requested to describe him, he replied, with that solemn energy of dignified elocution by which he was accustomed to give a very forcible effect to a few simple words, "Cowper is truly a good man." His daily habits of study and exercise, his whole domestic life is so minutely and agreeably delineated in the series of his letters that it is unnecessary for his biographer to expatiate upon them.... Cowper greatly resembled his eminent and exemplary brothers of Parnassus, Racine and Metastasio, in the simplicity and tenderness of his domestic character. His voice conspired with his features to announce to all who saw and heard him the extreme sensibility of his heart, and in reading aloud he furnished the chief delight of those social, enchanting winter evenings which he has described so happily in the fourth book of "The Task." He had been taught by his parents at home to recite English verse in the early years of his childhood, and acquired considerable applause as a child in the recital of Gay's popular fable, "The Hare and many Friends" - a circumstance that probably had great influence in raising his passion for poetry, and in giving him a peculiar fondness for the wild persecuted animal that he converted into a very grateful domestic companion. Secluded from the world, as Cowper had long been, he yet retained in advanced life uncommon talents for conversation, and his conversation was distinguished by mild and benevolent pleasantry, by delicate humor peculiar to himself, or by a higher tone of serious goodness, and those united charms of a cultivated mind which he has himself very happily described in drawing the colloquial character of a venerable divine. ... Many persons have been misled so far as to suppose him a severe and sour sectary, though gentleness and goodnature were among his pre-eminent qualities, and though he was deliberately attached to the established religion of his country.-HAYLEY. [The best idea of Cowper's character is to be obtained only by a careful study of his letters, which have been pronounced "the finest specimen of the epistolary style in our language."] Autobiographical Passages in Cowper's Poetry. Childish Grief at the Early Loss of His Mother. -The exquisite poem, Ол the Receipt of My Mother's Picture. Writing Poetry at Westminster.-Table Talk, 1. 509-522. Early Admiration for Milton and Cowley.-The Task, bk. iv., 1. 706-732. |