St. Alban's till the 17th of June, 1765: During the latter part of his residence there, and subsequent to the happy change just described, he exhibited a proof of the interesting and scriptural character of those views of religion which he had embraced, in the composition of two hymns. These hymns he himself stiled "specimens" of his "first christian thoughts;" a circumstance which will greatly enhance their value in the minds of those to whom they have been long endeared by their own intrinsic excellence. The subject of the first of these hymus is taken from Revelation xxi. 5. “Behold I make all things new," and begins"How blest thy creature is, O God." The second, under the title of "Retirement," begins "Far from the world, O Lord, I flee."

Early in the morning of the day above-mentioned he set out for Cambridge, on his way to Huntingdon, the nearest place to his own residence at which his brother had been able to secure him an asylum. He adverts with peculiar emphasis to the sweet communion with his divine Benefactor which, though not alone, he enjoyed in silence during the whole of this journey; on the Saturday succeeding which he repaired with his brother to his destination at Huntingdon.

No sooner had Mr. John Cowper left him, and returned to Cambridge, than, to use his own words, "finding himself surrounded by strangers, in a

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place with which he was utterly unacquainted, his spirits began to sink, and he felt like a traveller in the midst of an inhospitable desert, without a friend to comfort or a guide to direct him, He walked forth towards the close of the day, in this melancholy frame of mind, and having wandered a mile from the town, he was enabled to trust in Him who careth for the stranger, and to rest assured that wherever He might cast his lot, the God of all consolation would still be near him.

To the question which the foregoing pathetic passage will naturally give rise to in every feeling mind, namely, why was not Mr. Cowper advised, intead of hazarding his tender and convalescent spirit among the strangers of Huntingdon, to recline it on the bosom of his friends in London? it is incumbent on the writer to venture a reply. It is presumed therefore, that no inducement to his return to them, which, with a view to their mutual satisfaction, his affectionate relatives, and most intimate friends could devise, was either omitted on their part, or declined without reluctance on his. But in the cultivation of the religious principle which, with the recovery of his reason, he had lately imbibed, and which in so distinguished a manner it had pleased God to bless to the re-establishment of his peace, he had an interest to provide for of a much higher order. This

it was that inclined him to a life of seclusion: a measure in the adoption of which, though, in ordinary cases, he is certainly not to be quoted as an example, yet, considering the extreme peculiarity of his own, it seems equally certain that he is not to be censured. There can be no doubt indeed, from the following passage of his Poem on Retirement, that had his mind been the repository of less exquisitely tender sensibilities, he would have returned to his duties in the Inner Temple:

"Truth is not local, God alike pervades

"And fills the world of traffic and the shades,
"And may be fear'd amidst the busiest scenes,
"Or scorn'd where business never intervenes."

Of the first two months of his abode in Huntingdon, nothing is recorded, except that he gradually mixed with a few of its inhabitants, and corresponded with some of his early friends. But at the end of that time, as he was one day. coming out of church, after morning prayers, at which he appears to have been a constant attendant, he was accosted by a young gentleman of engaging manners, who exceedingly desired to cultivate his acquaintance. This pleasing youth, known afterwards to the public as the Reverend William Cawthorne Unwin, Rector of Stock in Essex, to whom the author of the Task inscribed his Poem of Tirocinium, was so intent upon accomplishing the object of his wishes, that when

he took leave of the interesting stranger, after sharing his walk under a row of trees, he had obtained his permission to drink tea with him that day.

!

This was the origin of the introduction of Cowper to the family of the Reverend Morley Unwin, consisting of himself, his wife, the son already named and a daughter: an event, which, when viewed in connection with his remaining years, will scarcely yield in importance to any feature of his life. Concerning these engaging persons, whose general habits of life, and especially whose piety rendered them the very associates that Cowper wanted, he thus expresses himself in a letter written two months after to one of his earliest and warmest friends; "Now I know them, I wonder that I liked Huntingdon so well before I knew them, and am apt to think, I should find every place disagreeable that had not an Unwin belonging to it."

a

The house which Mr. Unwin inhabited was a large and convenient dwelling in the HighStreet, in which he had been in the habit of receiving a few domestic pupils to prepare them for the University. At the division of the October Term, one of these students being called to Cambridge, it was proposed that the solitary lodging which Cowper occupied, should be ex

• Joseph Hill, Esq.

changed for the possession of the vacant place. On the 11th of November, therefore, in the same year, he commenced his residence in this agreeable family. But the calamitous death of Mr. Unwin by a fall from his horse, as he was going to his church on a Sunday morning, the July twelvemonth following, proved the signal of a further removal to Cowper, who, by a series of providential incidents, was conducted with the family of his deceased friend to the town of Olney in Buckinghamshire, on the 14th of October, 1767. The instrument whom it pleased God principally to employ in bringing about this important event, was the Reverend John Newton, then Curate of that parish, and afterwards Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in London: a most exemplary divine, indefatigable in the discharge of his ministerial duties; in which, so far as was consistent with the province of a Layman, it became the happiness of Cowper to strengthen his hands.

Great was the value which Cowper set on the friendship and intercourse which for some years he had the privilege of enjoying with the estimable author of Cardiphonia. This appears by the following passage in one of his Letters to that venerable pastor; "The honour of your Preface prefixed to my poems will be on my side, for surely to be known as the friend of a much fayoured minister of God's word, is a more illus