must be lost of this blessed opportunity of explaining his position from the very beginning. He generously forgave his lovely prisoner for having had so much to do with it, but she must allow him to explain how "the sight of her beautiful face had kindled his imagination to such a flame that he was compelled to paint it, and, not being free to do so for his own pleasure, he had striven to transfer his recollection of it to the unfinished panel of the sainted Catharine. But that he had not been able to do. The purest form of beauty is always the most elusive, and, in the midst of these unsuccessful efforts, the Fourteen Helpers had, of course, been a little neglected, whereupon the Baron (who, in the fulness of his years, had forgotten how young men lose their hearts) lost his temper instead, and locked him up here so as to ensure the completion of the pictures by St. Leonard's Day."

With a skilful arrangement of facts, and an artistic grouping of consequences, Konrad ended triumphantly by making his admiration of the maiden's beauty the sole cause of all his misfortunes.

At first he held his captive's hand firmly clasped in his, but loosened it as she ceased to struggle. When he had finished his explanation and pressed her hand tenderly, merely out of friendship, she only drew it back a little way, and then let it lie passive, but within his reach.

She seemed to feel such pity for him that his heart overflowed with joy. Suddenly he thought this beautiful creature must be the Baron's noble daughter, whom the old tyrant, insensible alike to beauty, whether in art or nature, kept hidden away here from all the world. Why had he not recognized it sooner? But he hastened now to implore her to persuade her father to unlock his prison doors for him without delay.

"That I cannot do," she answered, sorrowfully. "And my father would not dare do it. He may seem to be treating you with severity, but, indeed, indeed, he is only acting according to his bounden duty."

"There we have a genuine bit of the old school," thought Konrad!-a poor, unhappy human being, persecuted beyond endurance, and all for the sake of one man's determination to keep his word to his patron saints, up to the very minute.

The Baron's will was inflexible. But a happy inspiration suggested that, could he persuade this lady to come back again into the neglected garden, it might be really better for him to stay quietly in prison a little while longer. Was she not already looking at him with kindly sympathy? And should he be released and go back again to the city, he would probably never see her again, and she would quickly lose all interest in him. Oh! if only it were possible! if only she would really help him! And, emboldened by the happy thought, he again explained to her, with even more earnestness, that he would never regain his liberty until the pictures were all finished and finely executed. That, sad and lonely as he was, he could do nothing with so heavy a heart, and especially would it be impossible to finish St. Catharine without a model, a beautiful model. Would she not have compassion upon him? Would she not graciously help him by coming back once or twice, if only for a quarter of an hour or so? The finest portraits had often been painted in this hurried manner. Moreover, St. Catharine herself might take note of this unselfish sacrifice in her favorand, by-the-way, was not the maiden's name Catharine?

No, her name was Susannah.

At first she refused to listen to the proposition, but yielded to it later on; "perhaps a little too easily," as the

painter said to himself, in thinking it over after she was gone. But her father had evidently brought her up in this secluded place, a genuine child of nature, innocent and pure-minded.

But how completely the apparition of this child of nature had changed the thoughts and feelings of our hero! He now rejoiced in his imprisonment, for tomorrow he would see the beautiful Susannah again! And he would paint, oh, how splendidly he would paint, the holy St. Catharine! Not one of the old masters could have surpassed him! In the enthusiasm of his love and admiration he was quickly, fully convinced that, now, he could never leave

this hitherto hated castle without a formal engagement, or, better still, a speedy marriage with the adorable Susannah. And here two conflicting currents of thought crossed each other.

He dearly loved the beautiful maiden, and so felt bound to win her for her own dear sake. But, also, he detested her unfeeling father, and what a glorious triumph it would be, what a fine revenge to play him this trump card! The prisoner would overreach his jailor! And, with this cheering thought of love and vengeance, he prepared a third panel for the many times repainted St. Catharine.

1

On April 25th Cowper will have been dead just a century. The reflection is fairly obvious, but also somewhat startling, for the lines of Cowper that we all know by heart have nothing in them that suggests a bygone age. The appeal of "The Castaway," or "Hark, my soul, it is the Lord," or "John Gilpin," to mention three masterpieces in different modes, comes as freshly and simply to us as to our great-grandfathers; which is a way of saying that they are, in the truest sense of the word, classical. It may be interesting to any readers of Cornhill, who are a little vague, as one is apt to be, about the history of a classical writer, to rehearse briefly Cowper's legend, noticing especially the influences that determined his devotion to literature.

William Cowper was born in 1731 at the rectory of Great Berkhampstead, in the county of Hertford. His family had been ennobled in the person of his great-uncle, the Whig Lord Chan

cellor to Anne and George I; his grandfather was that Spencer Cowper, Judge of the Common Pleas, for love of whom a pretty Quakeress drowned herself; and his father was chaplain to George II. On the mother's side, who was a Donne, the blood was perhaps better and certainly more interesting, as it descended by several lines from King Henry III, and also from the great Jacobean poet and preacher. John Donne, Dean of St. Paul's. His mother died when Cowper was six years old, and one of his most touching poems, written fifty years later on receiving from a cousin a present of the only known picture of her, shows that her memory remained always fresh and vivid in his mind. The impression of his loss was rendered indelible by the fact that he was sent off at once to a boarding-school, where, being weak in health and of acute sensibilities, he was bullied. Afterwards he proceeded to Westminster, and made friends of

a few boys who by-and-by made a stir in the world, Warren Hastings, Elijah Impey and Charles Churchill. On leaving school he was articled to an attorney in Ely Place, in whose office he idled away several years; in spare moments "giggling and making giggle" with some cousins, the daughters of Ashley Cowper, who lived hard by in Southampton Row. His fellow-clerk was Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor. Cowper, who foretold Thurlow's success, made his friend promise to give him an appointment when he came to the woolsack; but when the prophecy was fulfilled Thurlow did not remember Cowper, but forgot him. When Cowper brought himself to Thurlow's notice by sending him his first book of poems, his Lordship failed to acknowledge its receipt; and this so hurt the poet's feelings that he penned a certain vigorous passage upon Friendship, which is likely to be remembered and coupled with the name of Thurlow as long as the language lasts:-

Oh friendship, cordial of the human breast!

So little felt, so fervently professed! Thy blossoms deck our unsuspecting

years;

The promise of delicious fruit appears; We hug the hopes of constancy and truth,

Such is the folly of our dreaming youth;

But soon, alas, detect the rash mistake That sanguine inexperience loves to

make;

And view with tears th' expected harvest lost,

Decay'd by time, or wither'd by a frost. Whoever undertakes a friend's great part

Should be renew'd in nature, pure in heart,

Prepar'd for martyrdom, and strong to

prove

A thousand ways the force of genuine love.

He may be call'd to give up health and gain,

To exchange content for trouble, ease for pain,

To echo sigh for sigh, and groan for groan,

And wet his cheeks with sorrows not his own.

The heart of man, for such a task too frail,

When most relied on, is most sure to fail;

And summon'd to partake its fellow's

woe

Starts from its office like a broken bow.

Cowper was called to the bar in 1754 --he was at this time a Templar and a wit and a member of a Nonsense Club which included George Colman. Two years later his father died, leaving but little fortune; but the son was, to a certain extent, provided for by a Commissionership in Bankruptcy, and it was understood that his cousin, Major Cowper, would be properly nepotic when the Clerkship of the House of Lords fell in, to which the Major had the presentation. In 1763 the vacancy occurred, and the good kinsman played his part; nothing was required of the candidate but to appear at the bar of the House for a formal examination. Unhappily, Cowper was not a good subject for an examination, however formal; a nervous melancholy became accentuated by the prospect, and on the day fixed for his appearance he attempted suicide. The failure of the attempt struck him into an ever-deepening religious horror.

I

One morning (he wrote afterwards) as I lay between sleeping and waking, seemed to myself to be walking in Westminster Abbey, waiting till prayers should begin; presently I thought I heard the minister's voice, and hastened towards the choir; just as I was upon the point of entering, the iron gate under the organ was flung in my face with a jar that made the Abbey ring; the noise awoke me; and a sentence of excommunication from all the churches upon earth could not have been so dreadful

to me as the interpretation which I could not avoid putting upon this dream.

When he recovered his reason his relations subscribed him a modest income-for the Commissionership had to be resigned-and his brother, who was a Fellow of a college at Cambridge, settled him at Huntingdon, so as to be within reach. It was at Huntingdon that his melancholy figure attracted the attention of the Rev. Morley Unwin, who invited him to his house, and presently received him as a boarder. It is interesting to look back at Cowper's first impressions of this family, with whom his future life and fortunes were to be bound up:

I have added another family to the number of those I was acquainted with when you were here. Their name is Unwin-the most agreeable people imaginable; quite sociable, and as free from the ceremonious civility of county gentlefolks as any I have ever met with. They treat me more like a near relation than a stranger, and their house is always open to me. The old gentleman carries me to Cambridge in his chaise. He is a man of learning and good sense, and as simple as Parson Adams. His wife has a very uncommon understanding, has read much, to excellent purpose, and is more polite than a duchess. The son, who belongs to Cambridge, is a most amiable young man, and the daughter quite of a piece with the rest of the family. They see but little company, which suits me exactly; go when I will I find a house full of peace and cordiality in all its parts, and am sure to near no scandal, but such discourse, instead of it, as we are all better for. You remember Rousseau's description of an English morning; such are the mornings I spend with these good people; and the evenings differ from them in nothing except that they are still more snug, and quieter.

For nearly two years Cowper lived with the Unwins, and shared in their

life of religious devotion. The scheme of the day is thus sketched in a letter to his cousin, Mrs. Cowper:

We breakfast commonly between eight and nine; till eleven we read either the Scripture, or the sermons of some faithful preacher; at eleven we attend divine service, and from twelve to three we separate and amuse ourselves as we please. During that interval I either read in my own apartment, or walk, or ride, or work in the garden. We seldom sit an hour after dinner, but if the weather permits adjourn to the garden, where, with Mrs. Unwin and her son, I have generally the pleasure of religious conversation till tea-time. After tea we sally forth to walk in good earnest. At night we read and converse as before till supper, and commonly finish the evening either with hymns, or a sermon, and, last of all, the family are called to prayers.

1

It was the life of an evangelical Gidding of the last century; and the very mechanicalness of the routine seems to have soothed and numbed Cowper's too irritable sensibilities. Unhappily, when Mr. Unwin died, the household removed to Olney, to be under the spiritual direction of the famous John Newton. They took a house adjoining the vicarage, opening a private door between the two gardens, and entered upon what Cowper calls "a course of decided Christian happiness." But Newton's methods were not narcotic, like good Mr. Unwin's, and he very soon had poor Cowper mad again. For the sixteen months that the attack lasted, Cowper refused to leave Newton's house, though his own was next door; and, it should be remembered, to that unwise person's credit, that he bore this troublesome visit with perfect good will. In the end, Cowper's recovery was promoted by the interest he took in some tame leverets, whose exploits are chronicled in his poems; and a relapse was, for the time, rendered improbable by the removal of

Mr. Newton to a living in London. Moreover, literature now came to his aid. To the admirable Mrs. Unwin is due the credit of setting Cowper to work on composition, though her choice of a subject was more what we should expect than what, as experts in lunacy or as lovers of poetry, we can altogether approve. She suggested the "Progress of Error," and this was soon followed by three other poems of the same kind: "Truth," "Table Talk," and "Retirement." These, with some other pieces in the same vein, composed Cowper's first published volume. The book made no stir; it was praised here, and blamed there, but did not sell. This, of course, proves not that it was bad, but that it was more or less original. Still, as Cowper considered himself a preacher and moralist rather than a poet, and protested to his friends that his aim in writing was to do good to his generation under pretence of entertaining it, we cannot wonder that the jam failed to reconcile the public to the pill. Cowper's first volume is, in fact, a literary monument to the so-called Evangelical movement. It denounces "Works" and Roman Catholics. It speaks of a hermit (not a particular hermit, but the hermit as such) as being

Sore tormented long before his time.

It even censures the Handel Commemoration as idolatry. What is still tolerable in these first essays is the honey on the medicine cup. Cowper had a very pretty vein of satiric humor, and indulges it in "Retirement" and "Conversation" with considerable success:

The circle formed, we sit in silent state,

Like figures drawn upon a dial plate; "Yes, ma'am," and "No, ma'am," uttered softly, show

Every five minutes how the minutes

go;

Having once tasted the delights of authorship, Cowper was not wanting in eagerness for a second essay; and at the critical moment a second muse appeared on the scene of a more potent and less Puritan inspiration than good Mrs. Unwin. Every schoolboy has heard of the famous rose "that Mary to Anna conveyed," as if to symbolize the transference of her authority. Anna was Lady Austen, a baronet's widow, and a woman of fashion and sensibility, who had lived much in France and knew her Rousseau. She took lodgings in what had been Newton's house, and the door between the gardens was once more set open. Το