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Lady Austen's inspiration we owe two of the most successful of the minor poems, the "Diverting History of John Gilpin" and the "Loss of the Royal George," which was written to a French air for her harpsichord. owe also, what is perhaps of more importance, "The Task," so called because Cowper asked for a subject, and was bidden to write a poem upon the sofa on which the Muse was reclining. It must be owned that the idea does not strike one as very brilliant or happy; and the poet soon made his escape from the prescribed topic. It will be remembered that a transition is made from the use of sofas by the gouty to the neglect of them by healthy people and so to country walks. The importance of Lady Austen's suggestion lay, first, in the fact that the subject was non-religious, and, secondly, that she urged upon the poet the greater freedom of blank verse. course Cowper would have reckoned it profanity to write poetry without introducing here and there his religious views; and so we have in "The Task" denunciations of chess and abuse of historians and astronomers in the manner of the "Moral Essays;" but what distinguishes "The Task" from the "Moral Essays" is that we also get, for the first time in English literature, a quite unconventional delight in country life for its own sake, and an admirable reproduction of its familiar scenes. This made the success of the poem at the time, and has since kept for it a high place in the affections of those who care for poetry at all. One epithet will suffice to show the new spirit of close observation that Cowper brought to his work:

Of

Forth goes the woodman, leaving, unconcern'd,

Shaggy and lean and shrewd, with pointed ears

And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur,

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel

Now creeps he slow, and now with many a frisk

Wide-scampering snatches up the drifted snow

With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;

Then shakes his powdered coat and barks for joy.

Heedless of all his pranks the sturdy churl

Moves right towards his mark.

The success of Cowper's second volume had a good effect upon his spirits; it also put him on more comfortable terms with his friends and kinsmen, who began to consider it an honor, instead of a nuisance, to subscribe for his maintenance. Even the Lord Chancellor's memory of him awoke. The poet began also to experience some of the inconveniences of greatness. Disciples came to visit him; poetasters sent him their manuscripts to correct; he was urged to sit for his portrait. The Clerk of All Saints, Northampton, came over to ask him to write the verses annually appended to the Bill of Mortality for that parish; and, with remarkable good nature, Cowper supplied them for seven years. The story of the interview is given with Cowper's inimitable lightness of touch in a letter to his cousin:

On Monday morning last, Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain, decent, elderly figure made its appearance, and, being desired to sit, spoke as follows: "Sir, I am the clerk of the parish of All Saints in Northampton, brother of Mr. Cox, the upholsterer.

the axe

And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear.

office to annex to a bill of mortality, which he publishes at Christmas, a copy of verses. You will do me a great

favor, sir, if you will furnish me with one." To this I replied, "Mr. Cox, you have several men of genius in your town, why have you not applied to some of them? There is a namesake of yours in particular, Cox, the statuary, who, everybody knows, is a firstrate maker of verses. He, surely, is the man of all the world for your purpose." "Alas! sir, I have heretofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading that the gentlemen of our town cannot underI stand him." I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech. The wagon has accordingly gone this day to Northampton loaded, in part, with my effusions in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs upon individuals! I have written one that serves for two hundred persons.

"The Task" was published in 1785, when Cowper was 31, three years after his former volume. But already the second Muse had flown. It is idle to conjecture the reason, if it be not reason enough that this very intellectual and sympathetic and volatile lady had exhausted in two years the excitement of the Olney household. To speak of jealousy between the sister Muses is unnecessary, and has been called vulgar. Her place was taken by Cowper's cousin, Lady Hesketh, who, now that Cowper's proselytising zeal had somewhat worn off, began to pay him an annual visit. By her care the poet and his friend were induced to remove from Olney, which had no salubrity to recommend it, to Weston Underwood, where the Squire, a Mr. Throckmorton, was already a friend of theirs. At Weston we have a curious irruption of the Rev. Mr. Newton. Lady Hesketh used to bring her carriage with her on her visits, and drove her cousin and Mrs. Unwin about the countryside; whereupon some of the Saints informed their old director that our friends were becoming worldly. Newton's rebuke has not been preserved,

but we have Cowper's reply, a sufficiently spirited and dignified remonstrance.

Those who do not know the more than inquisitorial powers arrogated to themselves by the leaders of this party in its palmy days will find it hard to believe that Cowper had already been called upon by Mr. Newton to defend his removal from Olney. The various letters will be found in Southey's second volume. Once, later, Newton attempted interference, when, after an attack of madness in 1787, Cowper took up his translation of Homer as a mental anodyne. What had a Christian to do with a pagan poet? Cowper, however, had the sense and courage to follow his own instinct in this matter. The "Homer" was published in 1791; and in that year Mrs. Unwin had a stroke of paralysis, and unhappily her mind decayed before her body. "She who had been so devoted became, as her mind failed, more exacting, and, instead of supporting her partner, drew him down." He fell again into hypochondria, sitting for a whole week silent and motionless. The story of his release from this apathy is singularly touching. The physician saw that no one but Mrs. Unwin could rouse him; and the problem was how to induce her to do so. At last they prevailed with her to say it was a fine morning and she should like a walk. Cowper at once rose and placed her arm in his.

It would be a sad task to follow closely the details of these last years. Lady Hesketh broke down in health, and could not pay her accustomed visits; but Cowper found a new and true friend in the poet Hayley. Hayley tried all possible expedients to rouse Cowper, even to procuring from distinguished people in town a roundrobin expressing their sense of his great services to the nation; and he induced the poor invalids to pay him a visit in Sussex, hoping to benefit them

by change of scene. Both, however, had sunk too far. Finally the household was moved to Norfolk; but though the sound of the sea was for a time found soothing, the good effects were not maintained. Mrs. Unwin died in 1796; Cowper survived her by three years. His last poem, "The Castaway," founded upon an incident in Anson's "Voyages," is, when its meaning is realized, the most terrible of English lyrics:

No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone,
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone;
The Cornhill Magazine.

But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelmed in deeper gulfs than he.

The only consolation one has in thinking of Cowper's long misery is that a madman cannot feel about things in the same way as a man in his senses. Words and ideas must have a different value to him. It would be impossible, for example, for a sane man, who believed himself condemned to everlasting torment, to pass from that topic, as he does in letters to Newton, to quite unimportant trifles, and to seek distraction from the thought in carpentering and painting in water-colors. Urbanus Sylvan.

In the month of June of the present summer the Palais de la Femme in Paris will be alive with congresses of women, philanthropic, educational, religious, scientific and commercial. Through an unfortunate accident, this Salle des Conférences is, at the last moment, deprived of the assistance of one of the most important and unique associations of the present century, "The General Federation of Women's Clubs of the United States," with subfederations in thirty States, 1,200 individual clubs, a membership of 150,000 and honorary members from London, Glasgow, Cambridge, Montreal, Paris, Havre, Berlin, Brussels, Cairo, Moscow, Austria and Roumania. Arrangements have for many weeks been completed, a full program has been drawn up, and representative guests have been invited. At first the session was to take place in September, and, later, to suit other interests, the date was changed to the 28th and 29th of June, with a grand banquet on the 30th.

Since that, however, the Executive in Paris has been obliged to request a session as early as the 18th. This date conflicts with the regular Biennial Conference of the Clubs in Milwaukee on the 4th to the 9th of June. As Madame Pegard in Paris finds it impossible to give an audience later than the 18th, and as the Biennial is an immovable feast, the Federation has most reluctantly, and with universal regret, been compelled to abandon the Paris meeting.

This representation of women is in its origin and development no less wonderful than in its aims and achievements. Though not the first to initiate the movement of women towards club life, the United States has shot far ahead of other nations in organization and work. While their sisters in Britain enjoy their club in their own way, as a restful luncheon or tea-room, warmed up by an occasional lecture or discussion on a public question, its membership, well fenced by society bar

is his associate, his compeer. The men, with a chivalrous, almost Quixotic gallantry, have set her upon a pedestal, and maintain the idolatry. Little wonder if she thinks a lot of herself. Her success in the Woman's Department of the Chicago World's Fair was what she herself calls an "eye-opener" to the universe, and she forthwith re-invested that capital to enormous advantage. What that success amounted to at the time the world hardly realized, and has now almost forgotten. It was nothing revolutionary, nothing subversive of the old order of things. It was the concentration of organization, administration and sustained courage. It was a revelation of wide tolerance, broad horizon, and the unexampled belief which women have in each other. It was a surprise to the world, and all the more so that it was achieved by no special prophet from the wilderness, by no peculiar messenger from heaven. It was conceived, initiated, undertaken and carried through by essentially womanly women. It was an expression of very womanly sentiment. The best workers in that wonderful department were the best type of womanhood-the mothers, the home-makers, the housekeepers of the country. And the American women are a nation of housekeepers. To be a success, a cook-book, a new sauce, an improved range, a prepared food or a pointer in washing machines must be endorsed by them. The Quaker Oats,

ously poached upon the preserves of the Land of Cakes itself. A New England kitchen has become a proverb. There are more magazines published in the United States on purely domestic affairs in one month than in the rest of the world in twelve. They have coined a new term, "Household Economies," and created a new faculty in their colleges, that of "Domestic Science."

In this day of "Trusts," in the very home of the "Combine," the American woman does not shrink from running her own little show single-handed. In her husband's office an invoice is an invoice, a spade is a spade. The "hands" work because their work tells. It leads to promotion. From Log Cabin, to White House is the fundamental principle of business life. The business is divided into departments. Each department has its responsible head. The American woman comes down to breakfast to cope with a score of distinct departments, with no head but her own. Purchasing, cooking, cleaning, handling of servants, society matters, the health and education of her household all await her sole and responsible attention. For her there is no "sub." Her business has no partner. In her husband's office the message boy becomes the clerk, the clerk the manager, the manager the partner. In her household from January to December, from start to finish, she lives under the nineteenth-century dictatorship of homesick young women from foreign countries, spinsters and widows who must "support" themselves, and (worse than widows) wives who have to turn out to support invalid, unemployed, or improvident husbands. A little ready cash, a stock of gloves and ribbons, is what they want to tide over the sandbanks until matrimony is reached. To commence, this apprentice to housekeeping rules over the

household as first-class cook. For a change she "sews out." Then the housemaid is her envy, until she fancies the small retail shop or the departmental store, and finally finishes up a full-fledged stenographer.

There is plenty of the Log Hut about it, but little of the White House. The American woman with a courageous smile lives through it all. The cook's fire may not take. The snow may block up the milkman. The breakfast rolls may not "rise." "Please, ma'am, the ashman has made off with the ashbarrel, and the clothes line is twisted in the wind." Johnnie has a toothache. Gertie's rubbers leak. Father's gloves are mislaid. The housemaid with a bilious headache lies down. Her children's dinner is late. The hall-door bell rings while the housemaid is but dressing. Callers begin at three and keep it up briskly till six. The pantry pipes are choked. The gas escapes, and the electric switch is broken. Freddie must be sent to his dance class. The bedroom windows are left open too late. Lessons for next day come on the tapis, and one patient little head is responsible for all. Never mind, she will drag the whole affair to the seaside in June and call it her holiday.

Nevertheless those are the women, with a life absorbing, complicated and pressing, day in and day out, who did what was achieved at Chicago, and who composed the 150,000 who arranged for their representation in Paris. Little wonder that the old-fashioned Dorcas or an annual subscription for the distant heathen has had its day and ceased to be, and that there is a universal movement towards something which may relieve the monotony, refresh and stimulate, give rest not from idleness but from change. If it be true that the American woman knows little rest, it is also true that she has been the first to make a sci

ence of her recreation, the first to recognize the Delsartean Philosophy of Repose, to establish entire colleges devoted to its culture, to seek in her clubs the change which should bring her recreation from this household thraldom.

The movement is peculiar to her continent, and, as has been said, is stimulated by the climate in which she lives, and by her traditions, or rather by her want of them. To her her club is just her club. She enjoys its privileges, its stimulus in town and country. Wishing others to share the pleasure, her next endeavor is towards club extension, the spread of the movement. Recognizing the benefit of club methods and co-operation, her clubs "federate," State by State, and eventually the whole resolves itself into a General Federation with a representative meeting once in two years. Social enjoyment, philanthropy, self-improvement, a love of study, a spirit of usefulness a broader horizon, intellectual activity are very dear to her. She is not afraid to measure herself with her neighbor-to admit that the self-restraint and forbearance of club contact is necessary to equip her fully for the good comradeship of life. At first small, simple, timid and local, these clubs have inherent original strength. Their growth is rapid, and their influence increases with their importance. Individual character in members and in clubs is fostered. endless vista of enjoyment from study, usefulness and activity is opened up. The desire for fuller life is stirred and gratified, and this fuller life, having its origin in deeply-seated womanliness, is applied to the sphere of woman. So great has been the cumulative stimulus of this club movement that two pronounced tendencies have already shown themselves: towards working from the theoretical into the conspicuously practical affairs of life,

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