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    Who can be unaffected in reading the following anecdote ? u —as a faithful servant of his dying friend [ Mrs . Unwin ] &nd himself was opening the window of his chamber on the

    moriiing of the day of her decease , he said to her , in a tone of voice at once plaintive , and full of anxiety as to what might be the situation of his aged companion , Sally , is there life above stairs ? " lxv .

    Of the last moments of Cowper his kinsman has left a record , from which we make a single extract : Ixxvii . "In the course of the night [ of Thursday , April 24 th , 1800 ] , when he appeared to be exceedingly exhausted , some refreshment was presented to him by Miss

    Browne . From a persuasion , however , that nothing-could ameliorate his feelings , though without any apparent impression that the hand of death was already upon him , he rejected the cordial with these words , the very last that he was heard to utter , What can it signify /"

    " At five in the morning , of Friday the 25 th , a deadly change in his features was observed to take place . He remained in an insensible state from that time till about five minutes before five in the afternoon , tvhen he ceased to breathe . ' * The assiduity , the wisdom , the affection and the tenderness with which

    Dr . Johnson soothed the dejected spirits of fiis relative , do much honour to his principles and feelings , and claim the gratitude of the numerous admirers of Cowper , as a poet and a man . Though he is solely desirous of directing our regard to his kinsman , yet we cannot be insensible to the illustration of his own excellencies

    presented in this sketch . His theological creed appears to be that of his relation . This creed , however , is not obtruded on the reader : nor is it defended with bitterness an& rancour ;

    and we can respect the motives which dictated the following paragraphs and the spirit which breathes in themthough we may not fully assent to the reasoning they contain : xvii .

    ' A most erroneous and unhappy idea has occupied the minds of some persons , that those views of Christianity which Cowper adopted , and of which , when enjoying * the intervals of reason , he was so bri ght an ornament , * had actually contributed to excite the malady with which h « . was afflicted . It is capable of the clearest demonstration that nothing- was

    ^ There is art incongruity between the words views and ornament . Rev .

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    further from the truth . On tBo contrary , all those alleviations of sorrow , those delightful anticipations of heavenly rest , those healing consolations to - a wounded spirit , of which he was permitted to taste at the periods when uninterrupted reason resumed its sway , were unequivocally to be ascribed to the operation of those very principles and views . of religion , which , in the instance before us , have beea charged with producing * so opposite an effect . The primary aberrations of his mental faculties were wholly to be attributed to other causes . But the time was at hand , when , by the happy interposition of a gracious Providence , he was to be the favoured subject of a double emancipation * The captivity of his reason was about to terminate ; and a bondage , though hitherto unmentioned , yet of a much longer standing , was on the point of being exchanged for the most delightful of all freedom . " The event to which the biographer of Cowper alludes , took place on July 25 th , 1764 : xix . „

    . " —Before he left the room in which he had breakfasted , he observed a Bible lying in the window-seat . He took it up . Except in a single instance , and that two months before , he had not ventured to open one , since the early days of his abode at St . Alban ' s . But the time was novr come when he might do it to purpose .

    The profitable perusal of that divine book had been provided for in the most effectual .

    manner , by the restoration at once of thf powers of His understanding , and the superadded gift of a spiritual discernment . Under these favourable circumstances , he opened the sacred volume at that passag e of the epistle to the Romans where . th # apostle says , that Jesus Christ is ' set forth

    to he a propitiation through faith in his blood , to declare his righteousness for th » remission of sins that are past , through the forbearance of God . ' To use the

    expression employed by Cowper himself in a , written document , from which this portion of his history is extracted , he received strength to believe it f \ - to see the suitableness of the atonement to liis own necessity , and to embrace the gospel witk gratitude and joy . " xx . We doubt not that " the primary

    aberrations of" this poet s " mental faculties were wholly to be attributed to other causes" than any theological sentiments whatever . But the return and the continuance of his disorder seem to have been owing , in some

    -f * It appears that Cowper was prepared for the impression by previous train ? « f thought and feeHrig . Rkt .

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    Ret ) iew . ~ Cowper s Poems . 165

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1816, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2450/page/37/