272 YEARNINGS AFTER GOD. favor; and the mournful grief and desolation of his spirit under it were a precious and convincing proof to others, though not to himself, that God was with him, and that, wake when he might out of this dream of darkness, he should find himself satisfied with God's likeness in a world of light. Cowper's yearnings after God, and his patience and submission to the Divine will, were proofs of the light of life within him, though he felt it not. It is a most blessed promise, "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Cowper always had that, and in the possession of it was ripening in holiness and advancing toward heaven, even when he seemed to himself going down to the bottoms of the mountains, in a darkness deeper than Jonah's. "The weeds were wrapped about my head; the earth with her bars was about me forever; my soul fainted within me." "God knows," exclaimed Cowper, "how much rather I would be the obscure tenant of a lath-and-plaster cottage, with a lively sense of my interest in a Redeemer, than the most admired object of public notice without it. Alas! what is a whole poem, even one of Homer's, compared with a single aspiration that finds its way immediately to God, though clothed in ordinary language, or perhaps not articulated at all !" CHAPTER XXII. REMOVAL FROM OLNEY TO WESTON.-COMPARISON OF COWPER'S FEELINGS AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.-TENOR OF SOUTHEY'S COMMENTS UPON COWPER'S EXPERIENCE AND LETTERS. COWPER'S removal from Olney to Weston, a neighboring village much more delightful and agreeable, had taken place, happily, before this new attack. The change was brought about by the friendship and care of Lady Hesketh, who took a house at Weston, on the borders of the pleasuregrounds of Mr. Throckmorton, and belonging to him; a charming situation, and much more healthful than their confined, damp, inconvenient habitation at Olney. Thither Cowper and the family removed, but they had no sooner become settled for a fortnight, than a most severe affliction was laid upon them in the sudden illness and death of Cowper's dear friend and long and constant correspondent, Mrs. Unwin's beloved son. The anguish to himself, and the sympathy in Mrs. Unwin's sorrow, occasioned by this bereavement, which took place in November, may have had some effect 274 REMOVAL TO WESTON. 66 in hastening the attack of his mental malady, the next January. The visit of Lady Hesketh had been to him a source of great animation and delight. The change of habitation which resulted from it was a lasting benefit. Cowper himself thought that the nervous fever so oppressive to his spirits was much exasperated by the circumstances of his abode at Olney. He speaks of the atmosphere encumbered with raw vapors, issuing from flooded meadows; "and we in particular," says he, “perhaps have fared the worse for sitting so often, and sometimes for months, over a cellar filled with water. These ills we shall escape in the uplands, and as we may reasonably hope, of course, their consequences. But as for happiness," says Cowper, "he that has once had communion with his Maker must be more frantic than ever I was yet, if he can dream of finding it at a distance from Him. I no more expect happiness at Weston than here, or than I should expect it in company with felons and outlaws in the hold of a ballast-lighter. Animal spirits, however, have their value, and are especially desirable to him who is condemned to carry a burden which at any rate will tire him, but which, without their aid, can not fail to crush him." "The dealings of God with me are to myself utterly unintelligible. I have never met, either in books or in conversation, with an experience at all similar to my own. More than a twelvemonth has |