The river Ouse-I forget how they spell it-is the most agreeable circumstance in this part of the world: at this town it is, I believe, as wide as the Thames at Windsor; nor does the silver Thames better deserve that epithet, nor has it more flowers upon its banks, these being attributes which, in strict truth, belong to neither. Fluellen would say, they are as like as my fingers to my fingers, and there is salmon in both. It is a noble stream to bathe in, and I shall make that use of it three times a-week, having introduced myself to it for the first time this morning.*

I beg you will remember me to all my friends, which is a task will cost you no great pains to execute-particularly remember me to those of your own house, and believe me your very affectionate W. C.

COWPER DESCRIBES THE RELIGIOUS EFFECTS LEFT BY ILLNESS, AND HIS PRESENT STATE OF MIND.

MY DEAR LADY Hesketh,

HUNTINGDON, July 1, 1765. Since the visit you were so kind as to pay me in the Temple, † (the only time I ever saw you without pleasure,) what have I not suffered ! And since it has pleased God to restore me to the use of my reason, what have I not enjoyed! You know, by experience, how pleasant it is to feel the first approaches of health after a fever; but, oh, the fever of the brain! To feel the quenching of that fire is indeed a blessing, which I think it impossible to receive without the most consummate gratitude. Terrible as this chastisement is, I acknowledge in it the hand of an infinite justice; nor is it at all more difficult for me to perceive in it the hand of an infinite mercy likewise. When I consider the effect it has had upon me, I am exceedingly thankful for it, and, without hypocrisy, esteem it the greatest blessing, next to life itself, I ever received from the divine bounty. I pray God that I may ever retain this sense of it, and then I am sure I shall continue to be, as I am at present, really happy.

I write thus to you that you may not think me a forlorn and wretched creature, which you might be apt to do, considering

*The Ouse, at Huntingdon, is a sluggish and muddy stream-"the sedgy Ouse" of Milton. So much for a poet's imagination. + See Life of Cowper.

my very distant removal from every friend I have in the world, a circumstance which, before this event befell me, would undoubtedly have made me so; but my affliction has taught me a road to happiness which, without it, I should never have found; and I know, and have experience of it every day, that the mercy of God, to him who believes himself the object of it, is more than sufficient to compensate for the loss of every other blessing.

What I

You may now inform all those whom you think really interested in my welfare, that they have no need to be apprehensive on the score of my happiness at present. And you yourself will believe that my happiness is no dream, because I have told you the foundation on which it is built. have written would appear like enthusiasm to many, for we are apt to give that name to every warm affection of the mind in others which we have not experienced in ourselves; but to you, who have so much to be thankful for, and a temper inclined to gratitude, it will not appear so.

I beg you will give my love to Sir Thomas, and believe that I am obliged to you both for inquiring after me at St Albans. Yours ever, W. C.

THANKS FOR A LETTER-CHRISTIAN EFFECTS OF AFFLICTION-HIS TREATMENT AND CONVERSATION AT ST ALBANS.

HUNTINGDON, July 4, 1765.

BEING just emerged from the Ouse, I sit down to thank you, my dear cousin, for your friendly and comfortable letter. What could you think of my unaccountable behaviour to you in that visit I mentioned in my last? I remember I neither

spoke to you, nor looked at you. The solution of the mystery, indeed, followed soon after, but at the time it must have been inexplicable. The uproar within was even then begun, and my silence was only the sulkiness of a thunderstorm before it opens. I am glad, however, that the only instance in which I knew not how to value your company was, when I was not in my senses. It was the first of the kind, and I trust in God it will be the last.

How naturally does affliction make us Christians! and how impossible is it, when all human help is vain, and the whole earth too poor and trifling to furnish us with one moment's peace-how impossible is it then to avoid looking at the

Gospel! It gives me some concern, though at the same time it increases my gratitude, to reflect that a convert made in bedlam is more likely to be a stumbling block to others, than to advance their faith. But if it has that effect upon any, it is owing to their reasoning amiss, and drawing their conclusions from false premises. He who can ascribe an amendment of life and manners, and a reformation of the heart itself, to madness, is guilty of an absurdity that in any other case would fasten the imputation of madness upon himself; for by so doing he ascribes a reasonable effect to an unreasonable cause, and a positive effect to a negative. But when Christianity only is to be sacrificed, he that stabs deepest is always the wisest man. You, my dear cousin, yourself will be apt to think I carry the matter too far, and that, in the present warmth of my heart, I make too ample a concession in saying, that I am only now a convert. You think I always believed, and I thought so too; but you were deceived, and so was I. I called myself, indeed, a Christian, but He who knows my heart knows that I never did a right thing, nor abstained from a wrong one, because I was so. But if I did either, it was under the influence of some other motive. And it is such seeming Christians—such pretending believers-that do most mischief to the cause, and furnish the strongest arguments to support the infidelity of its enemies: unless profession and conduct go together, the man's life is a lie, and the validity of what he professes itself is called in question. The difference between a Christian and an Unbeliever would be so striking, if the treacherous allies of the church would go over at once to the other side, that I am satisfied religion would be no loser by the bargain.

I reckon it one instance of the providence that has attended me throughout this whole event, that, instead of being delivered into the hands of one of the London physicians—who were so much nearer that I wonder I was not-I was carried to Doctor Cotton. I was not only treated by him with the greatest tenderness while I was ill, and attended with the utmost diligence, but when my reason was restored to me, and I had so much need of a religious friend to converse with, to whom I could open my mind upon the subject without reserve, I could hardly have found a fitter person for the purpose. My eagerness and anxiety to settle my opinions upon that long neglected point made it necessary that, while my mind was yet weak, and my spirits uncertain, I should have some assistance. The doctor was as ready to administer relief to

me in this article likewise, and as well qualified to do it, as in that which was more immediately his province. How many physicians would have thought this an irregular appetite, and a symptom of remaining madness! But if it were so, my friend was as mad as myself, and it is well for me that he was so.

My dear cousin, you know not half the deliverances I have received; my brother is the only one in the family who does.* My recovery is, indeed, a signal one; but a greater, if possible, went before it. My future life must express my thankfulness, for by words I cannot do it.

I pray God to bless you and my friend Sir Thomas.Yours ever,

W. C.

4. TO LADY HESKETH.

ACCOUNT OF HUNTINGDON-EPITAPH-DISTANCE FROM HIS BROTHER AT

CAMBRIDGE.

HUNTINGDON, July 5, 1765.

MY DEAR LADY HESKETH,- My pen runs so fast, you will begin to wish you had not put it in motion; but you must consider we have not met, even by letter, almost these two years, which will account in some measure for my pestering you in this manner; besides, my last was no answer to yours, and therefore I consider myself as still in your debt. To say truth, I have this long time promised myself a correspondence with you as one of my principal pleasures.

I should have written to you from St Albans long since, but was willing to perform quarantine first, both for my own sake and because I thought my letters would be more satisfactory to you from any other quarter. You will perceive I allowed myself a very sufficient time for the purpose, for I date my recovery from the twenty-fifth of last July, having been ill seven months, and well twelve months. It was on that day my brother came to see me. I was far from well when he came in; yet though he only staid one day with me, his company served to put to flight a thousand deliriums and delusions which I still laboured under, and the next morning I found myself a new creature. But to the present purpose.

As far as I am acquainted with this place, I like it extremely. Mr Hodgson, the minister of the parish, made me a visit the day before yesterday. He is very sensible, a good preacher, and conscientious in the discharge of his duty. He is very well known to Doctor Newton, bishop of Bristol, the author * Rev. John Cowper, Fellow of Bennet College, Cambridge.

of the Treatise on the Prophecies, one of our best bishops, and who has written the most demonstrative proof of the truth of Christianity, in my mind, that ever was published.

There is a village called Hertford, about a mile and a half from hence. The church there is very prettily situated upon a rising ground, so close to the river that it washes the wall of the churchyard. I found an epitaph there, the other morning, the two first lines of which, being better than any thing else I saw there, I made shift to remember. It is by a widow on her husband:

Thou wast too good to live on earth with me,
And I not good enough to die with thee.

The distance of this place from Cambridge is the worst circumstance belonging to it. My brother and I are fifteen miles asunder, which, considering that I came hither for the sake of being near him, is rather too much. I wish that young man was better known in the family. He has as many good qualities as his nearest kindred could wish to find in him.

As Mr Quin very roundly expressed himself upon some such occasion," Here is very plentiful accommodation, and great happiness of provision;" so that, if I starve, it must be through forgetfulness, rather than scarcity. Fare thee well, my good and dear cousin.

Ever yours,

W. C.

CONDITIONS OF CORRESPONDENCE-BISHOP NEWTON ON THE PROPHECIESCOMFORT OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATION.

July 12, 1765.

MY DEAR COUSIN,- You are very good to me, and if you will only continue to write at such intervals as you find convenient, I shall receive all that pleasure which I proposed to myself from our correspondence. I desire no more than that you would never drop me for any length of time together, for I shall then think you only write because something happened to put you in mind of me, or for some other reason equally mortifying. I am not, however, so unreasonable as to expect you should perform this act of friendship so frequently as myself, for you live in a world swarming with engagements, and my hours are almost all my own. You must every day be employed in doing what is expected from you by a thousand