was Anne, daughter of Roger Donne, Esq. of Ludham Hall, Norfolk, who had a common ancestry with the celebrated Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's.

In reference to this lady, it has been justly remarked by his relative and biographer, Dr. Johnson, 'That the highest blood in the realm flowed in the veins of the modest and unassuming Cowper; his mother having descended through the families of Hippesley, of Throughley in Sussex, and Pellet, of Bolney in the same county, from the several noble houses of West, Knollys, Carey, Bullen, Howard, and Mowbray; and so, by four different lines, from Henry the Third, King of England.' And though, as the same writer properly remarks, distinctions of this nature can shed no additional lustre on the memory of Cowper; yet genius, however exalted, disdains not, while it boasts not, the splendour of ancestry and royalty itself may be pleased and perhaps benefited, by discovering its kindred to such piety, such purity, and such talents as his.'

Many distinguished literary characters have justly confessed themselves deeply indebted, in after-life, to the happy influence exerted over their minds by their mothers; and some of the most interesting records to be found, relate to the strength of their maternal attachments: it would be easy to refer to numerous examples. Had Cowper's mother been spared, he would doubtless have been most ready to acknowledge his obligations to her tender and watchful care. Divine providence, however, doubtless for the best of reasons, permitted him only to enjoy the advantages of her maternal solicitude for a short

season.

After giving birth to several children, this lady died in child-bed, in her thirty-seventh year; leaving only two sons, John the younger, and William the elder, who is the subject of this memoir. Cowper

was only six years old when he lost his mother; and how deeply he was affected by her early death, may be inferred from the following exquisitely tender lines, composed more than fifty years afterwards, on the receipt of her portrait from Mrs. Ann Bodham, a relation in Norfolk :

O that those lips had language! Life has pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.

Those lips are thine-thine own sweet smile I see,
The same, that oft in childhood solac'd me;

'My mother! when I learned that thou wast dead,
Say, wast thou conscious of the tears I shed?
Hovered thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son,
Wretch even then, life's journey just begun ?
Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unseen, a kiss:
Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in bliss!

I heard the bell tolled on thy burial day,

I saw the hearse that bore thee far away,
And, turning from my nursery-window, drew
A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu !
But was it such? It was-Where thou art gone
Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown:
May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore,
The parting sound shall pass my lips no more!

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nursery floor;
And where the gard'ner, Robin, day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way,
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap,

'Tis now become a hist'ry little known,
That once we call'd the past'ral house our own.
Short-liv'd possession! but the record fair,
That mem'ry keeps of all thy kindness there,

Still outlives many a storm that has effac'd

A thousand other themes less deeply trac'd.
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,

That thou mightst know me safe and warmly laid;
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,

The biscuit or confectionary plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheek bestowed

By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd

All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall,
Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks
Which humour interpos'd too often makes :
All this still legible in mem'ry's page,
And still to be so to my latest age,
Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay
Such honours to thee as my numbers may.
Perhaps a frail memorial, but sincere,

Not scorn'd in heav'n, though little notic'd here.

Could time, his flight reversed, restore the hours
When playing with thy vesture's tissued flowers,
The violet, the pink, and jessamine,

I pricked them into paper with a pin,

(And thou wast happier than myself the while, Would softly speak, and stroke my head, and smile,) Could these few pleasant hours again appear,

Might one wish bring them, would I wish them here?
I would not trust my heart, the dear delight
Seems so to be desired, perhaps I might;
But no-what here we call our life is such,
So little to be loved, and thou so much,
That I should ill requite thee to constrain
Thy unbound spirit into bonds again.
Thou, as a gallant bark from Albion's coast
(The storms all weathered and the ocean crossed)
Shoots into port at some well-havened isle,

Where spices breathe, and brighter seasons smile,
There sits quiescent on the floods, that show
Her beauteous form reflected clear below,
While airs impregnated with incense play
Around her, fanning light her streamers gay:

So thou, with sails how swift! hast reached the shore
Where tempests never beat, nor billows roar.
And thy loved consort on the dangerous tide
Of life, long since has anchored at thy side,
But me, scarce hoping to attain that rest,
Always from port withheld, always distrest-
Me, howling winds drive devious, tempest-tost,
Sails ript, seams opening wide, and compass lost,
And day by day some current's thwarting force
Sets me more distant from a prosperous course.

But, oh the thought that thou art safe, and he !
That thought is joy, arrive what may to me.
My boast is not that I deduce my birth
From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth,
But higher far my proud pretensions rise-
The son of parents passed into the skies!

Deprived thus early of his excellent and most affectionate parent, he was sent, at this tender age, to a large school at Market-street, Hertfordshire, under the care of Dr. Pitman. Here he had hardships of different kinds to conflict with, which he felt the more sensibly in consequence of the tender manner in which he had been treated at home. His chief sorrow, however, arose from the cruel treatment he met with from a boy in the same school, about fifteen years of age, who on all occasions persecuted him with the most unrelenting barbarity; and who never seemed pleased except when he was tormenting him. This savage treatment impressed upon Cowper's tender mind such a dread of this petty tyrant, (whose cruelty being subsequently discovered, led to his expulsion from the school,)that he was afraid to lift his eyes higher than his knees; and he knew him better by his shoebuckles than by any other part of his dress. Some individuals may incline to ridicule young Cowper's feelings on this occasion, as symptomatic of his subsequent morbid depression; instances, however, may easily be found, in which boys have suffered greatly in a similar way, though there has not been the slightest constitutional tendency to melancholy. Much may certainly be said in favour of public schools, and for some boys they are perhaps decidedly the best; it cannot however be denied, and the opinion seems every day becoming more prevalent among impartial and well-informed Christians, that they are the sources of many great and serious evils; and that the habits of injustice, tyranny, and licentiousness, too often formed there, are such as no

sober-minded person can reflect upon with any feelings of satisfaction.

It was at this school, and on one of these painful occasions, that the mind of Cowper, which was afterwards to become imbued with religious feelings of the highest order, received its first serious impressions; -a circumstance which cannot fail to be interesting to every Christian reader; and the more so as detailed in his own words:

'One day, as I was sitting alone on a bench in the school, melancholy, and almost ready to weep at the recollection of what I had already suffered, and expecting at the same time my tormentor every moment, these words of the Psalmist came into my mind-"I will not be afraid of what man can do unto me." I applied this to my own case, with a degree of trust and confidence in God, that would have been no disgrace to a much more experienced Christian. Instantly I perceived in myself a briskness and a cheerfulness of spirit which I had never before experienced, and took several paces up and down the room with joyful alacrity. Happy had it been for me, if this early effort towards a dependance on the blessed God, had been frequently repeated, But, alas! it was the first and the last, between infancy and manhood.'

From this school he was removed in his eighth year; and having at that time specks on both his eyes, which threatened to cover them, his father, alarmed for the consequences, placed him under the care of an eminent female oculist in London; in whose house he abode nearly two years. In this lady's family, religion was neither known nor practised; the slightest appearance of it, in any shape, was carefully guarded against; and even its outward forms were entirely unobserved. In a situation like this, it was not to be expected that young Cowper would long retain any serious impressions he might have experi