That odd personage, Alexander Knox, who had what used to be called a 'primitive,' that is, a fourth-century mind, and on whom the Tractarian movement has been plausibly grandfathered, and who was (incongruously) employed by Lord Castlereagh to help through the Act of Union with Ireland, of which we have lately heard, but who remained all the time primitively unaware that any corruption was going on around him--this odd person, I say, was exercised in his mind about Lady Austen, of whom he had been reading in Hayley's _Life_. In October, 1806, he writes to Bishop Jebb in a solemn strain: 'I have rather a severer idea of Lady A. than I should wish to put into writing for publication. I almost suspect she was a very artful woman. But I need not enlarge.' He puts it rather differently from Sainte Beuve, but I dare say they both meant much the same thing. If Knox meant more it would be necessary to get angry with him. That Lady Austen fell in love with Cowper and would have liked to marry him, but found Mrs. Unwin in the way, is probable enough; but where was the artfulness? Poor Cowper was no catch. The grandfather of Tractarianism would have been better employed in unmasking the corruption amongst which he had lived, than in darkly suspecting a lively lady of designs upon a penniless poet, living in the utmost obscurity, on the charity of his relatives. But this state of things at Olney did not last very long. 'Of course not,' cackle a chorus of cynics. 'It could not!' The Historical Muse, ever averse to theory, is content to say, 'It did not,' but as she writes the words she smiles. The episode began in 1781, it ended in 1784. It became necessary to part. Cowper may have had his qualms, but he concealed them manfully and remained faithful to Mrs. Unwin-- 'The patient flower Who possessed his darker hour.' Lady Austen flew away, and afterwards, as if to prove her levity incurable, married a Frenchman. She died in 1802. English literature owes her a debt of gratitude. Her name is writ large over much that is best in Cowper's poetry. Not indeed over the very best; _that_ bears the inscription _To Mary_. And it was right that it should be so, for Mrs. Unwin had to put up with a good deal.