_The Task_ and _John Gilpin_ were published together in 1785, and some of Cowper's old friends (notably Lady Hesketh) rallied round the now known poet once more. Lady Hesketh soon begins to fill the chair vacated by Lady Austen, and Cowper's letters to her are amongst his most delightful. Her visits to Olney were eagerly expected, and it was she who persuaded the pair to leave the place for good and all, and move to Weston, which they did in 1786. The following year Cowper went mad again, and made another most desperate attempt upon his life. Again Mary Unwin stood by the poor maniac's side, and again she stood alone. He got better, and worked away at his translation of Homer as hard and wrote letters as charming as ever. But Mrs. Unwin was pretty well done for. Cowper published his Homer by subscription, and must be pronounced a dab hand in the somewhat ignoble art of collecting subscribers. I am not sure that he could not have given Pope points. Pope had a great acquaintance, but he had barely six hundred subscribers. Cowper scraped together upwards of five hundred. As a beggar he was unabashed. He quotes in one of his letters, and applies to himself patly enough, Ranger's observation in the _Suspicious Husband_, 'There is a degree of assurance in you modest men, that we impudent fellows can never arrive at!' The University of Oxford was, however, too much for him. He beat her portals in vain. She had but one answer, 'We subscribe to nothing.' Cowper was very angry, and called her 'a rich old vixen.' She did not mind. The book appeared in 1791. It has many merits, and remains unread. The clouds now gathered heavily over the biography of Cowper. Mrs. Unwin had two paralytic strokes, the old friends began to torture one another. She was silent save when she was irritable, indifferent except when exacting. At last, not a day too soon, Lady Hesketh came to Weston. They were moved into Norfolk--but why prolong the tale? Mrs. Unwin died at East Dereham on the 17th of December, 1796. Thirty-one years had gone since the poet and she first met by chance in Huntingdon. Cowper himself died in April, 1800. His last days were made physically comfortable by the kindness of some Norfolk cousins, and the devotion of a Miss Perowne. But he died in wretchedness and gloom. The _Castaway_ was his last original poem: 'I therefore purpose not or dream Descanting on his fate, To give the melancholy theme A more enduring date; But misery still delights to trace Its semblance in another's case.'