During the long period which the literary labours above-mentioned occupied, Cowper’s domestic history is characterized by the same general depression and the same seclusion as we have above described. In 1784 his friendship with Lady Austen was interrupted by a disagreement between her and Mrs. Unwin, who seems to have feared that the former might obtain an influence over the poet paramount to her own; and to have been justly hurt at the prospect of becoming second in the affections of him, to whom, for so many years, she had devoted herself with a zeal which merited the utmost return. Cowper felt this, and he himself broke off his intercourse with Lady Austen, in a way which was admitted by herself to do credit to his delicacy and judgment, no less than to his generosity. In about a year after the termination of this valuable friendship, he received the best amends that could be made, in the renewal of intercourse, after it had been interrupted for twenty-three years, with his cousin Lady Hesketh, to whom from childhood he had been strongly attached. She visited Olney in June, 1786; and from that time forwards her purse and her personal exertions were unsparingly bestowed to promote the comfort of her beloved cousin. At her instance his confined and ruinous abode at Olney was exchanged in November, 1786, for a commodious house in the pretty neighbouring village of Weston, which was especially recommended to Cowper as being the residence of his esteemed friends Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton. Here Lady Hesketh commonly spent part of the year. The state of Cowper’s spirits during his residence at Weston was variable; but he made a few new acquaintance, and among them his correspondent, Mr. Rose, and his biographer, Mr. Hayley. He also enjoyed a vivid pleasure in the renewal of intercourse with his maternal relations, among whom his young cousin Johnson, who afterwards became his tender and devoted guardian, obtained an especial place in his affections. Still, however, his mental malady continued unabated; and a new cause of uneasiness beset him in the growing infirmities of Mrs. Unwin. In March, 1792, the disease which had been for some time sapping her strength, manifested itself in a paralytic attack, from which she never entirely recovered. From thenceforward Cowper’s time and attention were devoted, as his primary object, to contributing to her comfort and amusement. In her company he quitted his home, the first time for twenty-seven years, to visit Mr. Hayley’s seat at Eartham, in Sussex. Two important works had engaged his attention: one a poem on the four ages of man’s life, the other an edition of Milton. These, however, were successively laid aside; and such time as his weak spirits and melancholy occupation allowed him, be employed in revising his Homer for a second edition. But Mrs. Unwin became more and more enfeebled in mind and body; and in the beginning of 1794 Cowper relapsed into a gloom as deep as that which he had endured at the