that “there were several men of genius in Northampton, particularly Mr. Cox, the statuary, who, as everybody knew, was a first-rate maker of verses.”  “Alas!” replied the clerk, “I have heretofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading that the people of our town cannot understand him.”  The compliment was irresistible, and for seven years the author of The Task wrote the mortuary verses for All Saints’, Northampton.  Amusement, not profit, was Cowper’s aim; he rather rashly gave away his copyright to his publisher, and his success does not seem to have brought him money in a direct way, but it brought him a pension of 300 pounds in the end.  In the meantime it brought him presents, and among them an annual gift of 50 pounds from an anonymous hand, the first instalment being accompanied by a pretty snuff-box ornamented with a picture of the three hares.  From the gracefulness of the gift, Southey infers that it came from a woman, and he conjectures that the woman was Theodora.

CHAPTER VI.

SHORT POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS.

The task was not quite finished when the influence which had inspired it was withdrawn.  Among the little mysteries and scandals of literary history is the rupture between Cowper and Lady Austen.  Soon after the commencement of their friendship there had been a “fracas,” of which Cowper gives an account in a letter to William Unwin.  “My letters have already apprised you of that close and intimate connexion, that took place between the lady you visited in Queen Anne Street and us.  Nothing could be more promising, though sudden in the commencement.  She treated us with as much unreservedness of communication, as if we had been born in the same house and educated together.  At her departure, she herself proposed a correspondence, and, because writing does not agree with your mother, proposed a correspondence with me.  This sort of intercourse had not been long maintained before I discovered, by some slight intimations of it, that she had conceived displeasure at somewhat I had written, though I cannot now recollect it; conscious of none but the most upright, inoffensive intentions, I yet apologized for the passage in question, and the flaw was healed again.  Our correspondence after this proceeded smoothly for a considerable time, but at length, having had repeated occasion to observe that she expressed a sort of romantic idea of our merits, and built such expectations of felicity upon our friendship, as we were sure that nothing human could possibly answer, I wrote to remind her that we were mortal, to recommend her not to think more highly of us than the subject would warrant, and intimating that when we embellish a creature with colours taken from our own fancy, and so adorned, admire and praise it beyond its real merits, we make it an idol, and have nothing to expect in the end but that it will deceive our hopes,