. His renown spread even
to Olney. The clerk of All Saints', Northampton, came over to ask him
to write the verses annually appended to the bill of mortality for that
parish. Cowper suggested 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it was withdrawn.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 t