genius.
It brought him one of the best of his correspondents, his cousin, Lady
Hesketh, and it gave various other people a reason for keeping his
letters. Had it not been for his fame as a poet his letters might never
have been published, and we should have missed one of the most exquisite
histories of small beer to be had outside the pages of Jane Austen. As a
letter-writer he does not, I think, stand in the same rank as Horace
Walpole and Charles Lamb. He has less wit and humour, and he mirrors less
of the world. His letters, however, have an extraordinarily soothing
charm. Cowper's occupations amuse one, while his nature delights one. His
letters, like Lamb's, have a soul of goodness--not of mere virtue, but of
goodness--and we know from his biography that in life he endured the
severest test to which a good nature can be subjected. His treatment of
Mrs. Unwin in the imbecile despotism of her old age was as fine in its way
as Lamb's treatment of his sister. Mrs. Unwin, who had supported Cowper
through so many dark and suicidal hours, afterwards became palsied and
lost her mental faculties. "Her character," as Sir James Frazer writes in
the introduction to his charming selection from the letters,[2] "underwent
a great change, and she who for years had found all her happiness in
ministering to her afflicted friend, and seemed to have no thought but for
his welfare, now became querulous and exacting, forgetful of him and
mindful, apparently, only of herself. Unable to move out of her chair
without help, or to walk across the room unless supported by two people,
her speech at times almost unintelligible, she deprived him of all his
wonted exercises, both bodily and mental, as she did not choose that he
should leave her for a moment, or even use a pen or a book, except when he
read to her. To these demands he responded with all the devotion of
gratitude and affection; he was assiduous in his attentions to her, but
the strain told heavily on his strength." To know all this does not modify
our opinion of Cowper's letters, except is so far as it strengthens it. It
helps us, however, to explain to ourselves why we love them. We love them
because, as surely as the writings of Shakespeare and Lamb, they are an
expression of that sort of heroic gentleness which can endure the fires of
the most devastating tragedy. Shakespeare finally revealed the strong
sweetness of his nature in _The Tempest_. Many people are inclined to
over-est