ing invitation, which was accepted in the vain hope that a change
might do Mrs. Unwin good.

From Weston to Eartham was a three days' journey, an enterprise not
undertaken without much trepidation and earnest prayer. It was safely
accomplished, however, the enthusiastic Mr. Rose walking to meet his
poet and philosopher on the way. Hayley had tried to get Thurlow to
meet Cowper. A sojourn in a country house with the tremendous Thurlow,
the only talker for whom Johnson condescended to prepare himself, would
have been rather an overpowering pleasure; and perhaps, after all, it
was as well that Hayley could only get Cowper's disciple, Hurdis,
afterwards professor of poetry at Oxford, and Charlotte Smith.

At Eartham, Cowper's portrait was painted by Romney.

Romney, expert infallibly to trace
On chart or canvas not the form alone
And semblance, but, however faintly shown
The mind's impression too on every face,
With strokes that time ought never to erase,
Thou hast so pencilled mine that though I own
The subject worthless, I have never known
The artist shining with superior grace;
But this I mark, that symptoms none of woe
In thy incomparable work appear:
Well: I am satisfied it should be so
Since on maturer thought the cause is clear;
For in my looks what sorrow could'st thou see
When I was Hayley's guest and sat to thee.

Southey observes that it was likely enough there would be no melancholy
in the portrait, but that Hayley and Romney fell into a singular error
in mistaking for "the light of genius" what Leigh Hunt calls "a fire
fiercer than that either of intellect or fancy, gleaming from the
raised and protruded eye."

Hayley evidently did his utmost to make his guest happy. They spent
the hours in literary chat, and compared notes about Milton. The first
days were days of enjoyment. But soon the recluse began to long for
his nook at Weston. Even the extensiveness of the view at Eartham made
his mind ache, and increased his melancholy. To Weston the pair
returned; the paralytic, of course, none the better for her journey.
Her mind as well as her body was now rapidly giving way. We quote as
biography that which is too well known to be quoted as poetry.

TO MARY.

The twentieth year is well nigh past.
Since first our sky was overcast:--
Ah, would that this might be the last!
My Mary!

Thy spirits have a fainter flow,
I see thee daily weaker grow:--