foe to human weal as that
of the sacrifice of Iphigenia. But when he first went mad, his
conversion to Evangelicism had not taken place; he had not led a
particularly religious life, nor been greatly given to religious
practices, though as a clergyman's son he naturally believed in
religion, had at times felt religious emotions, and when he found his
heart sinking had tried devotional books and prayers. The truth is his
malady was simple hypochondria, having its source in delicacy of
constitution and weakness of digestion, combined with the influence of
melancholy surroundings. It had begun to attack him soon after his
settlement in his lonely chambers in the Temple, when his pursuits and
associations, as we have seen, were far from Evangelical. When its
crisis arrived, he was living by himself without any society of the
kind that suited him (for the excitement of the Nonsense Club was sure
to be followed by reaction); he had lost hiss love, his father, his
home, and as it happened also a dear friend; his little patrimony was
fast dwindling away; he must have despaired of success in his
profession; and his outlook was altogether dark. It yielded to the
remedies to which hypochondria usually yields, air, exercise, sunshine,
cheerful society, congenial occupation. It came with January and went
with May. Its gathering gloom was dispelled for a time by a stroll in
fine weather on the hills above Southampton Water, and Cowper said that
he was never unhappy for a whole day in the company of Lady Hesketh.
When he had become a Methodist, his hypochondria took a religious form,
but so did his recovery from hypochondria; both must be set down to the
account of his faith, or neither. This double aspect of the matter
will plainly appear further on. A votary of wealth when his brain
gives way under disease or age fancies that he is a beggar. A
Methodist when his brain gives way under the same influences fancies
that he is forsaken of God. In both cases the root of the malady is
physical,

In the lines which Cowper sent on his disappointment to Theodora's
sister, and which record the sources of his despondency, there is not a
touch of religious despair, or of anything connected with religion.
The catastrophe was brought on by an incident with which religion had
nothing to do. The office of clerk of the Journals in the House of
Lords fell vacant, and was in the gift of Cowper's kinsman Major
Cowper, as patentee. Cowper