ough from a hope of his family,
he had become a melancholy disappointment; even the Major contributing,
in spite of the rather trying incident of the nomination. His brother
was kind and did a brother's duty, but there does not seem to have been
much sympathy between them; John Cowper did not become a convert to
Evangelical doctrine till he was near his end, and he was incapable of
sharing William's spiritual emotions. Of his brilliant companions, the
Bonnell Thorntons and the Colmans, the quondam members of the Nonsense
Club, he heard no more, till he had himself become famous. But he
still had a staunch friend in a less brilliant member of the Club,
Joseph Hill, the lawyer, evidently a man who united strong sense and
depth of character with literary tastes and love of fun, and who was
throughout Cowper's life his Mentor in matters of business, with regard
to which he was himself a child. He had brought with him from the
asylum at St. Albans the servant who had attended him there, and who
had been drawn by the singular talisman of personal attraction which
partly made up to this frail and helpless being for his entire lack of
force. He had also brought from the same place an outcast boy whose
case bad excited his interest, and for whom he afterwards provided by
putting him to a trade. The maintenance of these two retainers was
expensive and led to grumbling among the subscribers to the family
subsidy, the Major especially threatening to withdraw his contribution.
While the matter was in agitation, Cowper received an anonymous letter
couched in the kindest terms, bidding him not distress himself, for
that whatever deduction from his income might be made, the loss would
be supplied by one who loved him tenderly and approved his conduct. In
a letter to Lady Hesketh, he says that he wishes he knew who dictated
this letter, and that he had seen not long before a style excessively
like it. He can scarcely have failed to guess that it came from
Theodora.

It is due to Cowper to say that he accepts the assistance of his
relatives and all acts of kindness done to him with sweet and becoming
thankfulness; and that whatever dark fancies he may have had about his
religious state, when the evil spirit was upon him, he always speaks
with contentment and cheerfulness of his earthly lot. Nothing
splenetic, no element of suspicions and irritable self-love, entered
into the composition of his character.

On his release from