the asylum he was taken in hand by his brother
John, who first tried to find lodgings for him at or near Cambridge,
and failing in this, placed him at Huntingdon, within a long ride, so
that William becoming a horseman for the purpose, the brothers could
meet once a week. Huntingdon was a quiet little town with less than
two thousand inhabitants, in a dull country, the best part of which was
the Ouse, especially to Cowper, who was fond of bathing. Life there,
as in other English country towns in those days, and indeed till
railroads made people everywhere too restless and migratory for
companionship or even for acquaintance, was sociable in an unrefined
way. There were assemblies, dances, races, card-parties, and a
bowling-green, at which the little world met and enjoyed itself. From
these the new convert, in his spiritual ecstasy, of course turned away
as mere modes of murdering time. Three families received him with
civility, two of them with cordiality; but the chief acquaintances he
made were with "odd scrambling fellows like himself;" an eccentric
water-drinker and vegetarian who was to be met by early risers and
walkers every morning at six o'clock by his favourite spring; a
char-parson, of the class common in those days of sinecurism and
non-residence, who walked sixteen miles every Sunday to serve two
churches, besides reading daily prayers at Huntingdon, and who regaled
his friend with ale brewed by his own hands. In his attached servant
the recluse boasted that he had a friend; a friend he might have, but
hardly a companion.

For the first days and even weeks, however, Huntingdon seemed a
paradise. The heart of its new inhabitant was full of the unspeakable
happiness that comes with calm after storm, with health after the most
terrible of maladies, with repose after the burning fever of the brain.
When first he went to church he was in a spiritual ecstasy; it was with
difficulty that he restrained his emotions, though his voice was
silent, being stopped by the intensity of his feelings, his heart
within him sang for joy; and when the Gospel for the day was read, the
sound of it was more than he could well bear. This brightness of his
mind communicated itself to all the objects round him, to the sluggish
waters of the Ouse, to dull, fenny Huntingdon, and to its commonplace
inhabitants.

For about three months his cheerfulness lasted, and with the help of
books, and his rides to meet his brother, he g