Hayley-XXI-22

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Dec 2

My dear Eliza

Your commission I executed with the utmost dispatch by sending the letter you inclosed on the day after its arrival – & as it contained so generous an offer from the Parents I dare say it has proved consolatory to the afflicted –

You desire to be informed concerning the real situation of my most dear Brother of Parnassus the engaging Cowper – I cannot imagine from what circumstance you supposed him a divine – His Profession was the Law & He was a Fellow Student & intimate associate at the Temple with our late Chancellor (whose obsolete

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Friendship for Him I have (between ourselves) laboured hard to revive with beneficial effects but I fear not with the success I had for some time reason to hope) as a relation to Ld Chancellor Cowper He had a lucrative Post but from Tenderness of Spirit & a peculiar Situation of Mind between excess of Modesty & the Horrors of Melancholy He was obliged to withdraw from the World & found an Asylum in the House of a Divine at Huntington – a Mr Unwin who was soon afterwards killed by a Fall from his Horse – His Widow intreated the interesting Cowper not to quit his Asylum & with a sublimity of Friendship that would have made her a demi Goddess at least among the antients She has ever since presided

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over his marvellous & variable Health — for eight years of calamitous depression she watched Him every night lest He should End his own Life in those terrific Moments of despair that continually overwhelmed Him — She has in Truth acted the Part of a guardian Angel preserved his existence his Faculties & thus raised Him to what He now is & what He can never cease to be in one sense the delight & admiration of the World —His Spirits however are very tender & often verge towards Melancholy & his dread of not restoring her Health oppresses Him at times beyond Expression but I trust that Heaven will enable me to prepare his Heart & Mind by degrees for the severe Loss which it must in all probability be his Lot to sustain —

my paper is full & Time presses – the dear Boy is well & adds his Love to that

of yr affectionate H

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To
M^rs Hayley
Derby