conveyed to the private asylum for lunatics, kept by Dr. Cotton, at St. Albans. There, we are told, he lay for five months, in the most gloomy and desponding state; tormented with conviction of sin, and despair of mercy. In process of time, his brother visited him, and protested so strongly that he was under a delusion, that, says Cowper

"I could not help giving some attention to him. I burst into tears, and cried out, If it be a delusion, then am I the happiest of mortals! Something like a ray of hope shot into my heart, but still I was afraid to indulge it."

The ray of hope, however, became brighter and brighter.

"Every moment came, as it were, fraught with hopes. I felt that I was not utterly doomed to destruction."

"But the happy period, which was to shake off my fetters, and afford me a clear discovery of the free mercy of God, in Christ Jesus, was now arrived. I flung myself into a chair near the window, and seeing a Bible there, ventured once more to apply to it for comfort and instruction. The first verse I saw was the 25th of the 3d of Romans: Whom God hath set forth, to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God.' Immediately I received strength to believe, and the full beams of the sun of righteousness shone upon me. I saw the sufficiency of the atonement he had made, for my pardon and complete justification. In a moment I believed, and received the Gospel."

"For many succeeding weeks, tears would be ready to flow if I did but speak of the Gospel, or mention the name of Jesus. To rejoice day and night was all my employment. Too happy to sleep much, I thought it but lost time that was spent in slumber."

“My physician, ever watchful, and apprehensive for my welfare," was now alarmed, lest the sudden transition from despair to joy, should terminate in a fatal frenzy. But the Lord was my strength and my song, and was become my salvation."

Dr. Cotton's apprehensions in a short time subsided, and—

"On the 17th June, 1765," says Mr. Taylor, "having spent more than eighteen months at St. Alban's, partly in the bondage of despair, and partly in the liberty of the Gospel, he took leave of the place, and set out for Cambridge."

This is the account Mr. Taylor gives of the poet's conversion, which I am persuaded he considers a signal and edifying example of the power of Divine grace, and which he has endeavoured, I am sure, with the sincerest intentions, to render edifying to his readers. But I do not think he has dealt quite fairly with his readers, or acquitted himself in the most faithful manner in his office of biographer.

He has given this account entirely in the words of the poet, yet without making a single remark about the document from which he has extracted them, and which is all the authority that he and his readers have to rely upon: and, while appearing to employ the very language of Cowper, has kept back many of his most important thoughts; in doing which, he has, indeed, displayed infinitely more prudence and delicacy than the zealous individual to whom we are indebted for the whole of the production, but yet not the same degree of candour.

It is as clear as the sun at noon-day, to those who read this auto-biography of Cowper, that all the wretchedness and despair which oppressed him from the time he entered the Temple, to the full paroxysm of madness at St. Albans, were firmly believed by him to have been the chosen means which the Spirit of God vouchsafed to employ, in His dealings with his soul, to bring him to the knowledge of the truth.

After describing his state of mind as like the feelings of a criminal at the place of execution, for every day for more than half a-year together, and telling us that his first reflections, when he "awoke in the morning, were horrible, and full of wretchedness."

He at length began to entertain the horrid thought of selfdestruction, and thus he writes :—

"Being at Richard's Coffee-house, at breakfast, I read the newspaper, and in it a letter, which the farther I perused it, the more closely it engaged my attention. I cannot now recollect the purport of it; but before I had finished it, it appeared demonstratively true to me that it was a libel or satire upon me. The author appeared to be acquainted with my purpose of self-destruction, and to have written that letter, on purpose to secure and hasten the execution of it. My mind probably at this time began to be disordered. However it was, I was certainly given up to a strong delusion. I said within myself, Your cruelty shall be gratified-you shall have your revenge.""

Then follows a long and heart-rending account of the many preparations and attempts that he made to destroy himself; and how he was hindered, again and again, by Divine interpositionby sudden impulses from heaven, that were as suddenly withdrawn, when their purpose was answered; by instantaneous convulsion in his limbs; by supernatural contraction of his fingers; by an invisible hand, that swayed down the poisoned bowl! He tells us how a voice said distinctly, three times, while he was hanging, ""Tis over!" and adds, "I am sure of the fact." Harrassed with sleepless nights, and days of uninterrupted misery, he was now—

"Strongly tempted to use laudanum, not as a poison, but as an opiate, to compose my spirits to stupify an awakened and feeling mind; but God forbade it, who would have nothing to interfere with the quickening work he N. S. VOL. III.

M

had begun in me." "I bought a ballad of one who was singing it in the street, because I thought it was written on me." "If, for a moment, a book or a companion stole away my attention from myself, a flash from hell seemed to be thrown into my mind immediately, and I said, within myself, What are these things to me, who am damned?' In a word, I saw myself a sinner altogether, and every way a sinner."

He now began to wish for madness, and at length, says he, "that distemper of mind which I had so ardently wished for, actually seized me."

He was carried to St. Albans.

"It will be proper to draw a veil over the secrets of my prison-house; let it suffice to say, that the low state of body and mind to which I was reduced was perfectly well calculated to humble the natural vain-glory and pride of my heart. These are the efficacious means which Infinite Wisdom thought meet to make use of for that purpose."

Now what can any sober person think of the wisdom of those who draw out of materials such as these, an ostentatious narrative of a sound and signal conversion? What can be concluded of the state of mind of the author of this auto-biography, we will not say at the period described only, but at the time in which he wrote it? Had the writer correct views of his own case, through all its stages? Was he a fit person to trace out the dealings of the Holy Spirit with his soul, in bringing him to the knowledge of the truth? Could he be in a wholesome condition of mind when he put down, thus minutely, particulars of so horrible and sickening a character, and made statements such as he has recorded? And is Mr. Taylor treating his readers with fairness, when, without a single word about the character, the extent, the time of writing, or any other thing belonging to this composition, which is the only authority on which he rests, and which supplies the very words he uses, he extracts from it what and where he pleases, and exhibits to his readers this, as a case of wonderful and edifying Christian experience, and a sound and glorious conversion? And yet this is put forth as if the honour of the Gospel were to stand or fall with the reception of Mr. Taylor's view of the subject; while all the sober, amiable, and respectable people who shall be bold enough to differ with him, are pronounced enemies to Divine truth, and running headlong to their final and inevitable ruin!

I ask, is the evidence sufficient, on which all this is propounded as valuable biographical information; and propounded, too, in such a tone? If the document on which Mr. Taylor relies is to be admitted as good evidence, there can be no reason to receive one part of it rather than another: we must receive it all or none; and in receiving it, receive what I cannot help thinking absurdity, if not impiety. It must be believed that when the despairing hypochondriac had arrived in the country from his

dismal dwelling in the metropolis, and walked out on a clear calm morning, in the most beautiful country he had ever beheld, and the sweet sunshine that deluged all the landscape with delight, made its way also to the heart that gloom and seclusion from the loveliness of nature had sickened, spreading a sudden rapture through those exquisitely sensible nerves, that never felt either joy or sorrow but in extremes. It must be believed that the change was produced by nothing less than the Almighty fiat, and an instantaneous flash of his life-giving countenance. This was Cowper's solemn conviction, at the time when he wrote this account, in after life, although it was not his conviction when it happened :

"I must needs," says he-(must needs is used elsewhere in the present time in this memoir)—“ I must needs believe that nothing less than the Almighty fiat could have filled me with such inexpressible delight."

"I think I remember something like a glow of gratitude; but Satan and my own wicked heart quickly persuaded me that I was indebted for my deliverance to nothing but a change of scene and the amusing varieties of the place."

The writer considered it to have been a crime, the suggestion of the prince of darkness, to think that a change of scene or the amusing varieties of the place produced that enjoyment, or that anything less than the Almighty fiat could have wrought out the deliverance.

It is worthy of being observed, that this memoir of the poet was written during what is considered as the best time, both of his intellectual and religious life-in the interval between his recovery at St. Albans, and the next attack of his malady, which is as plain as possible from abundant internal evidence in the composition itself.

I have already remarked, that the convictions of sin, and the rapture following them, that are so strongly insisted on, were contemporaneous with the paroxysm of indomitable madness, and the re-establisment of the unhappy sufferer's faculties, except that the former, respectively, somewhat preceded the latter, as far as we can gather from the accounts. And it must

also be remarked, that the transport was so far from resembling the calm and heavenly peace and joy in believing,' which it is the privilege of God's accepted children to receive, that Dr. Cotton was alarmed, lest the sudden transition should terminate in a fatal frenzy,' and thus render abortive all that his skill and patience had been employed to accomplish.

So much concerning the signal and instructive conversion of Cowper. We hope our readers will excuse our having dwelt so long upon the subject, for several good reasons. In the first

place, it seems to devolve upon me, in reviewing Mr. Taylor's work, to point out, in the spirit of a Christian examiner, one deficiency, of importance in biographical diligence or fairness; and I cannot help thinking this of importance.

Then, I wish to say a word in defence of those sober, amiable, and respectable people, whom Mr. Taylor attacks, to show that Mr. Taylor's views of the religious character of Cowper are not fundamental articles of faith, and that a sincere enquirer may, after all, arrive at the conclusion

"That Cowper's mind was surrounded by superstition; that his nervous disease was deepened into a religious horror by his opinions; that the flood of light which burst upon his mind at his supposed conversion was nothing but the false fire of insanity; and that the transport he experienced after it, was the natural consequence of high-wrought feeling, to which the gloom he subsequently experienced was to be ascribed."

We wish to show that a sincere enquirer may give credit to all this, without being convicted of "intense aversion to every thing like evangelical religion, and real spirituality of mind."

But I have a better reason. I am sincerely grieved to think that the good cause, which all should have at heart, may be injured by such advocates as this biographer, however well-meaning he may be. Sure I am that there was neither judgment nor delicacy in the publication of Cowper's own memoir of his early life; although it was given to the world professedly as a duty done to religion, and to supply to the Christian public their great lack of a biography of Cowper, confined especially to his religious character. In Mr. Taylor's book there is far more delicacy displayed, but no more judgment; nay, he is even a more determined panegyrist of Cowper, as a spiritual man, than the other, as appears from the notes of the latter, compared with the general tone of Mr. Taylor's book. Care should be taken not to put arms in the hands of the enemies of religion. Now, although no possible view of Cowper's case can supply irreligious men with any thing like an argument, yet prejudice gladly avails herself of a subject for noisy declamation; and vice makes much of a pretence to justify herself, when they see a convert, made in bedlam, held forward as a glorious example of the power of Divine grace, and the recollections of a hypochondriac soberly published as an improving religious memoir.

To counterbalance this danger of doing mischief, the religious biographer should be sure of having great advantages in his subject; some eminent example of Christian practice and achievement; some satisfactory sequel of Christian experience and attainments; some glorious scene of final Christian triumph. What, then, are these counterbalancing advantages in this case? We shall see.

It is not pretended that there is anything satisfactory in the Christian career of the unhappy poet, except during the nine years that intervened between his leaving St. Albans and his next attack of insanity. At the end of that period he again was plunged into blackest melancholy, that was fed with this strange infernal fancy, that he was cut off from all hope of sal