corporeal strength was rapidly declining, and | early in the following year it was plain that his dissolution was close at hand. As his end approached he does not seem to have gained serenity of mind. The terrible delusions which had so long clung to him were not now to be shaken off. He expressed, indeed, no hope to the last; but when, on the 25th of April, 1800, his soul was released from its shattered tenement, the affectionate relative who had so tenderly watched over the last dark years of the poet, thought that he could see on the face of William Cowper "an expression of calmness and composure, mingled, as it were, with holy surprise." Painful as is this story, it is not an unintelligible one; we believe, indeed, that it is not an uncommon one. The celebrity of the poet has imparted to it an interest and a notoriety which do not belong to others, presenting the same features to the eye of the professional observer. These nineteen. years at Olney, viewed in connection with the melancholy antecedents of Cowper's life, were sufficient to account for any thing that occurred after he took up his abode in that dreary Bastile on the banks of the Ouse. A dry, bracing air, cheerful society, regular exercise (if possible on horseback), occa sional change of scene, and good medical advice, might have restored him to health and happiness. This is no vague conjecture. He had himself the strongest possible conviction that these were the remedies he required; and whenever the effect of any one of them was accidentally tried, he greatly improved both in health and spirits. As it was, with every thing to poison the body and depress the mind, mind and body were continually acting reciprocally one upon the other, until disease was so firmly established in both, that all hope of cure was at an end. That one-the chief, indeed, of Cowper's delusions, should be an insurmountable belief that God had turned away His face from him, and that the Redeemer had not died for him, seems to be an almost necessary result of the miserable circumstances which preceded his first attack of madness. So profound, indeed, was his mental darkness, so complete the entanglement and confusion of his ideas, during these awful periods of insanity, that he believed that God had totally and finally rejected him because he had not committed suicide. He read every thing back wards; he saw every where the reverse side of things. To base any theory upon these grotesque figments of a disordered brain m He knew, indeed, that he was "not deserted." When the enemy was not "in the citadel" he was hopeful and assured. He lived in a state of habitual thankfulness. His familiar letters sparkle with playful humor. They are the pleasantest and the most genial ever written. They indicate, for the most part, a mind at peace with itself, and a heart full of tenderness towards others. With few exceptions, they declare in every sentence the gentle, lovable nature, the cheerful philosophy, and the sound good sense of the poet. For it was Cowper's hard fate, when the malady was upon him, to belie himself in every essential particular. A terrible disguise obscured all the realities of his natural self. The loving, grateful heart, the clear reason, the hopeful piety, all yielded to the assaults of the insidious fever; and he became, under its domineering influence, morose, fanciful, desponding-mistrustful ́alike of God and of man. How complete the inversion was, is appa rent to every reader who studies in immediate connection with each other the life and the works of William Cowper. If there be one characteristic of his poetry more remarkable than any other, it is the sound good sense which informs it. He is, indeed, the sanest of our poets. Of "fine frenzy" in his writings there is little or none. Perhaps there is no collection in the language less likely, on its own merits, to be attributed to a "mad poet." He was of a school the very antithesis of the spasmodic. It is the rationality, indeed, of Cowper's poems which has rendered them so acceptable to the people of England. He had seen little of men, and was not very largely acquainted with books. But his strong natural sense, and his extraordinary keenness of observation, enabled him to triumph over these deficiencies, and there are many passages in his longer poems which have all the appearance of having been written by a well-read man of the world. It was said, by William Hazlitt, we believe, that there are "only three books worth looking into for a quotation-the Old Testament, Shakespeare, and Wordsworth's Excursion." To these might certainly have been added, "The Poems of William Cowper." With the single exception of Shakespeare, there is no poet more frequently quoted by his countrymen. He is, perhaps, more quoted than read. Many brief passages in bis writings have become "familiar as household words,' and are passed about from one mouth to another by men who cannot trace the lines or couplets to their true paternity. It is the simple, intelligible truth of these passages that fixes them so firmly on the popular memory, and renders them so easy of reproduction. If they were more poetical, or more profound, they would be less current amongst us. The sustained popularity of Cowper's writings is a fact very creditable to Englishmen. Within the last few months three new and handsome editions of his Poems have been contemporaneously appearing. He is em phatically an English poet; he represents, indeed, the best side of the English character; but he is entirely and exclusively English. No other country could have produced such a poet; and in no other country would he have been equally popular. We take him to our hearths fearlessly, trustfully. There is scarcely a library in the kingdom containing a hundred volumes in which Cowper has no place. His poems are the earliest which English children learn by rote. They are food alike for tender nurslings and for strong men. We may not be very enthusiastic over them; they do not excite us to any prodigious heights of admiration; perhaps they do not often stir any profound depths of emotion within us; but we always approve, we always trust, we always sympathize with, we always love, we are always grateful to the poet. It is the proud distinction of William Cowper that he never led any man astray-that no one ever studied his writings without being wiser and better for the study-that no English parent in his sound senses ever hesitated, or ever will hesitate, to place Cowper's poems in the hands of his child. We are thankful that there is a sufficiency of good, healthy English taste and feeling amongst us to keep alive the popularity of such writers as William Cowper. We are not unmindful of the claims of poets of another class. They write under different influences, and they have their reward. Even the writers of what is now called the “ spasmodic school" are entitled to some consideration, and may be too severely handled. But let what schools may rise and fall, come jauntily into fashion for a little while, to be hooted down as quickly-the good English thought and English diction of William Cowper will still keep their place amongst us; and still as we speak reverently and affectionately of him who did so much to swell the happiness of others, but could never secure his own, it will be our boast that the most English of our poets was emphatically the most Christian. From Dickens's Household Words. THE LAST OF THE HOWLEYS. Ar the beginning of the year seventeen hundred and ninety-eight, a respectable family, named Howley, resided in the neighborhood of Wexford, in Ireland. They consisted of the father; two sons, Mark and Robert; and a daughter, named Ellen. That was the year of the great Rebellion, when the patriot volunteers, having taken successively the titles of United Irishmen and Defenders, openly declared themselves in revolt against the government of the sister country. The civil war raged fiercely in the southern provinces; and the Howleys speedily became involved in it. The father, who assumed the title of colonel, and placed himself at the head of an armed band, chiefly composed of peasants on his own estate, fell, fighting, at the battle at Vinegar Hill. Both the sons were taken prisoners with arms in their hands by the king's troops, during the terrible fight in the streets of Ross: and Mark, who was the elder, was shot, without trial, on the spot where he was captured; Robert, being a slim youth of fifteen-and of an appearance even younger than his years-was spared, and sent to Dublin for trial. His sister Ellen, who was then a girl of seventeen, and of very remarkable beauty, set out without consulting any one-indeed, there were few who dared trust to the advice of another in that terrible time-contrived to traverse a country still swarming with troops and insurgents, and arrived safely in Dublin. her brother's defence, she instructed him herself, paying his fees out of a little treasure she had brought with her, and which had been kept by her father against a time of need. The barrister whom she had chosen was a young man named Roche, then but little known in his profession. He felt for her sorrows, and began to take an interest in his client's case. Every day, after visiting the prisoner, he brought her some intelligence from him, and succeeded in whispering to him, in return, a word of consolation from his devoted sister. He also entered into her schemes for interesting influential persons in her favor; but he was a young man, and, having risen by his own efforts above the humble position of his own family, he had but little personal interest. The atrocities committed at Wexford, and the horrible story of the barn at Scullabogue, had produced a strong feeling against all prisoners from the south; and their applications to the Lord Lieutenant were met by a cool official answer. Meanwhile, Roche directed all his energies. to preparing for the defence. The morning appointed for the trial came. It was a showery day. Gloom and sunshine changed and counterchanged a dozen times, as the young maiden trod the quiet streets near the prison-walls, awaiting the hour when the court should open. It was an anxious moment when she stood in the presence of the judge, and heard her brother's name called, and watched the door through which she knew that he would come. Many eyes beheld her-not all, alas! eyes of compassion There, with no friend or acquaintance in the city, she remained from the month of June until the February of the following year. During that time she was not allowed to see or communicate with her brother; but the misfortunes of her family, and the loneliness-standing in the dusty bar of sunlight that of her situation, transformed the young girl into a self-reliant woman. Every day was methodically spent in some endeavor, direct or indirect, to save her brother's life. She sought for friends, and succeeded in interesting those who had been mere strangers. Day after day she haunted the courts, listening to the speeches of the various counsel, in order herself to form a judgment of their skill. When she had fixed upon. one to undertake. came through the high arched window. Roche calmly arranged his papers without looking towards her, and the faint shriek that she uttered when her brother appeared, after all that long, dark winter, seemed to have caught all ears save his. barrister, though seeming to be wrapt in thought, lost nothing of what passed-not even the impression that her beauty made. But the young undn some persons present Though the evidence against the youth was too clear to be doubted, Roche dwelt strongly upon his youth, and the misfortunes his family had already suffered, and told, in simple and affecting language, the story of the sister's struggles. The effect of the appeal upon an Irish jury was the acquittal of the prisoner; who, after a solemn warning from the judge of the danger of being ever again accused, left the court with his sister, and the friend to whom he owed his life. The impression of that trial, and of his interesting client was not easily to be effaced from the mind of Roche. Her frequent visits, her importunities, which at times had almost vexed him, her fluctuating hopes and fears, he now began to miss, as pleasing excitements which had passed away in the attainment of their object. He corresponded with Ellen Howley at intervals; and, delighted by the womanly sense and tenderness of her letters, he soon became aware of his attachment for her. A journey to Wexfordthough only sixty miles distant from the capital-was not a slight matter then, and a year and a half elapsed before he was enabled to quit his duties and pay a visit to the Howleys. It was on a rainy day in a rainy autumn that Roche arrived in Wexford. A shrill wind blew from seaward, driving on the moist, heavy clouds. Traces of the late conflict were still visible in the streets; and the sullen manner of the common people with whom he came in contact, indicated their suspicions of a stranger. But when he inquired at the inn for the residence of the Howleys, the son of the landlord sprang forward, and eagerly offered to show him the way. Killowen, where the Howleys resided, was at a distance of three miles from the town. The way lay down a cross country road in the neighborhood of the sea-coast; a lane, partly through an enclosed plantation overgrown with rank shrubs, conducted to the house. Not a single cottage, or even hut, did they pass, except, once or twice, the ruined walls of a house, wrecked, as Roche's guide told him, by the royalist yeomanry, after the recapture of the town. The residence of the Howleys was a large red-brick mansion, by no means old or dilapidated; but the railing that surrounded the shrubbery had been torn out for pikes, leaving square holes, in which the rain had accumulated, along the top of the parapet wall. The grounds around the house were extensive, consisting of shrubberies, paddock, and plantations of young fir. There was a kind of porter's lodge beside th rusty iron gate; but its shutters were closed and its door was nailed up. Grass grew upo the soil; dry dust lay thick upon the thresh old; and the drops of rain and the withere leaves that fell with every movement of th wind, were fast rotting away the woode roof. In this desolate and solitary spot, Roch remained two months with the Howleys. Th rebellion had left Ellen no relative excer her brother. The serving-man, who bad live in the lodge, had also lost his life in the in surrection, and his place had never been fille up. The brother and sister, and an old wo man-servant, now formed the whole house hold. Owing to the political troubles of th country, the land belonging to them was the in great part uncultivated; but the brothe collected such rents as could be recovered and the Howleys, though impoverished, wer still in easy circumstances. Roche accom panied the brother in fishing or shooting ex cursions on the banks of the Slaney, during which the latter frequently spoke of politica matters, and hinted that the rebellion migh again break out before long; but Roche, whe had no sympathy with the insurrectionists always turned aside the conversation, o spoke to him of what his family had already suffered, and warned him of his imprudenc in approaching such matters. Robert was of a gay, reckless disposition; but the sister was the same subdued and thoughtful crea ture. The sad and solitary spirit of the place seemed to centre in her. Roche remarked at first with surprise, that no visitors ever came there; but he soon grew accustomed to their lonely life, and began to feel a plea sure in it. It was pleasant, sitting beside her in the long evenings, to fancy that he had abandoned for ever the strife and anxiety of his profession, and even the ambitious hopes which had made his labors light to him, to live with them in that quiet home, which had outlived the storms of ninety-eight. Roche's visit to Killowen naturally increased his affection for the young lady. When the day of his departure drew nearer, he frankly told her his circumstances, and solicited her hand. She set before him, like a noble girl, the injury that might result to him in his profession from alliance with a family considered as rebels by the govern ment; she reminded him that her brother was rash and hot-headed, and that their troubles might possibly be not yet over; she prevailed upon him at last, to postpone the marriage for a twelvemonth. On this arrangement, made with the approval of her brother, and on the understanding that he was to return in the same season of the following year, Roche bade her farewell, and returned to Dublin to follow his profes sion. The appointed twelve months had nearly passed away, when one of those minor outbreaks which, for many years, followed at intervals the suppression of the Great Rebellion, again involved the Howley family in trouble. On the twelfth of July (the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne), a party of the society of Orangemen, which had grown bolder than ever since the triumph of the loyalists, assembled in the town of Wexford, and marched across the bridge and through the principal streets, in procession, carrying banners inscribed with mottos offensive to the Catholics, and preceded by musicians playing "Croppies lie down," and other tunes known to be irritating to them. The Ribbonmen remained in-doors; but it was whispered about that it was intended to light bonfires in the streets at night, and to burn in effigy some of the favorite leaders of the United Irishmen, who had suffered for their treason; and it soon became known that a riot would take place. The Orangemen, who have since been found to be so mischievous a body, were, in those days of party warfare, openly encouraged by the authorities, and looked upon as a useful barrier against the revolutionary spirit of the common people. No pains, therefore, were taken to stop their proceedings, and several frays ensued, in which some lives were lost. One of these occurred in the market-place, where a large fire had been made. The attacking party were at first beaten off, and the Orangemen's bonfire had sunk into a great heap of embers, glowing and rustling in the wind, when a man named Michael Foster, who was in the act of raking the fire with a pole, was shot by an unseen hand, and immediately fell forward on his face. A few persons who were standing near him (most of the Orangemen had already dispersed) fled at the report of the gun; before any of his own party returned there, the head, and a portion of the body, of the murdered man, were almost consumed by the fire. There was then a dead wall on one side of the market-place, from an angle of which some persons pretended to have remarked that the shot was fired; however, in the hurry and bustle of that night the murderer escaped. sides; but so strong was the prejudice of the authorities in favor of the party who gave the first provocation, that no Orangeman was apprehended, while a great number of Ribbonmen were taken, and lodged in prison; on the following day, a diligent search was made for others, who were known to have been connected with the affray. The murder of Michael Foster in the market-place, made remarkable by the mystery attending it, and the horrible circumstance of the burning away of the head, was the subject of much investigation. Little doubt was entertained that the perpetrator had taken advantage of the riot, to commit an act of personal revenge. The conspicuousness of the victim, standing at the moment in the glare of the red embers, had no doubt enabled the murderer to take aim. That it was the act of one man, and that the man was satisfied with the result, was concluded from the circumstance that the gun was only fired once, and that the assassin or his party did not rush forward, as was the invariable practice of the Irish in an affray. Suspicion, casting about for some person known to have a plausible motive for the crime, was not long in finding a victim. It was remembered that the murdered man bad been a witness against young Howley on his trial; he was, moreover, said by some to have openly boasted of having with his own. hand cut down the father, at the fight at Vinegar Hill. This clue was at once seized, and, on the night following the Orange riot, young Howley was arrested, and conveyed to the jail at Wexford. Evidence, true or false, was quickly procured against him. One of the Orange party now came forward, and (for the first time) stated, that as he stood near the angle of the dead wall, on the night of the murder, he heard a voice, which he recognized immediately as that of Howley, exclaiming, "By the Holy Ghost, I'll make a hole through that villian!" Immediately after which, he heard the report of gun, and fearing that there were many armed men of the Ribbon party at hand, fled with others. Young Howley admitted that he was at Wexford that night, and that he carried his gun with him, but solemnly denied that he was the murderer of Foster; declaring that he had never heard of his boast of having slain his father until that moment, and that he did not believe it. Nor could any witness now be found who had ever heard of such a boast. But the magistrates committed him; a spe |