but for his welfare, now became querulous and exacting, forgetful of him and mindful, apparently, only of herself.  Unable to move out of her chair without help, or to walk across the room unless supported by two people, her speech at times almost unintelligible, she deprived him of all his wonted exercises, both bodily and mental, as she did not choose that he should leave her for a moment, or even use a pen or a book, except when he read to her.  To these demands he responded with all the devotion of gratitude and affection; he was assiduous in his attentions to her, but the strain told heavily on his strength.”  To know all this does not modify our opinion of Cowper’s letters, except is so far as it strengthens it.  It helps us, however, to explain to ourselves why we love them.  We love them because, as surely as the writings of Shakespeare and Lamb, they are an expression of that sort of heroic gentleness which can endure the fires of the most devastating tragedy.  Shakespeare finally revealed the strong sweetness of his nature in The Tempest.  Many people are inclined to over-estimate The Tempest as poetry simply because it gives them so precious a clue to the character of his genius, and makes clear once more that the grand source and material of poetry is the infinite tenderness of the human heart.  Cowper’s letters are a tiny thing beside Shakespeare’s plays.  But the same light falls on them.  They have an eighteenth-century restraint, and freedom from emotionalism and gush.  But behind their chronicle of trifles, their small fancies, their little vanities, one is aware of an intensely loving and lovable personality.  Cowper’s poem, To Mary, written to Mrs. Unwin in the days of her feebleness, is, to my mind, made commonplace by the odious reiteration of “my Mary!” at the end of every verse.  Leave the “my Marys” out, however, and see how beautiful, as well as moving, a poem it becomes.  Cowper was at one time on the point of marrying Mrs. Unwin, when an attack of madness prevented him.  Later on Lady Austen apparently wished to marry him.  He had an extraordinary gift for commanding the affections of those of both sexes who knew him.  His friendship with the poet Hayley, then a rocket fallen to earth, towards the close of his life, reveals the lovableness of both men.

    [2] Letters of William Cowper.  Chosen and edited by J.G.  Frazer. 
        Two vols.  Eversley Series.  Macmillan. 12s. net.

If we love Cowper, then, it is not only because of his little world, but because of his greatness of soul that stands in contrast to it.  He is like one of those tiny pools among the rocks, left behind by the deep waters of ocean and reflecting the blue height of the sky.  His most trivial actions acquire a pathos from what we know of the De Profundis that is behind them.  When we read of the Olney household—­“our snug parlour, one lady knitting, the other netting, and the gentleman winding