It was written when Cowper felt again the darkness of insanity closing in upon him.  Once again he tried to end his life, but again the storm passed.

Cowper was already a man of nearly fifty when these hymns first appeared.  Shortly afterwards he published another volume of poems in the style of Pope.

It was after this that Cowper found another friend who brought some brightness into his life.  Lady Austen, a widow, took a house near Cowper and Mrs. Unwin, and became a third in their friendship.  It was she who told Cowper the story of John Gilpin.  The story tickled his fancy so that he woke in the night with laughter over it.  He decided to make a ballad of the story, and the next day the ballad was finished.  I think I need hardly give you any quotation here.  You all know that—­

    “John Gilpin was a citizen
        Of credit and reknown,
    A train-band captain eke was he
        Of famous London town.”

And you have heard his adventures on the anniversary of his wedding day.

John Gilpin was first published in a magazine, and there it was seen by an actor famous in his day, who took it for a recitation.  It at once became a success, and thousands of copies were sold.

It was Lady Austen, too, who urged Cowper to his greatest work, The Task.  She wanted him to try blank verse, but he objected that he had nothing to write about.  “You can write upon any subject,” replied Lady Austen, “write upon the sofa.”

So Cowper accepted the task thus set for him, and began to write.  The first book of The Task is called The Sofa, and through all the six books we follow the course of his simple country life.  It is the epic of simplicity, at once pathetic and playful.  Its tuneful, easy blank verse never rises to the grandeur of Milton’s, yet there are fine passages in it.  Though Cowper lived a retired and uneventful life, the great questions of his day found an echo in his heart.  Canada had been won and the American States lost when he wrote—­

“England, with all thy faults, I love thee still—­ My Country! and, while yet a nook is left Where English minds and manners may be found, Shall be constrained to love thee. . . . . . .  Time was when it was praise and boast enough In every clime, and travel where we might, That we were born her children; praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham’s language was his mother tongue, And Wolfe’s great name compatriot with his own.  Farewell those honours, and farewell with them The hope of such hereafter! they have fallen Each in his field of glory:  one in arms, And one in council—­Wolfe upon the lap Of smiling Victory that moment won, And Chatham heart-sick of his country’s shame They made us many soldiers.  Chatham, still Consulting England’s happiness at home, Secured it by an unforgiving frown, If any wronged her.  Wolfe, where’er he fought, Put so much of his heart into his act, That