The form which Cowper's insanity assumed was that of religious delusion. A belief that he had been irrevocably cut off from a state of grace in this world, and of salvation in the next, was that which preyed upon his mind previous to the coming of the shock, and was predominant while it hated. In the three subsequent periods of his life during which madness returned to him, from ]773 to 1776, for about six months in 1787, and during the nix years preceding his death, its form was the same.
On Coveper's recovery in 1765, he took up his residence in Hunting don, solely that he might be within reach of a younger brother who was then at Cambridge. Here he became eseqnaioted with the family of the Rey. Mr. Unwin, the beneficial Influence exercised by whom on Cowpces subsequent life is well known. Finding that his spirits were sinking in the solitude in which be lived, and also that his scanty means were not sufficient to maintain a separate establishment, he became a boarder in Mr. Unwin's house. On Mr. Unwin's death in 1767, Cowper and Mrs. Unwin removed to Olney in Buckinghamshire, attracted thither by their esteem for Mr. Newton, who we., then curate of the place. Mr. Newton, a man greatly to be respected for his un questioned piety and moral worth, held strong views on the subject of religious duties ; and having early acquired a powerful influence over Cowper, led him to engage his thoughts continually on religious subjects. Mr. Newton was a prominent member of that section of clergymen known as ' evangelical,' and his zeal had been powerfully stimulated by the religious movement which, originating with Wesley and Whitefield, bad deeply penetrated the evangelical body in the Church. It is probable that Cowper, with his constitutional nervous ness and predisposition to mental derangement, did not derive un mixed good from the excitement of frequent prayer-meetings and an unremitting nttention to religious subjects. Mr. Newton had formed a plan of publishing a volume of hymns, and prevailed on Cowper to assist in composing them. They were afterwards published in 1776, under the title of ' Olney Hymns;' but Cowper, before he had pro ceeded far in their composition, was vinitod with his second attack of madness, which lasted nearly four years.
In 1776, after Cowper's recovery, Mr. Newton removed from Olney. By Mrs. Unwin's advice Cowper was now induced to commence a poem, taking, upon her suggestion, the Progress of Error for his subject.; and he immediately went on to write three snore moral satires, entitled ' Truth,' Table Talk,' and ' Expostulation.' These, together with the poems entitled ' Error," Hope," Charity," Conversation,' and 'Retirement,' and some smaller pieces, were formed into a volume, which was published in 1732. He published a second volume in 1785, containing the ' Task' and Tirocinium,' the former of which poems had been commenced on the suggestion of another female, friend, Lady Austen. It is to the same lady that we are indebted for the ' History of John Gilpin.' Ho had begun in 1784, so soon as the Task' and ' Tirocinium' had been written, his translation of Homer, which occupied him for the next six years. The translation was pub lished in 1791. During its progress ho bad changed his place of residence from Olney to the neighbouring village of Weston, on the recommendation of his cousin, Lady Ilenketh, with whom he had recently renewed a correspondence which had been long suspended, and Whom attentions contributed much to the comfort of his later years. Almost immediately after the translation of Homer was com pleted he undertook to superintend a new edition of Milton's Works, and to furnish translations of the Latin and Italian poems. In 1792 be paid a visit to Ilayley at Earthen), in Sussex, not having made a journey for twenty years before. Symptoms of his constitutioual indady had occasionally shown themselves daring the eight or ten preceding years ; and in the beginning of 1794 be was again afflicted with madness. A change of scene being judged desirable, he was removed first to North Tuddenbam in Norfolk, thence to Mundsley, and afterwards to East Dereham ; and he succeeded in obtaining short intervals of comparative tranquillity, during which he composed one or two small pieces and revised his translation of Homer. Mrs. Unwin, his faithful companion, died on the 17th of December 1796; and after three dreary years, Cowper followed her to the grave on the 25th of April 1800. He died in his sixty-ninth year.