The good-hearted, high-flown Hayley concludes by expressing his sympathy with Cowper, as being ‘perplexed by an abundance of affection in a female associate‘—surely he should have said a couple!
The Rev. Mr. Scott, for some time Lady Austen’s landlord at Olney, is reported to have said: ‘Who can wonder that two women, who were continually in the society of one man, should quarrel, sooner or later?’
Southey (an evident partisan of Mrs. Unwin’s), while acquitting Lady Austen of any ‘matrimonial designs,’ urges that it would be impossible for a woman of threescore to feel any jealousy in the matter of Cowper’s affections. Now it strikes us that the woman of threescore could herself have had no ‘matrimonial intentions,’ or she would have carried them out long before. But is it likely that Cowper’s ‘Mary’ would have tolerated a wife under the same roof, or tamely given the pas to an ‘Anna’? Cowper indeed called Mrs. Unwin his mother, and Lady Austen his sister; but the former lady may have distrusted the ambiguity of the latter elective relationship, knowing how frequently the appellation of brother and sister has been used as a refuge from the impending danger, of a nearer tie.
Southey goes on to observe, in contradistinction, we suppose, to Mr. Scott’s remark, that two women were shortly afterwards living constantly in the society of the identical man, without one shade of jealousy. Now Lady Austen and Lady Hesketh differed in all respects—in age, in character, in discipline of mind. The former had been Cowper’s early friend, and the confidante of his love for her sister Theodora; they had corresponded with each other for years; and in one of his letters he says: ‘It seems wonderful, that, loving you as much as I do, I should never have fallen in love with you. I am so glad I never did, for it would have been most inconvenient,’ etc.
Lady Hesketh now returned from a lengthened residence on the Continent, her husband was dead, and the intercourse of old days was renewed, in all its happy freedom, between the cousins. A few more words respecting poor Lady Austen, and then her name shall be heard no more. Cowper writes to Lady Hesketh a long letter on the subject, in which he describes the rise, decline, and fall of the friendship, and goes on in this strain: ‘At first I used to pay my devoirs to her ladyship every morning at eleven. Custom soon became law. When I began “The Task,” I felt the inconvenience of this daily attendance; long usage had made that which was at first optional, a point of good manners. I was compelled to neglect “The Task,” for the Muse that had inspired it.’
Hayley speaks in most flattering terms of Lady Austen, in his Life of Cowper, and wrote one of the long-winded epitaphs of the day on her death, which took place before he had completed the poet’s biography, in the compilation of which she had given him much assistance. After her estrangement from the Olney household, Lady Austen married a Frenchman, one Monsieur de Tardif, who wrote verses to her in his own language; she accompanied her husband to Paris in 1802, where she died.
As regards Cowper, one thing is certain: he did not subscribe to the common error, that ‘two is company, and three none,’ but rather to the German proverb, ‘Alle gute ding, sind drey;’ for he now summons Lady Hesketh to his side. He entreats her to come and reside under his roof, painting, in the most glowing colours, the happiness that her society will afford them. He addresses her in the most tender, the most affectionate terms—‘Dearly beloved cousin,’ ‘Dearest, dearest,’—and often in the middle of his epistles he breaks forth again into similar endearing epithets. Southey assures us that Mrs. Unwin never felt a shade of jealousy for Lady Hesketh; but no one tells us if such letters as these were read aloud to Mary, or ‘honoured by her warmest approbation. Among the anonymous presents which Cowper was now in the habit of receiving, was one more acceptable than all others, and that not only because it enclosed a cheque for fifty pounds, with a promise that the donation should be annual, as he writes to Lady Hesketh (whom he appoints his ‘Thanks Receiver-General,’ ‘seeing it is so painful to have no one to thank’), but because the letter was accompanied by ‘the most elegant gift, and the most elegant compliment, that ever poet was honoured with,’—a beautiful tortoise-shell snuff-box, with a miniature on the lid, representing a landscape, with the three hares frolicking in the foreground; above and below two inscriptions, ‘Bess, Puss, Tiny,’ and ‘The Peasant’s Nest.’ Southey had no doubt (neither would it appear had Cowper himself, though he thinks it dishonourable to pry into the incognito) that ‘Anonymous’ and Theodora were synonymous. He was now hard at work translating Homer, and he longed to read what he had done to Lady Hesketh, as well as to Mrs. Unwin. ‘The latter,’ he says, ‘has hitherto been my touchstone, and I have never printed a line without reference to her. With one of you at each elbow, I shall be the happiest of poets.’
To the same: ‘I am impatient to tell you how impatient I am to see you. But you must not come till the fine weather, when the greenhouse, the only pleasant room in the house, will be ready to receive us, for when the plants go out, we go in. There you shall sit, my dear, with a bed of mignionette by your side, and a hedge of roses, honeysuckle, and jasmine, and I will make you a bouquet of myrtle every day. Come, come then, my beloved cousin, for I am resolved, whatever king may reign, you shall be vicar of Olney.’ He hopes their friendship will be perpetuated for ever; ‘For I should not love you half so well if I did not believe you would be my friend to all eternity. There is not room for friendship to unfold itself in full bloom, in such a nook of life as this; therefore I am, and must, and always will be yours for ever.—W. Cowper.’
In another letter he prepares her for the aspect of his peculiar abode: ‘The entrance hall: opposite you, stands a cupboard, once a dove-cot, and a paralytic table, both the work of the same author. Then you come to the parlour door, which we will open, and I will present you to Mrs. Unwin; and we shall be as happy as the day is long.’
Lady Hesketh preferred separate lodgings, and, following in the footsteps of Lady Austen, became a tenant of the Vicarage, and inhabited the rooms so lately vacated by her predecessor. ‘All is settled, dear cousin, and now I only wish for June; and June, believe me, was never so much wished for, since it was first made. To meet again, after so long a separation, will be like a resurrection; but there is no one in the other world whose reappearance would cause me so much pleasure.’ He prepares her for the possible recurrence of his fits of dejection, but is sure he will be cheerful when she comes. In a letter to Unwin, speaking of the long-looked-for arrival, he says: ‘I have always loved the sound of church bells; but none ever seemed to me so musical, as those which rang my sweet cousin into her new habitation.’ Lady Hesketh, writing a description of Mrs. Unwin, says she ‘is a very remarkable woman. She is far from being always grave; on the contrary, she laughs de bon cœur on the smallest provocation. When she speaks on grave subjects, it is in a Puritanical tone, and she makes use of Puritanical expressions; but otherwise she has a fund of gaiety; indeed, but for that, she could not have gone through all she has done. I do not like to say she idolises William, for she would disapprove of the word; but she certainly has no will but his. It is wonderful to think how she has supported the constant attendance and responsibility for so many years.’ She goes on to describe the calm, quiet, dignified old lady, sitting knitting stockings for her poet, beside his chair, with ‘the finest needles imaginable.’