[687] Dr. Austen, who is here alluded to, was not less distinguished for his humane and benevolent qualities, than for his professional skill and eminence.
[688] Private correspondence.
[689] A name given to Ulysses.
[690] Maty.
[691] Whether this is a poetical or real dream of Cowper's, we presume not to decide. It bears so strong a resemblance to Milton's vision of the Bishop of Winchester, (the celebrated Dr. Andrews,) as to suggest the probability of having been borrowed from that source. The passage is to be found in Milton's beautiful Latin elegy on the death of that prelate, and is thus translated by Cowper:
"While I that splendour, and the mingled shade
Of fruitful vines with wonder fixt survey'd,
At once, with looks, that beam'd celestial grace,
The seer of Winton stood before my face.
His snowy vesture's hem descending low
His golden sandals swept, and pure as snow
New-fallen shone the mitre on his brow.
Where'er he trod a tremulous sweet sound
Of gladness shook the flow'ry scene around:
Attendant angels clap their starry wings,
The trumpet shakes the sky, all æther rings,
Each chaunts his welcome, ...
Then night retired, and, chas'd by dawning day,
The visionary bliss pass'd all away:
I mourn'd my banish'd sleep with fond concern,
Frequent to me may dreams like this return."
[692] Louis XVI. the unhappy King of France, had recently perished on the scaffold, Jan. 21, 1793.
[693] Isaiah xxiv. 20.
[694] We have not been able to discover this epitaph, nor does it appear that it was ever translated by Cowper.
Cardinal Mazarin was minister of state to Louis XIII. and during the minority of Louis XIV. The last moments of this great statesman are too edifying not to be recorded. To the ecclesiastic (Joly) who attended him, he said, "I am not satisfied with my state; I wish to feel a more profound sorrow for my sins. I am a great sinner. I have no hope but in the mercy of God." (Je suis un grand criminel, je n'ai d'esperance qu'en la misericorde divine.) At another time he besought his confessor to treat him like the lowest subject in the realm, being convinced, he said, that there was but one gospel for the great, as well as for the little. (Qu'il n'y avait qu'un Evangile pour les grands, et pour les petits.) His sufferings were very acute. "You see," he observed to those around him, "what infirmities and wretchedness the fortunes and dignities of this world come to." He repeated many times the Miserere, (Ps. li.) stretching forth his hands, then clasping them, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, with all the marks of the most sincere devotion.