W. C.
In recalling the name of Lady Austen, it is sufficient to entitle her to grateful remembrance, that it is to her we are indebted for the first suggestion of the poem of "The Task," that lasting monument of the fame of Cowper. It has also been recorded that she subsequently furnished the materials for the story of John Gilpin.
Her maiden name was Richardson; she was married very early in life to Sir Robert Austen, Baronet, and resided with him in France, where he died. After this event, she lived with her sister Mrs. Jones, the wife of the Rev. Mr. Jones, minister of Clifton, near Olney. It was thus that her intercourse commenced with Cowper. In a subsequent period, she was married to a native of France, M. de Tardif, a gentleman, and a poet, who has expressed, in some elegant French verses, his just and deep sense of her accomplished, endearing character. In visiting Paris with him in the course of the summer of 1802, she sank under the fatigue of the excursion, and died in that city on the 12th of August. It is due to the memory of this lady to rescue her name from a surmise injurious to her sincerity and honour; and the Editor rejoices that he possesses the means of affording her, what he conceives to be an ample justification. In the published correspondence of the late respected Alexander Knox, Esq., a doubt is expressed how far she is not chargeable with endeavouring to supplant Mrs. Unwin in the affections of Cowper. It is already recorded that a breach occurred between the two ladies, and that the poet, with a sensitiveness and delicacy that reflect the highest credit on his feelings and judgment, relinquished the society of Lady Austen from that period. They never met again. There is no direct charge conveyed by Mr. Knox, but there is evidently expressed the language of doubt and surmise. Local impressions are often the best interpretation of questionable occurrences. With this view the Editor has endeavoured to trace the nature of the rupture, on the spot, by a communication with surviving parties. From these sources of inquiry it appears that Lady Austen was a woman of great wit and vivacity, and possessed the power of exciting much interest by her manner and conversation—that Mrs. Unwin, who was of a more sedate and quiet character, seeing the ascendency that Lady Austen thus acquired, became jealous, and that a rupture was the consequence. Mr. Andrews, an intelligent inhabitant of Olney, who is my informant, assured me that such was the substance of the case, and that the rest was mere surmise and conjecture. On my asking him whether he knew the impressions on Mr. Scott's mind with regard to this event, he added, "that he himself asked Mr. Scott the question, and that his reply was, 'Who can be surprised that two women should be continually in the society of one man, and quarrel sooner or later with each other?'" The blunt and honest reply of Mr. Scott we apprehend to be the best commentary on the transaction. There may be jealousies in friendship as well as in love; and the possibility of female rivalship is sufficient to account for the rupture, without the intervention of either friendship or love.
From Mrs. Livius, of Bedford, formerly Miss Barham,[776] and intimate with Newton, Cowper, and Lady Austen, I learn that, though the vivacity and manner of Lady Austen weakened the belief of the depth of her personal religion, yet Mrs. Livius never entertained any doubt of its reality. Her own deep personal piety during a long life, and her just discrimination of character, are sufficient to give weight and authority to her judgment.
I take this opportunity of expressing her conviction that the loss of Lady Austen's society was a great privation to Cowper; that she both enlivened his spirits and stimulated his genius, and that the jealousy of Mrs. Unwin operated injuriously by compelling him to relinquish so innocent a source of gratification. Hayley, in some lines written on the occasion of her death, speaks of her as one who
Wak'd in a poet inspiration's flame;
Sent the freed eagle in the sun to bask,
And from the mind of Cowper—call'd "The Task."
Of the Rev. Walter Bagot, who departed in the year 1806; aged seventy-five, the poet always spoke in the language of unfeigned esteem and affection.
Sir George Throckmorton's death has been already recorded, and with this event the genius of the place may be said to have deserted its hallowed retreats, for the mansion exists no longer. His surviving estimable widow the Catharina of Cowper, resides at Northampton.
Lady Hesketh, whose affectionate kindness to the poet must have endeared her to every reader, died in the year 1807, aged seventy-four.