Albans, though the seed sown by Martin Madan may perhaps also
have sprung up in his heart when the more propitious season arrived.
However that may have been, the two great factors of Cowper's life were
the malady which consigned him to poetic seclusion and the conversion
to Evangelicism, which gave him his inspiration and his theme.
At Huntingdon dwelt the Rev. William Unwin, a clergyman, taking pupils,
his wife, much younger than himself, and their son and daughter. It
was a typical family of the Revival. Old Mr. Unwin is described by
Cowper as a Parson Adams. The son, William Unwin, was preparing for
holy orders. He was a man of some mark, and received tokens of
intellectual respect from Paley, though he is best known as the friend
to whom many of Cowper's letters are addressed. He it was who, struck
by the appearance of the stranger, sought an opportunity of making his
acquaintance. He found one, after morning church, when Cowper was
taking his solitary walk beneath the trees. Under the influence of
religious sympathy the acquaintance quickly ripened into friendship;
Cowper at once became one of the Unwin circle, and soon afterwards, a
vacancy being made by the departure of one of the pupils, he became a
boarder in the house.
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