rhyming and laughing, and by the next evening the ballad was
complete. It was sent to Mrs. Unwin's son, who sent it to the
Public Advertiser, where for the next two or three years it
lay buried in the "Poets' Corner," and attracted no particular
attention.

In the summer of 1783, when one of the three friends had been
reading blank verse aloud to the other two, Lady Austen, from
her seat upon the sofa, urged upon Cowper, as she had urged
before, that blank verse was to be preferred to the rhymed
couplets in which his first book had been written, and that he
should write a poem in blank verse. "I will," he said, "if
you will give me a subject." "Oh," she answered, "you can
write upon anything. Write on this sofa." He playfully
accepted that as "the task" set him, and began his poem called
"The Task," which was finished in the summer of the next year,
1784. But before "The Task" was finished, Mrs. Unwin's
jealousy obliged Cowper to give up his new friend--whom he had
made a point of calling upon every morning at eleven--and
prevent her return to summer quarters in the vicarage.

Two miles from Olney was Weston Underwood with a park, to
which its owner gave Cowper the use of a key. In 1782 a
younger brother, John Throckmorton, came with his wife to live
at Weston, and continued Cowper's privilege. The
Throckmortons were Roman Catholics, but in May, 1784, Mr.
Unwin was tempted by an invitation to see a balloon ascent
from their park. Their kindness as hosts won upon Cowper;
they sought and had his more intimate friendship, till in his
correspondence he playfully abused the first syllable of their