But there was no remedy.
Long usage had made that which was at first optional a point of good manners, and consequently of necessity, and I was forced to neglect _The Task_ to attend upon the Muse who had inspired the subject.

But she had ill-health, and before I had quite finished the work was obliged to repair to Bristol." Evidently this was not the whole account of the matter, or there would have been no need for a formal letter of farewell.

We are very sorry to find the revered Mr.
Alexander Knox saying, in his correspondence with Bishop Jebb, that he had a severer idea of Lady Austen than he should wish to put into writing for publication, and that he almost suspected she was a very artful woman.

On the other hand, the unsentimental Mr.Scott is reported to have said, "Who can be surprised that two women should be continually in the society of one man and quarrel, sooner or later, with each other ?" Considering what Mrs.Unwin had been to Cowper, and what he had been to her, a little jealousy on her part would not have been highly criminal.

But, as Southey observes, we shall soon see two women continually in the society of this very man without quarrelling with each other.