increased, as well as to derive that profound aversion to public schools afterwards recorded in "Tirocinium." On his removal his eyes became affected with specks, and he was in danger of losing his sight. He was placed for two years with an eminent oculist," to no good purpose," by his own account, so far as education or religion were concerned. His eyes, however, were much relieved, although they remained rather weak and liable to inflammation till the close of his life. At this period he describes himself as exceedingly depraved for so young a boy, and given especially to the "infernal art of lying" a statement we are disposed, with Southey, to take cum grano salis. His views of himself were all along dismally discoloured. His moral eyesight contended with more numerous and thicker specks than his bodily; and if he had learned to lie, it was probably in self-defence against his cruel foe at Market Street, so that his falsehood may be compared to the feints made by the poor chased hare, in order to secure her escape from the hounds pressing on her haunches. Latterly, no man was ever more truthful, both in word and deed, in life and in poetry; and well might he say, as in "Expostulation "_

"And truth alone, where'er my life be cast,

In scenes of plenty, or the pining waste,

Shall be my chosen theme, my glory to the last.”

At ten years of age he was sent to Westminster School.

His residence there, on the whole, was a pleasurable passage in his history, and continued to smile back on him, like one select sunny spot upon a traveller, through an atmosphere of clouds and darkness. He had, indeed, then, as in every other portion of his life, some nervous apprehensions to contend with. His special hallucination at this time was a notion that he was consumptive, and was soon to die. Such dreams are, we suspect, not uncommon among boys of nervous and imaginative temperament; at least we know of one of this cast, who, about the age of twelve, was made miserable for many months by precisely the same terror. Cowper felt, however, that this fear was a "messenger of the Lord" to him, and that it had "perfectly convinced him that he was

mortal"—a truth, sooth to say, which many of the young are unable to realise. Otherwise, when at Westminster School, he was happier than at any other period of his life. He was diligent in his studies, and obtained a highly creditable standing as a scholar. He loved the usual schoolboy sports, especially cricket and football. He loved still better the solitary rambles, which holidays permitted him, into the country, where the future author of "The Task" might be seen plucking the scarlet hips, climbing fences in chase of the hightowering haw, satisfying his hunger in the turnip-field, rejoicing at the discovery of some quiet and secret nook, where the softest of sloes or the plumpest of brambles were to be found-sitting silent on the stile, and watching the landscape, with the Thames stealing slowly through it like an incognito king, and the evening light betraying his splendid secret, as it gleamed on the waters--or asleep at noon in some cool retreat, with a broad oak, old almost as that of Yardley, shadowing his plain but pleasing features into an aspect like poetry. Coming back from such rambles

"No sofa then awaited his return,
No sofa then he needed "—

but kind and congenial spirits were ready to mingle their minds with his, and to make the evenings of his holidays as delightful as the morns. Seldom has there met in any school a more brilliant assemblage of persons, afterwards renowned, than there did then at Westminster. There was the celebrated wit, Bonnell Thornton. There was Lloyd, the unfortunate but lively versifier, who at one time almost vied in popularity with Churchill. There was Churchill himself, the rugged, robust, and fearless satirist, who wasted on temporary topics powers of great compass and variety—who, in a species of reckless despair, threw away a glorious constitution—whose rapidity of production and manly vigour of verse had been unequalled since Dryden, and who, with all his faults, lived and died an honest man

"The scourge of impostors, and terror of quacks."

There was Cumberland, the finical and jealous, but highly

accomplished and ingenious dramatist, essayist, and autobiographer. There was Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor, who, if, according to Fox, "no one ever was so wise as he looked," was nevertheless an able lawyer, a sensible judge, and a strong-minded man. There was Colman, a name dear to all the lovers of laughter, and who might be called a halfCowper, possessed of all his lighter, although of none of his graver powers. There was Impey, afterwards so conspicuous in the history of India, and whose abilities, if not his integrity, were undeniable. And there was a man, perhaps for native power, and certainly for extensive reputation, superior to them all, on whom, when he had mounted the highest pinnacle of wealth, influence, and renown, fell suddenly the invective of Burke, like the thunder-winged eagle of Jove, yet who survived the shock of an attack such as afterwards roused the whole of Europe to arms, and has left a splendid, albeit dubious, fame, like a blood-red sunset, behind him-Warren Hastings. Our readers cannot have forgotten the fine use to which Mrs Johnstone has turned the conjunction of such names as Thurlow, Cowper, and Hastings, in her exquisite story, entitled The Three Westminster Boys.

When Cowper had reached his eighteenth year, this delightful chapter of his life-perhaps the only one which was not deeply chequered-came to a close. He left Westminster school, he says, well furnished with grammatical knowledge, but as ignorant of all kinds of religion as the satchel on his back. And yet he had been greatly struck by the ceremony of confirmation, as performed in school by Dr Nicholls, and had after it attempted, for the first time, to pray in secret. But that early goodness had been like the early dew or the morning cloud; and he next betook himself to a scene, where the last drops of it were in danger of being scorched up. He became a lawyer, and was articled for three years to a Mr Chapman, at whose house, too, he lived. How drearily this period must have passed away! Yet we doubt not that these years might have done Cowper much valuable service, and that the study of law, if it did not tend to kindle his devotional fervour, or "remind him of one single Christian duty," might have sharpened his intellect, and increased that strength and acute

ness which are no less remarkable in his compositions than their fancy and fire. But he took little interest in the study. One precious day he was permitted to call his own—the Sabbath-and that he uniformly spent (as well as parts of most of his week-days) at his aunt's, in Southampton Row, where, with his amiable female cousins (daughters of Ashley Cowper) he on Sundays attended church; and on week-days was found often along with Thurlow, who had become a clerk in the same office, "giggling and making giggle." The motive of his friends in sending him to a solicitor's office was, because they could most easily provide for him in that profession. He was not willing, it would seem, to return home after leaving school, probably because his father had married a second time. He had no inclination for the Church, and no turn for business, and hence he had passively resigned himself to the will of his relations; and even before he was articled to Mr Chapman he had been entered pro formâ at the Middle Temple.

There, on leaving the solicitor's office, in his 21st year, he took up his solitary lodgings. It was in the year 1752. And there the black malady, destined to be the curse of his life, made the first of its many violent attacks. He was struck, it would seem, all of a sudden, with an extreme depression of spirits. He lost all relish for his former studies. He lay down each night in horror, and arose in despair. While in this pitiable plight he met accidentally with Herbert's "Temple." The reading of this delightful poem did not altogether remove, but it much alleviated, his sufferings. The sea still ran high, but the wind abated. Herbert's voice came to him, in the valley of that shadow, even as there came to Christian, in the "Pilgrim," when in the depth of the same gloomy glen," the voice of a man going before him, and saying, 'Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me;"" and, like him, he was somewhat comforted, because "he gathered that some who fear God had been in that valley as well as himself." At the bidding of a relation, however, he threw the book aside, and once more, and for a whole year, felt himself walking alone, in unutterable wretchedness, and

in profound silence, for he could not now either echo the prayers of others or pray himself. At last, indeed, his proud heart was humbled, and he began to pray. He was recommended then to a change of scene, and went down to visit some of his friends at Southampton. Soon after his arrival, at a place called Freemantle, about a mile from the town, in a clear and calm morning, the sun shining on the sea, and on the beautiful glades of the New Forest, the cloud of his melancholy disappeared as rapidly as it had gathered; it was as if "another sun had been kindled that instant in the heavens to dispel sadness;" his heart leaped for joy, and tears of transport came into his eyes. On his return to London, however, Satan, he says, tempted him to believe that this deliverance had been produced simply by change of scene, and was, like the melancholy which preceded it, a mockery and delusion; so he burned a set of prayers he had composed, and plunged into a round of diversion and pleasure to drown the memory of both.

On the 14th of June 1754, he was called to the bar. It is certain, however, that he had paid very little attention to his legal studies, although his heart was already beginning to heave with the ambition of becoming a wit and a poet. Two years later he lost his father, if the removal of one whom he seldom saw, and who had been long dead to him, could be called a loss. Still it cost him a bitter pang to repair in haste to his native place, at the news of his illness, to find him dead; to follow his last parent to the grave, and as he left the scene, to "sigh a long adieu to woods and fields," which never appeared so beautiful as when he was leaving them to return no more. Three years after this event, he removed from the Middle to the Inner Temple, and purchased chambers there. He was about this time made a Commissioner of Bankrupts; but, according to one of his biographers, "was more employed with literature than with law, and more with love than with literature." The object of his attachment was Theodora Jane, second daughter of his uncle, Ashley Cowper. She is described as a person of beauty, accomplishments, and more than ordinary understanding. The attachment was warmly returned, and would have been consummated in mar