Repeat their lives, their works, their fame,

And teach the world some useful shame.

The scheme for releasing him by means of a subscription failed, and was so managed, or mismanaged, as to produce a breach with Thornton and Colman, upon whom, especially the former 32, much obloquy has been cast on this account. The magazine, however, had been disgraced with so much ribaldry and rubbish, and such grossly offensive personalities before it was transferred to another editor, that a regard to their own characters might have produced some coolness upon their part towards one with whom it was no longer creditable to be associated in public opinion; and as he was connecting himself more closely with Wilkes, they may perhaps also have deemed it no longer safe. Garrick and Hogarth are in like manner charged with having "coolly abandoned him to his fate," though he had "so frequently berhymed and bepraised them." But Hogarth was then at open war with Wilkes and Churchill ; and Garrick was endeavouring at that very time to render Lloyd an essential service in his own way by bringing out at Drury Lane a comic opera, which he had manufactured from the French.

This piece, called "The Capricious Lovers," was represented for the first time on the 28th of November, 1764, with some

32 In the last edition of Churchill's works it is said, "His confinement was the more irksome, owing to the circumstance of his bosom-friend and prime seducer from the paths of prudence, Bonnell Thornton, refusing to become his security for the liberty of the rules. This giving rise to some ill-natured altercation, farther irritated Thornton, who became an inveterate enemy, in the quality of his most inexorable creditor."-Vol. ii. p. 347. Now Thornton could not have been his seducer at school, because there was nine years difference in age between them; nor at college, because they are not of the same university; and if Lloyd did not lead so licentious a life at Cambridge as to be noted for it, his biographers have belied him. That part of the charge against Thornton therefore is disposed of; and that it should have been made with so little reflection affords reason for hoping that the remaining charges may have as little foundation. Lloyd says, in a letter to Wilkes, after Churchill's death, "Thornton is what you thought him. I have many acquaintances, but now no friend here." That they were alienated from each other is certain, and that Lloyd had learnt to think ill of him; but when Thornton is spoken of as an inexorable creditor, it may be suspected that because he had done much, more was expected from him; and that when he had gone as far or farther than his own means could well afford, he found himself like the man in the old print, who having lent his money to his friend, lost both in consequence.

applause; its success or failure was then alike indifferent to the unhappy author: for on the 4th of that month, Churchill, who had gone to Boulogne, there to meet Wilkes, was cut off by a miliary fever. Lloyd had been apprized of his danger; but when the news of his death was somewhat abruptly announced to him as he was sitting at dinner, he was seized with a sudden sickness, and saying, "I shall follow poor Charles," took to his bed, from which he never rose again; dying, if ever man did, of a broken heart. The tragedy did not end here Churchill's favourite sister, who is said to have possessed much of her brother's sense and spirit and genius, and to have been betrothed to Lloyd, attended him during his illness; and, sinking under the double loss, soon followed her brother and her lover to the grave.

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CHAPTER V.

COWPER'S LITERARY AMUSEMENTS IN THE TEMPLE. RISE AND PROGRESS OF HIS INSANITY, AS RELATED BY HIMSELF.

DURING his residence in the Temple, Cowper, though he exercised himself in only the lighter branches of composition, took more than ordinary pains to keep up his classical knowledge. While the greater part of his schoolfellows forgot at College (like their peers there) the little they had learnt at school, he, who was apparently an idler, and was considered such by others, and perhaps considered himself so, was unconsciously preparing himself for the great literary labour of his life.

He had read through the Iliad and Odyssey at Westminster with Sutton, afterwards Sir Richard; and it is a proof of the good instinct and good sense which guided him in the choice of his friends, that he should have associated himself in his private studies with the youth of whom higher expectations were formed than of any of his contemporaries, and who was not more remarkable for abilities and attainments than for his amiable manners and excellent disposition. He went through these poems again in the Temple with a friend, Alston by name, and compared Pope's translation throughout with the original. They were not long in discovering "that there is hardly the thing in the world of which Pope was so entirely

destitute as a taste for Homer:" nevertheless they persevered in the comparison, though so disgusted at finding, "when they looked for the simplicity and majesty of Homer in his English representation, puerile conceits instead, extravagant metaphors, and the tinsel of modern embellishment in every possible position," that they were often on the point of burning the meretricious version. Little less than thirty years afterwards, Cowper reminded a fellow Templar, who had been familiar with Alston and himself, of their Homeric studies, and telling him that the recollection of those studies had led him to undertake his own translation, he observed, "We are strange creatures, my little friend; every thing that we do is in reality important, though half that we do seems to be pushpin consequences follow that were never dreamt of1."

Homeric as his taste was at this time, Cowper nevertheless assisted his brother in translating the Henriade into heroic couplets for some periodical work. The translation did not extend beyond eight books, of which he supplied four, and his brother received twenty guineas for their joint labours. Cowper attached so little value to this performance, that he had forgotten the extent of his own contribution ; but it was brought back to his recollection three or four and twenty years afterwards by an accurate statement in the Gentleman's Magazine2.

But sad thoughts were now crowding upon Cowper. He was now in the thirty-second year of his age, his patrimony was well-nigh spent, and (to use his own words) there was no appearance that he should ever repair the damage by a fortune of his own getting. He began to be a little apprehensive of approaching want; and under that apprehension, talking one day of his affairs with a friend, he expressed his hope that if the clerk of the journals of the House of Lords should die, his kinsman Major Cowper, who had the place in his disposal,

would give him the appointment. "We both agreed," says

1 Letter to Clotworthy Rowley, Esq. Feb. 21, 1788.

2 Letter to Lady Hesketh, Jan. 16, 1786. He had again forgotten the amount when he mentioned the subject to Hayley. Hayley had discovered a rival, and he thought probably an inferior translation, published as this is supposed to have been, in a Magazine; but the version of the two brothers he was unable to find. That which he found is likely to be one in which Lloyd was engaged, the first canto of such a translation being pubIlished in his works.

he, "that the business of the place being transacted in private would exactly suit me; and both expressed an earnest wish for his death, that I might be provided for. Thus did I covet what God had commanded me not to covet; and involved myself still deeper in guilt by doing it in the spirit of a murderer. It pleased the Lord to give me my heart's desire, and in it and with it an immediate punishment of my crime.'

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This is a passage which might be quoted to illustrate "that mood of mind which exaggerates, and still more greatly mistakes the inward depravation of man3." Nothing can be more certain than that when Cowper chose the law for his profession, both his father and himself reckoned upon their family patronage as one reason for this choice. In the ordinary and proper course of things it would be bestowed upon him. The fault which Cowper had committed.. (grievous enough for its probable consequences to be called a sin,).. was that of neglecting those professional studies by which he might not only have maintained himself till the contingency should fall, but render himself independent of it if any unforeseen event should disappoint his reasonable expectations. That the wish whereof he accuses himself amounted to any thing more than what every one feels who looks for promotion by seniority, or for any other advantage accruing upon the decease of some person whose death would otherwise be to him a matter of mere indifference, is what no one can believe. Common nature is not so depraved as to form murderous wishes for such motives. But when Cowper wrote the narrative of what have been called "the most remarkable and interesting parts of his life," and detailed therein "the exercises of his mind in regard to religion," "for the gratification," as has been said, "of his most intimate and pious friends," the train of thought to which he was led tended greatly to induce a return of the malady, over the remains of which those injudicious friends encouraged him thus to brood.

The clerk of the journals died, as had probably been expected, shortly afterwards; and at the same time the joint offices of reading clerk and clerk of the committees, which were of much greater value than the clerkship of the journals, were vacated by resignation. Major Cowper, "the patentee of these appointments," fulfilled on this occasion the 3 Coleridge's Table Talk, vol. i. p. 175.

expectations which had always been entertained. "I pray God to bless him," says Cowper, "for his benevolent intention to serve me. He called me out of my chambers, and having invited me to take a turn with him in the garden, there made me an offer of the two most profitable places; intending the other for his friend Mr. Arnold. Dazzled by so splendid a proposal, and not immediately reflecting upon my incapacity to execute a business of so public a nature, I at once accepted it; but at the same time, (such was the will of Him whose hand was in the whole matter,) seemed to receive a dagger in my heart. The wound was given, and every moment added to the smart of it. All the considerations, by which I endeavoured to compose my mind to its former tranquillity, did but torment me the more; proving miserable comforters and counsellors of no value. I returned to my chambers thoughtful and unhappy; my countenance fell; and my friend was astonished, instead of that additional cheerfulness he might so reasonably expect, to find an air of deep melancholy in all I said or did.

"Having been harassed in this manner by day and night, for the space of a week, perplexed between the apparent folly of casting away the only visible chance I had of being well provided for, and the impossibility of retaining it, I determined at length to write a letter to my friend, though he lodged in a manner at the next door, and we generally spent the day together. I did so, and therein begged him to accept my resignation, and to appoint Mr. Arnold to the places he had given me, and permit me to succeed Mr. Arnold. I was well aware of the disproportion between the value of his appointment and mine; but my peace was gone; pecuniary advantages were not equivalent to what I had lost; and I flattered myself, that the clerkship of the journals would fall fairly and easily within the scope of my abilities. Like a man in a fever, I thought a change of posture would relieve my pain; and, as the event will show, was equally disappointed. At length I carried my point, my friend, in this instance, preferring the gratification of my desires to his own interest; for nothing could be so likely to bring a suspicion of bargain and sale upon his nomination, which the Lords would not have endured, as his appointment of so near a relative to the least profitable office, while the most valuable was allotted to a stranger.