He left Westminster in 1748, and was entered of the Middle Temple. After spending nine months in his father's house, he was articled for three years to a solicitor, Mr. Chapman, of Ely Place, Holborn. Not far off, in Southampton Row, lived his uncle Ashley, afterwards Clerk of the Parliaments.* He had three daughters; two of them, Harriet and Theodora, were ripening into womanhood. It was arranged that William was to visit them every Sunday, and this soon led to his being there continually on week-days. He was "to be found there,” he said afterwards, "from morning to night, giggling and making giggle." In this pleasant occupation he was much assisted by a fellow-clerk at Mr. Chapman's, whom he had introduced at his uncle's house. This clerk, Edward Thurlow by name, was Cowper's junior by a few months. He had been educated at the King's School, Canterbury, and afterwards at Cambridge; and though wayward, and given to continual breaches of discipline, had been able, by fits of application and hard work, to make himself a good scholar. In like manner now, though he lounged about places of amusement and drank much punch, he contrived to give himself a good knowledge of law. Cowper saw the young man's great powers, and his knack of turning to account everything that he acquired, and one day said to him: "Thurlow, I am nobody, and shall always be nobody, and you will be Lord Chancellor. You shall provide for me when you are!" Thurlow smiled and said, "I surely will!" "These ladies are witnesses," said Cowper. "Let them be," answered Thurlow, "for I will certainly do it." The same prophecy had been made to Thurlow when a little boy, by a clergyman named Leach, and possibly the repetition of it by Cowper led to this lightly-made compact now. Cowper's prophecy was fulfilled, but not Thurlow's promise.

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Thus, pleasantly rather than profitably, the three years of clerkship went by, and when they were ended Cowper was deeply in love with Theodora, and his love was as tenderly returned. The progress of this courtship, the quarrels and renewals of love, the young gentleman's bashfulness, and his increased care for his personal appearance, -all these things are described for us, as well as such matters can be, in the poems which courtship produced. I cannot at all agree with Mr. Bell's judgment of them. Cowper," he says, was not capable of very strong emotions. The shadow of love seems to have hovered about him, but he was indifferent to the reality. We look in vain for the fervour of a youthful devotion." Whilst the young poet was pluming his wings, consciously imitating others, it is no wonder that some of these early love pieces are artificial. To me at least it is evident that his passion became anything but a shadow "which made no lasting impression upon him." Cowper was very reserved all his life on other matters

* Ashley Cowper was a very little man, and he used to wear a white hat lined with yellow. On which two facts Cowper once expressed his opinion that it would not be surprising if some day he hould be "picked" by mistake for a mushroom, and popped into a basket.

besides this, but I believe that his love-affair affected the whole of his life very deeply.

For a while the course of love ran tolerably smooth. But when, on the expiration of his clerkship, he went into residence at the Temple, in 1752, a fresh shadow soon fell upon his course. Seclusion had its natural effect upon the nervous sensitive youth, and he had hard work to drive melancholy away. He tried first medicine, then religiosity, reading George Herbert, and "composing a set of prayers.' Herbert, he says, relieved him a good deal: "I found in him a strain of piety which I could not but admire." But "a very near and dear relation" (probably Madan) disapproved of Herbert, and he was laid aside. His friends found a better cure for morbidness in taking him away for change of scene.

He went with Mr. Hesketh, the affianced lover of his cousin Harriet, to Southampton, and remained some months there. In his autobiography he gives more of his morbid feelings and thoughts here, which we again pass by. At length, much relieved, he returned to London in 1754, and was called to the Bar. But Ashley Cowper soon

saw, or had already seen, enough of his nephew's aptitude for business to induce him to take an important step. He refused to sanction his daughter's engagement. The young lady pleaded with such earnestness as to shake his resolution for a while, but he returned to it, and after a considerable interval, during which some communication was still allowed, he forbade the lovers from meeting. The young lady regretfully submitted, and they never saw each other again. And Cowper never mentions her in any of his poems or letters. Nor does he write of love in any of his future poems. That he was mortified and angry appears from several slight but unmistakeable proofs. Meanwhile few will read without pity the effusions belonging to the latter part of his courtship, evidently the faithful picture of his alternating hopes and fears, until all hope was at an end.* The effect upon Theodora was deep and lasting. She never loved again, but always took the deepest interest in hearing about him. She read his poems with eagerness, and afterwards, as we shall see, showed her unaltered affection in a more substantial way. The verses which he had written to her she treasured up until the close of her life. Then, at a time when she also had apparently sunk into melancholy, she gave them in a sealed packet, for reasons which can only be guessed at, to a friend, directing that the packet should be opened after her death. The friend and she died nearly together, in 1824, and the sealed packet was then sent to her nephew Mr. Croft. He published them the following year, as we have already told.† Other sorrows had fallen on Cowper besides the loss of his love. His father died in July 1756; and although Cowper's connexion with Berkhamstead had never been continuous since his mother's death, he had always retained a warm affection for it. The connexion now ceased entirely; and he says the parting with it was most bitter to him. His father had married again, and the widow

continued to reside there. But her stepson and she, though friendly, were not intimate, and he never visited her, though they occasionally corresponded. She died not very long afterwards. His brother John was now at Cambridge, studying

for holy orders.

The profession of a barrister is generally more honourable than lucrative for the first few years. It certainly was so in Cowper's case, for it is doubtful whether he ever had a brief.* He moved from the Middle to the Inner Temple, and bought chambers there for £250. The little money which he had was fast diminishing, and his father's death warned him that this was a matter which would have to be attended to without loss of time. One or two of his letters exist, written at this time; he speaks lightly on the matter,† but one may say with tolerable certainty that a very anxious heart lay beneath the jesting manner, and that the anxiety increased every day. Though this may not have been the cause of the melancholy which soon after appeared, the forced hilarity is painful enough when one knows what followed. He was made a Commissioner of Bankrupts about this time through family influence, which brought him £60 a year.

He was now a member of the Nonsense Club,‡ consisting of some old “Westminsters," among them Robert Lloyd and Colman. The leading member was Bonnell Thornton, another old Westminster boy, but much Cowper's senior. He had already made several essays in authorship, before he started, in company with Colman, the Connoisseur. The first number was published January 31, 1754, and it was continued weekly, until September 30, 1756. Cowper contributed a few papers to the last volume. The following were his. § I take the titles from the

table of contents to the volumes.

No. 111.-Letter, containing the character of the delicate Billy Suckling. No. 115.-Letter from Christopher Ironside, an old Bachelor, complaining of the indignities received by him from the ladies.

No. 119. Of keeping a secret.-Characters of faithless confidantes.

No. 134.-Letter from Mr. Village, giving an account of the present state of Country Churches, their Clergy, and their Congregations.

No. 138.-On Conversation. The chief pests of Society pointed out. Those who converse irrationally, considered as imitating the language of different animals.

*A letter to Hill, dated October 10, 1767, after asking a law question, contains the following: "You are a better counsellor than I was, but I think you have much such a client in me as I had in Dick Harcourt."

"This provokes me, that a covetous dog who will work by candlelight in the morning, to get what he does not want, shall be praised for his thriftiness, while a gentleman shall be abused for submitting to his wants, rather than work like an ass to relieve them. . . There are some sensible folks, who, having great estates, have wisdom enough to spend them properly; there are others, who are not less wise, perhaps, as knowing how to shift without 'em. . . This is a strange epistle, nor can I imagine how the devil I came to write it."-Letter to Rowley, September 2, 1762.

The Nonsense Club originated the "Exhibition of Sign Painters," a piece of drollery which, without giving offence, made much fun of the newly-opened Royal Academy. It consisted of a number of daubs, with humorous descriptions in the catalogue, and was very successful.

§ The evidence of their authorship is as follows: Southey says they are "all attributed to the same author in the concluding pages of the volume." (Life, vol. i. p. 325.) But this is a mistake, for the words at the end of the volume are, "From a friend, a gentleman of the Temple, we

More than this, he "produced several half-penny ballads, two or three of which had the honour to become popular." It is unfortunate that they are lost, for halfpenny ballads by the Author of "John Gilpin" would certainly have been worth preserving. He also contributed a few papers to the St. James's Chronicle, of which Thornton and Colman were part proprietors. He kept up his classical studies also, especially that of Homer, and translated two books of Voltaire's "Henriade," said to have been published in a magazine in 1759. The humorous ode given at p. 21 of this volume was printed in the St. James's Chronicle. It was not signed with his name, and there is no direct evidence to prove that it was his; but as Southey thought it to be so, all succeeding editions have included it. (See note on it.)

But by the time that ode was published, a dreadful calamity had fallen upon Cowper. He had gone mad. We have seen already that he had had melancholy fits at school. The opening lines of his Epistle to Lloyd (p. 9), written in 1754, show that these fits had taken an intenser form, and, as we have said, his fears of poverty probably made matters worse. An event which happened in 1763, which for the moment filled him with joy, brought the catastrophe. The Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords died, and the gentleman who held the two offices of Reading Clerk and Clerk of Committees resigned at the same time. The right of presentation to all the appointments belonged to Major Cowper, who immediately offered the two most lucrative of them to his cousin. The offer was no sooner accepted, than Cowper began to reproach himself with having wished for the former holder's death, and therefore being a murderer. First one fancy, then another. After a week he begged his cousin to give the more lucrative places to a friend, a Mr. Arnold, and the poorest, the Clerkship of the Journals, to himself. With a little demur (for in the eyes of the world, which did not know the circumstances, there would be some suspicion of bribery) the Major consented to this, and for a week or two there was calm.

But very soon came another obstacle. A powerful party in the Lords contested the Major's right to nominate. An inquiry was begun, and the new clerk was

told that he must give evidence of qualification at the bar of the House. At this news he broke down again, not immediately, for he tried and tried again for more than half a year to prepare for examination, but all was of no use. Each day his terrors increased; a visit to Margate checked them, for a letter exists written

received Nos. 111, 115, and 119." The other two are not referred to. They, with No. 119, are given as Cowper's by Hayley, whose authority in this matter is conclusive. He says, "During Cowper's visit to Eartham, he kindly pointed out to me three of his papers in the last volume of the Connoisseur. I inscribed them with his name at the time, and find other numbers of that work ascribed to him, but the three following I print as his, on his own explicit authority." (Vol. iv. p. 384.) No. 119 is also mentioned by Cowper himself, in one of his letters, as having been written by him. He says that the writing of it had a good effect upon him: "I have never broken a secret since."

* Letter to Newton, Dec. 4, 1781.

to his cousin Harriet, now become Lady Hesketh, in which he is fairly cheerful. But on his return the evil spirit returned once more. His cousin came to the Temple to see him, but he would not speak to her nor look at her. He has written down a long account of these days in his autobiography, but one's memory recoils from it,——— from the attempts upon his life with laudanum and knife and cord. The last time his purpose hardly failed. On that occasion he so far recovered from his dream as to be conscience-stricken; but this brought no relief, nothing but the conviction that he was damned beyond hope.

God knows whether any human means could have drawn him forth out of this horrible pit; but we who behold in Christ the healer of all infirmities, the caster-forth of devils, must believe that to have followed His steps by telling of the infinite love of God to His creatures might have brought the blessing of health. But no such message reached poor Cowper. His cousin Martin Madan, chaplain of the Lock Hospital, and a strong Calvinist, came to visit him. He spoke of the efficacy of Christ's blood for justification; and the poor sufferer, as he says, began to feel his heart burn within him, and the tears which he had just before declared impossible flowed freely, as hope sprung up in his heart. But when Madan began with his restrictions, the necessity of certain feelings, the hopelessness of the case in which they were absent, this hope was again thrown away. All the confusions and fancies of vague thoughts and opinions tossed and surged around him, and that faith in God's everlasting love which might have guided him safely was not there. He was at the mercy of every wind of vain doctrine. Every text of the Bible, and every religious word, was turned into fresh proof that the mouth of hell was opened upon him, and he wrote the awful sapphics which are given at p. 23. His relatives, rightly judging that there was no other resource left to them, placed him in a lunatic asylum at St. Alban's. This was on December 7, 1763.

The proprietor of this asylum, Dr. Nathanael Cotton, possessed a high name for his professional skill, and was also a man of great moral worth.* He had also won considerable popularity as a writer of verse. His "Visions" passed through many editions; and though they are no longer read, they contain a good deal of sound sense and practical benevolence. He died in 1788. Under his judicious care Cowper slowly recovered. The physician saw this before the patient, and summoned his brother. The first meeting was a disappointment, for Cowper put on a stiff reserve, but he recovered himself, and improved daily. He was now filled with religious fervour; he had received from his heavenly Father, he said, the full assurance of faith, and out of his stony heart had been raised up a child unto Abraham. It was a good and righteous conviction, but it did not go far enough. It made its foundation upon his own feelings, and not upon God's love. His is not the only case where such ecstasy breaks down, In some it is followed by desperate plunges into sin again; in this, despair again after a * Notice of his life in Anderson's "Poets," vol. xi. p. 1105.