easy intervals of apparent idleness. The friends whom he made at Westminster, and who continued for many years to be attached to him, preserved the probable tradition that he was a gentle and gradual, rather than a forcible or rigorous learner.

The last hundred years have doubtless seen a vast change in the common education of the common boy. The small and pomiverous animal which we so call is now subjected to a treatment very elaborate and careful,-that contrasts much with the simple alternation of classics and cuffs which was formerly so fashionable. But it may be doubted whether for a peculiar mind such as Cowper's, on the intellectual side at least, the tolerant and corporeal theory of the last century was not preferable to the intolerant and unresting moral influence that has succeeded to it. Some minds learn most when they seem to learn least. A certain, placid, unconscious, equable intaking of knowledge suits them, and alone suits them. To attempt to force such men to attain great learning is simply impossible. You cannot put the fawn into the "Land Transport." The only resource is to allow them to acquire gently and casually in their own way; and in that way they will often imbibe, as if by the mere force of existence, much pleasant and well-fancied knowledge.

From Westminster Cowper went at once into a solicitor's office. Of the next few years (he was then about eighteen) we do not know much. His attention to legal pursuits was, according to his own account, not very profound; yet it could not have been wholly contemptible, for his evangelical friend, Mr. Newton, who, whatever may be the worth of his religious theories, had certainly a sound, rough judgment on topics terrestrial, used in after years to have no mean opinion of the value of his legal counsel. In truth, though nothing could be more out of Cowper's way than abstract and recondite jurisprudence, an easy and sensible mind like his would find a great deal which was very congenial to it in the well known and perfectly settled maxims which regulate and rule the daily life of common men. No strain of capacity or stress of speculative intellect is necessary for the apprehension of these. fair and easy mind, which is placed within their reach, will find it knows them, without knowing when or how.

A

After some years of legal instruction, Cowper chose to be called to the bar, and took chambers in the Temple accordingly. He never, however, even pretended to practise. He passed his time in literary society, in light study, in tranquil negligence. He was intimate with Colman, Lloyd, and other wits of those times. He wrote an essay in the Connoisseur, the kind of composition then most fashionable, especially with these literary

gentlemen, who were most careful not to be confounded with the professed authors. In a word, he did "nothing," as that word is understood among the vigorous, aspiring, and trenchant part of mankind. Nobody could seem less likely to attain eminence. Everyone must have agreed, that there was no harm in him, and few could have named any particular good which it was likely that he would achieve. In after days he drew up a memoir of his life, in which he speaks of those years with deep self-reproach. It was not indeed the secular indolence of the time which excited his disapproval. The course of life had not made him more desirous of worldly honours, but less; and nothing could be further from his tone of feeling than regret for not having strenuously striven to attain them. He spoke of those years in a Puritan manner, using words which literally express the grossest kind of active Atheism in a vague and vacant way; leaving us to gather from external sources whether they are meant to be understood in their common, plain, and human signification, or in that non-natural and technical sense in which they can scarcely have a meaning. It is evident that the regrets of Cowper had reference to offences which the healthy and sober consciences of mankind will not consider to deserve them. A vague, literary omnitolerant idleness was perhaps their worst feature. He was himself obliged to own that he had always been considered "as one religiously inclined, if not actually religious," and the applicable testimony, as well as the whole form and nature of his character, forbid us to ascribe to him the slightest act of license or grossness. A reverend biographer has called his life at this time, "an unhappy compound of guilt and wretchedness." But unless the estimable gentleman thinks it sinful to be a barrister and wretched to live in the Temple, it is not easy to make out what he would mean. In point of intellectual cultivation, and with a view to preparing himself for writing his subsequent works, it is not possible he should have spent his time better. He then acquired that easy, familiar knowledge of terrestrial things-the vague and general information of the superficies of all existence-the acquaintance with life, business, hubbub and rustling matter of fact, which seem odd in the recluse of Olney-and enliven so effectually the cucumbers of the "Task." It has been said that at times every man wishes to be a man of the world, and even the most rigid critic must concede it to be nearly essential to a writer on real life and actual manners. If a man has not seen his brother, how can he describe him? As this world calls happiness and blamelessness— it is not easy to fancy a life more happy-at least with more of the common elements of happiness, or more blameless than

those years of Cowper. An easy temper, light fancies, hardly as yet broken by shades of melancholy brooding; an enjoying habit, rich humour, literary, but not pedantic companions; a large scene of life and observation, polished acquaintance and attached friends, are pleasing and elegant pictures. A rough hero Cowper was not then and never became, but he was then, as ever, a quiet and tranquil gentleman. If De Béranger's doctrine were true, "Le bonheur tient au savoir-vivre," there were the materials of existence here. What, indeed, would not De Béranger have made of them?

One not unnatural result or accompaniment of such a life was that Cowper fell in love. There were in those days, two young ladies, cousins of Cowper, residents in London, to one of whom, the Lady Hesketh, of after years, he once wrote:'My dear Cousin,-I wonder how it happened, that much as I love you, I was never in love with you." No similar kind providence protected his intimacy with her sister, Theodora Cowper. "One of the cousins with whom Thurlow used to giggle and make giggle in Southampton-row," was a handsome and vigorous damsel. "What!" said her father, "What will you do if you marry William Cowper ?" meaning, in the true parental spirit, to intrude mere arithmetical and financial ideas. Do, sir!" she replied, "Wash all day, and ride out on the great dog all night!"-which is a spirited combination of domestic industry and exterior excitement. It is doubtful, however, whether either of these species of pastime and occupation would have been exactly congenial to Cowper. A gentle and refined indolence would always have made him a very inferior washerman, and perhaps to accompany the canine excursions of a wife "which clear-starched," would have hardly seemed enough to satify his accomplished and placid ambition. At any rate it certainly does seem that he was not a very vigorous lover. The young lady was, as he himself oddly said:"Through tedious years of doubt and pain,

Fixed in her choice and faithful . . . but in vain.”

The poet does indeed partly allude to the parental scruples. of Mr. Cowper, her father; but house-rent would not be so high as it is if fathers had their way. The profits of builders are eminently dependent on the uncontrollable nature of the best affections, and that very intelligent class of men have had a table compiled from the most trustworthy data, in which the chances of parental victory are rated at 0000000001, and those of the young people themselves at 999999999,-in fact, as many nines as you can imagine. "It has been represented to me," says the actuary, "that few people ever marry without

some objection, more or less slight, on the part of their parents; and from a most laborious calculation, from data collected in quarters both within and exterior to the bills of mortality, I am led to believe that the above figures represent the state of the case accurately enough to form a safe guide for the pecuniary investments of the gentlemen, &c. &c.' It is not likely that Theodora Cowper understood decimals, but she had a strong opinion in favour of her cousin, and a great idea, if we rightly read the now obscure annals of old times, that her father's objections might pretty easily have been got over. In fact, we think so even now, without any prejudice of affection, in our cool and mature judgment. Mr. Cowper the aged had nothing to say, except that the parties were cousins-a valuable remark, which has been frequently repeated in similar cases, but which has not been found to prevent a mass of matches both then and since. The truth seems to be, that the old gentleman thought the young gentleman by no means a working man, and therefore objected-believing that a small income can only be made more by unremitting industry,—and that the young gentleman adverting to the horrid and abstract fact which has been stated, and concurring, though tacitly, in the avuncular estimate of his personal predilections, did not object to being objected to. The nature of Cowper was not, indeed, passionate. He required beyond almost any man the daily society of amiable and cultivated women. It is clear that he preferred such gentle excitement to the rough and argumentative pleasures of more masculine companionship. His easy and humorous nature loved and learned from female detail. But he had no overwhelming partiality for a particular individual. One refined lady, the first moments of shyness over, was nearly as pleasing as another refined lady. Disappointment sits easy on such a mind. No doubt, too, though half-unconsciously, he feared the anxious duties, perhaps even the rather contentious tenderness of matrimonial existence. At any rate, he acquiesced. Theodora never married. Love did not, however, kill her-at least, if so, it was a long time in so doing, since she survived these events more than sixty years. She never seemingly forgot the past.

But a dark cloud was at hand. If there be any truly painful fact about the world now tolerably well established by ample experience and ample records, it is that an intellectual and indolent happiness is wholly denied to the children of men. That most valuable author Lucretius, who has supplied us and others with an inexhaustible supply of metaphors on this topic, ever dwells on the life of his gods with a sad and melancholy feeling that no such life was possible on a crude

and cumbersome earth. In general, the two opposing agencies are marriage and money; either of these breaks the lot of literary and refined inaction at once and for ever. The first of these, as we have seen, Cowper had escaped. His reserved and negligent reveries were still free, at least from the invasion of affection. To this invasion, indeed, there is commonly requisite the acquiescence or connivance of mortality; but all men are born, not free and equal, as the Americans maintain, but, in the old world at least, basely subjected to the yoke of coin. It is in vain that in this hemisphere we endeavour after impecuniary fancies. In bold and eager youth we go out on our travels. We visit Baalbec, and Paphos, and Tadmor, and Cythera, ancient shrines and ancient empires, seats of eager love or gentle inspiration. We wander far and long. We have nothing to do with our fellow-men. What are we, indeed, to diggers and counters? We dream to wander for ever, but we dream in vain. A surer force than the subtlest fascination of fancy is in operation. The purse-strings tie us to our kind. Our travel-coin runs low, and we must return away from Tadmor and Baalbec back to our steady tedious industry and dull work, to "la vieille Europe (as Napoleon said) qui m'ennuye.” It is the same in thought. In vain we seclude ourselves in elegant chambers, in fascinating fancies, in refined reflections. "By this time," says Cowper," my patrimony being nearly all spent, and there being no appearance that I should ever repair the damage by a fortune of my own getting, I began to be a little apprehensive of approaching want." However little one is fit for it, it is necessary to attack some drudgery. The vigorous and sturdy rouse themselves to the work. They find in its regular occupation, clear decisions, and stern perplexities, a bold and rude compensation for the necessary loss or diminution of light fancies and delicate musings,

"The sights which youthful poets dream,
On summer eve by haunted stream."

But it was not so with Cowper. A peculiar and slight nature unfitted him for so rough and harsh a resolution. The lion may eat straw like the ox, and the child put his hand on the cockatrice' den; but will even then the light antelope be equal to the heavy plough? will the gentle gazelle, even in those days, pull the slow waggon of ordinary occupation?

The outward position of Cowper was, indeed, singularly fortunate. Instead of having to meet the long labours of an open profession, or the anxious decisions of a personal business, he had the choice among several lucrative and quiet public offices, in which very ordinary abilities would suffice, and scarcely any