ven more dismal—were all he had to represent life. scarcely possible to believe that such an existence have gone on without some crisis to come.

e.

w events in history are better known than this when it did come. The story has been told over wer again, and almost always, so attractive is the ter of the man, with tenderness and sympathy. matter of fact, he who was to glorify and idealise mestic routine of the most secluded life was up to eriod of mature manhood living in a way as little vorthy or respectable as can be imagined, doing g, attempting nothing, and shutting his eyes to the as far as was possible; but the principle of his ce afterwards was little changed, though the result different. The letter from which we have quoted of a subtle consciousness that his position is a His self-excuses are self-accusations-" There gree of poverty which has no disgrace belonging to says; "that degree, I mean, in which a man clean linen and good company; and if I never elow this degree of it, I care not if I ever rise C. But his "natural temper," that which he convith terrible justice to be the only rule by which s ever guided, was not more entirely the inspirahis life in the Temple, than it was of the very life at Olney, which he would have professed eved to be governed by rules entirely opposite. ite consistent throughout. He would not if he nd, as it turned out, he could not if he would, fate in his own hands. He could flow on with m that caught him, whatever it might be. His sanity give a tragic piteousness to the story, and eme misery involved takes all power of judgment to exercise it from the sympathetic spectator;

the fact

that Ca

bed trained him

He had let

self to incapacity, as other men do to work. everything go from him; nothing in the world, not love itself, not independence, far less ambition, were worth to him the effort of seizing them. In all probability his appointment, if it had come to him at twenty-two instead of thirty-two, would have found him by no means so tragically helpless; but this is a useless conjecture. "Many years ago, cousin," he writes, while the crisis was impending, to Lady Hesketh, “there was a possibility I might prove a very different thing from what I am at present. My character is now fixed and riveted fast upon me." Nothing could be more sad or more true.

The event which brought this aimless existence to a climax was one to which all Cowper's training, such as it was, had tended-the piece of looked-for good fortune which had been the only justification of his previous indolence. All this time a lucrative and important office had been destined for him, and the time had now come when he could enter upon it. The place of Clerk to the Journals in the House of Lords, which was in the gift of his relation, Major Cowper, fell vacant by the death of the previous occupant, while at the same time two other offices of greater value, and held conjointly, were resigned by their holder. Major Cowper, by one of those inexplicable arrangements common at that period, was “the patentee of these appointments," and he at once, as no doubt was fully expected of him, offered the best paid and most important of them to his kinsman. 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," he says; but the very next moment" seemed to receive a dagger in my heart." It was the lesser appointment, that of Clerk to the Journals, which he had hoped for, chiefly, as it would seem, because "the business of the place was transacted

rivate;" and as he had been, or fancied himself to
been, so wicked as to express an earnest wish"
he death of the official then holding it, it was per-
natural to him afterwards to believe that "the
of a murderer was in his heart, and that all the
y that followed was sent to him as an immediate
hment of my crime." After a week of dismal
erings over the great prospect before him, Cowper
t entreated his kinsman to give the better appoint-
to another friend, and allow him to drop into the
obscurity of the place he had originally desired.
expedient laid both Major Cowper and his nominee
to the imputation of a job, " since nothing would
likely to bring a suspicion of bargain and sale upon
mination, which the Lords would not have endured,
appointment of so near a relative to the least pro-
office, while the most valuable was allotted to a
er." The risk, however, had to be run; and a
entary calm" took possession of Cowper's mind
he saw this safe and quiet position behind backs
g to him.
But whether "the Lords" suspected, as
upposed likely, a disgraceful transaction behind.
tendu, it was neither disgraceful nor undesirable
e "patentee" should use his power for the advan-
one of his own blood, natural affection in this
nt particular being fully recognised as the rule of
lic service), it is certain that an opposition arose,
wper was bid to expect an examination at the
he House, touching my sufficiency for the post I
en." This unforeseen and unprecedented ordeal
im frantic. Nobody, so far as we are aware, has
d the proposal as a proof either of the advantages
vantages of the principle of examination, which is

into insanity; but perhaps even in this elementary and arbitrary stage of its existence it was beneficial in its way. Had he stolen in quietly to his place, and reaped its placid advantages without any such alarming preliminary, he might perhaps never have been insane, never have gone to Olney, never written poetry to console a spirit, which in that case might neither have been sick nor sorry. There is no end to conjecture, and everything, as the poet himself would have been the first to allow, works for good. The world pays cheaply for a great work and influence when the sufferings of one forlorn individual are all the price that is demanded. It was hard upon the poet, but good for the race. The "Task " was of far more importance to the general welfare than the happiness of one young man about town; and his happiness was not of a very warm or genuine description that its temporary extinction should have called forth so many moans.

Thus the unfortunate young man was out of the pleasant indolence and carelessness of his unthrifty life, plunged all unprepared and incapable into that mäelstrom which now, under the easy title of "going in for an examination," is so universally known to the youth of our time. In those days slang was not, at least in this kind; and that fact of itself made everything more serious. No pleasing levity, no light-hearted calculations of chance, modified the terrible ordeal. "A thunderbolt would have been as welcome to me as this intelligence," I knew to demonstration that upon these terms the clerkship of the journals was no place for me. To require my attendance at the bar of the House, that I might there publicly qualify myself for the office, was in fact to exclude me from it. In the meantime, the interest of my friend, the honour of his choice, my own reputation and circumstances, all urged me forward-all pressed me

he says.

dertake that which I saw to be impracticable.

They

e spirits are formed like mine, to whom a public ition of themselves on any occasion is mortal poison, have some idea of the horrors of my situation : s can have none."

this state of mind he began to study the work would be required of him, going daily to the office, g to extort information from the books, without without capacity or habit of investigation-and ed, as he thought rightly or wrongly, to the hostility the inferior clerks and everybody around. The of mind into which he gradually worked himself she says, only be divined by those to whom the conditions of mental enervation, feebleness, selfence, and excited imagination are possible.

The

mind, or even that which, weak in itself, is braced its of self-subordination, would, but for the pity of disposed to turn with a certain contempt from the e sight. But the issue gives to this hopeless le the solemnity of a tragedy; and it is impossible

Cowper's account of his growing madness, the 1 subjection of all his powers to the one fixed from which he could not escape, the gloomy door ide that seemed to open and shut, as by a fitful n front of him; his attempts, always feeble, and ed by the very weakness that moved him to it, to at door wide, and make his frightened exit thereby out feeling the strange fascination of the struggle. ed soul in restless conflict with its own delusions, nes flying before the dark crowd of excited fancies night be spirits of darkness for anything he could see, sometimes standing miserably at bay; the hut out from that strange solitude in which he alone, turning every incident vaguely perceived