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truth, the poem just mentioned is a very memorable example, and, if any readers have thought the poet too severe in his strictures on that system of education, to which we owe some of the most accomplished characters that ever gave celebrity to a civilized nation, such readers will be candidly reconciled to that moral severity of reproof, in recollecting that it flowed from severe personal experience, united to the purest spirit of philanthropy and patriotism.

The relative merits of public and private education is a question that has long agitated the world. Each has its partizans, its advantages, and defects; and, like all general principles, its application must greatly depend on the circumstances of rank, future destination, and the peculiarities of character and temper. For the full developement of the powers and faculties of the mind-for the acquisition of the various qualifications that fit men to sustain with brilliancy and distinction the duties of active life, whether in the cabinet, the senate, or the forum for scenes of busy enterprize, where knowledge of the world and the growth of manly spirit seem indispensable; in all such cases, we are disposed to believe, that the palm must be assigned to public education.

But, on the other hand, if we reflect that brilliancy is oftentimes a flame which consumes its object, that knowledge of the world is, for the most part, but a knowledge of the evil that is in the world; and that early habits of extravagance and vice, which are ruinous in their results, are not

unfrequently contracted at public schools; if to these facts we add that man is a candidate for immortality, and that "life" (as Sir William Temple observes)" is but the parenthesis of eternity," it then becomes a question of solemn import, whether integrity and principle do not find a soil more congenial for their growth in the shade and retirement of private education? The one is an advancement for time, the other for eternity. The former affords facilities for making men great, but often at the expense of happiness and conscience. The latter diminishes the temptations to vice, and, while it affords a field for useful and honourable exertion, augments the means of being wise and holy.

We leave the reader to decide the great problem for himself. That he may be enabled to form a right estimate, we would urge him to suffer time and eternity to pass in solemn and deliberate review before him.

That the public school was a scene by no means adapted to the sensitive mind of Cowper is evident. Nor can we avoid cherishing the apprehension that his spirit, naturally morbid, experienced a fatal inroad from that period. He nevertheless acquired the reputation of scholarship, with the advantage of being known and esteemed by some of the aspiring characters of his own age, who subsequently became distinguished in the great arena of public life.

With these acquisitions, he left Westminster at the age of eighteen, in 1749; and, as if destiny had determined that all his early situations in life should

be peculiarly irksome to his delicate feelings, and tend rather to promote than to counteract his constitutional tendency to melancholy, he was removed from a public school to the office of an attorney. He resided three years in the house of a Mr. Chapman, to whom he was engaged by articles for that time. Here he was placed for the study of a profession which nature seemed resolved that he never should practise.

The law is a kind of soldiership, and, like the profession of arms, it may be said to require for the constitution of its heroes

"A frame of adamant, a soul of fire."

The soul of Cowper had indeed its fire, but fire so refined and etherial, that it could not be expected to shine in the gross atmosphere of worldly contention. Perhaps there never existed a mortal, who, possessing, with a good person, intellectual powers naturally strong and highly cultivated, was so utterly unfit to encounter the bustle and perplexities of public life. But the extreme modesty and shyness of his nature, which disqualified him for scenes of business and ambition, endeared him inexpressibly to those who had opportunities to enjoy his society, and discernment to appreciate the ripening excellencies of his character.

Reserved as he was, to an extraordinary and painful degree, his heart and mind were yet admirably fashioned by nature for all the refined intercourse and confidential enjoyment both of friendship and love but, though apparently formed to

possess and to communicate an extraordinary portion of moral felicity, the incidents of his life were such, that, conspiring with the peculiarities of his nature, they rendered him, at different times, the victim of sorrow. The variety and depth of his sufferings in early life, from extreme tenderness of feeling, are very forcibly displayed in the following verses, which formed part of a letter to one of his female relatives, at the time they were composed. The letter has perished, and the verses owe their preservation to the affectionate memory of the lady to whom they were addressed.

Doom'd, as I am,

in solitude to waste
The present moments, and regret the past;
Depriv'd of every joy I valued most,

My friend torn from me, and my mistress lost;
Call not this gloom I wear, this anxious mien,
The dull effect of bumour, or of spleen!
Still, still, I mourn, with each returning day,
Him* snatch'd by fate in early youth away;
And her thro' tedious years of doubt and pain
Fix'd in her choice, and faithful-but in vain!
O prone to pity, generous, and sincere,
Whose eye ne'er yet refus'd the wretch a tear ;
Whose heart the real cl tim of friendship knows,
Nor thinks a lover's are but fancied woes;
See me-ere yet my destin'd course half done,
Cast forth a wand'rer on a world unknown!
See me neglected on the world's rude coast,
Each dear companion of my voyage lost!

* Sir William Russel, the favourite friend of the young poet.

Nor ask why clouds of sorrow shade my brow,
And ready tears wait only leave to flow !
Why all that soothes a heart from anguish free,
All that delights the happy-palls with me!

Having concluded the term of his engagement with the solicitor, he settled himself in chambers in the Inner Temple, as a regular student of law; but, although he resided there till the age of thirtythree, he rambled (according to his own colloquial account of his early years) from the thorny road of his austere patroness, Jurisprudence, into the primrose paths of literature and poetry. Even here his native diffidence confined him to social and subordinate exertions: he wrote and printed both verse and prose, as the concealed assistant of less diffident authors. During this period, he cultivated the friendship of some literary characters, who had been his schoolfellows at Westminster, particularly Colman, Bonnel Thornton, and Lloyd. His regard for the two first induced him to contribute to their periodical publication, entitled the Connoisseur, three excellent papers, which afford satisfactory evidence that Cowper had such talents for this pleasant and useful species of composition, as might have rendered him a worthy associate, in such labours, with Addison himself, whose graceful powers have never been surpassed in that province of literature, which may be considered as peculiarly his own.

The interest which he took in the society and