Cowper left Westminster at eighteen, and after nine months at home was articled for three years to a solicitor named Chapman, with whom he lodged. He spent much time at the house of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, in Southampton Row [for Cowper's relations see under Cowper, Spencer, 1669–1727]. He introduced a fellow-clerk, Thurlow, afterwards the chancellor, to his uncle's family, and Thurlow and Cowper spent their time in ‘giggling and making giggle’ with the three daughters, instead of ‘studying the law’ (Southey, v. 301). Thurlow, however, found time for serious work. Some years later (in 1762) (ib. i. 411) he made a playful promise that when he became lord chancellor he would provide for his idle fellow-pupil. Cowper had been entered at the Middle Temple, 29 April 1748; he took chambers in the inn upon leaving Chapman's office in 1752, and was called to the bar on 14 June 1754. He was seized with an ominous depression of spirits during the early part of his residence in chambers. He found some consolation in reading George Herbert's poems, but laid them aside on the advice of a relation, who thought that they stimulated his morbid feelings. After a year's misery he sought relief in religious exercises. He was advised to make a visit of some months to Southampton, where he made yachting excursions with Sir Thomas Hesketh. One day he felt a sudden relief. Hereupon he burnt the prayers which he had composed, and long afterwards reproached himself with having misinterpreted a providential acceptance of his petitions into a mere effect of the change of air and scene. Cowper's father died in 1756. Three years afterwards Cowper bought a set of chambers in the Inner Temple and was made a commissioner of bankrupts. An unfortunate love affair with his cousin Theodora had occupied him about 1755 and 1756. She returned his affection, but her father forbade the match on the ground of their relationship, and possibly from some observation of Cowper's morbid state of mind. Lady Hesketh told Hayley (14 Oct. 1801) that the objection was the want of income on both sides; but at the time Cowper's prospects were apparently good enough. The pair never met after two or three years' intercourse. Theodora never married; she continued to love Cowper, and carefully preserved the poems which he addressed to her. She fell into a morbid state of mind, but lived to give some information through Lady Hesketh to Hayley for his ‘Life of Cowper.’ Theodora died 22 Oct. 1824, and the poems which she had preserved were published in 1825.
Cowper apparently was less affected. He continued the life of a young Templar who preferred literature to law. He belonged to the Nonsense Club, composed of seven Westminster men, who dined together weekly. It included Bonnell Thornton, Colman, Lloyd, and Joseph Hill, the last of whom was a lifelong friend and correspondent. Thornton and Colman started the ‘Connoisseur’ in 1754, and to this Cowper contributed a few papers in 1756. He contributed to Duncombe's ‘Translations from Horace,’ 1756–1757; he also contributed to the ‘St. James's Chronicle’ (1761), of which Colman and Thornton were part proprietors. Cowper does not appear to have been intimate with Churchill, whose first success was made in 1761; but he always admired his old schoolfellow. At the Temple, Cowper and a Mr. Rowley read Homer, comparing Pope's translation with the original, much to Pope's disadvantage (Letter to Clotworthy Rowley, 21 Feb. 1788). He helped his brother in a translation of the ‘Henriade,’ supplying two books himself. Meanwhile his fortune was slipping away. He had reason to expect patronage from his relations. His cousin, Major Cowper, claimed the right of appointment to the joint offices of ‘reading clerk and clerk of the committees,’ and to the less valuable office of ‘clerk of the journals of the House of Lords.’ Both appointments became vacant in 1763, the latter by the death of the incumbent, which Cowper reproached himself for having desired. Major Cowper offered the most valuable to Cowper, intending the other for a Mr. Arnold. Cowper accepted, but was so overcome by subsequent reflections upon his own incapacity that he persuaded his cousin to give the more valuable place to Arnold and the less valuable to himself. Meanwhile the right of appointment was disputed. Cowper was told that the ground would have ‘to be fought by inches,’ and that he would have to stand an examination into his own fitness at the bar of the House of Lords. He made some attempts to secure the necessary experience of his duties by attending the office; but the anxiety threw him into a nervous fever. A visit to Margate in the summer did something for his spirits. On returning to town in October he resumed attendance at the office. The anticipated examination unnerved him. An accidental talk directed his thoughts to suicide. He bought a bottle of laudanum; but after several attempts to drink it, frustrated by accident or sudden revulsion of feeling, he threw it out of the window. He went to the river to drown himself, and turned back at sight of a porter waiting on the bank. The day before that fixed for his examination he made
