e well-known lines:

"While thirteen moons saw smoothly run
The Nen's barge-laden wave,
All these, life's rambling journey done,
Have found their home, the grave."

Another verse which has attained fame runs thus:

"Like crowded forest trees we stand,
And some are mark'd to fall;
The axe will smite at God's command,
And soon will smite us all."

And thus does Cowper, in his temporary role, point the moral:

"And O! that humble as my lot,
And scorned as is my strain,
These truths, though known, too much forgot,
I may not teach in vain.

"So prays your clerk with all his heart,
And, ere he quits his pen,
Begs you for once to take his part,
And answer all--Amen."

Again, in another copy of verses he alludes to his honourable clerkship,
and sings:

"So your verse-man I, and clerk,
Yearly in my song proclaim
Death at hand--yourselves his mark--
And the foe's unerring aim.

"Duly at my time I come,
Publishing to all aloud
Soon the grave must be our home,
And your only suit a shroud."

On one occasion the clerk delayed to send a printed copy of the verses;
so we find the poet writing to his friend, William Bagot:

"You would long since have received an answer to your last, had not the
wicked clerk of Northampton delayed to send me the printed copy of my
annual dirge, which I waited to enclose. Here it is at last, and much
good may it do the readers!"

Let us hope that at least the clerk was grateful.

Yet again does the poet allude to the occupant of the lowest tier of the
great "three-decker," when he in the opening lines of _The Sofa_ depicts
the various seekers after sleep. After telling of the snoring nurse, the
sleeping traveller in the coach, he continues:

"Sweet sleep enjoys the curate in his desk,
The tedious rector drawling o'er his head;
And sweet the clerk below--"

a pretty picture truly of a stirring and impressive service!

Cowper, if he were alive now, would have been no admirer of _Who's Who_,
and poured scorn upon any

"Fond attempt to give a deathless lot
To names ignoble, born to be forgot."

Beholding some "names of little note" in the _Biographia Britannica_, he
proceeded to satirise the publication, to laugh at the imaginary
procession of worthies--the squire, his lady, the vicar, and other local
celebritie