Perhaps no falsehood has been more frequently repeated, than that men of genius are less fortunate and less virtuous than other men; but the obvious truth, that they who attempt little are less liable to failure than they who attempt much, will account for the proverbial good luck of fools. In our estimate of the sorrows and failings of literary men, we forget that sorrow is the common lot; we forget, too, that the misfortunes and the errors of men of genius are recorded; and that, although their virtues may be utterly forgotten, their minutest faults will be sure to find zealous historians. And this is as it should be. Let the dead instruct us. But slanderers blame, in individuals, what belongs to the species. "We women," says Clytemnestra in Eschylus, when meditating the murder of her husband, and in reply to an attendant who was praising the gentleness of the sex, "We women are--what we are." So is it with us all. Then let every fault of men of genius be known; but let not hypocrisy come with a sponge, and wipe away their virtues. Of the misfortunes of Cowper we have all heard, and certainly he was unfortunate, for he was liable to fits of insanity. But it might be said of him, that he was tended through life by weeping angels. Warm-hearted friends watched and guarded him with intense and unwearied solicitude; the kindest hearted of the softer sex, the best of the best, seems to have been born only to anticipate his wants. A glance at the world, will show us that his fate, though sad, was not saddest; for how many madmen are there, and how many men still more unfortunate than madmen, who have no living-creature to aid, or soothe, or pity them! Think of Milton--"blind among enemies!" But the saddest incident in the life of Cowper remains to be told. In his latter days, he was pensioned by the crown--a misfortune which I can forgive to him, but not to destiny. It is consoling to think, that he was not long conscious of his degradation after the cruel kindness was inflicted on him. But why did not his friends, if weary of sustaining their kinsman stricken by the arrows of the Almighty, suffer him to perish in a _beggars'_ mad-house? Would he had died in a ditch rather than this shadow had darkened over his grave! Burns was more fortunate in his death than Cowper: he lived self-supported to the end. Glorious hearted Burns! Noble, but unfortunate Cowper!