A man of some literary note,—rather, perhaps, as the late
Mr. Crabb Robinson mid of himself, for the literary friends whom he made and whom he endeared to him, than for-any literary work achieved by himself,—Charles Cowden Clarke, died at Genoa on the 13th of this month, in a ripe old age. it seems strange that sixty-one years should have elapsed since Keats, who was Cowden Clarke's junior, addressed to him the poetical epistle which appears with the date of " 1816 " in Keats's poems. In this
versified letter we find :—
" Life's many toys 'With him,' said I,' will take a pleasant•ehartn ; It cannot be that aught will work him harm.
These thoughts now come o'er me with all their might. Again I take your hand,—friend Charles, good night.' "
Charles Cowden Clarke was as young in heart up to the time of his death as at the time when he won the friendship of Lamb, Shelley, Keats, and Leigh Hunt. He had the unique happiness of -working through a long life with a wife whom he married, a lifetime ago,—in 1828,—and whose literary tastes and sympathies, and even Shakespearian or other undertakings, were always blended with his own. They worked together, -and even in their letters wrote together in the most playfully affectionate way. His was the rare wisdom of strong affections and a simple heart.
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