His fellow-clerk in the office, and his accomplice in giggling and making giggle, was one strangely mated with him; the strong, aspiring, and unscrupulous Thurlow, who though fond of pleasure was at the same time preparing himself to push his way to wealth and power.

Cowper felt that Thurlow would reach the summit of ambition, while he would himself remain below, and made his friend promise when he was Chancellor to give him something.

When Thurlow was Chancellor, he gave Cowper his advice on translating Homer.
At the end of his three years with the attorney, Cowper took chambers in the Middle, from which he afterwards removed to the Inner Temple.
The Temple is now a pile of law offices.

In those days it was still a Society.

One of Cowper's set says of it: "The Temple is the barrier that divides the City and suburbs; and the gentlemen who reside there seem influenced by the situation of the place they inhabit.