COWPER, WILLIAM (1731-180o), English poet, was born in the rectory (now rebuilt) of Great Berkhamsted, Herts., on Nov. 26 (0.S. 15), 1731. His father, the Rev. John Cowper, was rector of the parish as well as a chaplain to George II., and his mother, Ann Donne, belonged to the same family as John Donne, the poet. His grandfather was that Spencer Cowper who, after being tried for his life on a charge of murder, lived to be a judge of the court of common pleas, and whose elder brother became lord chancellor and Earl Cowper, a title which became extinct in On his mother's death, when he was six, William Cowper was sent to boarding-school, to a Dr. Pitman at Markyate, a neigh bouring village. From 1738 to 1741 he was placed in the care of an oculist, as he suffered from inflammation of the eyes. In the latter year he was sent to Westminster school. Among his most intimate friends seems to have been Sir William Russell. To one of his masters, Vincent Bourne, he was much attached. Later, he translated Bourne's Latin verses into English. It was at the Markyate school that he suffered the tyranny that he com memorated in Tirocinium. His days at Westminster, Southey thinks, were "probably the happiest in his life." Much of his time was spent in reading Homer, Milton, and Cowley. He left Westminster in 1748, and in 1749 entered a solicitor's office in Ely place, Holborn. Here he had Thurlow, the future lord chan cellor, as a fellow-clerk. The years in Ely place were rendered happy by frequent visits to his uncle Ashley's house in Southamp ton row, where he fell deeply in love with his cousin Theodora Cowper. At 21 he took chambers in the Middle Temple, where we first hear of the melancholies that accompanied him periodi cally through manhood. He was called to the bar in 1754. In 1759 he removed to the Inner Temple and was made a commis sioner of bankrupts. His attachment to his cousin Theodora ended unhappily. Her father, possibly influenced by Cowper's melancholy tendencies, perhaps possessed by prejudices against the marriage of cousins, interposed, and the lovers were separated —as it turned out for ever. During three years he was a member of the Nonsense Club with his two schoolfellows from Westmin ster, Charles Churchill and Robert Lloyd, and wrote sundry verses and made a translation (no longer extant) of two books of Voltaire's Henriade. A crisis occurred in Cowper's life when his cousin Major Cowper nominated him to a clerkship in the 'An ancestor, John Cooper, an alderman of London (d. 1609) thus spelt his name, and all the family from that day to this, including the poet, have so pronounced it.
House of Lords. It involved a preliminary appearance at the bar of the house. The prospect drove him insane ; he attempted suicide and all but succeeded. His friends were informed, and he was sent to a private lunatic asylum at St. Albans, where he re mained for 18 months under the charge of Dr. Nathaniel Cotton, the author of Visions. Upon his recovery he removed to Hunting don (June 1765) in order to be near his brother John, who was a fellow of St. Benet's college, Cambridge. His illness had cut him off from all his old friends save only his cousin Lady Hesketh, Theodora's sister; but new acquaintances were made, the Unwins being the most valued. This family consisted of Mor ley Unwin (a clergyman), his wife Mary, and his son (William) and daughter (Susannah) . The son struck up a warm friendship, which his family shared. Cowper entered the circle as a boarder in November (1765) . All went serenely until in July 1767 Mor ley Unwin was thrown from his horse and killed. A short time before this event the Unwins had received a visit from the Rev. John Newton, ,the evangelical curate of Olney in Buckingham shire, with whom they became friends. Newton suggested that the widow and her children with Cowper should take up their abode in Olney. This was achieved in the closing months of 1767. Here Cowper lived for 19 years. His residence in the market place was converted into a Cowper museum Too years after his death, in 190o. Here his life went on its placid course, inter rupted only by the death of his brother in 177o, until 1773, when he again became deranged. This second attack interrupted the contemplated marriage of Cowper with Mary Unwin, whose daughter had married a Mr. Powley. The fact of the engagement was kept secret in later years in order to spare the feelings of Theodora Cowper, who thought that her cousin had remained as faithful as she had done to their early love.
On this second attack of melancholy Cowper was moved the vicarage, and again treated by Dr. Cotton. As soon as he re covered he returned to his home at Orchard Side, and in 1776 was perfectly normal, recommencing his correspondence with his friends. In 1779 appeared the Olney Hymns, written in conjunc tion with Newton, Cowper's verses being indicated by a "C." Newton had left Olney in 1780. He had exercised a profound in fluence on Cowper, who had helped him in visiting the sick and in parish work, which was undoubtedly a strain on the poet's nerves. It was only after Newton's removal that he turned to secular poetry, at the suggestion of Mrs. Unwin. It is evident that the release from the religiosity of the Newton circle had improved his mental health. In 1782, when he was 51 years old, there appeared Poems of William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq.; London, Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul's Church yard. The volume contained "Table Talk," "The Progress of Error," "Truth," "Expostulation," and much else that survives to be read in our day by virtue of the poet's finer work. This finer work was partly the outcome of his friendship with Lady Austen, a widow who, on a visit to her sister, the wife of the vicar of the neighbouring village of Clifton, made the acquaintance of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin. The three became great friends. Lady Austen determined to give up her house in London and to settle in Olney. She suggested The Task and inspired John Gilpin and The Royal George. But in 1784 the friendship was at an end, doubtless through Mrs. Unwin's jealousy of Lady Austen. Cowper's second volume appeared in 1785: The Task: A Poem in Six Books. By William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq.; To which are added by the same author An Epistle to Joseph Hill, Esq., Tirocinium or a Review of Schools, and the History of John Gilpin: London, Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St. Paul's Churchyard; 1785. His first book had been a failure, one critic even declaring that "Mr. Cowper was certainly a good, pious man, but without one spark of poetic fire." This second book was an instantaneous success, and indeed marks an epoch in literary history. But before its publica tion—in I784—the poet had commenced the translation of Homer. In 1786 his life at Olney was cheered by Lady Hesketh taking up a temporary residence at the vicarage there. The cousins met after an interval of 23 years, and Lady Hesketh was to be Cowper's good angel to the end, even though her letters disclose a considerable impatience with Mrs. Unwin. At the end of 1786 a removal was made to Weston Underwood, the neighbouring vil lage which Cowper had frequently visited as the guest of his Roman Catholic friends the Throckmortons. This was to be his home for yet another ten years. Here he completed his trans lation of Homer, materially assisted by Mr. Throckmorton's chaplain Dr. Gregson. There are six more months of insanity to record in 1787. In 179o, a year before the Homer was published, commenced his friendship with his young cousin John Johnson, known to all biographer: of the poet as "Johnny of Norfolk." Johnson also aspired to be a poet and visited his cousin armed with a manuscript. Cowper discouraged the poetry but loved the writer, and the two became great friends. New friends were wanted, for in 1792 Mrs. Unwin had a paralytic stroke and hence forth she was a hopeless invalid. A new and valued friend of this period was Hayley, famous in his own day as a poet and in his tory for his association with Romney and Cowper. He was drawn to Cowper by the fact that both were contemplating an edition of "Milton," Cowper having received a commission to edit, write notes and translate the Latin and Italian poems. The work was never completed. In 1794 Cowper was again insane, and though he recovered, the best of his working life was over. Mainly through Hayley's efforts he received in this year a pension of £300 per annum. In the following year a removal took place into Norfolk under the loving care of John Johnson. Johnson took Cowper and Mary Unwin to North Tuddenham, thence to Mun desley, then to Dunham Lodge, near Swaffham, and finally in Oct. 1796 they moved to East Dereham. In December of that year Mrs. Unwin died. In 1799 Cowper completed the revision of his Homer. He died of dropsy on April 25, 1800, and was buried near Mrs. Unwin in East Dereham church.
Cowper brought a new spirit into English verse and redeemed it from the artificiality and the rhetoric of many of his predeces sors. With him began the "enthusiasm of humanity" that was afterwards to become so marked in the poetry of Burns and Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. With him began the renewal of the deep sympathy with nature and love of animal life, which was to characterize the work of the romantic school.
Cowper had what is a rare quality among English poets, the gift of humour, which was very singularly absent from others who pos sessed many other of the higher qualities of the intellect. Certain of his poems, moreover—for example, "To Mary," "The Receipt of my Mother's Portrait," and the ballad "On the Loss of the Royal George"—will, it may safely be affirmed, continue to be familiar to each successive generation in a way that pertains to few things in literature. He ranks among the half-dozen greatest letter-writers in the English language.