Under the encouragement of Mrs. Unwin, Cowper began to write steadily upon a series of didactic, semi-satiric poems --(Progress of Error,' 'Truth,' 'Table Talk,' and 'Expostu lation' (December 1780-February 1781). New ton acted as a friendly critic and secured a publisher for the volume, which, with the addi tion of 'Hope,' (Charity,' 'Conversation,' and
Meanwhile, the poet had made the acquaint ance of a baronet's widow, Lady Austen, who was visiting near Olney. The intimacy, which Mrs. Unwin shared, became too intense to last more than a couple of years; but, whatever Lady Austen's disappointments, we owe to it two of Cowper's best poems — the humorous ballad of 'John Gilpin' (November 1782), based on a story she told Cowper to dispel his melancholy, and 'The Task,' his great discur sive poem in blank verse, which, beginning with Lady Austen's theme, the sofa, broadened out into reflections upon life and descriptions of nature unrivaled in their day and in respect to realistic fidelity and homely charm not clearly surpassed since. 'The Task' was probably begun in July 1783, and was finally published injune 1785, along with 'John Gilpin' (which had already been circulated in periodicals). the admirable 'Epistle to Joseph Hill,' and 'Tiro cinium,' a satire upon current education (1782-84). Cowper had meanwhile begun his translation of the Iliad in blank verse and had written some of his shorter poems, e.g., 'The Poplar Field.' All this time, with the exception of three days in May 1785, he believed firmly that God had given him over, and that it was his duty not to pray, since that would imply a questioning of the righteousness of the divine decree.
(The Task,' helped by the vogue of 'John Gilpin,' attained success. Cowper became the chief poet of the day, and secured a popularity which lasted well into the next century. His relatives began to pay more attention to him. and in Lady Hesketh, sister of his sweetheart Theodora, and the Rev. John Johnson, of Nor folk, he found supporters during the trying years that were in store for him. His income was increased, and with Lady Hesketh's aid he and Mrs. Unwin removed from Olney to the neighboring Weston in November 1786. Shortly afterward they were shocked by William Unwin's sudden death. Then Cowper suffered his fourth derangement, which lasted from January to June 1787. He recovered rather speedily and worked away at Homer, wrote excellent short poems, and resumed his cor respondence, but was all the while subject to hallucinations and melancholia. In September 1788, he began translating the Odyssey, and the complete Homer, including the 'Batracho myomachia,' was published by subscription in July 1791, with a success which time has not ratified. Posterity much prefers the pathetic lines 'On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk,' written in the spring of 1790. After the Homer Cowper, having been assured by a demented schoolmaster-friend named Teedon that heaven was willing, undertook to edit an elaborate edition of his favorite, Milton.
The scheme came to little, but it was the occa sion of his forming a warm friendship with his future biographer, William Hayley. to whom he paid a visit in August 1792, accompanied by Mrs. Unwin, who had been partly incapacitated by paralysis. Then Mrs. Unwin's health sank steadily, and Cowper, in a sad state himself, became in his turn the indefatigable nurse. The lines 'My Mary' commemorate the melancholy situation. In January 1794, Cowper himself was seized with his old complaint and sank into a stupor, from which he practically never ral lied. He did not appreciate the fact that he had been granted a pension of f.300 by the govern ment. Mrs. Unwin also grew worse, and but for the ministrations of Lady Hesketh, Hayley and John Johnson, the last six years of Cowper's life would be a stretch of unrelieved gloom. In July 1795, Johnson removed the two invalids to Norfolk. They settled finally at East Dcreham, where on 17 Dec. 1796, Mrs. Unwin died, the event scarcely producing an emotion in the man who loved her. Cowper continued in his state of dejection, though he could still work at the revision of his Homer. His only important original composition during the period was the poignantly pathetic 'Cast away,' written 20 March 1799. He still per sisted in believing that God had forsaken him, and in this dreadful belief he died on 25 April 1800. He was buried in East Dereham Church beside Mrs. Unwin.
Cowper's importance as a precursor of Wordsworth, and the positive excellence of many of his descriptive and satiric passages and of his humorous and pathetic shorter poems are generally acknowledged. He is a classic, and, if his range of work were sufficiently taken into account — his heroic odes, his familiar verse, his humorous ballads, his poems of domestic affection, his verses on animals (in which he is almost unrivaled), his reflective lyrics, his satires and his faithful descriptions of quiet life and English nature— he would be un grudgingly pronounced a great claggir. As a correspondent his supremacy is generally al lowed.
To his works enumerated above should be added the unpleasant satire 'Anti-Thelyphthora (1781), 'Poems from the French of Mine. de la Mothe Guyon. etc.' (1801), and 'Latin and Italian Poems of Milton' (1808). • The first edition of Hayley's biography, with letters, ap peared in 1803. In 1835 Rev. T. S. Grimshawe edited the life and letters in eight volumes. Southey's life and edition of the works in 15 volumes (1834-37, 1853-54) is the standard. Of the poems there are numerous editions, among the best being those of Bruce 1863), Benham 1870), and Milford ((Oxford' 1905); The Poems of William Cow per' (by J. C. Bailey, 1905). Thomas Wright, author of 'The Town of Cowper' (1886), and of the best biography (1892), has edited the fullest collection of the letters (4 vols., 1904). (See _Tom; GILPIN; TASK, THE) For criticism. consult Goldwin Smith's (Cowper' ('English Men of Letters,' 1880) ; Ste. Beuve's (Vol. XI), and Leslie Stephen's 'Hours in a Library' (III) ' • Gearey, Caroline, 'Cowper and Mary Unwin) (1900) and 'A Concordance to the Poetic Works of William Cowper' by John Neave (1887).