THE LIFE OF COWPER. PART THE FIRST. Ingenium probitas, artemque modestia vincit. THE family of COWPER appears to have held, for several centuries, a respectable rank among the merchants and gentry of England. We learn from the life of the first Earl Cowper, in the Biographia Britannica, that his ancestors were inhabitants of Sussex, in the reign of Edward IV. The name is found repeatedly among the Sheriffs of London; and William Cowper, who resided a country gentleman in Kent, was created a Baronet by King Charles I., in 1641.* But the family rose to higher dis as * This gentleman was a writer of English verse, and with rare munificence bestowed both an epitaph and a monument on that illustrious divine the venerable Hooker. In the edition of Walton's Lives,' by Dr. Zouch, the curious reader may find the epitaph written by Sir William Cowper. · His descendant, the poet of Weston, in speaking with moral pleasantry on the common pride of pedigree, expressed a persuasion that one of his progenitors migrated from Scotland in a very humble condition. Since the first publication of this Life, I chanced to find, in a scarce little book of biography, Thomas Fuller's Abel Redivivus,' quarto, 1651, an account of a Scottish William Cowper, a religious author, so remarkable for the warmth of his piety, and the elegance of his language, that if his works had fallen into the hands of his namesake at Weston, the English poet might have felt a liberal satisfaction in supposing himself allied to the Scottish divine. The person to whom I allude migrated indeed into England, and certainly in an humble state, according to his own account of his early life in the following words: "Having passed my course in St. Andrew's, I returned to my parents in Edenborough. I was pressed by them to enter into sundry sorts of life I liked not, for my heart still inclined to the study of the Holy Scriptures; whereupon I resolved to go into England, where I evidently perceived the Lord going before me, and providing for me at Hoddesden, within eighteen miles of London: my meane portion, which I had, being all spent (I speak it to his glory that cared for me) in that same place, that same day, was I desired by our kind countryman, master Guthrie, to help him in the teaching of a school." The young enthusiastic pilgrim was at this time only sixteen. He afterwards studied theology under some learned divines in London, with the consent of his friend Guthrie. At the age of nineteen he returned to Edinburgh; and in the course of a devout, active, and exemplary life, became Bishop of Galloway. He died as he had lived, eminent for the tranquil fervency of his faith. Ten years after his death, his collected works were published at London, in a neat and copious folio, 1629. They breathe a spirit of cordial piety; and, if we consider the time and country of the writer, the simplicity and the strength of his style may be thought peculiarly worthy of commendation. He introduces several of his religious treatises B inction in the beginning of the last century, by the remarkable circumstance of producing two brothers, who both obtained a seat in the House of Peers, by eminence in the profession of the law. William, the eldest, became Lord High Chancellor_in_1707. Spencer Cowper, the youngest, was appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1717, and afterwards a Judge in the Court of Common Pleas; being permitted, by the particular favour of the king, to hold those two offices to the end of his life. He died in Lincoln's Inn, on the 10th of December, 1728; and has the higher claim to our notice, as the immediate ancestor of the poet. By his first wife, Judith Pennington (whose exemplary character is still revered by her descendants) Judge Cowper left several children; among them a daughter Judith, who at the age of eighteen discovered a striking talent for poetry in the praise of her contemporary poets, Pope and Hughes. This lady, the wife of Colonel Madan, transmitted her own poetical and devout spirit to her daughter Frances Maria, who was married to her cousin, Major Cowper: the amiable character of Maria will unfold itself in the course of this work, as the friend and correspondent of her more eminent relation, the second grandchild of the Judge destined to honour the name of Cowper, by displaying, with peculiar purity and fervour, the double enthusiasm of poetry and devotion. The father of the great author to whom I allude, was John Cowper, the Judge's second son, who took his degrees in divinity, was Chaplain to King George II., and resided at his rectory of Great Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, the scene of the poet's infancy, which he has thus commemorated, in a singularly beautiful and pathetic composition on the portrait of his mother: Where once we dwelt, our name is heard no more; That Mem'ry keeps of all thy kindness there, with a variety of dedicatory epistles, which show that his ardent devotion was united to great elegance of manners. He appears to have been familiar with many illustrious persons of his time; and there is a sonnet prefixed to his Commentary on the Revelation, by that admirable Scottish Poet, Drummond of Hawthornden, which, as it is omitted in the collected works of Drummond, printed in 1711, I should have inserted here, had I not seen it again in a recent and interesting publication, the Lives of the Scottish Poets,' by Mr. David Irving. As the learned Bishop of Galloway addressed some of his compositions to King James I, to his queen, and to his son Prince Henry, it seems not improbable, that the person made a baronet by Charles I. might be related to this eloquent and highly-esteemed Bishop Cowper, of whom I will only add, that he was buried in Edinburgh, his native city, 1619, and attended to the grave by the Earl of Dumfermeline, chancellor, with the lords of council, &c., and honoured in a funeral sermon by the Archbishop of St. Andrew's. Still outlives many a storm that has effac'd The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestow'd By thy own hand, till fresh they shone and glow'd; The parent, whose merits are so feelingly recorded by the filial tenderness of the poet, was Ann, daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., of Ludham Hall, in Norfolk. This lady, whose family is said to have been originally from Wales, was married in the bloom of youth to Dr. Cowper. After giving birth to several children, who died in their infancy, and leaving two sons, William, the immediate subject of this memorial, born at Berkhampstead on the twentysixth of November, N.s., 1731, and John (whose accomplishments and memorable death will be described in the course of this compilation), she died in child-bed, at the early age of thirty-four, in 1737. It may be wished, that the painter, employed to preserve a resemblance of such a woman, had possessed those powers of graceful and perfect delineation, which, in a different art, belonged to the pen of her son; but her portrait, executed by Heins in oil-colours, on a small scale, is a production infinitely inferior to the very beautiful poem to which it gave rise. Those who delight in contemplating the best affections of our nature, will ever admire the tender sensibility with which the poet has acknowledged his obligations to his amiable mother, in a poem composed more than fifty years after her decease. Readers of this description may find a pleasure in observing how the praise so liberally bestowed on this tender parent at so late a period, is confirmed (if praise so unquestionable may be said to receive confirmation) by another poetical record of her merit, which the hand of affinity and affection bestowed upon her tomb;-a record written at a time when the poet who was destined to prove, in his advanced life, her most powerful eulogist, had hardly begun to show the dawn of that genius, which, after many years of silent affliction, arose like a star emerging from tempestuous darkness. The monument of Mrs. Cowper, erected by her husband in the chancel of St. Peter's church at Berkhampstead, contains the following verses, composed by a young lady, her niece, the late Lady Walsingham: Here lies, in early years bereft of life, The best of mothers, and the kindest wife; |