Poetical (Works

OF

WILLIAM COWPER.

WITH AN ACCOUNT OP

THE LIFE AND WRITINGS

OP

THE AUTHOR.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY AND FOR WILLIAM COLE,

10, NEWGATE-STREET.

THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM COWPER.

WILLIAM COWPER was born in 1731, at Great Berkhampstead, Herts; but in the early part of his life, he displayed none of that poetic genius which usually shines forth in those who pay their adoration to the Muses; nor was it until he had considerably passed the meridian of his days that the public had an opportunity of knowing him as a poet of distinguished excellence. Dr. John Cowper, Rector of Berkhampstead, and nephew of the Lord Chancellor Cowper, was his father; under whose tuition William made some progress in the rudiments of literature; but the great classical knowledge, and the correct taste for which he afterwards became celebrated, were acquired at Westminster School. Contrary, however, to the effect generally produced on youth by being educated at a public school, it appears that Cowper never became possessed of that confident and undaunted spirit which is there so often generated; but, from his poem entitled “ Tirocinium," that the impressions made upon his mind from what he witnessed in this place, were such as gave him a permanent dislike to the system of public education. Soon after his leaving Westminster, he was articled to a solicitor in London

for three years; but so far from studying the law, he spent the greatest part of his time with a relation, where he and the future Lord Chancellor (Lord Thur. low) spent their time, according to his own expression, "in giggling, and making giggle.” At the expi. ration of his time with the solicitor, he took chambers in the Temple, but his time was still little employed on the law, and was rather engaged in classi. cal pursuits.

So timid was the disposition of Cowper, and so very weak his spirits, that when his friends had procured him a nomination to the offices of reading-clerk and clerk of the Private Committees in the House of Lords, he shrunk with such terror from the idea of making his appearance before the most august assembly in the nation, that, after a violent struggle with himself, he resigned his intended employment, and with it all his prospects in life. In fact, he became completely deranged ; and in this situation was placed, in December, 1763, about the 32d year of his age, with Dr. Cotton, an amiable and worthy physician at St. Alban's. This agitation of his mind is placed by some who have mentioned it to the account of a deep consideration of his state in a religious view, in which the terrors of eternal judgment so much overpowered his faculties, that he remained seven months in momentary expectation of being plunged into final mi. sery. Mr. Johnson, however, a near relation, has taken pains to prove to demonstration, that these views of his condition were so far from producing such an cffect, that they ought to be regarded as his sole con. solation. It appears, however, that his mind had acquired such an indelible tinge of melancholy, that his whole successive life was passed with little more than intervals of comfort between long paroxysms of settled despondency.

After a residence of a year and a half with Dr. Cotton, he spent part of his time at the house of his relation, Earl Cowper, and part at Huntingdon, with his intimate friend, the Rev. Mr. Unwin. The death of the latter caused his widow to remove to Olney, in Buckinghamshire, which was thenceforth the principal place of Cowper's residence. At Olney he contracted a close friendship with the Rev. Mr. Newton, then minister there, and since rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London, whose religious opinions were in unison with his own. To a collection of hymns published by him, Cowper contributed a considerable number of his own composition. He first became known to the public as a poet by a volume printed in 1782; the contents of which, if they did not at once place him high in the scale of poetic excellence, sufficiently establisbed his claim to originality. Its topics are, “ Table Talk,” “ Error," “ Truth," “ Expostulation," " Hope," “ Charity,"

," “ Conversation,” and “ Retirement;" all treated upon religious principles, and not without a considerable tinge of that rigour and austerity which belonged to his system. These pieces are written in rhymed heroics, and the style, though often prosaic, is never flat or insipid; and sometimes the true poet breaks through, in a vein of vigorous and lively description.

His next volume, published in 1785, introduced bis name to all the lovers of poetry, and gave him at least an equality of reputation with any of his contemporaries. It consists of a poem in six books, entitled “The Task;" alluding to the injunction of a lady to write a piece in blank verse, for the subject of which