COWPER, ILLUSTRATED BY A SERIES OF VIEWS, IN, OR NEAR, THE PARK OF WESTON-UNDERWOOD, BUCKS. ACCOMPANIED WITH COPIOUS DESCRIPTIONS, AND A BRIEF SKETCH LONDON: Printed by J. Swan, Angel Street, Newgate Street, AND PUBLISHED BY VERNOR AND HOOD, POULTRY; CHAPEL STREET, PENTONVILLE. 1803. English Dobell 8-18-44 50625 SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF COWPER. to AMONG the literary characters that, in the present age, have attained celebrity by the extent of their genius and excellence of their productions, must be ranked the poet Cowper; who, uniting piety to talent, and devotion to principle, employed the graces of poesy to strengthen the bands of morality, and give energy the precepts which direct the heart to religion and to virtue. The general tendency of his writings is, undoubtedly, to excite and give permanence to the feelings which promote reflection, and incline the thoughts to another and a better state; yet, though chiefly emanating from this principle, they exhibit a variety seldom the produce of a single mind; and we cannot but admire the versatility of his powers, which, engaged in all the diversity of diction, was in all equally successful. WILLIAM COWPER, the subject of the present sketch, was born on the 26th of November, N. S. 1731; his father, the Rev. John Cowper, D. D. was rector of Great Berkhampstead, in Hertfordshire, and chaplain to King George II. His grandfather, Spencer Cowper, was appointed chief judge of Chester in 1717: he afterwards became a judge in the court of Common Pleas; and the family may be traced, of respectable rank, through many ages. The poet's mother was Ann, the daughter of Roger Donne, esq. of Ludham Hall, in Norfolk, who died when her son William was about six years old; and her early death, it is presumed, contributed in a great degree to the dark colouring of his subsequent life; for, though bereft of her at so tender an age, her maternal affection left such impressive traces on his memory as were never eradicated, and the sight of her picture, nearly fifty years afterwards, occasioned one of his most exquisite poems, in which he celebrates, with ardor, this guardian of his early years. When Cowper first quitted the house of his surviving |