COWPER, WILLIAM, a distinguished modern poet, was born at Berkhamstead in Hertfordshire in the year 1732. His father, who was rector of the parish, was nephew to Lord Chancellor Cowper. Mr Cowper was educated at Westminster school; and in that celebrated seminary he acquired his classical knowledge. But it would appear from his poem, entitled "Tirocinium," that the impressions which he then received were not favourable to this system of education, and gave him a permanent dislike to public schools. Through family interest, the honourable and lucrative place of clerk to the house of lords had been provided for him; he was, therefore, entered at the Temple for the study of the law, in order to qualify him for it. In this situation his manners were amiable and decent; and though it is probable that he did not refuse to indulge in those pleasures which are usual among young men similarly situated, yet there seems no reason to suppose that he had any peculiar causes for self-accusation. His natural disposition was timid and diffident; his spirits were constitutionally weak, even to the borders of absolute unfitness for worldly concerns; so that when the time came for assuming that post to which he had been destined, he shrank 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 actually resigned the employment, and with it all his prospects in life. It appears to have been under the agitation of mind which this circumstance occasioned, and which threw him into a serious illness, that he was led to a deep consideration of his state in a religious view; and from the system he had adopted, this course of reflection excited in him the most alarming and distressful apprehensions. In vain did his theological friends set before him those encouraging views which the theory of christian justification is calculated to present, and which to many is the source of a confidence perhaps as excessive as their former fears; the natural disposition of his mind fitted it to receive all the horrors, without the consolations of his faith. We are told, that "the terror of eternal judgment overpowered and wholly disordered his faculties; and he remained seven months in a continual expectation of being instantly plunged into final misery." In this shocking condition he became the subject of medical care, and he was placed in the receptacle for lunatics
Cowper. kept by Dr Cotton of St Alban's, an amiable and worthy physician, and the author of some well known poems. At length he recovered a degree of serenity; but his mind had acquired that indelible tinge of melancholy by which it was ever after characterised, and which rendered his whole life little more than a succession of intervals of comfort between long paroxysms of settled despondency. It is unnecessary to follow him through all his scenes of retirement. Part of his time was spent at the house of his relation, Earl Cowper, at Cole-green; and part at Huntingdon, with his intimate friend the reverend Mr Unwin. After the death of the latter, he removed with his widow to Olney in Buckinghamshire, which was thenceforth the principal place of his residence. The affectionate intimacy he enjoyed with this lady is strongly expressed in the following lines, which have probably been understood by most readers as expressive of a conjugal union:
—Witness, dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive
Fast lock'd in mine, with pleasure such as love
Confirm'd by long experience of thy worth
And well-tried virtues could alone inspire—
Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.