534 



COWLEY 



COWPER 



complete edition ( 1881 ). See Sprat's Life of 

 Cowley (1668), and Johnson's Lives of the Poets.' 



Cowley, HANNAH (1743-1809), wrote thirteen 

 lively dramatic works, including The Belle's Strat- 

 agem (1782), and several volumes of feeble verse. 

 She was attacked along with the other Delia 

 Cruscans by Gifford in the Baviad and Mceviad. 



Cowley, HENRY RICHARD CHARLES WELLES- 

 LEY, EARL, diplomatist, was born June 17, 1804\ 

 His father, the first Baron Cowley, was a younger 

 brother of the great Duke of Wellington. He 

 was educated at Eton, and at twenty began a 

 long career as a diplomatist by becoming an 

 attache at Vienna. He was in succession secre- 

 tary and ambassador at Constantinople, minister- 

 plenipotentiary to Switzerland (1848), to the 

 Germanic Confederation (1851), and in 1852 suc- 

 ceeded the Marquis of Normanby as ambassador at 

 Paris, a position which he held with rare tact and 

 temper throughout all the difficulties that occurred 

 until his resignation in 1867. With Clarendon he 

 represented Great Britain at the Paris Congress of 

 1856, and in 1860, with Cobden, he arranged the 

 commercial treaty between France and England. 

 He succeeded to his father's title in 1847, was 

 created Viscount Dangan and Earl Cowley in 1857, 

 and made a K.G. in 1866. He died July 14, 1884. 



Cow-parsnip ( HeracUum ), a genus of Umbelli- 

 fer<e, of which one species (H. Sphondylium) is a 

 common and rank wayside weed, which, however, 

 when cut early in the season, affords a wholesome 

 fodder to pigs and cattle. H. sibiricum, a much 

 larger species, has been recommended for cultiva- 

 tion on account of the great quantity of herbage it 

 yields very early in the season, and with other 

 species ( H. giganteum, &c. ) it is also used with 

 much effect as a decorative plant. H. lanatum is 

 very common in North America. 



Cowper, WILLIAM, surgeon and anatomist, 

 was born at Petersfield, in Sussex, in 1666, settled 

 as a surgeon in London, and died 8th March 1709. 

 He made some new anatomical observations, not- 

 ably discovering the glands beneath the male 

 urethra called ' Cowper 's glands,' and published 

 The Anatomy of Humane Bodies ( 1698) and other 

 works. 



Cowper, WILLIAM, was born in 1731 at the 

 rectory of Great Berkhampstead, in the county of 

 Hertford. He was sent to Westminster School at 

 so early an age that all his impressions were pain- 

 ful, and he thus conceived a hatred of public 

 schools which was never modified. He complains 

 that there he became an adept 'in the infernal 

 art of lying,' an art which we could hardly assert 

 either to be extinct in our public schools at the 

 present time, or to be or ever to have been entirely 

 confined to them. Among his schoolfellows were 

 Churchill the poet, and Warren Hastings ; and 

 for these two at least he seems to have maintained 

 a lasting affection. On leaving school he was 

 articled to an attorney named Chapman, with 

 whom he idled away his time for several years. 

 One of his fellow-pupils there was Thurlow, who 

 in a jesting mood promised to give Cowper an 

 appointment when he should be Lord Chancellor. 

 The boyish ambition was verified, as every one 

 knows, but not the promise. Cowper was called 

 to the bar in 1754, and lived for some time the 

 ordinary life of a young man, not uncheerful, 

 though with occasional fits of depression. He 

 belonged to the 'Nonsense Club,' founded by 

 Bonnell Thornton and George Colman, and is sup- 

 posed to have contributed some short articles to 

 the Connoisseur, a paper started by them. He also 

 fell in love, during this period, with Theodora, the 

 daughter of his uncle Ashley Cowper, a lady who 

 seems to have had for him" a far deeper feeling 



than his essentially recipient nature could return. 

 Certainly he appears to have made no particular 

 effort to overcome his uncle's opposition to his 

 suit. In those days a well-connected young man 

 was more easily provided for than now, and a sine- 

 cure appointment, as ' Commissioner of Bankrupts,' 

 gave Cowper a certain independence, which he 

 enjoyed tranquilly, relying on the influence of his 

 relations to promote him further, an expectation 

 which they on their side did all they could to fulfil. 

 His cousin, Major Cowper, had the right (extra- 

 ordinary to hear of nowadays) of appointing to 

 the office of Clerk to the Journals of the House 

 of Lords, and also to the joint offices of ' read- 

 ing clerk and clerk of the committees' to the 

 same august assembly. All these appointments 

 happened to fall vacant at the same time (1763). 

 Major Cowper wished his cousin to take the latter 

 and more valuable office, but Cowper in one of his 

 fits of self-depreciation, preferred the other, which 

 was found eventually to involve a so-called ex- 

 amination as to his fitness for the office, meaning 

 in fact only an appearance before the bar of the 

 House. The idea of this appearance unmanned 

 him altogether. A fixed idea, the well-known fore- 

 runner of madness, that every one was hostile to 

 him, gradually took possession of his mind ; and 

 the horror grew by continual brooding, until suicide 

 seemed the only way of escape. He several times 

 attempted to make away with himself, and on one 

 occasion at least was only saved by a fortunate 

 accident. When his friends were finally made 

 aware of his condition, they gave up at once a pro- 

 ject so evidently impracticable ; but Cowper's mind 

 was permanently unhinged. He fell into a state of 

 religious despair as to the consequences of the 

 crime he had almost committed, in the height of 

 which his misery found vent in the composition of 

 a copy of Sapphics, in which he describes himself 

 as ' damned below Judas, more abhorred than he 

 was,' and again, ' man disavows and Deity dis- 

 owns me.' 



It was found necessary to remove him to a private 

 asylum at St Albans, where he was gradually re- 

 stored to health by judicious treatment. After 

 this, in June 1765, he drifted to the quiet town of 

 Huntingdon, where he made acquaintance with an 

 amiable and religious family to which he was at 

 once attracted, and in which he was soon accepted 

 as an inmate. The head of the family, Mr Morley 

 Unwin, was a clergyman, but retired from active 

 work, and with his wife and two children lived 

 a life of almost perpetual devotion, into which 

 Cowper plunged, spending most of his time 

 in religious exercises of various kinds, and corre- 

 spondence on religious subjects. Cowper continued 

 to reside with Mrs Unwin after her husband's death 

 (July 1767), but they soon removed to Olney in 

 Buckinghamshire, where the famous John Newton 

 was curate. This remarkable man soon acquired 

 the most complete influence over the gentle invalid ; 

 and, under Newton, Cowper worked among the 

 poor of his friend's parish, devoting his whole time 

 to pious exercises and good works. Owing, per- 

 haps, to these exertions, and to the unbroken 

 monotony of the atmosphere, signs of his former 

 madness began to reappear, and in 1773 it burst out. 

 He was at the time in Newton's vicarage, and here 

 he remained for more than a year, refusing to 

 return to his own house though it was but next 

 door. After his recovery (which was never com- 

 plete) he lost we might almost say, though it 

 seems cruel, he was delivered from the companion- 

 ship of Newton, who was presented in 1779 to the 

 rectory of St Mary Woolnoth. The effect of his 

 departure on Cowper was miraculous ; whether 

 Newton, in his intense enthusiasm miscalculated 

 his friend's powers, or whether he was only ignorant 



