Westminster School, where he soon became remarkable for his powers of
versification. At ten years old he wrote the _Tragical History of
Pyramus and Thisbe_, and soon afterwards _Constantia and Philetus_, and
before he was fifteen a volume of his poems was actually published. In
1636 he went to the University of Cambridge, where, without neglecting
his studies, he continued his poetical pursuits, and wrote a play called
_Love’s Riddle_, which he dedicated to Sir Kenelm Digby (the fashionable
patron of the day), as also a Latin comedy, inscribed to the Master of
his College. Cowley was expelled from Cambridge on account of his
adherence to the King’s party, and took shelter at St. John’s College,
Oxford. A satire which he wrote about this time, entitled _The Puritan
and the Papist_, gained him the favour of the Royalists, and especially
of Lord Falkland, who made him known and welcomed at Court. When Queen
Henrietta Maria went to France, Cowley followed her fortunes, and,
becoming Secretary to Lord Jermyn, was employed in correspondence of the
most confidential nature, such as communications between the Royalists
in England and those in France, and private letters between King Charles
I. and his Queen. He was indefatigable in his labours, and would cipher
and decipher far into the night, yet finding time for poetical
compositions in the midst of such arduous work. He produced an amorous
drama, entitled _The Mistress_, for he considered that no man was worthy
of the name of poet till he had paid his tribute to Love.
In 1656 he went over on a mission to England, to inquire and report on
the political state of affairs; but the Parliamentarians were on his
track, and he was thrown into prison, and only set free on the payment
of a considerable ransom, which was generously advanced by a friend. He
became a Doctor of Medicine at Oxford, but does not appear to have
practised in that capacity, though in the early days of the Royal
Society, just founded at Oxford, and not yet translated to London, the
poet figured as ‘Dr. Cowley.’ He made a pilgrimage to Kent, and in the
fair fields of ‘England’s garden’ he studied botany, and gathered
materials which led to the composition of several Latin poems treating
of trees, herbs, and flowers, and their peculiar qualities.
Cowley was destined to great mortification and disappointment at the
Restoration, being scarcely noticed by the King. It is supposed that a
faction had been formed against him, by which his hopes of obtaining the
Mastership of the Savoy, that had been promised him both by Charles II.
and his father before him, were frustrated. The ill success of his
comedy, _The Guardian_, when put upon the stage, was another source of
mortification. There was a spiteful rumour set about, that the drama was
intended as a satire on the Royalists, and the author was so
discomfited, hearing of its failure, that Dryden said he did not receive
the news with the calmness becoming so great a man. He wrote an Ode, in
which he designated himself as the ‘melancholy Cowley,’ and this
production brought down upon him a host of squibs and lampoons, on the
dejected ‘Savoy-missing Cowley,’ and the like. Disgusted with the outer
world, our poet languished for the retirement of a country life, and
settled at Chertsey, in Surrey. His friends the Earls of Arlington and
St. Albans (whom he had served when Lord Jermyn) procured him an office
which brought in a certain salary, ‘but,’ says Johnson, ‘he did not live
long to enjoy the pleasure, or suffer the weariness, of solitude.’
He died at Chertsey in 1667. He was the author of numerous works, which
are little read at the present day, although the name of Abraham Cowley
ranks high in literature. He was at the University with Milton, but the
two poets differed as much in the quality of their writings as in the
bias of their political views. The Duke of Buckingham, on hearing the
news of Cowley’s death, said he had not left behind him as honest a man
in England. He erected a monument to the poet’s memory in Westminster
Abbey. We find in John Evelyn’s Diary: ‘I heard the sad news of the
death of Abraham Cowley, that incomparable poet and virtuous man, Aug.
1667.—Went to Cowley’s funerall, whose corpse lay at Wallingford House,
and was thence conveyed to Westminster Abbey in a hearse with six
horses, and all decency. Neere a hundred coaches of noblemen and persons
of qualitie following; among these all the witts of the towne, divers
bishops and cleargymen. He was interred neere Geoffrey Chaucer and
Spenser. A goodly monument is since erected to his memorie.’ Sir William
Cowper was much attached to Cowley, and had his portrait painted
especially for his own gallery.
------------------
_No. 6._
JAMES NORTHCOTE, R.A.
_Dark dress. White hair._
BORN 1746, DIED 1831.
BY HIMSELF.
THE son of a watchmaker, he was born at Plymouth, and, like his
illustrious fellow-townsman, showed an early enthusiasm for art, and a
distaste for any other occupation. But his father was prudent, and bound
his son apprentice to himself, allowing him no money, and discouraging
in every possible manner the boy’s artistic tendencies. They were too
strong to be repressed. Young James gave all his spare time to the study
of drawing, and, having scraped together five guineas, he doubled the
sum by the sale of a print of the new assembly rooms and bathing-place
at Plymouth, from one of his own Indian ink sketches. Armed with this
large fortune, he plotted a secret journey to London with his elder
brother Samuel; his only confidants being Dr. Mudge and a Mr. Tolcher,
both Plymouth men, and friends of Sir Joshua Reynolds, the newly-elected
President of the Royal Academy, to whom they gave James letters of
introduction. The brothers set forth on their pilgrimage one fine May
morning, being Whit-Sunday; and the younger tells us that when they
arrived on the hill and looked homewards, Samuel felt some regret—James
nothing but satisfaction.
The travellers performed the whole of the journey on foot, with a rare
lift on the top of a stage-coach; sleeping wherever they could: in small
ale-houses, by the wayside, sometimes in haylofts, and even under
hedgerows. The new President received the young aspirant with the
greatest kindness, and installed him in his own house. Samuel Northcote
soon returned home, but James wrote to a friend in Devonshire, in
raptures with his new domicile. ‘The house,’ he says, ‘is to me a
paradise; all the family behave with the greatest kindness, especially
Sir Joshua’s two pupils. Miss Reynolds has promised to show me her
paintings, for she paints very fine, both history and portraits. Sir
Joshua is so much occupied that I seldom see him; but, when I find him
at liberty, I will ask his advice for future guidance, and whether there
will be any chance of my eventually gaining a subsistence in London, by
portrait-painting.’ The master soon found out that his new pupil was
earnest and industrious, and it was arranged that Northcote should
remain in the President’s service for five years. The hall in which he
worked was adjacent to his master’s sitting-room, and he was both amused
and edified by overhearing the conversations of such men as Burke,
Johnson, Garrick, etc. He worked diligently, copying Sir Joshua’s
pictures, studying the human form—drapery, etc.,—persuading the
housemaids to sit to him, and working as a student at the Academy. He
tells an amusing incident of Reynolds’s favourite macaw, which had a
violent hatred for one of the maid-servants in the house, whom Northcote
had painted. It flew furiously at the portrait, pecking the face with
its beak. We might be inclined to suspect the artist of inventing this
implied compliment to his own handiwork, were we not also assured that
Sir Joshua tried the experiment of putting the portrait in view of the
bird, who invariably swooped down on the painted enemy. The maid’s
crime, we believe, consisted in cleaning out the cage.
Northcote began to exhibit on his own account in 1774, and became
eventually A.R.A. and R.A. Samuel Northcote met Sir Joshua on one of his
visits to Plymouth, at the house of their common friend, Dr. Mudge, and
writes to his brother to tell him the President had spoken of him in
very satisfactory terms. When the five years’ apprenticeship was nearly
over, Northcote took leave of his master. He gives rather a tedious
account of the interview, in which he announced his determination, but
ends the paragraph by saying ‘it was of course impossible to leave a
house, where he had received so much kindness, without regret; it is a
melancholy reflection, even at this moment, when one considers the
ravages a few short years have made in that unparalleled society which
shone at his table, now all gone.’
On leaving London, our painter went into Devonshire, made some money by
his portraits, and then proceeded to Italy alone, ignorant, as he was,
of one word of the language. He spent his time in copying the Italian
masters, more especially the works of Titian; returned from Rome to
England _via_ Flanders, and again had recourse to portrait-painting,
first in his native county, and afterwards in London, where he settled.
About this time the scheme for the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery was
started, making a great sensation, and Northcote gained much κυδος for
his contributions to that work, more especially ‘The Princes in the
Tower,’ which furnished Chantry with the idea for his beautiful and
touching monument in Lichfield Cathedral. Northcote took great delight
in this work, as his bias had always led him to historical and fancy
subjects. His sacred pictures were not much admired, and his plagiarism
of Hogarth, which was a species of parody on the great works of that
great man, gained him no popularity. An answer of his amused Sir Joshua
much, on one occasion. When the President asked him how it chanced that
the Prince of Wales so often mentioned him, ‘I was not aware you even
knew him?’ ‘Well,’ replied James, ‘I know very little of him, or he of
me; it is only his bragging way.’
His conversations were sufficiently esteemed to be recorded by Hazlitt,
his friend and constant companion. By nature Northcote was intelligent,
energetic, and industrious; he triumphed over the disadvantages of an
imperfect education, and knew how to benefit by his opportunities. We
have never read his Life of Sir Joshua, but by the numerous extracts
which Leslie and Taylor give us, it would appear he was scarcely a
worthy biographer of so great a man. He resided for nearly half a
century in Argyll Street, London, his sister keeping his house, and died
there in his eighty-sixth year, leaving a good fortune, the product of
his labours.
------------------
_No. 7._
SIR WILLIAM COWPER, FIRST BARONET.
_Black dress. White collar. Pointed beard. Moustaches._
BORN 1582, DIED 1664.
BY CORNELIUS JANSEN.
DESCENDED from Robert Cowper, who, in the reign of Henry V., in
consideration of his good services, received the sum of _sixpence a day_
for life out of the King’s rents in the county of North Hants. William
Cowper, in the reign of Henry VIII., married Margaret, daughter of
Thomas Spencer, of St. Peter’s, Cornhill, and this lady’s maiden name
has been perpetuated in the Cowper family to the present day.
Sir William, of whom we are treating, was grandson of the above, and
eldest surviving son of John Cowper and Elizabeth Ironside of Lincoln,
his wife, who had five sons and four daughters. William succeeded his
father, and was seated at Ratling Court, in Kent. He was created a
Baronet of Nova Scotia, afterwards of England, and subsequently knighted
by King Charles I. at Theobalds. He was also appointed Collector of
Imposts on strangers in the Port of London; and when the civil war
began, being a zealous Royalist, he was imprisoned in Ely House,
Holborn, together with his eldest son. But, says Collins, Sir William
outlived all his troubles, and went to dwell at his castle at Hertford,
where he gained the hearts of his neighbours by the cordiality of his
manners and his generous hospitality, while his name was beloved in the
country round for the Christian acts of charity and kindness in which he
took delight. Neither was it the formal dispensation of alms alone, for
Sir William loved to visit and comfort his poorer neighbours in their
own dwellings. He married Martha, daughter of John Masters, of East
Langdon, county Kent, and sister to Sir Edward Masters, Knight, by whom
he had six sons and three daughters. Sir William was buried in the
cloister of St. Michael’s, Cornhill, beside his parents, who lie there
beneath ‘a goodly monument.’
Cornelius Jansen, who painted Sir William’s portrait, and that of his
son John, was a well-known Flemish painter, who resided for many years
in London, and afterwards in Kent, near Ratling Court, where many
gentlemen in the neighbourhood sat to him.
------------------
_No. 8._
JOHN COWPER.
_Black dress. White shirt. Long brown hair._
BY CORNELIUS JANSEN.
HE was the eldest son of Sir William Cowper, first Baronet, by the
sister of Sir Edward Masters, Knight. He was entered at Lincoln’s Inn as
a law student, and married Martha, daughter of John Hewkley of London,
merchant, by whom he had one son, William, who succeeded his
grandfather, and a daughter, who died young. John Cowper was a staunch
Royalist, and shared his father’s captivity on that account. He died
during his imprisonment. The following letter, addressed to him, in the
year 1634, when on the point of starting for his travels, appears to us
worthy of insertion, from the manliness and rectitude of its counsels,
enhanced by the quaint diction which marked the period:—
_Feb. 25, 1634._—A remembrance to my Son, John Cowper, at his
going towards y^e Parts beyond y^e Seas.
You must remember how, that from your Birth to this day, I have
taken care for your Education. And you have hitherto been within
my Eye, and under Tutors, and Governours, and that now, You,
alone, Launch forth into y^e World by your Self, to be steered
and governed. Many Storms, and Rubbs, many fair and pleasing
Baits, shall you meet withal, Company most infectious and
dangerous, so that your Cheif Safety must be y^e Protection of
God Almighty, whom you must daily importune to direct your
wayes, as hitherto I doubt not but you have done, Else your
Carriage and course of Life had not been so commendable.
If this Golden time of your Youth be spent unprofitably, y^e
whole Harvest of your Life will be Weeds: if well husbanded, it
will yeild you a profitable return in y^e whole Course of your
Life.
The time you remain there I would have Spent as followeth,—
1. Dayly Praying to Almighty God for his Blessing on you.
2. To endeavour to attain y^e French and Italian Tongues.
3. To mend your Writing and learn Arithmetick.
As for Horsemanship, and other qualities of a Gentleman, a
smatch would doe well.
And having attained to knowledge, if you doe not alwayes
remember, both in discourse and Pashion, not to be transported
with hast, But to Think before What you intend to speak, and
then treatably to deliver it, with a distinct and Audable
Voice, all your labor and pains is Lost. For altho you have
indifferently well reformed it, yet it is Defective, and care
yet may Perfect you in your speech.
Your Loving Father, careful of your Good,
W. COWPER.
To my Son, John Cowper.
------------------
_No. 9._
SIR WILLIAM COWPER, SECOND BARONET.
_Light brown coat. White cravat._
BY SIR PETER LELY.
THE son of John Cowper, by Martha Hewkley, succeeded to the baronetcy
and estates on the death of his grandfather, served in the last two
Parliaments of Charles II., as Member for Hertford; and, in 1680,
presented reasons (with many other Members of both Houses) for the
indictment of James, Duke of York, for not coming to church. After the
Revolution, he again sat for Hertford in three different Parliaments.
His wife was Sarah, daughter of Sir Samuel Holled, by whom he left two
sons,—William, first Earl Cowper, Lord Chancellor, and Spencer.
------------------
_No. 10._
SPENCER COWPER.
_Tawny coat. Loose cravat._
DIED 1728.
HE was the second son of Sir William Cowper, second Baronet, by the
daughter of Sir Samuel Holled, consequently the brother of William,
afterwards the first Lord Cowper; and we have alluded, in the life of
the Chancellor, to the deep attachment which subsisted between these
two brothers. They were educated at the same school, selected the same
profession, and, when travelling the same Circuit, almost invariably
inhabited the same lodgings.
Sir William Cowper and his eldest son and namesake had both been
returned in 1695 for Hertford, after a sharp contest, for the Tory
element, though in the minority, was strong in that borough. Among the
most zealous of their supporters was one Stout, a Quaker by creed, a
maltster by trade; and he had been most instrumental in furthering the
election of father and son. At all events, so thought Sir William, who
did not discontinue his friendly relations with the widow and only
daughter of Samuel Stout after the good Quaker’s death. The two ladies
were frequently invited to Sir William’s London house in Hatton
Garden, and the visit occasionally returned at Mrs. Stout’s residence
in the town of Hertford. Moreover, Mistress Sarah, to whom her father
had left a good fortune, employed Spencer Cowper as her man of
business, and consulted him in all her financial concerns.
Unfortunately it soon became painfully evident to all concerned that
this beautiful, imaginative, and essentially excitable girl had formed
a deep attachment for the young lawyer, already the husband of another
woman.
‘But he, like an honest man,’ says Lord Macaulay, ‘took no advantage
of her unhappy state of mind.’ A frightful catastrophe, however, was
impending. On the 14th March 1699, the day after the opening of the
Spring Assizes, the town and neighbourhood of Hertford were thrown
into a state of excitement and consternation by the news that the body
of Sarah Stout had been found in the waters of the Priory river, which
flows through that town. Suspicion fell on Spencer Cowper, on the poor
plea that he was the last reported to have been in her company; but
his defence was so clear and satisfactory on the inquest, that a
verdict of suicide while in a state of temporary insanity was
recorded. William Cowper was not attending the Assizes, his
Parliamentary duties detaining him in London, but Spencer finished the
Circuit, in company with the judges, heavy-hearted indeed at the sad
fate of his pretty friend, but with no misgiving on his own account.
He little dreamed of the mischief which was hatching by the political
adversaries of the Cowper interest. A rumour was carefully promulgated
that Spencer had presumed on his intimacy with the fair Quaker, and
that Sarah had drowned herself to conceal her disgrace. But this
charge was proved to be unfounded. The next step taken by those who
wished to render the name of Cowper obnoxious in Hertford, was to
revive the cry of ‘Murder’ against Spencer, on the plea that the
position in which the body had been found precluded the possibility of
the girl having thrown herself into the water. Two ‘accomplices’ were
carefully ferreted out, in the persons of two attorneys, who had come
down to Hertford the day before the sad event; but these gentlemen
were left at large on bail, while the man, whose father and brother at
that moment represented Hertford, was thrown into prison for months,
to await the Summer Assizes.
The distress of his parents, and of the brother who dearly loved him,
may be well imagined, more especially as they were keenly alive to all
the adverse influences which were at work. When the eventful day of
the trial at length arrived, the town of Hertford—it might wellnigh be
said the whole of England,—was divided in favour of the Cowpers and
the Stouts; for so unwilling were the Quakers to let the imputation of
suicide rest on the memory of one of their members, that they most
earnestly desired to shift the blame on the young barrister, or, as he
afterwards said at his trial, to risk bringing three innocent men to
the gallows. We have good authority for affirming that the most
ignorant and densest of judges, Baron Hatsel by name, sat on the bench
that day, and that the prosecution was remarkable for the malignity
with which it was conducted. Their winning card, as they believed, was
the statement that the position in which the corpse had been found
floating, proved that the girl must have been murdered before she had
been thrown into the water. Medical evidence was brought forward by
the prosecution in support of this theory, as also that of two or
three sailors, who were put into the box. On the side of the defendant
appeared names which still live in medical annals,—William Cowper
(although no kinsman of his namesake), the most celebrated anatomist
then in England, and Samuel Garth, the great London physician and
rival of Hans Sloane. After what Macaulay terms ‘the superstitious
testimony of the forecastle,’ Baron Hatsel asked Dr. Garth what he
could say in reply. ‘My Lord,’ answered the physician drily, ‘I say
they are mistaken. I could find seamen in abundance who would swear
that they have known whistling raise the wind.’
This charge was disposed of; the body had drifted down to the
mill-dam, where it was discovered entangled and supported by stakes,
only a portion of the petticoat being visible. But the evidence of a
maid-servant of Mistress Stout produced great excitement in Court. She
told how the young barrister had arrived at the house of her mistress
the night before the poor girl’s death; of how he had dined with the
two ladies; how she had gone upstairs to prepare his bed, as he was
invited to sleep, leaving the young people together, her mistress
having retired early; how, when upstairs, she heard the house-door
slam, and, going down to the parlour, found it empty. At first she was
not alarmed, thinking Mistress Sarah had gone out for a stroll with
Mr. Cowper, and would soon be back; but as time went on, she became
very uneasy, and went and told her mistress. The two women sat up all
night watching and listening, but had not liked to take any further
steps, out of regard for Sarah’s reputation. They never saw her again
till she was brought up from the river drowned. Then followed the
ridiculous investigation of Cowper’s ‘accomplices,’ as they were
termed—two attorneys and a scrivener, who had come down from London
under very suspicious circumstances, _i.e._ to attend the Assizes; how
they were all in a room together shortly after eleven o’clock, very
wet, and in a great perspiration, and had been overheard to say,
‘Mistress Stout had behaved ill to her lover, but her courting days
would soon be over,’ to which communication was added the astounding
fact, that a piece of rope had been found in a cupboard adjoining the
sitting-room.
It was fortunate for Spencer Cowper, who was not allowed the
assistance of counsel, that his legal education, joined to a sense of
conscious innocence, made his defence comparatively easy to him; but
the task, on all accounts, must have been most distasteful and
repugnant to a man of his character and position. He rose with
dignity, and evinced great skill and decision of purpose in the manner
in which he cross-examined the witnesses, and exposed the motives of
sectarian and political animosity, which had been employed to weaken
the interest of Sir William Cowper and his eldest son. So far his
arguments were unhesitating,—he was now to be put to a harder test. He
assured the Court that he deeply deplored the course he was compelled
to take, but four lives were at stake, and he must, however
reluctantly, violate the confidence of the dead. He brought many
witnesses to substantiate the fact of the young Quaker having
cherished a fatal passion for him, although she knew him to be
married. When last in London, she had written to announce her
intention of visiting him at his chambers in the Temple, to prevent
which William Cowper had purposely said in her hearing that Spencer
had gone into the country on business. Disappointed of this
opportunity, Sarah wrote to invite him to stay at her mother’s house
at Hertford during the Spring Assizes, which invitation he declined,
having secured lodgings in the town. He also produced letters in which
the poor girl said, ‘I am glad you have not quite forgotten there is
such a person as myself,’ and, after hinting at what seemed
unkindness, she begs him ‘so to order your affairs as to be here as
soon as you can, which cannot be sooner than you are welcome.’