William Cowper was born at Great Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire, England,
in 1731. He was educated first at a private school and afterwards at
Westminster in London. He studied law, but his progress in the
profession was blocked because of an attack of insanity brought on in
1763 by nervousness over an oral examination for a clerkship in the
House of Commons. After fifteen months he recovered and went to live at
Huntingdon, where he met the Unwin family and began what was to be a
lifelong friendship with Mrs. Unwin. Upon Mr. Unwin's death in 1767,
Cowper moved with Mrs. Unwin to Olney, passing a secluded life there
until 1786. In 1773 he suffered a second attack of melancholia, which
lasted sixteen months. Soon after his recovery he coöperated with the
Rev. John Newton in writing the well-known _Olney Hymns_ (1779). In 1782
he published his first volume of poems, and a second volume followed in
1785, containing _The Task_, _Tirocinium_, and the ballad of _John
Gilpin_. A translation of Homer was completed in 1791. After 1791 his
reason became hopelessly deranged, and he passed the time until his
death in 1800 in utter misery.
Cowper was a man of kind and gentle character, a lover of nature in her
milder aspects, and especially fond of animals. As one of the
forerunners of the so-called Romantic movement in English poetry, his
name is significant. Though at his best in work of a descriptive or
satiric kind, he was also gifted with a subtle humor which appears
frequently in many short tales and ballads. A good biography of Cowper
is that by Goldwin Smith in the English Men of Letters Series.