[1] A connexion has also been imagined with cow (O. Eng. _cu_; common
in Scandinavian languages, and of similar root to Skr. _go_, whence
also Gr. [Greek: bous], Lat. _bos_), the female bovine animal, on
account of its timidity.
COWDENBEATH, a police burgh, Fifeshire, Scotland, 5-3/4 m. N.E. of
Dunfermline by the North British railway. Pop. (1891) 4249; (1901) 7908.
The principal industry is coal-mining, and the public buildings include
churches, schools and a hall. Meetings in connexion with the adoption
and promulgation of the Covenant were held in the old parish church of
Beath.
COWELL, JOHN (1554-1611), English jurist, was born at Ernsborough,
Devonshire. He was educated at Eton, and King's College, Cambridge,
ultimately becoming professor of civil law in that university, and
master of Trinity Hall. In 1607 he compiled a law dictionary, _The
Interpreter_, in which he exalted the king's prerogative so much that he
was prosecuted before the House of Commons by Sir Edward Coke, and saved
from imprisonment only by the interposition of James I. His book was
burnt by order of the House of Commons. Dr Cowell also wrote a work
entitled _Institutiones Juris Anglicani_. He died at Oxford on the 11th
of October 1611.
COWEN, FREDERIC HYMEN (1852- ), English musical composer, was born at
Kingston, Jamaica, on the 29th of January 1852. At four years old he was
brought to England, where his father became treasurer to the opera at
Her Majesty's theatre, and private secretary to the earl of Dudley. His
first teacher was Henry Russell, and his first published composition
appeared when he was but six years old. He studied the piano with
Benedict, and composition with Goss; in 1865 he was at Leipzig under
Hauptmann, Moscheles, Reinecke and Plaidy. Returning home on the
outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War, he appeared as a composer for the
orchestra in an overture played at the Promenade Concerts at Covent
Garden in September 1866. In the following autumn he went to Berlin,
where he was under Kiel, at Stern's conservatorium. A symphony and a
piano concerto were given in St James's Hall in 1869, and from that time
Cowen has been recognized as primarily a composer, his talents as a
pianist being subordinate, although his public appearances were numerous
for some time afterwards. His cantata, _The Rose Maiden_, was given in
London in 1870, his second symphony by the Liverpool Philharmonic
Society in 1872, and his first festival work, _The Corsair_, in 1876 at
Birmingham. In that year his opera, _Pauline_, was given by the Carl
Rosa Company with moderate success. In 1884 he conducted five concerts
of the Philharmonic Society, and in 1888, on the resignation of Arthur
Sullivan, became the regular conductor of the society, resigning the
post in 1892. In the year of his appointment, 1888, he went to Melbourne
as the conductor of the daily concerts given in connexion with the
Exhibition there. In 1896 Cowen was appointed conductor of the Liverpool
Philharmonic Society and of the Manchester orchestra, in succession to
Sir Charles Halle. In 1899 he was reappointed conductor of the
Philharmonic Society. His works include:--Operettas: _Garibaldi_ (1860)
and _One Too Many_ (1874); operas: _Pauline_ (1876), _Thorgrim_ (1890),
_Signa_ (Milan, 1893), and _Harold_ (1895); oratorios: _The Deluge_
(1878), _St Ursula_ (1881), _Ruth_ (1887), _Song of Thanksgiving_
(1888), _The Transfiguration_ (1895); cantatas: _The Rose Maiden_
(1870), _The Corsair_ (1876), _The Sleeping Beauty_ (1885), _St John's
Eve_ (1889), _The Water Lily_ (1893), _Ode to the Passions_ (1898),
besides short cantatas for female voices; a large number of songs,
ranging from the popular "ballad" to more artistic lyrics, anthems,
part-songs, duets, &c.; six symphonies, among which No 3, the
"Scandinavian," has had the greatest success; four overtures; suites,
_The Language of Flowers_ (1880), _In the Olden Times_ (1883), _In
Fairyland_ (1896); four English dances (1896); a concerto for piano and
orchestra, and a fantasia for the same played by M. Paderewski (1900); a
quartet in C minor, and a trio in A minor, both early works; pianoforte
pieces, &c. Cowen is never so happy as when treating of fantastic or
fairy subjects; and whether in his cantatas for female voices, his
charming _Sleeping Beauty_, his _Water Lily_ or his pretty overture,
_The Butterfly's Ball_ (1901), he succeeds wonderfully in finding
graceful expression for the poetical idea. His dance music, such as is
to be found in various orchestral suites, is refined, original and
admirably instrumented; and if he is seldom as successful in portraying
the graver aspects of emotion, the vogue of his semi-sacred songs has
been widespread.
COWEN, JOSEPH (1831-1900), English politician and journalist, son of Sir
Joseph Cowen, a prominent citizen and mine-owner of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
was born in 1831, and was educated at Edinburgh University. In 1874 he
was elected member of parliament for the borough on the death of his
father, who had held the seat as a Liberal since 1865. Joseph Cowen was
at that time a strong Radical on domestic questions, an advocate of
co-operation, an admirer of Garibaldi, Mazzini and Kossuth, a
sympathizer with Irish Nationalism, and one who in speech, dress and
manner identified himself with the North-country mining class. Short in
stature and uncouth in appearance, his individuality first shocked and
then by its earnestness impressed the House of Commons; and his sturdy
independence of party ties, combined with a gift of rough but genuine
eloquence (of which his speech on the Royal Title Bill of 1876 was an
example), rapidly made him one of the best-known public men in the
country. He was, moreover, an Imperialist and a Colonial Federationist
at a time when Liberalism was tied and bound to the Manchester
traditions; and, to the consternation of the official wire-pullers, he
vigorously supported Disraeli's foreign policy, and in 1881 opposed the
Gladstonian settlement with the Boers. His independence (which his
detractors attributed in some degree to his alleged susceptibility to
Tory compliments) brought him into collision both with the Liberal
caucus and with the party organization in Newcastle itself, but Cowen's
personal popularity and his remarkable powers as an orator triumphed in
his own birthplace, and he was again elected in 1885 in spite of Liberal
opposition. Shortly afterwards, however, he retired both from parliament
and from public life, professing his disgust at the party intrigues of
politics, and devoted himself to conducting his newspaper, the
_Newcastle Daily Chronicle_, and to his private business as a
mine-owner. In this capacity he exercised a wide influence on local
opinion, and the revolt of the Newcastle electorate in later years
against doctrinaire Radicalism was largely due to his constant preaching
of a broader outlook on national affairs. He continued behind the scenes
to play a powerful part in forming North-country opinion until his death
on the 18th of February 1900.
His letters were published by his daughter in 1909.
COWES, a seaport and watering-place in the Isle of Wight, England, 12 m.
S.S.E. of Southampton. West Cowes is separated from East Cowes by the
picturesque estuary of the river Medina, the two towns (each of which is
an urban district) lying on opposite sides of its mouth at the apex of
the northern coast of the island. Pop. (1901) West Cowes, 8652; East
Cowes, 3196. The port between them is the chief on the island, and is
the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron (founded in 1812); it is in
regular steamship communication with Southampton and Portsmouth. West
Cowes is served by the Isle of Wight Central railway. A steam ferry and
a floating bridge across the Medina, here 600 yds. broad, unite the
towns. Behind the harbour the houses rise picturesquely on gentle wooded
slopes, and numerous villas adorn the vicinity. The towns owe their
origin to two forts or castles, built on each side of the mouth of the
Medina by Henry VIII. in 1540, for the defence of the coast; the eastern
one has disappeared, but the west castle remains and is used as the
club-house of the Yacht Squadron. The marine parade of West Cowes, and
the public promenade called the Green, are close to the castle. The
industrial population is chiefly employed in the shipbuilding yards, in
the manufacture of ships' fittings, and in engineering works. The
harbour is under an elective body of commissioners. On the opposite side
of the Medina a broad carriageway leads to East Cowes Castle, a handsome
edifice built by John Nash, the favourite architect of George IV., in
1798, and immediately beyond it are the grounds surrounding Osborne
House (see OSBORNE), built in 1845 after the property had been purchased
by Queen Victoria, the church of St Mildred, Whippingham, lying a mile
to the south.
COWL (through Fr. _coule_, from Lat. _cucullus_ or _cuculla_, a
covering; the word is found in various forms in most European languages,
cf. Ger. _Kugel_ or _Kigel_, Dutch _kovel_, Irish _cochal_ or _cochull_;
the ultimate origin may be the root _kal_, found in Lat. _clam_,
secretly, and Gr. [Greek: kalyptein], to hide, cover up), an outer
garment worn by both sexes in the middle ages; a part of the monastic
dress, hence the phrase "to take the cowl," signifying entry upon the
religious life. The _cucullus_ worn by the early Egyptian anchorites was
a hood covering the head and neck. Later generations lengthened the
garment until it reached to the heels, and St Benedict issued a rule
restricting its length to two cubits. Chapter 55 of his _Institute_
prescribes the following dress in temperate climates: a cowl and tunic,
thick in winter and thin in summer, with a scapular for working hours
and shoes and stockings, all of simple material and make. In the 14th
century the cowl and the frock were frequently confounded, but the
council of Vienne defined the former as "a habit long and full without
sleeves," and the latter as "a long habit with long and wide sleeves."
While the term thus seems strictly to imply a hooded gown it is often
applied to the hood alone. It is also used to describe a loose vestment
worn over the frock in the winter season and during the night office.
The word "cowl" is also applied to a hood-shaped covering to a chimney
or ventilating shaft, to help down-draught, and to clear the up-current
of foul air (see VENTILATION).
COWLEY, ABRAHAM (1618-1667), English poet, was born in the city of
London late in 1618. His father, a wealthy citizen, who died shortly
before his birth, was a stationer. His mother was wholly given to works
of devotion, but it happened that there lay in her parlour a copy of
_The Faery Queen_. This became the favourite reading of her son, and he
had twice devoured it all before he was sent to school. As early as
1628, that is, in his tenth year, he composed his _Tragicall History of
Piramus and Thisbe_, an epical romance written in a six-line stanza, of
his own invention. It is not too much to say that this work is the most
astonishing feat of imaginative precocity on record; it is marked by no
great faults of immaturity, and possesses constructive merits of a very
high order. Two years later the child wrote another and still more
ambitious poem, _Constantia and Philetus_, being sent about the same
time to Westminster school. Here he displayed the most extraordinary
mental precocity and versatility, and wrote in his thirteenth year yet
another poem, the _Elegy on the Death of Dudley, Lord Carlton_. These
three poems of considerable size, and some smaller ones, were collected
in 1633, and published in a volume entitled _Poetical Blossoms_,
dedicated to the head master of the school, and prefaced by many
laudatory verses by schoolfellows. The author at once became famous,
although he had not, even yet, completed his fifteenth year. His next
composition was a pastoral comedy, entitled _Love's Riddle_, a
marvellous production for a boy of sixteen, airy, correct and harmonious
in language, and rapid in movement. The style is not without resemblance
to that of Randolph, whose earliest works, however, were at that time
only just printed. In 1637 Cowley was elected into Trinity College,
Cambridge, where he betook himself with enthusiasm to the study of all
kinds of learning, and early distinguished himself as a ripe scholar. It
was about this time that he composed his scriptural epic on the history
of King David, one book of which still exists in the Latin original, the
rest being superseded in favour of an English version in four books,
called the _Davideis_, which he published a long time after. This his
most grave and important work is remarkable as having suggested to
Milton several points which he afterwards made use of. The epic, written
in a very dreary and turgid manner, but in good rhymed heroic verse,
deals with the adventures of King David from his boyhood to the smiting
of Amalek by Saul, where it abruptly closes. In 1638 _Love's Riddle_ and
a Latin comedy, the _Naufragium Joculare_, were printed, and in 1641 the
passage of Prince Charles through Cambridge gave occasion to the
production of another dramatic work, _The Guardian_, which was acted
before the royal visitor with much success. During the civil war this
play was privately performed at Dublin, but it was not printed till
1650. It is bright and amusing, in the style common to the "sons" of Ben
Jonson, the university wits who wrote more for the closet than the
public stage.
The learned quiet of the young poet's life was broken up by the Civil
War; he warmly espoused the royalist side. He became a fellow of Trinity
College, Cambridge, but was ejected by the Parliamentarians in 1643. He
made his way to Oxford, where he enjoyed the friendship of Lord
Falkland, and was tossed, in the tumult of affairs, into the personal
confidence of the royal family itself. After the battle of Marston Moor
he followed the queen to Paris, and the exile so commenced lasted twelve
years. This period was spent almost entirely in the royal service,
"bearing a share in the distresses of the royal family, or labouring in
their affairs. To this purpose he performed several dangerous journeys
into Jersey, Scotland, Flanders, Holland, or wherever else the king's
troubles required his attendance. But the chief testimony of his
fidelity was the laborious service he underwent in maintaining the
constant correspondence between the late king and the queen his wife. In
that weighty trust he behaved himself with indefatigable integrity and
unsuspected secrecy; for he ciphered and deciphered with his own hand
the greatest part of all the letters that passed between their
majesties, and managed a vast intelligence in many other parts, which
for some years together took up all his days, and two or three nights
every week." In spite of these labours he did not refrain from literary
industry. During his exile he met with the works of Pindar, and
determined to reproduce their lofty lyric passion in English. At the
same time he occupied himself in writing a history of the Civil War,
which he completed as far as the battle of Newbury, but unfortunately
afterwards destroyed. In 1647 a collection of his love verses, entitled
_The Mistress_, was published, and in the next year a volume of wretched
satires, _The Four Ages of England_, was brought out under his name,
with the composition of which he had nothing to do. In spite of the
troubles of the times, so fatal to poetic fame, his reputation steadily
increased, and when, on his return to England in 1656, he published a
volume of his collected poetical works, he found himself without a rival
in public esteem. This volume included the later works already
mentioned, the _Pindarique Odes_, the _Davideis_, the _Mistress_ and
some _Miscellanies_. Among the latter are to be found Cowley's most
vital pieces. This section of his works opens with the famous
aspiration--
"What shall I do to be for ever known,
And make the coming age my own?"
It contains elegies on Wotton, Vandyck, Falkland, William Hervey and
Crashaw, the last two being among Cowley's finest poems, brilliant,
sonorous and original; the amusing ballad of _The Chronicle_, giving a
fictitious catalogue of his supposed amours; various gnomic pieces; and
some charming paraphrases from Anacreon. The _Pindarique Odes_ contain
weighty lines and passages, buried in irregular and inharmonious masses
of moral verbiage. Not more than one or two are good throughout, but a
full posy of beauties may easily be culled from them. The long cadences
of the Alexandrines with which most of the strophes close, continued to
echo in English poetry from Dryden down to Gray, but the _Odes_
themselves, which were found to be obscure by the poet's contemporaries,
immediately fell into disesteem. _The Mistress_ was the most popular
poetic reading of the age, and is now the least read of all Cowley's
works. It was the last and most violent expression of the amatory
affectation of the 17th century, an affectation which had been endurable
in Donne and other early writers because it had been the vehicle of
sincere emotion, but was unendurable in Cowley because in him it
represented nothing but a perfunctory exercise, a mere exhibition of
literary calisthenics. He appears to have been of a cold, or at least of
a timid, disposition; in the face of these elaborately erotic volumes,
we are told that to the end of his days he never summoned up courage to
speak of love to a single woman in real life. The "Leonora" of _The
Chronicle_ is said to have been the only woman he ever loved, and she
married the brother of his biographer, Sprat.
Soon after his return to England he was seized in mistake for another
person, and only obtained his liberty on a bail of L1000. In 1658 he
revised and altered his play of _The Guardian_, and prepared it for the
press under the title of _The Cutter of Coleman Street_, but it did not
appear until 1663. Late in 1658 Oliver Cromwell died, and Cowley took
advantage of the confusion of affairs to escape to Paris, where he
remained until the Restoration brought him back in Charles's train. He
published in 1663 _Verses upon several occasions_, in which _The
Complaint_ is included.
Wearied with the broils and fatigues of a political life, Cowley
obtained permission to retire into the country; through his friend, Lord
St Albans, he obtained a property near Chertsey, and here, devoting
himself to the study of botany, and buried in his books, he lived in
comparative solitude until his death. He took a great and practical
interest in experimental science, and he was one of those who were most
prominent in advocating the foundation of an academy for the protection
of scientific enterprise. Cowley's pamphlet on _The Advancement of
Experimental Philosophy_, 1661, led directly to the foundation of the
Royal Society, to which body Cowley, in March 1667, at the suggestion of
Evelyn, addressed an ode which is the latest and one of the strongest of
his poems. He died in the Porch House, in Chertsey, on the 28th of July
1667, in consequence of having caught a cold while superintending his
farm-labourers in the meadows late on a summer evening. On the 3rd of
August Cowley was buried in Westminster Abbey beside the ashes of
Chaucer and Spenser, where in 1675 the duke of Buckingham erected a
monument to his memory. His _Poemata Latina_, including six books
"Plantarum," were printed in 1668.
Throughout their parallel lives the fame of Cowley completely eclipsed
that of Milton, but posterity instantly and finally reversed the
judgment of their contemporaries. The poetry of Cowley rapidly fell into
a neglect as unjust as the earlier popularity had been. As a prose
writer, especially as an essayist, he holds, and will not lose, a high
position in literature; as a poet it is hardly possible that he can
enjoy more than a very partial revival. The want of nature, the obvious
and awkward art, the defective melody of his poems, destroy the interest
that their ingenuity and occasional majesty would otherwise excite. He
had lofty views of the mission of a poet and an insatiable ambition, but
his chief claim to poetic life is the dowry of sonorous lyric style
which he passed down to Dryden and his successors of the 18th century.
The works of Cowley were collected in 1668, when Thomas Sprat,
afterwards bishop of Rochester, brought out a splendid edition in
folio, to which he prefixed a graceful and elegant life of the poet.
There were many reprints of this collection, which formed the standard
edition till 1881, when it was superseded by A. B. Grosart's privately
printed edition in two volumes, for the Chertsey Worthies library. The
Essays have frequently been revived with approval. (E. G.)
COWLEY, HANNAH (1743-1809), English dramatist and poet, daughter of
Philip Parkhouse, a bookseller at Tiverton, Devonshire, was born in
1743. When about twenty-five years old she married Mr Cowley, of the
East India Company's service, who died in 1797. Some years after her
marriage, being at the theatre with her husband, she expressed the
opinion that she could write as good a piece as the one being performed,
and within a fortnight she had written her first play, _The Runaway_.
She sent it to Garrick, who produced it at Drury Lane in 1776. Between
then and 1795 she wrote twelve more plays, all of which (with one
exception) were produced at Drury Lane or Covent Garden; and _The
Belle's Stratagem_ (1782), with one or two others, still survives in the
list of acting plays. Among other, pieces were _Albina_, _Countess
Raimond_, _A Bold Stroke for a Husband_, _More Ways than One_, and _A
School for Greybeards, or The Mourning Bride_. Mrs Cowley was the author
of a number of indifferent poems, mainly historical, and under the name
of "Anna Matilda," which has since become proverbial, she carried on a
sentimental correspondence in the _World_ with Robert Merry. She died at
Tiverton on the 11th of March 1809.
COWLEY, HENRY RICHARD CHARLES WELLESLEY, 1ST EARL (1804-1884), British
diplomatist, was the eldest son of Henry Wellesley, 1st Baron Cowley
(1773-1847), and Charlotte, daughter of Charles, 1st Earl Cadogan, and
was consequently a nephew of the duke of Wellington and of the marquess
Wellesley. Born on the 17th of June 1804, he entered the diplomatic
service in 1824, receiving his first important appointment in 1848, when
he became minister plenipotentiary to the Swiss cantons; and in the same
year he was sent to Frankfort to watch the proceedings of the German
parliament. This was followed by his appointment as envoy extraordinary
to the new Germanic confederation, a position which he only held for a
short time, as he was chosen in 1852 to succeed the 1st marquess of
Normanby as the British ambassador in Paris. Baron Cowley, as Wellesley
had been since his father's death in 1847, held this important post for
fifteen years, and the story of his diplomatic life in Paris cannot be
separated from the general history of England and France. As minister
during the greater part of the reign of Napoleon III., he conducted the
delicate negotiations between the two countries during the time of those
eastern complications which preceded and followed the Crimean War, and
also during the excitement and unrest produced by the attempt made in
1858 by Felice Orsini to assassinate the emperor of the French; while
his diplomatic skill was no less in evidence during the war between
France and Austria and the subsequent course of events in Italy. In 1857
he had been created Earl Cowley and Viscount Dangan; in 1866 he was made
a knight of the Garter; and having assisted Richard Cobden to conclude
the commercial treaty between Great Britain and France in 1860, he
retired in 1867 from a position which he had filled with distinction to
himself and with benefit to his country. In 1863 Cowley had inherited
the estate of Draycot in Wiltshire from his kinsman the 5th earl of
Mornington, and he lived in retirement until his death on the 15th of
July 1884. He had married in 1833 Olivia Cecilia (d. 1885), daughter of
Charlotte, baroness de Ros and Lord Henry Fitzgerald, by whom he had
three sons and two daughters, and was succeeded in his titles by his
eldest son, William Henry, 2nd Earl Cowley (1834-1895), father of Henry
Arthur Mornington, 3rd earl (b. 1866).
COWLEY FATHERS, the name commonly given to the members of the Society of
Mission Priests of St John the Evangelist, an Anglican religious
community, the headquarters of which are in England, at Cowley St John,
close to Oxford. The society was founded in 1865 by the Rev. R. M.
Benson "for the cultivation of a life dedicated to God according to the
principles of poverty, chastity and obedience." The society, which is
occupied both with educational and missionary work, has a house in
London and branch houses at Bombay and Poona in India, at Cape Town and
at St Cuthbert's, Kaffraria, in South Africa; and at Boston in the
United States of America. The costume of the Cowley Fathers consists of
a black frock or cassock confined by a black cord and a long black
cloak.
COWPENS, a town of Spartanburg county, South Carolina, U.S.A., in the N.
part of the state. Pop. (1900) 692; (1910) 1101. It is served by the
Southern railway. In colonial days cattle were rounded up and branded
here--whence the name. Seven miles N. of the town is the field of the
battle of Cowpens, fought on the 17th of January 1781, during the War of
American Independence, between the Americans under Gen. Daniel Morgan
and the British under Gen. Banastre Tarleton, the British being
defeated. A monument was erected on the battlefield in 1859, but was
much defaced during the Civil War. The town of Cowpens was founded in
1876, and was incorporated in 1880.
COWPER, WILLIAM COWPER, 1ST EARL (c. 1665-1723), lord chancellor of
England, was the son of Sir William Cowper, Bart., of Ratling Court,
Kent, a Whig member of parliament of some mark in the two last Stuart
reigns. Educated at St Albans school, Cowper was called to the bar in
1688; having promptly given his allegiance to the prince of Orange on
his landing in England, he was made recorder of Colchester in 1694, and
in 1695 entered parliament as member for Hertford. He enjoyed a large
practice at the bar, and had the reputation of being one of the most
effective parliamentary orators of his generation. He lost his seat in
parliament in 1702 owing to the unpopularity caused by the trial of his
brother Spencer on a charge of murder. In 1705 he was appointed lord
keeper of the great seal, and took his seat on the woolsack without a
peerage. In the following year he conducted the negotiations between the
English and Scottish commissioners for arranging the union with
Scotland. In November of the same year (1706) he succeeded to his
father's baronetcy; and on the 14th of December he was raised to the
peerage as Baron Cowper of Wingham, Kent.
When the union with Scotland came into operation in May 1707 the queen
in council named Cowper lord high chancellor of Great Britain, he being
the first to hold this office. He presided at the trial of Dr
Sacheverell in 1710, but resigned the seal when Harley and Bolingbroke
took office in the same year. On the death of Queen Anne, George I.
appointed Cowper one of the lords justices for governing the country
during the king's absence, and a few weeks later he again became lord
chancellor. A paper which he drew up for the guidance of the new king on
constitutional matters, entitled _An Impartial History of Parties_,
marks the advance of English opinion towards party government in the
modern sense. It was published by Lord Campbell in his _Lives of the
Lord Chancellors_. Cowper supported the impeachment of Lord Oxford for
high treason in 1715, and in 1716 presided as lord high steward at the
trials of the peers charged with complicity in the Jacobite rising, his
sentences on whom have been censured as unnecessarily severe. He warmly
supported the septennial bill in the same year. On the 18th of March
1718 he was created Viscount Fordwich and Earl Cowper, and a month later
he resigned office on the plea of ill-health, but probably in reality
because George I. accused him of espousing the prince of Wales's side in
his quarrel with the king. Taking the lead against his former
colleagues, Cowper opposed the proposal brought forward in 1719 to limit
the number of peers, and also the bill of pains and penalties against
Atterbury in 1723. In his last years he was accused, but probably
without reason, of active sympathy with the Jacobites. He died at his
residence, Colne Green, built by himself on the site of the present
mansion of Panshanger on the 10th of October 1723.
Cowper was not a great lawyer, but Burnet says that "he managed the
court of chancery with impartial justice and great despatch"; the most
eminent of his contemporaries agreed in extolling his oratory and his
virtues. He was twice married--first, about 1686, to Judith, daughter
and heiress of Sir Robert Booth, a London merchant; and secondly, in
1706, to Mary, daughter of John Clavering, of Chopwell, Durham. Swift
(_Examiner_, xvii., xxii.) alludes to an allegation that Cowper had been
guilty of bigamy, a slander for which there appears to have been no
solid foundation. His younger brother, Spencer Cowper (1669-1728), was
tried for the murder of Sarah Stout in 1699, but was acquitted; the
lady, who had fallen in love with Cowper, having in fact committed
suicide on account of his inattention. He was one of the managers of the
impeachment of Sacheverell; was attorney-general to the prince of Wales
(1714), chief justice of Chester (1717), and judge of the common pleas
(1727). He was grandfather of William Cowper, the poet.
The 1st earl left two sons and two daughters by his second wife. The
eldest son, William (1709-1764), who succeeded to the title, assumed the
name of Clavering in addition to that of Cowper on the death of his
maternal uncle. His wife was a daughter of the earl of Grantham, and
grand-daughter of the earl of Ossory. The son of this marriage, George
Nassau, 3rd Earl Cowper (1738-1789), inherited the estates of the earl
of Grantham; and in 1778 he was created by the emperor Joseph II. a
prince of the Holy Roman Empire. The 5th earl (1778-1837) married a
daughter of Lord Melbourne, the prime minister, by whom he had two sons;
and his widow married as her second husband Lord Palmerston, who devised
his property of Broadlands to her second son, William Francis
Cowper-Temple (1811-1888), who was created Baron Mount Temple in 1880.
The elder son, George Augustus Frederick (1806-1856), 6th Earl Cowper,
married Anne Florence, daughter of Thomas Philip, earl de Grey; and this
lady at her father's death became _suo jure_ baroness Lucas of Cradwell.
Francis Thomas de Grey, 7th Earl Cowper (1834-1905), in addition to the
other family titles, became in 1871 10th Baron Dingwall in the peerage
of Scotland, and 8th Baron Butler of Moore Park in the peerage of
Ireland as heir-general of Thomas, earl of Ossory, son of the 1st duke
of Ormonde; the attainder of 1715 affecting those titles having been
reversed in July 1871. On the death of his mother he also inherited the
barony of Lucas of Cradwell. On the death without issue in 1905 of the
7th earl, who was lord lieutenant of Ireland 1880-1882, the earldom and
barony of Cowper, together with the viscountcy of Fordwich, became
extinct; the barony of Butler fell into abeyance among his sisters and
their heirs, and the baronies of Lucas and Dingwall devolved on his
nephew, Auberon Thomas Herbert (b. 1876).
See _Private Diary of Earl Cowper_, edited by E. C. Hawtrey for the
Roxburghe Club (Eton, 1833); _The Diary of Mary, Countess Cowper_,
edited by the Hon. Spencer Cowper (London, 1864); Lord Campbell,
_Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal_ (8
vols., London, 1845-1869); Edward Foss, _The Judges of England_ (9
vols., London, 1848-1864); Gilbert Burnet, _History of his Own Time_
(6 vols., Oxford, 1833); T. B. Howell, _State Trials_, vol. xii.-xv.
(33 vols., London, 1809-1828); G. E. C., _Complete Peerage_ (London,
1889). (R. J. M.)
COWPER, WILLIAM (1731-1800), English poet, was born in the rectory (now
rebuilt) of Great Berkhampstead, Hertfordshire, on the 26th of November
(O.S. 15th) 1731, his father the Rev. John Cowper being rector of the
parish as well as a chaplain to George II. On both the father's and the
mother's side he was of ancient lineage. The father could trace his
family back to the time of Edward IV. when the Cowpers were Sussex
landowners, while his mother, Ann, daughter of Roger Donne of Ludham
Hall, Norfolk, was of the same race as the poet Donne, and the family
claimed to have Plantagenet blood in its veins. Of more human interest
were Cowper's immediate predecessors. His grandfather was that Spencer
Cowper who, after being tried for his life on a charge of murder, lived
to be a judge of the court of common pleas, while his elder brother
became lord chancellor and Earl Cowper, a title which became extinct in
1905. Here is the poet's genealogical tree.
John Cooper,[1] Alderman of London (d. 1609).
|
Sir William Cowper, Bart. (d. 1642).
|
John Cowper (died in prison 1643).
|
Sir William Cowper, 2nd Bart. (d. 1706).
_____________|__________
| |
William, Earl Cowper, Spencer Cowper,
Lord Chancellor (d. 1723). Judge (1669-1728).
_________________________________|___________
| | |
William Cowper Rev. John Cowper Ashley Cowper
(d. 1740). (d. 1756). (d. 1788).
| |
| ________|________
William Cowper, | |
the poet Lady Hesketh. Theodora.
(1731-1800).
The Rev. John Cowper was twice married. Cowper's mother, to whom the
memorable lines were written beginning "Oh that these lips had
language," was his first wife. She died in 1737 at the age of
thirty-four, when the poet was but six years old, and she is buried in
Berkhampstead church. Cowper's stepmother is buried in Bath, and a
tablet on the walls of the cathedral commemorates her memory. The
father, who appears to have been a conscientious clergyman with no
special interest in his sons, died in 1756 and was buried in the Cowper
tomb at Panshanger. Only one other of his seven children grew to
manhood--John, who was born in 1737.
The poet appears to have attended a dame's school in earliest infancy,
but on his mother's death, when he was six years old, he was sent to
boarding-school, to a Dr Pitman at Markyate, a village 6 m. from
Berkhampstead. From 1738 to 1741 he was placed in the care of an
oculist, as he suffered from inflammation of the eyes. In the latter
year he was sent to Westminster school, where he had Warren Hastings,
Impey, Lloyd, Churchill and Colman for schoolfellows. It was at the
Markyate school that he suffered the tyranny that he commemorated in
_Tirocinium_. His days at Westminster, Southey thinks, were "probably
the happiest in his life," but a boy of nervous temperament is always
unhappy at school. At the age of eighteen Cowper entered a solicitor's
office in Ely Place, Holborn. Here he had Thurlow, the future lord
chancellor, as a fellow-clerk, and it is stated that Thurlow promised to
help his less pushful comrade in the days of realized ambition. Three
years in Ely Place were rendered happy by frequent visits to his uncle
Ashley's house in Southampton Row, where he fell deeply in love with his
cousin Theodora Cowper. At twenty-one years of age he took chambers in
the Middle Temple, where we first hear of the dejection of spirits that
accompanied him periodically through manhood. He was called to the bar
in 1754. In 1759 he removed to the Inner Temple and was made a
commissioner of bankrupts. His devotion to his cousin, however, was a
source of unhappiness. Her father, possibly influenced by Cowper's
melancholy tendencies, perhaps possessed by prejudices against the
marriage of cousins, interposed, and the lovers were separated--as it
turned out for ever. During three years he was a member of the Nonsense
Club with his two schoolfellows from Westminster, Churchill and Lloyd,
and he wrote sundry verses in magazines and translated two books of
Voltaire's _Henriade_. A crisis occurred in Cowper's life when his
cousin Major Cowper nominated him to a clerkship in the House of Lords.
It involved a preliminary appearance at the bar of the house. The
prospect drove him insane, and he attempted suicide; he purchased
poison, he placed a penknife at his heart, but hesitated to apply either
measure of self-destruction. He has told, in dramatic manner, of his
more desperate endeavour to hang himself with a garter. Here he all but
succeeded. His friends were informed, and he was sent to a private
lunatic asylum at St Albans, where he remained for eighteen months under
the charge of Dr Nathaniel Cotton, the author of _Visions_. Upon his
recovery he removed to Huntingdon in order to be near his brother John,
who was a fellow of St Benet's College, Cambridge. John had visited his
brother at St Albans and arranged this. An attempt to secure suitable
lodgings nearer to Cambridge had been ineffectual. In June 1765 he
reached Huntingdon, and his life here was essentially happy. His illness
had broken him off from all his old friends save only his cousin Lady
Hesketh, Theodora's sister, but new acquaintances were made, the Unwins
being the most valued. This family consisted of Morley Unwin (a
clergyman), his wife Mary, and his son (William) and daughter
(Susannah). The son struck up a warm friendship which his family shared.
Cowper entered the circle as a boarder in November (1765). All went
serenely until in July 1767 Morley Unwin was thrown from his horse and
killed. A very short time before this event the Unwins had received a
visit from the Rev. John Newton (q.v.), the curate of Olney in
Buckinghamshire, with whom they became friends. Newton suggested that
the widow and her children with Cowper should take up their abode in
Olney. This was achieved in the closing months of 1767. Here Cowper was
to reside for nineteen years, and he was to render the town and its
neighbourhood memorable by his presence and by his poetry. His residence
in the Market Place was converted into a Cowper Museum a hundred years
after his death, in 1900. Here his life went on its placid course,
interrupted only by the death of his brother in 1770, until 1773, when
he became again deranged. It can scarcely be doubted that this second
attack interrupted the contemplated marriage of Cowper with Mary Unwin,
although Southey could find no evidence of the circumstance and Newton
was not informed of it. J. C. Bailey brings final evidence of this (_The
Poems of Cowper_, page 15). The fact was kept secret in later years in
order to spare the feelings of Theodora Cowper, who thought that her
cousin had remained as faithful as she had done to their early love.
It was not until 1776 that the poet's mind cleared again. In 1779 he
made his first appearance as an author by the _Olney Hymns_, written in
conjunction with Newton, Cowper's verses being indicated by a "C." Mrs
Unwin suggested secular verse, and Cowper wrote much, and in 1782 when
he was fifty-one years old there appeared _Poems of William Cowper of
the Inner Temple, Esq.: London, Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St Paul's
Churchyard_. The volume contained "Table Talk," "The Progress of Error,"
"Truth," "Expostulation" and much else that survives to be read in our
day by virtue of the poet's finer work. This finer work was the outcome
of his friendship with Lady Austen, a widow who, on a visit to her
sister, the wife of the vicar of the neighbouring village of Clifton,
made the acquaintance of Cowper and Mrs Unwin. The three became great
friends. Lady Austen determined to give up her house in London and to
settle in Olney. She suggested _The Task_ and inspired _John Gilpin_ and
_The Royal George_. But in 1784 the friendship was at an end, doubtless
through Mrs Unwin's jealousy of Lady Austen. Cowper's second volume
appeared in 1785;--_The Task: A Poem in Six Books. By William Cowper of
the Inner Temple, Esq.; To which are added by the same author An Epistle
to Joseph Hill, Esq., Tirocinium or a Review of Schools, and the History
of John Gilpin: London, Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72 St Paul's Church
Yard; 1785._ His first book had been a failure, one critic even
declaring that "Mr Cowper was certainly a good, pious man, but without
one spark of poetic fire." This second book was an instantaneous
success, and indeed marks an epoch in literary history. But before its
publication--in 1784--the poet had commenced the translation of Homer.
In 1786 his life at Olney was cheered by Lady Hesketh taking up a
temporary residence there. The cousins met after an interval of
twenty-three years, and Lady Hesketh was to be Cowper's good angel to
the end, even though her letters disclose a considerable impatience with
Mrs Unwin. At the end of 1786 a removal was made to Weston Underwood,
the neighbouring village which Cowper had frequently visited as the
guest of his Roman Catholic friends the Throckmortons. This was to be
his home for yet another ten years. Here he completed his translation of
Homer, materially assisted by Mr Throckmorton's chaplain Dr Gregson.
There are six more months of insanity to record in 1787. In 1790, a year
before the _Homer_ was published, commenced his friendship with his
cousin John Johnson, known to all biographers of the poet as "Johnny of
Norfolk." Johnson also aspired to be a poet, and visited his cousin
armed with a manuscript. Cowper discouraged the poetry, but loved the
writer, and the two became great friends. New friends were wanted, for
in 1792 Mrs Unwin had a paralytic stroke, and henceforth she was a
hopeless invalid. A new and valued friend of this period was Hayley,
famous in his own day as a poet and in history for his association with
Romney and Cowper. He was drawn to Cowper by the fact that both were
contemplating an edition of "Milton," Cowper having received a
commission to edit, writing notes and translating the Latin and Italian
poems. The work was never completed. In 1794 Cowper was again insane and
his lifework was over. In the following year a removal took place into
Norfolk under the loving care of John Johnson. Johnson took Cowper and
Mary Unwin to North Tuddenham, thence to Mundesley, then to Dunham
Lodge, near Swaffham, and finally in October 1796 they moved to East
Dereham. In December of that year Mrs Unwin died. Cowper lingered on,
dying on the 25th of April 1800. The poet is buried near Mrs Unwin in
East Dereham church.
Cowper is among the poets who are epoch-makers. He brought a new spirit
into English verse, and redeemed it from the artificiality and the
rhetoric of many of his predecessors. With him began the "enthusiasm of
humanity" that was afterwards to become so marked in the poetry of Burns
and Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron. With him began the deep sympathy with
nature, and love of animal life, which was to characterize so much of
later poetry.
Although Cowper cannot rank among the world's greatest poets or even
among the most distinguished of poets of his own country, his place is a
very high one. He had what is a rare quality among English poets, the
gift of humour, which was very singularly absent from others who
possessed many other of the higher qualities of the intellect. Certain
of his poems, moreover,--for example, "To Mary," "The Receipt of my
Mother's Portrait," and the ballad "On the Loss of the Royal
George,"--will, it may safely be affirmed, continue to be familiar to
each successive generation in a way that pertains to few things in
literature. Added to this, one may note Cowper's distinction as a
letter-writer. He ranks among the half-dozen greatest letter-writers in
the English language, and he was perhaps the only great letter-writer
with whom the felicity was due to the power of what he has seen rather
than what he has read.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The first important life of Cowper was by Hayley in
1803. In its complete form it appeared in 4 volumes in 1806 and was
reprinted in 1809 and 1812. It was reprinted again by the Rev. T. S.
Grimshawe with the Correspondence in 8 volumes in 1835. Robert
Southey's much more valuable _Life and Letters_ appeared also in 15
volumes in 1834-1837. The _Private Correspondence_, edited by John
Johnson, appeared in 2 volumes in 1824 and again in 1835. The
_Complete Correspondence_, edited by Thomas Wright, was published in
1904, but more correspondence appeared in _Notes and Queries_, July,
August and September 1904, and in _The Poems of William Cowper_,
edited by J. C. Bailey (1905). Edward Dowden unearthed new
correspondence with William Hayley in _The Atlantic Monthly_ (1907).
Short lives of Cowper have appeared in many quarters, from Thomas
Taylor's (1833) to Goldwin Smith's in the "English Men of Letters"
series (1880). Another brief biography of great merit is attached to
the Globe edition of Cowper's _Works_. Essays by Leslie Stephen,
Stopford Brooke, Whitwell Elwin, George Eliot and Walter Bagehot
deserve attention. See also St Beuve's _Causeries du Lundi_ (1868),
vol. xi.; _Letters of Lady Hesketh to John Johnson_ (1901); _John
Newton_, by the Rev. Josiah Bull (1868); _Cowper and Mary Unwin_, by
Caroline Gearey (1900); and _A Concordance to the Poetic Works of
William Cowper_, by John Neave (1887). (C. K. S.)