LIFE OF WILLIAM COWPER.
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.D. 1 731 — 1800. William Gowper was born on the 15th of November(O. S.; Nov, 26, N. S.) 173 1, at Great Berkhampstead, inHertfordshire. His father, the Rev. John Gowper, D.D.,the Rector of that parish, and a Ghaplain to King George H,was the second son of Spencer Gowper, a Judge of theCommon Pleas, whose elder brother William became LordChancellor in 1707, and was created Earl Gowper in 17 18.Dr. Gowper took to wife Anne, daughter of Roger Donne,Esq., of Ludham Hall in Norfolk ; of the same family as Dr.John Donne, the famous poet and Dean of St. Paul's. William was one of six children, of whom only himself andhis youngest brother John grew up to manhood. The birthof the latter cost the life of his mother ; who died Nov. 1 3,1737, at the age of thirty-four. After the lapse of forty-seven years, Gowper wrote to his friend Hill : * I can truly say,that not a week passes (perhaps I might with equal veracitysay a day) in which I do not think of her. Such was theimpression her tenderness made upon me, though the op-portunity she had for showing it was so short.* The Poetpleased himself with thinking that he bore a nearer re-semblance, both in mind and body, to his mother's family,than to that of his father. On the receipt of that Picture ofhis Mother, which drew from him some of the most touchinglines to be found in any language, he wrote thus to his cousin.. VUl LIFE OF COWPER. Mrs. Bodham, in 1790: * There is in me, I believe, more ofthe Donne than of the Cowper ; and though I love all of bothnames, and have a thousand reasons to love those of my ownname,- yet I feel the bond of nature draw me vehemently toyour side. I was thought in the days of my childhood muchto resemble my mother ; and in my natural temper, of whichat the age of fifty-eight I must be supposed to be a competentjudge, can trace both her and my late uncle, your father.Somewhat of his irritability ; and a Httle, I would hope, of his and of her , I know not what to call it, without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention ; but speaking toyouy I will even speak out, and say good nature.* There can be little doubt, that Cowper inherited from hismother much of that sensibility of nerve and delicacy ofsentiment, which proved the source of so great unhappinessto him in the next scene on which he entered. At the age of six years he was * taken from the nursery 'and sent to a large boarding-school, kept by Dr. Pitman, atMarket Street, a town on the border-line of Hertfordshireand Bedfordshire. At this school, during two years, he found * hardships of various kinds to conflict with ' ; nor can this state-ment surprise any one, who considers the sensitive nature andthe retiring habits of the child. * I was,' he tells us, * singled outfrom all the other boys, by a lad of about fifteen years of age,as a proper object upon whom he might let loose the crueltyof his temper. His savage treatment of me impressed such adread of his figure upon my mind, that I well remember beingafraid to lift my eyes upon him higher than his knees; andthat I knew him better by his shoe-buckles than by any otherpart of his dress.' In 1739 the child was removed from Dr. Pitman's schoolon account of an inflammation in the eyes, accompanied with * specks on both, which threatened to cover them.' He wasin consequence placed for two years in the house of Mrs.Disney, a female oculist. From her treatment he gained onlyslight relief; but *at the age of fourteen the small-poxseized him, and proved the better oculist of the two, as it AT WESTMINSTER, 174I-8. ix removed the specks entirely.' He was, however, troubledwith a weakness in the eyes more or less throughout life ; andthe affection was perhaps congenital, for he wrote to Hillin Nov. 1782, *My eyes are, in general, better than I re-member them to have been since I first opened them uponthis sublunary stage, which is now a little more than half, acentury ago.* In 1 74 1, being a boy of ten years, Cowper was entered atWestminster School, then under the rule of Dr. Nichols.Here he spent seven of the happiest years of his life. Inspite of his natural diffidence, and gentleness of manners, hebecame popular alike with his Masters and his school-fellows.With the former he earned a reputation for scholarship ; andamongst the latter he * acquired fame by his achievements*in cricket and football, and those other sports by which boysare apt to gauge the courage and spirit of their companions.Nearly forty years after he left school, he wrote to Unwin(1786), * I was a schoolboy in high favour with my master,received a silver groat for my exercise, and had the pleasureof seeing it sent from form to form for the admiration of allwho were able to understand it.* No wonder that we findhim saying, in the same letter, * He who cannot look forwardwith comfort, must find what comfort he can in looking back-ward. Upon this principle I the other day sent my imaginationupon a trip thirty years behind me. She was very obedient,and at last set me down in the sixth form at Westminster.1 fancied myself once more a schoolboy, — a period of life inwhich, if I had never tasted real happiness, I was at leastequally unacquainted with its contrary.* And no wonder thateven in his * Tirocinium * he should dwell on *The fond attachment to the well-known placeWhere first we started into life's long race.' It is clear therefore that the strong opinion which Cowperafterwards formed against the public-school system, and towhich he gave so energetic an expression in the poem cited,was not the result of unhappiness in his personal experiexvcf^ L
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