The life of William Cowper Author:Thomas Wright Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK I. CHAPTER I. EARLY CHILDHOOD. (1731-41.) i. "The Pastoral House."—1731-37. THE distinction of being the birth-place of the celebrated poet and... more » charming letter - writer, William Cowper, belongs to the Hertfordshire town of Great Berkhamsted, a town that also boasts of having been slightly connected with the poet Chaucer. Formerly, the name of the place was spelt Berkhamp- stead, but as its inhabitants have of late dispensed with a couple of its letters, we may pardonably do the same. The poet was born at the Rectory House ot this town on November 26, 1731, his father being the Rev. John Cowper, D.D., rector of the parish, and his mother, Anne, daughter of Roger Donne, Esq., ot Ludham Hall, in Norfolk. Of the ancestors of both his father and mother one or two words may be said. The family of the Rev. John Cowper had for many generations been a distinguished one. Sir William Cowper, who died in 1664 at the age of 82, is remembered on account of his loyalty to the unfortunateCharles, and from having erected a monument to Hooker, the celebrated divine, with an epitaph of his own composition in verse. His grandson and successor, the second Sir William, was the father of the first Earl Cowper, and also of Spencer Cowper, one of the judges ot the Court of Common Pleas. The Rev. John Cowper, the poet's father, was the judge's son. Mrs. Cowper could trace her descent through several noble families to Henry III., King of England, and numbered among her ancestors Dr. Donne, the poet. It is pleasant to be able to connect the one poet with the other, and it is not uninteresting to take note that the first Earl Cowper was uncle to the poet's father. Dr. Cowper's first three children, Spencer, born in 1729, and Ann and John (twins), born in 1730, died in their infancy. Th...« less