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A New Biographical Source for William Cowper

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2021

Robert E. Spiller
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Extract

The life of William Cowper has been written many times; first by his friend and fellow poet, William Hayley, and most recently by Thomas Wright, Principal of the Cowper School at Olney. The present manuscript, here reprinted in full, was probably prepared for the first of these biographers about two years after the poet's death. It is in the hand of the Rev. John Johnson, Cowper's cousin and constant companion during the last five years of his life. It was doubtless used by Hayley for his brief record of these years, but seems to have been unknown to all succeeding biographers. The dismal circumstances of this part of Cowper's life combined with the unscientific historical attitude of a century ago to make Hayley's account altogether unsatisfactory today. The diary comes to the modern student of Cowper, therefore, as virtually new source material for those years of his life which have always been the least documented.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1927 , pp. 946 - 962
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927

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References

1 “Johnny of Norfolk” was the grandson of Cowper's maternal uncle. Hayley says of him: “I never saw the human being, that could, I think, have sustained the delicate, and arduous office (in which the inexhaustible virtues of Mr. Johnson persevered to the last) through a period so long, with an equal portion of unvaried tender ness, and unshaken fidelity.” Life of William Cowper, Boston, 1803, II, 166.

2 Letter No. 31 in The Unpublished and Uncollected Letters of William Cowper, edited by Thomas Wright, London, 192S.

3 A manuscript by Hayley telling this story is discussed by Edward Dowden in his essay on “Cowper and William Hayley” in Essays Modern and Elizabethan, London, 1910, pp. 151–180. Cf. The Atlantic Monthly, July 1907, pp. 74–87, and H. R. S. Caldicott, Cornhill Magazine, April 1913, p. 493 ff.

4 Hayley to Lady Hesketh, Jan. 1798: “I have limited the hopes and purposes of my remaining life to these two grand objects—to promote the professional prosperity of my little artist [his son], and to witness and contribute to the recovery of my favorite friend to the utmost of my power.” Dowden, op. cit., p. 170.

5 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of W.H ….. edited by J. Johnson, London, 1823, II, 32.

6 In the preface to his edition of Cowper's poems, London, 1905.

7 The revised edition (1920) of Wright's Life of W. C. (1892) is considerably shorter than the earlier version, the Norfolk episode being cut from 21 to 14 pages with little new material added.

8 Wright, rev. ed., pp. 352–3, and note.

9 “Cr. 1801, Febry Mrs Perrowne for her long attendance on Mr Cowper £200.” Account of Cowper's estate printed in appendix of Wright's Unpub. Letters.

10 A new edition of the rival translation.

11 Cowper's dog.

12 Johnson's diary, or record of dreams and visions. Unpublished. See above p. 949.

13 The following dates are seemingly copied direct from a memorandum kept at the time.