The first Publication of Cowper's Homer-The Pleasure he derived from DIRECTIONS TO THE BINDER. ...... The Portrait, after Romney, as a Frontispiece to Vol. I. THE Family of CowPER appears to have held, for several centuries, a respectable rank among the merchants and gentry of England. We learn from the life of the first Earl Cowper, in the Biographia Britannica, that his ancestors were inhabitants of Sussex, in the reign of Edward the Fourth. The name is found repeatedly among the Sheriffs of London, and John Cowper, who resided as a country gentleman in Kent, was created a Baronet by King Charles the First, in 1641. But the family rose to higher distinction in the beginning of the last century, by the remarkable circumstance of producing two brothers, who both obtained a seat in the house of peers by eminence in the profession of the law. William, the eldest, became Lord High Chancellor in 1707. Spencer Cowper, the youngest, was appointed Chief Justice of Chester in 1717, and afterwards a judge in the court of Common Pleas, being permitted by the particular favor of the King to |