LIFE, AND POSTHUMOUS WRITINGS, OF WILLIAM COWPER, ESQR. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY LETTER TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE EARL COWPER. BY WILLIAM HAYLEY, ESQR. "Obversatur oculis ille vir, quo neminem ætas nostra graviorem, sanctiorem, subtiliorem denique tulit: quem ego quum ex admiratione diligere cœpissem, quod evenire contra solet, magis admiratus sum, postquam penitus inspexi. Inspexi enim penitus: nihil a me ille secretum, non joculare, non serium, non triste, non lætum." PLINII EPIST. Lib. 4, Ep. 17. VOL. I. Chichester: Printed by J. Seagrave; FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD, LONDON. CONTENTS The Life, Part the First-The Family, Birth, and First Residence of Cow- per-His Eulogy on the Tenderness of his Mother, pages 1, 2, 31 Her Portrait Her Epitaph by her Niece, 4, 5-The Schools that Cowper attended-His sufferings in Childhood, 7, 8, 9- minster and is stationed in the House of an Attorney, 11-Verses on his early Afflictions, 12, 13-Settles in the Inner Temple-His Acquaint- ance with eminent Authors, 14-His Epistle to Lloyd, 15— His Translations in Duncombe's Horace, 19-His own Account of his early Life, 19-Stanzas on Reading Sir Charles Grandison, 20- Written at Bath, 1748-His Nomination to the Office of Reading Clerk in the House of Lords, 24- -His extreme dread of appearing in Public, 25 His Health deranged-His Retirement to the House of Dr. Cotton at St. Alban's, 26-His Recovery, 28-He settles at Huntingdon to The origin of Cowper's Acquaintance with the Rev. Mr. Newton, 65.- His Removal with Mrs. Unwin on the Death of her Husband to Olney in Buckinghamshire-His Devotion and Charity in his New Residence- .... 16 A Poem in Memory of John Thornton, Esqr. 68-Cowper's Beneficence to a Necessitous Child, 71-Composes a Series of Hymns- -Continuation The Collection of the Olney Hymns interrupted by the Illness of Cowper, |