"At six years old, I was taken from the nursery, and from the immediate care of a most indulgent mother, and sent to a considerable school in Bedfordshire. (From the Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq., written by himself):. John Cowper, who took his degrees in divinity, was chaplain to King George II., and resided at his Rectory of Great Berkamstead, in Hertfordshire, the scene of the poet's infancy. The father of our poet William Cowper, was Rev. But the family rose to higher distinction in the beginning of the 18th century, by the remarkable circumstance of producing two brothers, both who obtained a seat in the House of Peers by their eminence in the profession of law. This gentleman was a writer of English verse, and, with rare munificence, bestowed both an epitaph and a monument on that illustrious divine, the venerable Hooker. The name is found repeatedly among the sheriffs of London and William Cowper (relative of the poet), who resided as a country gentleman in Kent, was created a baronet by King Charles I. 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 IVth. Cowper wrote a sequence of poems, Delia, chronicling this affair, but the book waThe family of Cowper appears to have held, for several centuries, a respectable rank among the merchants and gentry of England. Her father did not approve, and their relationship ended in 1755. Shortly thereafter, he fell in love with Theodora Cowper, a cousin. In 1748, he enrolled in the Middle Temple in order to pursue a law degree. At about 12 years old he was badly diseased with small-pox. Pittman's boarding school, where he was routinely bullied. The poet's mother died when he was six years old. He's best remembered for his Olney Hymns. The first child of John Cowper and Ann Donne (a descendant of the poet John Donne), William was born on November 15, 1731, in Berkhamstead, Hertfordshire.
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