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life. He died in Lincoln's Inn, on the tenth of December, 1728, and has the higher claim to our notice as the immediate ancestor of the poet. By his first wife, Judith Pennington (whose exemplary character is still revered by her descendants) Judge Cowper left several children; among them a daughter Judith, who at the age of eighteen discovered a striking talent for poetry, in the praise of her cotemporary poets Pope and Hughes. This lady, the wife of Colonel Madan, transmitted her own poetical and devout spirit to her daughter Frances Maria, who was married to her cousin Major Cowper; the amiable character of Maria will unfold itself in the course of this work, as the friend and correspondent of her more eminent relation, the second grandchild of the Judge, destined to honour the name of Cowper, by displaying with peculiar purity and fervour, the double enthusiasm of poetry and devotion. The father of the great author to whom I allude, was John Cowper, the Judge's second son, who took his degrees in divinity, was Chaplain to King George the second, and resided at his rectory of Great Berkhamstead, in Hertfordshire, the scene of the poet's infancy, which he has thus commemorated in a singularly beautiful and pathetic composition on the portrait of his mother.

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more,
Children not thine have trod my nurs'ry floor,
And where the gard'ner Robin day by day,
Drew me to school along the public way;
Delighted with my bauble coach, and wrapt
In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet-capt.
Tis now become a history little known,
That once we called the past'ral house our own.
Short-lived possession! but the record fair
That memory keeps of all thy kindness there,
Still outlives many a storm, that has effac'd
A thousand other themes less deeply trac'd,
Thy nightly visits to my chamber made,

That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid
Thy morning bounties ere I left my home,

The biscuit, or confectionary plum;

The fragrant waters on my cheeks bestowed

By thy own hand, 'till fresh they shone and glow'd:
All this, and more endearing still than all,
Thy constant flow of love, that knew no fall;
Ne'er roughen'd by those cataracts and breaks,
That humour interpos'd, too often makes.
All this, still legible, in memory's page,

And still to be so to my latest age,

Adds joy to duty, makes me glad to pay

Such honours to thee, as my numbers may.

The parent whose merits are so feelingly re

corded by the filial tenderness of the poet, was Ann daughter of Roger Donne, Esqr. of Ludham Hall, in Norfolk. This lady, whose family is said to have been originally from Wales, was married in the bloom of youth to Dr. Cowper; after giving birth to several children, who died in their infancy, and leaving two sons, William, the immediate subject of this memorial, born at Berkhamstead on the twenty sixth of November, N. s. 1731, and John (whose accomplishments and memorable death will be described in the course of this compilation), she died in childbed at the early age of thirty-four, in 1737. It may be wished that the painter employed to preserve a resemblance of such a woman had possessed those powers of graceful and perfect delineation, which in a different art belonged to the pen of her son, but her portrait executed by Heins in oil colours, on a small scale, is a production infinitely inferior to the very beautiful poem to which it gave rise. Those who delight in contemplating the best affections of our nature, will ever admire the tender sensibility with which the poet has acknowledged his obligations to this amiable mother, in a poem composed more than fifty years after her decease. Readers of this description may find a pleasure in observing how the praise so liberally be

bestowed on this tender parent, at so late a period is confirmed (if praise so unquestionable may be said to receive confirmation) by another poetical record of her merit, which the hand of affinity and affection bestowed upon her tomb. A record written at a time when the poet, who was destined to prove, in his advanced life, her most powerful eulogist, had hardly begun to shew the dawn of that genius, which after many years of silent affliction, arose like a star emerging from tempestuous darkness.

The monument of Mrs. Cowper, erected by her husband in the chancel of St. Peter's church at Berkhamstead, contains the following verses, composed by a young lady, her niece, the late Lady Walsingham.

Here lies, in early years, bereft of life,

The best of mothers, and the kindest wife.
Who neither knew, nor practic'd any art,

Secure in all she wish'd, her husband's heart.

Her love to him still prevalent in death,

Pray'd Heaven to bless him with her latest breath.
Still was she studious never to offend,

And glad of an occasion to commend:

With ease would pardon injuries receiv'd,

Nor e'er was chearful, when another griev'd.

Despising state, with her own lot content,

Enjoy'd the comforts of a life well spent.
Resign'd when Heaven demanded back her breath,
Her mind heroic 'midst the pangs of death.

Whoe'er thou art that dost this tomb draw near,

O stay awhile, and shed a friendly tear,
These lines, tho' weak, are as herself sincere.

The truth and tenderness of this epitaph will more than compensate with every candid reader the imperfection ascribed to it by its young and modest author.—To have lost a parent of a character so virtuous and endearing, at an early period of his childhood, was the prime misfortune of Cowper, and what contributed perhaps in the highest degree to the dark colouring of his subsequent life. The influence of a good mother on the first years of her children, whether nature has given them peculiar strength, or peculiar delicacy of frame, is equally inestimable: It is the prerogative and the felicity of such a mo ther to temper the arrogance of the strong, and to dissipate the timidity of the tender. The infancy of Cowper was delicate in no common degree, and his constitution discovered at a very early season that morbid tendency to diffidence, to melancholy, and de

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