[WILLIAM COWPER was born at the rectory, Great Berkhamstead, Nov. 26, 1731. His father, the rector of the parish, was a nephew of Lord Chancellor Cowper; his mother was Ann Donne, of the family of Dr. John Donne, the celebrated Dean of St. Paul's. Cowper was educated at a private school, and afterwards at Westminster, where Vincent Bourne was a master, and Warren Hastings, Robert Lloyd, Colman, and Churchill were among the boys. After leaving Westminster he became a member of the Middle Temple, and was articled to a solicitor, a Mr. Chapman, one of his fellow-clerks being Thurlow, afterwards Lord Chancellor. During his three years under Mr. Chapman he saw much of the family of his uncle, Ashley Cowper, with one of whose daughters, Theodora, he formed a deep attachment. Another daughter, Harriet, afterwards Lady Hesketh, was in the latter years of his life one of his warmest friends. The engagement of marriage with

Theodora was not sanctioned by her father; and this disappointment, with other troubles, seems to have greatly affected Cowper, and to have prepared the way for the first attack of insanity, which took place in 1763. The immediate cause was the excitement occasioned by his appointment to two clerkships in the House of Lords, at the hands of his uncle, Major Cowper. His malady was intensified by the injudicious handling he received from his cousin, Martin Madan, a strong Calvinist, and it was only after a stay of fifteen months under the care of the amiable physician and verse-writer, Dr. Nathaniel Cotton, at St. Albans, that he recovered. He did not resume work in London, but went to live at Huntingdon. There he fell in with the Unwins, and there began their lifelong intimacy. After Mr. Unwin's death (1767) Cowper removed with Mrs. Unwin to Olney, where they remained till 1786. The peace of Cowper's life at Olney was shaken in 1773 by a second attack of melancholia, which lasted for sixteen months. Before and after that time he corresponded freely with many friends; he joined with John Newton, curate-in-charge at Olney, in composing the Olney Hymns (published, 1779); but it was not till December, 1780, that he began seriously to write poetry, having deserted the art since the days of his early love-verses to "Delia.' His first volume, containing Table Talk, Conversation, Retirement, and the other didactic poems, was published in 1782; his second, containing The Task, Tirocinium, and among others the ballad of John Gilpin (which had been published in a newspaper, and had become famous through the recitations of Henderson, the actor), appeared in 1785. The subjects of both John Gilpin and The Task were suggested to Cowper by Lady Austen, a fascinating person, who for some years was on intimate terms with him and Mrs. Unwin. Afterwards he began his translation of Homer, which was completed and published in 1791. The last years of his life, from 1791 to 1800, were years of great misery. Mrs. Unwin was paralytic from 1791 to her death in 1796; he himself was suffering from hopeless dejection, regarding himself, as he had done since his first attack, as an outcast from God. He died at East Dereham, in Norfolk, April 25, 1800.]

RELISH OF FAIR PROSPECT.

[From The Task, Book I. The Sofa.]
OH! may I live exempted (while I
live

Guiltless of pampered appetite obscene)
From pangs arthritic that infest the toe
Of libertine excess. The Sofa suits
The gouty limb, 'tis true; but gouty limb,
Though on a Sofa, may I never feel:
For I have loved the rural walk through
lanes

Of grassy swarth, close cropped by nib-
bling sheep

And skirted thick with intertexture firm Of thorny boughs; have loved the rural walk

O'er hills, through valleys, and by rivers' brink,

E'er since a truant boy I passed my
bounds

To enjoy a ramble on the banks of
Thames;

And still remember, nor without regret,
Of hours that sorrow since has much
endeared,

How oft, my slice of pocket store consumed,

Still hungering, penniless, and far from
home,

I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws,
Or blushing crabs, or berries that em-

boss