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COWPER

studies; but he also displayed some morbidity, particularly in religious matters. After eight years at Westminster, and a few months at home, he was articled for three years to a London solicitor. Later he described these and the following 12 years as "misspent," meaning that he thought little about the state of his soul and enjoyed visiting the three attractive daughters of his uncle, Ashley Cowper. In 1752 he took chambers in the Middle Temple. He was called to the bar in 1754, but made few efforts to secure clients, his conduct being partly explained by the fact that in 1753 he was afflicted with a sort of mental dejection that for many months paralyzed his energies. Finally, after he had received consolation from George Herbert's poetry and had had his "hard heart softened by prayer, a visit to the seashore completed a temporary cure.

In 1756 his father died; the same year his suit for the hand of his cousin, Theodora Cowper, was rejected by his uncle. She remained true to him, and shortly after her death the love poems he wrote her were published (1825). Cowper does not appear to have been inconsolable. There is evidence of a shadowy love affair in 1758, and he had previously been attending the weekly dinners of the "Nonsense Club," with Lloyd and other old schoolmates, and had done some translating and written a few essays for periodicals. In 1759 he bought a suite of chambers in the Inner Temple and was made a commissioner of bankrupts; but he spent more than his income. In his pecuniary stress he obtained from his cousin, Major Cowper, the gift of the patent office of clerk of the journals of the House of Lords. But his kinsman's right to bestow the post being questioned, it was decided that Cowper's fitness must be tested by an examination. He broke down in his preparation for this, and, as the ordeal drew near, he grew more and more despondent. Finally he made four vain attempts to commit suicide (November 1763). The idea of his securing the office had to be abandoned, and a few weeks later he was placed in the private asylum kept at Saint Albans by the poetphysician, Dr. Nathaniel Cotton.

After about five months he began to mend, and arguments with his younger brother, the Rev. John Cowper, tended to dispel the belief that he had committed the unpardonable_sin. He continued at the asylum, however, until June 1765, when he removed to Huntingdon, resolving to break away forever from his former life. He became practically a recluse, but he had already acquired the urbanity which was to be so marked a characteristic of his poetry and his correspondence.

In Huntingdon Cowper began his famous friendship with the family of the Rev. Mr. Unwin, particularly with the latter's pious wife (Mary Cawthorne) and his son, later the Rev. William Cawthorne Unwin. They soon took Cowper as a boarder, and at last his religious aspirations were apparently in a fair way of being satisfied. Every day was spent in attending church twice, in singing hymns and praying, and in reading and conversing on evangelical topics. Withal, the friends seem to have been cheerful, not outwardly morbid.

In the summer of 1767 the elder Unwin fell from his horse and died in consequence. Then John Newton (q.v.), curate of Olney,

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persuaded Mrs. Unwin and Cowper to remove to that town, which has since been associated with the poet's memory. They took a house called "Orchard Side," and Cowper found congenial employment in assisting Newton in his work among the poor and in writing hymns. In 1770, on the death of his brother John, Cowper wrote Adelphi,' an account of that clergyman's conversion to evangelical tenets (published 1802). Two years later he and Mrs. Unwin became engaged, but all thoughts of marriage were soon dispelled by Cowper's third derangement, which began in January 1773, and lasted until May 1774. After a terrible dream in February 1773, he seems never to have been able to believe for long that there was any hope of his salvation. Yet, when he had outwardly recovered, he strove manfully not to exert a depressing influence on others, and he took much innocent pleasure in taming hares, keeping a garden, building his summer-house, and describing to correspondents such local events as the Olney fire of 1777. In 1799 Newton published the 'Olney Hymns,' of which 68, including 'Oh for a Closer Walk with God' and 'God Moves in a Mysterious Way,' were by Cowper. Later in the same year Newton accepted a rectory in London. Whether his intense nature had oppressed Cowper's mild genius is a moot point. It is at least certain that the latter's literary career really commenced after his friend Newton left Olney.

Under the encouragement of Mrs. Unwin, Cowper began to write steadily upon a series of didactic, semi-satiric poems-Progress of Error, Truth,' (Table Talk,' and 'Expostulation' (December 1780-February 1781). Newton acted as a friendly critic and secured a publisher for the volume, which, with the addition of 'Hope,' (Charity,' 'Conversation,' and Retirement, and some shorter pieces, including translations of the Latin poems of Cowper's old schoolmaster at Westminster, Vincent Bourne, finally appeared in February 1782, and was moderately successful. Time has shown, not only that it contained many apt passages of observation and reflection, but that it heralded a departure, not too violent, from the overpolished style and somewhat metallic versification of Pope.

Meanwhile, the poet had made the acquaintance of a baronet's widow, Lady Austen, who was visiting near Olney. The intimacy, which Mrs. Unwin shared, became too intense to last more than a couple of years; but, whatever Lady Austen's disappointments, we owe to it two of Cowper's best poems- the humorous ballad of John Gilpin' (November 1782), based on a story she told Cowper to dispel his melancholy, and The Task,' his great discursive poem in blank verse, which, beginning with Lady Austen's theme, the sofa, broadened out into reflections upon life and descriptions of nature unrivaled in their day and in respect to realistic fidelity and homely charm not clearly surpassed since. "The Task was probably begun in July 1783, and was finally published in June 1785, along with John Gilpin (which had already been circulated in periodicals), the admirable 'Epistle to Joseph Hill,' and 'Tirocinium,' a satire upon current education (1782-84). Cowper had meanwhile begun his translation of the Iliad in blank verse and had written some of his shorter poems, e.g., 'The

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COWPER'S GLANDS-COWPOX

Poplar Field. All this time, with the exception of three days in May 1785, he believed firmly that God had given him over, and that it was his duty not to pray, since that would imply a questioning of the righteousness of the divine decree.

His

'The Task,' helped by the vogue of John Gilpin,' attained success. Cowper became the chief poet of the day, and secured a popularity which lasted well into the next century. relatives began to pay more attention to him, and in Lady Hesketh, sister of his sweetheart Theodora, and the Rev. John Johnson, of Norfolk, he found supporters during the trying years that were in store for him. His income was increased, and with Lady Hesketh's aid he and Mrs. Unwin removed from Olney to the neighboring Weston in November 1786. Shortly afterward they were shocked by William Unwin's sudden death. Then Cowper suffered his fourth derangement, which lasted from January to June 1787. He recovered rather speedily and worked away at Homer, wrote excellent short poems, and resumed his correspondence, but was all the while subject to hallucinations and melancholia. In September 1788, he began translating the Odyssey, and the complete Homer, including the Batrachomyomachia,' was published by subscription in July 1791, with a success which time has not ratified. Posterity much prefers the pathetic lines On the Receipt of My Mother's Picture out of Norfolk,' written in the spring of 1790. After the Homer Cowper, having been assured by a demented schoolmaster-friend named Teedon that heaven was willing, undertook to edit an elaborate edition of his favorite, Milton. The scheme came to little, but it was the occasion of his forming a warm friendship with his future biographer, William Hayley, to whom he paid a visit in August 1792, accompanied by Mrs. Unwin, who had been partly incapacitated by paralysis. Then Mrs. Unwin's health sank steadily, and Cowper, in a sad state himself, became in his turn the indefatigable nurse. The lines My Mary' commemorate the melancholy situation. In January 1794, Cowper himself was seized with his old complaint and sank into a stupor, from which he practically never rallied. He did not appreciate the fact that he had been granted a pension of £300 by the government. Mrs. Unwin also grew worse, and but for the ministrations of Lady Hesketh, Hayley and John Johnson, the last six years of Cowper's life would be a stretch of unrelieved gloom. In July 1795, Johnson removed the two invalids to Norfolk. They settled finally at East Dereham, where on 17 Dec. 1796, Mrs. Unwin died, the event scarcely producing an emotion in the man who loved her. Cowper continued in his state of dejection, though he could still work at the revision of his Homer. His only important original composition during the period was the poignantly pathetic 'Castaway,' written 20 March 1799. He still persisted in believing that God had forsaken him, and in this dreadful belief he died on 25 April 1800. He was buried in East Dereham Church beside Mrs. Unwin.

Cowper's importance as a precursor of Wordsworth, and the positive excellence of many of his descriptive and satiric passages and of his humorous and pathetic shorter poems are generally acknowledged. He is a classic, and,

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if his range of work were sufficiently taken into account his heroic odes, his familiar verse, his humorous ballads, his poems of domestic affection, his verses on animals (in which he is almost unrivaled), his reflective lyrics, his satires and his faithful descriptions of quiet life and English nature - he would be ungrudgingly pronounced a great classic. As a correspondent his supremacy is generally allowed.

To his works enumerated above should be added the unpleasant satire Anti-Thelyphthora (1781), 'Poems from the French of Mme. de la Mothe Guyon, etc. (1801), and Latin and Italian Poems of Milton' (1808). The first edition of Hayley's biography, with letters, appeared in 1803. In 1835 Rev. T. S. Grimshawe edited the life and letters in eight volumes. Southey's life and edition of the works in 15 volumes (1834-37, 1853-54) is the standard. Of the poems there are numerous editions, among the best being those of Bruce (Aldine,' 1863), Benham ('Globe, 1870), and Milford ('Oxford' 1905); The Poems of William Cowper' (by J. C. Bailey, 1905). Thomas Wright, author of The Town of Cowper' (1886), and of the best biography (1892), has edited the fullest collection of the letters (4 vols., 1904). (See JOHN GILPIN; TASK, THE.) For criticism, consult Goldwin Smith's Cowper) (English Men of Letters, 1880); Ste. Beuve's 'Causeries' (Vol. XI), and Leslie Stephen's 'Hours in a Library (III); Gearey, Caroline, 'Cowper and Mary Unwin' (1900) and A Concordance to the Poetic Works of William Cowper' by John Neave (1887).

WILLIAM P. TRENT, Professor of English Literature, Columbia University.

COWPER'S GLANDS, two glands discovered by an English anatomist, William Cowper, situated in male mammals behind the anterior portion of the membrane of the urethra. They secrete mucus and are active in the generative function, corresponding to Bartholini's glands in the female.

COWPOX, also known as variola, is an infectious disease of cattle characterized by fever, falling off in the milk yield and the appearance of pustules on the teats and udder. The disease ordinarily runs a harmless course and is quite prevalent, especially in the eastern part of the United States. It is not transmitted except by contact. A similar disease affects horses and sheep. As should be well known, the virus obtained from the pustules of cowpox is used in vaccinating man against smallpox. This virus produces a mild form of the disease, from which man recovers in a few weeks and is then claimed to be immune.

The disease appears in four to seven days after natural infection, or may evince itself in two or three days as the result of artificial inoculation. The attack causes a slight rise in temperature, which is soon followed by the appearance of reddened, inflamed areas, principally upon the teats and udder. These areas expand into nodules containing at first a pale serous fluid and later pus as the disease rans its course. The typical pox pustule is next present. The total duration of the disease covers about 20 days. The fallen scabs and crusts retain their contagious properties and

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COWRY - COX

tend to spread the disease if fresh cattle are brought in contact with them. In herds that receive careful attention the usual treatment consists of the application of softening and disinfecting agents to such vesicles upon the teats as may have become ruptured by the hands of the milker. Carbolized vaseline or iodoform ointment is well suited for this work. In more persistent cases the use of a milking tube is desirable in order to prevent the repeated opening of the pustules during the operation of milking. Washing the sores twice daily with a weak solution of zinc chloride (21⁄2 per cent solution) checks the inflammation and cleanses and heals the parts by its germicidal action. When the udder is hard, swollen and painful, it is well to support it by a bandage and foment frequently with hot water. Milk from affected herds should not be given young children, as in the raw state it exercises a deleterious action on the alimentary canal. (See SMALLPOX; VACCINATION). Consult (Abridged Agricultural Records' (Vol. III, Washington 1912); and Wilcox and Smith, 'Farmer's Cyclopedia of Live Stock' (New York 1912); Farmers Bulletins (Washington, D. C.).

COWRY, a mollusk of the genus Cypræa, a gastropod, comprising nearly 200 species with beautifully colored shells. The cowries are mostly confined to the tropics, especially of the Old World, none occurring on the coast of South America. They live in reefs and under rocks at low water and feed on various polyps. The money cowry is Cypræa moneta. WAMPUM.

See

COWSLIP, a popular name for several distinct species of plants, both American and European. The English cowslip is Primula officinalis, of the family Primulaceae. It is a stemless perennial herb with a rosette of oval or oblong soft leaves, from among which arise numerous scapes 6 to 10 inches tall and bearing six or eight bright yellow, fragrant flowers in a close umbel which leans to one side. The plant has long been a general favorite in gardens where it usually receives little attention beyond an occasional stirring of the soil to remove weeds and the application of the usual winter mulch of stable manure. Several improved varieties have been produced in divers colors. The plant most widely known in America as cowslip is Caltha palustris, the marsh marigold, a member of the family Ranunculacea. This is a succulent perennial herb common in wet ground from the Carolinas to the Arctic regions. It has strong fibrous roots, hollow branching stems one to two feet tall, heart-shaped or kidney-shaped leaves and brilliant yellow flowers resembling buttercup, by which name the plant is sometimes called. It is often cultivated for ornament in marshy ground and has developed some improved double-flowered varieties. Its leaves and young stems are often used as a pot-herb in early spring. The American cowslip or shooting-star is Dodecatheon meadia of the family Primulacea. It is a stemless perennial with fibrous roots, spatulate-oblong leaves in a dense rosette from which the scape rises to a height of 9 to 18 inches or more, bearing at its summit several or many pendant pink, white or lilac flowers with reflexed petals and prominent anthers and pistils. Each flower

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of the cluster resembles the solitary flowers of cyclamen. Other species of the same genus are also known by the name, and like it are planted in hardy flower borders like the English cowslip.

COX, David, English landscape painter: b. Birmingham, 29 April 1783; d. Harbourne, near Birmingham, 7 June 1859. He was for several years engaged as scene-painter for various provincial and London theatres, and during a considerable portion of his early life he had to teach his art for a subsistence. His travels in Wales (1805) furnished him with material for numbers of his paintings. In 1813 he was made a member of the Society of Painters and Water-Colorists and in the following year published a treatise on 'Landscape Painting and Effect in Water Colors.' He removed to Harbourne near Birmingham in 1841. His works are chiefly of English landscape, and in water colors, in which he especially excelled, being ranked by some critics as the first of English water-colorists. At the age of 56 he began the study of oil-painting under Müller and became very skilful in the art. Cox ranks as the greatest of the successors of Constable (q.v.). His colors are light and fresh, and his treatment of light and shade is most skilful. excels in small productions. The British Museum and the South Kensington Museum possess some of his water colors and drawings, but the best of his works are in the Birmingham Art Gallery and in private collections. An exhibition of his paintings was held in Manchester 1887. Well-known pictures by him are 'Washing Day' (1843); The Vale of Clwyd (1846); Peace and War (1846); The Summit of the Mountain' (1853). His son, David Cox (1809-85), was likewise a water-colorist of some distinction. Consult Hall, 'Biography of David Cox' (London 1881); Solly, 'Memoir of David Cox' (ib. 1875); Baldry (in 'Masters of English Landscape Painting, ed. by Charles Holmes, New York 1903).

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COX, SIR George William, English clergyman and historical writer: b. Benares, Hindustan, 10 Jan. 1827; d. Walmer, England, 9 Feb. 1902. He was educated at Rugby and Trinity College, Oxford, and took orders in 1850. From 1850 till 1851 he was curate of Salcombe Regis, Devon; from 1854 till 1857, of Saint Paul's, Exeter, and in 1881 became vicar of Bekesborne, Kent. From 1881 till 1897 he was rector of Scrayingham, Yorkshire. He succeeded his uncle in the baronetcy in 1877. In 1891 he was chosen bishop of Natal by the friends of Bishop Colenso (q.v.) but the archbishops and bishops of England refused him consecration. He published 'Poems Legendary and Historical' (with the historian Freeman, 1850); 'Life of Saint Boniface (1853); Tales from Greek Mythology (1861); The Tale of the Great Persian War, from Herodotus) (1861); "Tales of the Gods and Heroes' (1862); Tales of Thebes and Argos (1864); A Manual of Mythology) (1867); Tales of Ancient Greece (1868); The Mythology of the Aryan Nations' (1870) 'Latin and Teutonic Christendom' (1870) History of Greece) (1874); The Crusades (1874); The Greeks and Persians' (1876); The Athenian Empire' (1876); A General History of Greece' (1876); History of the Establishment of British Rule in India' (1881); 'Introduction to Science of Comparative Mytho

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