Editing William Cowper (section)

==Career==
After education at Westminster School, Cowper was articled to Mr Chapman, solicitor, of [[Ely Place]], [[Holborn]], to be trained for a career in law. During this time, he spent his leisure at the home of his uncle Bob Cowper, where he fell in love with his cousin Theodora, whom he wished to marry. But as James Croft, who in 1825 first published the poems Cowper addressed to Theodora, wrote, "her father, from an idea that the union of persons so nearly related was improper, refused to accede to the wishes of his daughter and nephew".  This refusal left Cowper distraught. He had his first severe attack of [[Depression (mood)|depression]]/[[Mental disorder|mental illness]], referred to at the time as melancholy.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The restoration and the eighteenth century|last=Price, Martin|date=1973|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-501614-9|location=New York|oclc=2341106}}</ref>

In 1763 he was offered a Clerkship of Journals in the [[House of Lords]], but broke under the strain of the approaching examination; he experienced a worse period of [[depression (mood)|depression]] and [[insanity]].  At this time he tried three times to commit [[suicide]] and was sent to [[Nathaniel Cotton]]'s asylum at [[St. Albans|St Albans]] for recovery. His poem beginning "Hatred and vengeance, my eternal portion" (sometimes referred to as "Sapphics") was written in the aftermath of his suicide attempt.

After recovering, he settled at [[Huntingdon]] with a retired clergyman named Morley Unwin and his wife [[Mary Unwin|Mary]]. Cowper grew to be on such good terms with the Unwin family that he went to live in their house, and moved with them to [[Olney, Buckinghamshire|Olney]]. There he met [[curate]] [[John Newton]], a former captain of slave ships who had devoted his life to [[The gospel|the Christian gospel]]. Not long afterwards, Morley Unwin was killed in a fall from his horse; Cowper continued to live in the Unwin home and became greatly attached to the widow [[Mary Unwin]].

At Olney, Newton invited Cowper to contribute to a [[hymnbook]] that he was compiling. The resulting volume, known as ''Olney Hymns,'' was not published until 1779 but includes hymns such as "Praise for the Fountain Opened" (beginning "[[There is a fountain filled with blood|There is a fountain fill'd with blood]]")<ref>{{cite web|last= Cowper |first= William |title= There Is a Fountain |year= 1772 |access-date= 2018-02-01 |website= [[Hymnary.org]] |type= hymn |url= https://hymnary.org/text/there_is_a_fountain_filled_with_blood_dr}}</ref> and "Light Shining out of Darkness" (beginning "[[God Moves in a Mysterious Way]]"), which remain some of Cowper's most familiar verses. Several of Cowper's hymns, as well as others originally published in the ''Olney Hymns,'' are today preserved in the ''[[Sacred Harp]],'' which also collects [[shape note]] songs.

In 1773, Cowper experienced an attack of insanity, imagining not only that he was eternally condemned to [[Damnation|hell]], but that God was commanding him to make a sacrifice of his own life. Mary Unwin took care of him with great devotion, and after a year he began to recover. In 1779, after Newton had moved from Olney to London, Cowper started to write poetry again. Mary Unwin, wanting to keep Cowper's mind occupied, suggested that he write on the subject of ''The Progress of Error.'' After writing a satire of this name, he wrote seven others. These poems were collected and published in 1782 under the title ''Poems by William Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Esq.''

[[File:Johann Heinrich Füssli 035.jpg|thumb|Crazy Kate, illustration for Cowper's ''The Task'' by [[Henry Fuseli]] (1806–1807).]]
In 1781 Cowper met a sophisticated and charming widow named Lady Austen who inspired new poetry. Cowper himself tells of the genesis of what some have considered his most substantial work, ''[[The Task (poem)|The Task]],'' in his "Advertisement" to the original edition of 1785:
<blockquote>...a lady, fond of [[blank verse]], demanded a poem of that kind from the author, and gave him the SOFA for a subject. He obeyed; and, having much leisure, connected another subject with it; and, pursuing the train of thought to which his situation and turn of mind led him, brought forth at length, instead of the trifle which he at first intended, a serious affair{{snd}}a Volume!</blockquote>
In the same volume Cowper also printed "[[The Diverting History of John Gilpin]]", a notable piece of comic verse. [[G. K. Chesterton]], in ''Orthodoxy'', later credited the writing of "John Gilpin" with saving Cowper from becoming completely insane.<ref>To be precise, Chesterton was making, in Chapter 2 of ''Orthodoxy'' [http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/ortho14.txt], the point that contrary to some assumptions poetry does not make men mad, but if anything logic does. He then takes the example of Cowper: "only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the [...] logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. [...] He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin."</ref>
[[File:Harriett Hesketh born Cowper.jpg|right|thumb|[[Harriett Hesketh]] by Francis Coates]]
Cowper and Mary Unwin moved to [[Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire]], in 1786, having become close to his cousin [[Harriett Hesketh]] (Theodora's sister).<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kelly |first=James William |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-13124 |title=Hesketh [née Cowper], Harriet, Lady Hesketh (bap. 1733, d. 1807), cousin and intimate friend of the poet William Cowper |date=23 September 2004 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |edition=Online |volume=1 |location=[[Oxford]] |language=en-GB |doi=10.1093/REF:ODNB/13124}}</ref> During this period he started his translations of [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]'' and ''[[Odyssey]]'' into [[blank verse]]. His versions (published in 1791) were the most significant English renderings of these [[Epic poetry|epic poems]] since those of [[Alexander Pope]] earlier in the century. Later critics have faulted Cowper's Homer for being too much in the mould of [[John Milton]].<ref>{{citation|year=1866|last=Blackie|first=John Stuart|title=Homer and the Iliad|location=Edinburgh|publisher=Edmonston and Douglas|page=139|oclc=4731357|quote=[...] we have had great poets, like Cowper, who do not seem to have been able to distinguish between the tone of Milton and the tone of Homer.}}</ref>

In 1789 Cowper befriended a cousin, [[John Johnson (clergyman)|Dr John Johnson]], a Norfolk clergyman, and in 1795 Cowper and Mary moved to [[Norfolk]] to be near him and his sister Catharine. They originally stayed at [[North Tuddenham]], then at Dunham Lodge near [[Swaffham]] and then [[Mundesley]] before finally settling in [[East Dereham]] (all places in [[Norfolk]]) with the Johnsons, after Mary Unwin became paralysed.<ref>Catharine Bodham Johnson, Introduction to ''Letters of Lady Hesketh to the Rev. John Johnson LL.D.'' (1901), pp. 5–8</ref>

Mary Unwin died in 1796, plunging Cowper into a gloom from which he never fully recovered. He did continue to revise his Homer for a second edition of his translation. Aside from writing the powerful and bleak poem "The Castaway", he penned some English translations of Greek verse and translated some of the ''Fables'' of [[John Gay]] into Latin.