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Frances Maria Cecilia Cowper
Portrait of Maria Frances Cecilia Madan by William Hoare
Portrait of Mrs William Cowper, née Maria Frances Cecilia Madan, by William Hoare (1707—1792).
BornFrances Maria Cecilia Madan
(1722-11-22)22 November 1722
Hertingfordbury Park, Hertfordshire, England
Died15 October 1797(1797-10-15) (aged 74)
Devonshire Street, Paddington, Central London
Resting placeSouth Audley Anglican Chapel, Grosvenor Square, Mount Street, Westminster
Pen name"a lady"
OccupationWriter
SubjectDevotional
SpouseWilliam Cowper (1721—1769)
ChildrenFrances Cecilia Cowper; Charles Cowper; George Cowper; Spencer Cowper
RelativesJudith Madan (mother); Martin Madan(father); Martin Madan (brother); Spencer Madan (brother); Penelope Maitland (sister); Frederick Madan (brother); James Russel Madan (brother)
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Frances Maria Cecilia Cowper (née Madan; 1726–1797), sometimes known as Maria Frances, was a religious poet and part of the Madan-Maitland literary coterie.[1]

Life

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Frances Maria Madan was the second[2] of nine children of Judith Madan [née Cowper] (1702–1781) and Colonel Martin Madan (1700–1756).[3] She had weak eyesight as a child and was sent to a Mrs. King, an oculist, from whom she learnt to read and write. She also attended a school in Wells, Somerset and both her parents encouraged her literary interests. She and her sister Penelope were considered "beauties" in London society.[4] Her father travelled, the family's finances were strained, and her mother, whose literary career had ended with her marriage, suffered from recurrent depression.[5] In 1749 or thereabouts, her mother joined the Methodist circle of John Wesley (1703–1791) and Selina Hastings (1707–1791).[5] Cowper and her cousin, author and hymn-writer William Cowper, were coreligionists and from 1766[4] carried on a written correspondence "almost entirely of a religious character."[6] On 5 Aug. 1749, she married another first cousin, also named William Cowper (1721—1769), of Hertingfordbury. The couple had six children:[7][8]

  • William Cowper (1750—1798)
  • Maria Judith Cowper (born 1752)
  • George Cowper (1754—1787)
  • Frances Cecilia Cowper (1764—1849)
  • Charles Cowper (born 1765)
  • Spencer Cowper (died young)[9]

Cowper's husband died after two decades of marriage and she lived a widow for another twenty-eight years, first in York and then, after 1772, in London.[4]

Poetry

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Title page of Frances Maria Cowper Original Poems 2nd ed 1807.
Title page of [Cowper, Frances Maria]. Original Poems, on Various Occasions. By a Lady. Revised by William Cowper, Esq. of the Inner Temple. Orig. pub. 1792; 2nd ed. London, 1807.

Cowper published one volume of religious verse, edited by her famous relative William Cowper. First published in 1792, there was a second edition in 1807 and a third in 1810, both posthumous,[10] as well as two U.S. editions.[11] Initially published as by "a lady," a footnote in the third edition misidentifies the author as "Mrs. Cowper, the aunt of the immortal poet"[12] when she was in fact his cousin. The preface is short and offers a standard modest disclaimer that the poems are published at the request of friends. The collection comprises eighty-nine poems on Christian themes. In the preface and some of the poems, Cowper discusses the advantages of retirement from the world. Her hymn "My span of life will soon be done" has been published in seventy-eight hymnals:[13]

My span of life will soon be done,
The passing moments say;
As length'ning shadows o'er the mead
Proclaim the close of day (ll. 1–4)[14]

Two of her poems were anthologized in Roger Lonsdale's 1989 collection, Eighteenth-century women poets.[15]

Works

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  • Cowper, Frances Maria. Original poems, on various occasions. By a lady. Revised by William Cowper, Esq. of the Inner Temple. William Cowper, Editor. London: printed for J. Deighton, Holborn; J. Mathews, Strand; and R. Faulder, Bond Street, 1792.[10]

Etexts

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  • [Cowper, Frances Maria]. Original Poems, on Various Occasions. By a Lady. Revised by William Cowper, Esq. of the Inner Temple. Second Edition. London: For Mathews and Leigh, 18, Strand, R. Faulder, Bond Street, and J. Deighton, Cambridge. Orig. pub. 1792; 1807. (Full text at Google Books).

See also

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Notes and references

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Notes

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  1. ^ "Madan-Maitland Family." Manuscript Verse Miscellanies 1700-1820. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  2. ^ "Maria Cowper." Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  3. ^ "Col. Martin Madan," Legacies of British Slavery database. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Lonsdale, Roger. "Maria Frances Cecilia Cowper (née Madan) (1726—1797)." Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology. Ed. Roger Lonsdale. Oxford University Press, 1989. pp. 269—272.
  5. ^ a b Rumbold, Valerie. "Madan [née Cowper], Judith (1702–1781), gentlewoman and poet." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23. Oxford University Press. Date of access 30 Aug. 2022, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-60780>
  6. ^ Webb, William Trego. Selections from letters. William Cowper. Edited, with introd. and notes by William Trego Webb. London: Macmillan, 1895, p. xxxix. (Internet Archive)
  7. ^ "COWPER, William (1721-69), of Hertingfordbury Park, Herts". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 29 August 2022.
  8. ^ Maria Frances Cecilia Madan, Ancestorium Family Tree Collaboration. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  9. ^ "Spencer COWPER" [12639]. The Kings Candlesticks - Family Trees. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  10. ^ a b "Cowper, Frances Maria." The Women's Print History Project, 2019, Person ID 1515. Accessed 2022-08-29.
  11. ^ "Cowper, Maria Frances Cecilia," Jackson Bibliography of Romantic Poetry, UofToronto Libraries. Accessed 29 August 2022.
  12. ^ Original Poems, on Various Occasions. By a Lady. Revised by William Cowper, Esq. of the Inner Temple. Third edition. London: Printed for Mathews and Leigh, 18, Strand; and Crosby and Co. Stationers Court, 1810, p. v. (Full text at Google Books).
  13. ^ "My span of life will soon be done." Hymnary.org. Accessed 30 August 2022.
  14. ^ See, for example, #564, Hymn book of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, Nashville: Pub. House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1895, p. 402. (Internet Archive)
  15. ^ "On viewing her sleeping infant (C[harles] C[owper]) Written at the Park, Hertfordshire, 1767", and "The world not our rest &." Eighteenth-century women poets: an Oxford anthology. Ed. Roger Lonsdale. Oxford University Press, 1989. pp. 269—272. (Full text at Internet Archive).

References

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