has been extensive and lasting. He is, to a certain extent, the prototype of Wordsworth. Indeed, many passages in the Excursion read like extracts from the Task. It is curious also to observe in Cowper s verse that subjectivity which is supposed to be the characteristic of more recent times. His ailings, his walks, his musings, his tamed hares, his friends, his indignation at slavery, his peculiar views of religion, are the things he delights to portray the
Task is a poem entirely about himself.On Lady Austen leaving Olney, her place was filled by the Throgmortons, whose acquaintance Cowper had made on the occasion of a fete which they gave to the surround ing gentry. He was delighted with his new friends and spent much time in their society. During this period he was not idle ; he had commenced his translation of Homer, and in the winter of 1785 had advanced as far as the 20th book of the Iliad. Owing to the rigorous care he bestowed upon his work it did not advance so rapidly as he at first anticipated, and was not published till 1791. Cowper was now in the zenith of his reputation. Rumours of his fame were wafted to the quiet residence of Olney from that world which he had so long forsaken, he was hailed the first poet of the day, and his old friend Thurlow (whose greatness he had foreseen) opened a correspondence with him and thanked him for his translation, To the mild spirit of Cowper the last circumstance must have been peculiarly grateful. While engaged upon Homer, his dreaded malady returned, but was happily driven away by the charms of society and constant literary occupation. He well knew that if he remained inactive the dark spirit would regain his throne ; and no sooner was Homer given to the world than we find him engaged on an edition of Milton. But the labour was too much ; his brain sunk beneath the incessant demands made on its energies, and EO great was his distress that he was obliged to relinquish the undertaking. The clouds were now closing dark and heavy over the evening of Cowper s life. Mrs Unwin was an invalid ; he was ever by her bedside, and nursed her with a tenderness, if possible, deeper than her own. Bensath the tension of sorrow the cord snapped. His malady returned, which was never destined in this life to be rolled away. Mrs Unwin died on the 17th of December 1796, Cowper, with wandering brain and feeble as a child, was led into the room ; the presence of the dead drew from him one wild passionate exclamation, he then relapsed into silence, and it is said never more uttered her name. The deepest dejection, alternating with fits of spiritual despair, hung over him to the end. Dropsy appeared in his limbs ; and after being reduced to the last stage of feebleness, he died peacefully on the 25th of April 1800.
The posthumous writing of Cowper, with a life by his friend Hayley, appeared in 1803-4. The best life, that by Southey, with an excellent edition of his works, was published in 1833-37, and with additional letters, in Bohn s Standard Library (1853-54). Other editions of his works, with memoirs, are those of Grimshawe (1835), Dr Memes (1852), and George Gilfillan. Lives have also been written by H. F. Gary, M Diarmid, and Thomas Taylor. See, besides a study by Sainte-Beuve in the Moniteur (Nov. 13, 20, 27, and Dec. 4, 1854), Stopford Brooke s Theology in the English Poets, and Leon Boucher, William Cowper, sa correspondence et scs poesies.
COWRY, the popular name of the shells of the Cyprceida, a family of mollusks. Upwards of 100 species are re cognized, and they are widely distributed over the world, their habitat being the shallow water along the sea-shore. The best known is the money cowry or Cypr<xa moneta, a small shell about half an inch in length, white and straw- coloured without and blue within, which derives its dis tinctive name from the fact that in various countries it has been employed as a kind of currency. It is most abundant in the Indian Ocean, and is collected more particularly in the Maldive Islands, in Ceylon, along the Malabar coast, in Borneo and other East Indian Islands, and in various parts of the African coast from Ras Hafun to Mozambique. It was formerly in familiar use in Bengal, where, though it required 3840 to make a rupee, the annual importation was valued at about 30,000. In the countries of Further India it is still in use; and in Siam, for example, 6400 cowries are equal to a tical or about Is. 6d. In Western Africa Congo, Yoruba, <fec. it is the usual tender, and before the abolition of the slave trade there were large shipments of cowry shells to some of the English ports for reshipment to the slave coast. As the value of the cowry was very much greater in Western Africa than in the regions from which the supply was obtained, the trade was extremely lucrative, and in some cases the gains are said to have been 500 per cent. The use of the cowry currency has gradually spread inland in Africa, and Barth found it fairly recognized in Kan6, Kukawa, Muniyoma, Gando, and even Timbuktu. In Muniyoma he tells us the king s revenue was estimated at 30,000,O f QO shells, every full-grown man being required to pay annually 1000 shells for himself, 1000 for every pack-ox, and 2000 for every slave in his possession. In the countries on the coast the shells are fastened together in strings of 40 or 100 each, so that fifty or twenty strings represent a dollar ; but in the interior they are laboriously counted out one by one, or, if the trader be expert, five by five. The districts mentioned above receive their supply of kurdi, as they are called, from the west coast ; but the regions to the north of the Land of the Moon, where they are in use under the name of simli, are dependent on Moslem traders from Zanzibar. Among the Niam-Niam and other tribes who do not recognize their monetary value, the shells are in demand as fashionable decorations, just as in Germany they were in use as an ornament for horses harness, and were popular enough to acquire several native names, such as Brustharnisch or breastplates, and Otterkopf- chen or little adders heads. Besides the Cypraea moneta, various species are employed in this decorative use. The Cyprcea aurora is a mark of chieftainship among the natives of the Friendly Islands ; the Cypraea anniilus is a favourite with the Asiatic islanders ; and several of the larger kinds have been used in Europe for the carving of cameos. The tiger cowry, Cyprcea, tiyris, so well known as a mantelpiece ornament in England and America, is commonly used by the natives of the Sandwich Islands to sink their nets ; and they have also an ingenious plan of cementing portions of several shells into a smooth oval ball which they then employ as a bait to catch the cuttle-fish. While the species already mentioned occur in myriads in their respective habitats, the Cyprcea princeps and the Cyprcea umbHicata are extremely rare. Of the former, indeed, perhaps not more than two or three specimens are known, one of them being in the British Museum, and another having drawn 40 at the sale of the collection of the earl of Mountnorris.
the first half of the present century gives importance to the name of David Cox. He is, indeed, to use a phrase now sufficiently common, a representative man, having practised his art through the entire period, outliving and overcoming public indifference, and reaping at last a harvest of appreciation that astonished himself. Besides, he dedicated his life to home scenery and its atmospherical conditions exclusively, so that his productions are truly English, while their artistic mastery, and their power to convey the impressions he intended, are unsurpassed, perhaps unequalled, by the works of any of his contemporaries, even those of higher genius and much more general
culture. It must be remembered also, that in Cox s works