WILLIAM THE THIED.

7

terested by learning that he was the grandfather of that chap.

„ „ XXV.

excellent man and excellent poet William Cowper, whose '"1633,writings have long heen peculiarly loved and prized bythe members of the religious community which, undera strong delusion, sought to slay his innocent pro-genitor. *

Though Spencer Cowper had escaped with life andhonour, the Tories had carried their point. They hadsecured against the next election the support of theQuakers of Hertford; and th^ consequence was that the,borough was lost to the family and to the party whichhad lately predominated there.

In the very week in which the great trial took place D “ cls 'at Hertford, a feud arising out of the late election forBuckinghamshire very nearly produced fatal effects.Wharton, the chief of the Buckinghamshire Whigs, hadwith difficulty succeeded in bringing in his brother asone of the knights of the shire. Graham Viscount Cheyney,of the kingdom of Scotland, had been returned at thehead of the poll by the Tories. The two noblemen metat the quarter sessions. In England Cheyney was be-fore the Union merely an Esquire. Wharton was un-

* It is curious that all Cowper’s biographers with whom I am ac-quainted, Hayley, Southey, Grimshawe, Chalmers, mention the Judge,the common ancestor of the poet, of his first lovp Theodora Cowper,and of Lady Hesketh; but that none of thoso biographers makes thefaintest allusion to the Hertford trial, the most remarkable event in thehistory of the family; nor do I believe that any allusion to that trialcan be found in any of the poet’s numerous letters.