Original Poems on Various Occasions.
[Cowper, Frances Maria]. Original Poems on Various Occasions. By a Lady. Revised by William Cowper, Esq., of the Inner Temple. Philadelphia: Printed by William Young, 1793.
12mo.; the first nine pages and the rear endpapers damp-stained at the top gutter; contemporary ownership signature on first endpaper and title page in ink, and repeated on the first, second and rear endpapers in pencil; rear endpaper chipped and rear pastedown worn at bottom of page edges; scattered foxing; top edge darkened; edges browned; brown leather boards; minor abrasions to upper and lower boards; spine chipped; stamped in gilt; edgeworn. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Revised edition of her only book; preceded by the London edition by one year, with one page of publishers advertisements in the rear. Bookplate of “Shea,” marked “No. 872,” on front pastedown. The author, in her “Advertisement,” dated June 30, 1792, apologizes to the public for “obtruding” this book of poems on them. She explains:
these Poems are the genuine fruits of retirement and leisure; and were occasioned by such a series of adverse events, as led the Author to a peculiar habit of contemplating the ways of an all-wife, over-ruling Providence, and to experience of that solid happiness in the present life, which often begins where worldly prosperity ends. (iv)
Eighty-eight short religious poems – with a Methodist slant – follow; including, “The Christian’s View of Pleasure,” “Where has my Ambition led me?’ “Dependence on God,” “The Sinner’s Morning Song,” and “Preparation for Prayer.” An asterix following the poem “The Soul’s Farewell to Earth, and Approaches to Heaven” notes: “This Poem has been printed before; it was sent, without the Author’s knowledge, to the Editor of the Theological Miscellany, and appeared in that work.”
The author is equally penitent for her sins and exultant for God’s love in each poem. In the eight line poem titled “Memorandum,” she writes:
O God! my God most dear!
Thou! whom I serve and fear,
O give me patience still
To wait upon they will ;
In darkest times to view,
By faith the promise true,
And every moment prove
They chastisement was love.
Cowper (1726-1797) was the cousin of the poet William Cowper, who revised this book. She was married to her cousin, Major William Cowper, who was also a cousin of William Cowper the poet. This is Cowper’s only work; as suggested in her “Advertisement,” she reluctantly published it due to the encouragement of her friends. No doubt the relation to her famous cousin – who also wrote religious poems and hymns – and the role he played in revising it, helped bring this volume to publication.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/nutter/hymwriters.Cowper_F.html
"William Cowper." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998.
Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2006. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC
http://www.tomfolio.com/bookdetailssu.asp?b=OB270&m=220
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