Myers Literary Guide:
The North-East
 

WILLIAM COWPER (1731 - 1800)

The celebrated poet had no direct connection with the North East but his cousin Spencer Cowper was Dean of Durham 1746-74. William uses him as an example of how even the wealth of Durham need not corrupt a man of God. In his long poem 'Truth', we read:

Humility may clothe an English dean;
That grace was Cowper's - his confess'd by all -
Though placed in golden Durham's second stall.

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