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 secution relying chiefly upon the argument that, as the body had floated, the girl must have been put into the water after death, and therefore had not drowned herself. To meet this assumption evidence was given by the famous physicians Garth, Hans Sloane, and William Cowper (no relation to the defendant). The judge was singularly feeble, but the defendants were acquitted. Their innocence is beyond a doubt, as was admitted by impartial people at the time (, iv. 518, 539). The prosecutions were said to be suggested by a double motive. The tories of Hertford wished to hang a member of an eminent whig family, and the quakers to clear their body of the reproach of suicide. Pamphlets were published on both sides, and an attempt was made to carry on the case by an appeal of murder. The judges, however, refused the writ, considering (besides various technical reasons) that the prosecution was malicious.

Cowper represented Beeralston in the parliaments of 1705 and 1708. He was one of the managers of the impeachment of Sacheverell, and lost his seat in the reaction which followed. In 1715, when he was made a king's counsel, he was elected member for Truro; in 1714 he had become attorney-general to the Prince of Wales, and in 1717 chief justice of Chester. On 24 Oct. 1727 he was promoted to the office of judge of the common pleas. He died 10 Dec. 1728. He was buried at Hertingfordbury, where there is a monument to him by Roubillac.

Cowper was the grandfather of William Cowper the poet, in whose life several of this judge's descendants are mentioned. By his first wife, Pennington Goodere, Spencer Cowper had three sons and a daughter. William, the eldest son, was clerk of the parliaments, and died 14 Feb. 1740, when the patent of his office passed to his eldest son, William, of Hertingfordbury, who is mentioned in the poet's life as ‘Major Cowper,’ and who died in 1769. Spencer, the second son of the clerk of the parliaments and brother of Major Cowper, was in the guards, commanded a brigade in the American war, became lieutenant-governor of Tynemouth, and died at Ham, Surrey, 13 March 1797 (Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. xi. 248). He is mentioned in the poet's life as ‘General Cowper.’ The judge's second son John, was the poet's father. His third son, Ashley, was barrister, clerk of the parliaments, and died 1788. The profits of his ‘very lucrative office’ were not his but his nephew's, General Cowper ( Cowper, vi. 259). Ashley Cowper had three daughters: Harriet (d. 15 Jan. 1807), married to Sir Thomas Hesketh (d. March 1778); Elizabeth Charlotte, married to Sir Archer Croft; and Theodora Jane, the poet's first love, who died in 1824. The judge's daughter, Judith, married Colonel Martin Madan, M.P., and by him was mother of Martin Madan, author of ‘Thelyphthora,’ of Spencer Madan, bishop of Peterborough, and of a daughter, who married her cousin Major (William) Cowper, and died 15 Oct. 1797 in her seventy-first year. Some of Mrs. Madan's poems will be found in ‘Poems by Eminent Ladies’ (1755), ii. 137–44. 

COWPER, SPENCER, D.D. (1713–1774), dean of Durham, youngest son of William, earl Cowper [q. v.], lord chancellor of Great Britain, was born in London in 1713, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford (B.A. 1731, M.A. 1734, B.D. and D.D. 1746). He became rector of Fordwich, Kent, prebendary of Canterbury 1742, and dean of Durham 1746. He died at Durham on 25 March 1774, and was buried in the east transept of the cathedral, called the Nine Altars, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Besides some occasional sermons he published: 1. ‘A Speech made at the Enthronement and Installation of Richard [Trevor] Bishop of Durham,’ Durham, 1753, 4to. 2. ‘Eight Discourses preached on or near the great festivals in the cathedral church of Durham. To which is added a Letter to a young lady on the Sacrament, and on the Evidence for the Christian Religion,’ London, 1773, 8vo.  COWPER or COUPER, WILLIAM (1568–1619), bishop of Galloway, son of John Couper, merchant-tailor, of Edinburgh, was born in 1568. After receiving some elementary instruction in his native city, and attending a school at Dunbar for four years, he entered in 1580 the university of St. Andrews, where he graduated M.A. in 1583. He then went to England, where he was for some years assistant-master in a school at Hoddesdon, Hert- 