Frances Maria Cowper

Frances Maria Cecilia Cowper (née Madan; 1726–1797), sometimes known as Maria Frances, was a religious poet and part of the Madan-Maitland literary coterie. Life Frances Maria Madan was the second of nine children of Judith Madan [née Cowper] (1702–1781) and Colonel Martin Madan (1700–1756). She had weak eyesight as a child and was sent to a Mrs. King, an oculist, from whom she learnt to read and write. She also attended a school in Wells, Somerset and both her parents encouraged her literary interests. She and her sister Penelope were considered "beauties" in London society. Her father travelled, the family's finances were strained, and her mother, whose literary career had ended with her marriage, suffered from recurrent depression. In 1749 or thereabouts, her mother joined the Methodist circle of John Wesley (1703–1791) and Selina Hastings (1707–1791). Cowper and her cousin, author and hymn-writer William Cowper, were coreligionists and from 1766 carried on a written correspondence "almost entirely of a religious character." On 5 Aug. 1749, she married another first cousin, also named William Cowper (1721—1769), of Hertingfordbury. The couple had six children: William Cowper (1750—1798) Maria Judith Cowper (born 1752) George Cowper (1754—1787) Frances Cecilia Cowper (1764—1849) Charles Cowper (born 1765) Spencer Cowper (died young) Cowper's husband died after two decades of marriage and she lived a widow for another twenty-eight years, first in York and then, after 1772, in London. Poetry