“ COWLEY, HANNAH (1743–1809) , English dramatist and poet, daughter of Philip Parkhouse, a bookseller at Tiverton, Devonshire, was born in 1743. When about twenty-five years old she married Mr Cowley, of the East India Company’s service, who died in 1797. Some years after her marriage, being at the theatre with her husband, she expressed the opinion that she could write as good a piece as the one being performed, and within a fortnight she had written her first play, The Runaway. ”