Background
Henry Cogswell Knight was born on January 29, 1789 in Newburyport, Massachusetts, United States, the first child of Joseph and Elizabeth (Cogswell) Knight. He was the seventh in line of descent from John Knight, who settled in Newbury in 1635, and from John Cogswell who settled in Ipswich in 1636. His father was engaged in marine insurance and the West Indian trade. Before Henry was three years old his mother died, about a year after the birth of a second son, Frederick on October 9, 1790. Some two years later, the father married Mary Treadwell of Ipswich, who bore a son, Antonio on November 2, 1795, and died when he was about a month old. When Henry was nine, his father died, and he and his brother Frederick were taken to the home of their maternal grandfather, Dr. Nathaniel Cogswell, in Rowley.
Education
Henry attended Dummer Academy Henry and later entered Phillips Academy, Andover, in September 1806. In 1808 he was admitted to Harvard College. He was an indifferent student, preferring reading of his own choice to a definite program of study. In 1811, without completing his course at Harvard, Knight left and went to Brown University. He was graduated there in 1812 with the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts.
Career
In 1809 Knight published in Boston a pamphlet of poems, The Cypriad, virtually all of which was frankly imitative, although the versification is well handled. One poem in this collection, "The Little Sweep, " so strongly resembles Blake's two poems on the same subject that it has been concluded that Knight saw a copy of the Songs of Innocence and Experience, although no known copy was in the United States in or before 1809; nor did Knight ever go to Europe. During 1809 he published a few poems in the Monthly Anthology (Boston), chiefly in Latin and decidedly in the classical spirit.
In 1814 he was in Philadelphia about to begin an extended journey through the South. Nothing further than what is afforded by his sprightly Letters from the South and West is known of this journey. In 1815 he published his second volume of poems, The Broken Harp, in Philadelphia. These are much more romantic than his earlier works. The first poem, "Earl Kandorf and Rosabelle, " resembles Coleridge's unpublished "Christabel" so strongly in atmosphere, character of the heroine, and versification that, although none of the five known "Christabel" manuscripts could have reached America in or before 1815, it seems incredible that Knight had not read the poem.
In 1816 Knight was in Washington, Richmond, and Petersburg. Thence he traveled farther inland to Kentucky (1818), thence down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans, at which place he arrived July 4, 1818. He left the Gulf of Mexico in 1819 and returned to Massachusetts by boat. He was probably in Boston once more in 1821, for there in this year he published anonymously a pamphlet poem, Fights of Faith, which, under the title "The Crusade, " appeared also in the two-volume edition of Poems ("Second Edition"), published in the same year in Boston. This collection comprised, chiefly, reprints of the pieces included in The Cypriad and The Broken Harp.
In 1824 Knight published at Boston Letters from the South and West, by Arthur Singleton, Esq. These are a mine of information, written in a witty and very readable style--undoubtedly his best work. During the year 1826 he published, both under his pseudonym and under his own name, several articles in the New England Galaxy (Boston).
On May 6, 1827, he was ordained a deacon of the Protestant Episcopal church by Bishop Griswold of Massachusetts. In 1829 he became rector of Prince George's and St. Bartholomew's parishes in Montgomery County, Maryland, but the following year returned to Massachusetts, and for the rest of his life apparently resided in or near Boston. In 1831 he published Lectures and Sermons, in two volumes, stating in the dedication that he had preached these sermons in Maryland and Virginia. He died in Rowley, of scarlet fever.
His brother Frederick, with whom Knight had probably made his home during his last years, survived until November 20, 1849, when he died of consumption, having been long a recluse. Thorn Cottage, or The Poet's Home: A Memorial of Frederick Knight, Esq. , was published in 1855. In addition to the biographical material concerning Frederick, the volume contains a meager collection of his poems and a fragment of Henry Knight's autobiography. The half-brother, Antonio, lived some thirty-two years longer, dying in an insane hospital in 1882.
Personality
A contemporary poem described him as, "the woe-begone, rabbit-eyed, fur whiskered knight. "
