His portrait was taken by famous painters.

Literary lion-hunters began to fix their eyes upon him.

His renown spread even to Olney.

The clerk of All Saints', Northampton, came over to ask him to write the verses annually appended to the bill of mortality for that parish.

Cowper suggested that "there were several men of genius in Northampton, particularly Mr.Cox, the statuary, who, as everybody knew, was a first-rate maker of verses." "Alas!" replied the clerk, "I have heretofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading that the people of our town cannot understand him." The compliment was irresistible, and for seven years the author of The Task wrote the mortuary verses for All Saints', Northampton.