A contributor to the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1801 gave an account of an instance of second sight connected with the college told by the brother of the poet William Cowper (1731-1800):
Allow me to tell you a well-attested story of as extraordinary a prediction, more than once related to me and others by my ingenious and lamented friend and fellow-collegian, John Cowper, brother of the lately deceased admirable but eccentric poet, William C. In the early part of his life, before he saw Cambridge, many circumstances of his own and family history were related to him by a woman, who appeared no other than a common fortune-teller, who added, that at or about the next time he saw her his death would not be very distant. The place where he first met with her is not now recollected, whether near his father’s house in Hertfordshire, or elsewhere; but the last time h saw her was on the walks behind St Jogn’s College garden, about the year 1770, soon after which he sickened and died. Such is the plain unvarnished tale, left to yourself and readers as of undoubted authenticity.