The Works of William Cowper, Esq., Comprising His Poems, Correspondence and Translations. with a Life of the Author by the Editor, Robert Southey Volume 5 - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1836 edition. Excerpt: ...I been accustomed to doubt whether the jEneid were a noble composition or not, this gentleman would at once have decided the question for me; and I should have been immediately assured, that a work must necessarily abound in beauties that had the happiness to displease a censurer of the Word of God. What enterprises will not an inordinate passion for fame suggest? It prompted one man to fire the Temple of Ephesus; another, to fling himself into a volcano; and now has induced this wicked and unfortunate squire either to deny his own feelings, or to publish to all the world that he has no feelings at all. This being the fifth of November, is the worst of all days in the year for letter-writing. Continually called upon to remember the bonfire, one is apt to forget every thing else. The boys at Olney have likewise a very entertaining sport, which commences annually upon this day: they call it Hockey; and it consists in dashing each other with mud, and the windows also, so that I am forced to rise now and then, and to threaten them with a horsewhip, to preserve our own. We know that the Roman boys whipped tops, trundled the hoop, and played at tennis; but I believe we nowhere read that they delighted in these filthy aspersions: I am inclined, therefore, to give to the slovenly but ingenious youths of Olney full credit for the invention. It will be well if the Sunday school may civilize them to a taste for more refined amusements. That measure is so far in forwardness that a subscription is made: but it amounts, I am told, to no more than nineteen pounds; a feeble beginning, which, as taxes are continually growing, promises no long duration. We have lost our noble neighbours: Lord Peterborough and his lady are gone; and gone to return no more....