The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper: With an Introductory Letter to the Right Honorable Earl Cowper, Volume 2

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W. Pelham, Manning & Loring, and E. Lincoln, 1803
 

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Page 204 - He looks abroad into the varied field Of nature, and though poor perhaps compared With those whose mansions glitter in his sight, Calls the delightful scenery all his own. His are the mountains, and the valleys his, And the resplendent rivers. His to enjoy With a propriety that none can feel, But who, with filial confidence inspired, Can lift to heaven an unpresumptuous eye, And smiling say —
Page 170 - Atlantic billows roared, When such a destined wretch as I, Washed headlong from on board, Of friends, of hope, of all bereft, His floating home for ever left.
Page 216 - ... as harmony itself exact, In verse well disciplined, complete, compact, Gave virtue and morality a grace, That, quite eclipsing pleasure's painted face, Levied a tax of wonder and applause, Even on the fools that trampled on their laws. But he (his musical finesse was such, So nice his ear, so delicate his touch) Made poetry a mere mechanic art; And every warbler has his tune by heart.
Page 41 - That ere through age or woe I shed my wings, I may record thy worth with honour due, In verse as musical as thou art true, And that immortalizes whom it sings: But thou hast little need. There is a Book By seraphs writ with beams of heavenly light, On which the eyes of God not rarely look, A chronicle of actions just and bright — There all thy deeds, my faithful Mary, shine; And since thou own'st that praise, I spare thee mine.
Page 304 - Confidants in general are like crazy firelocks, which are no sooner charged and cocked, than the spring gives way, and the report immediately follows. Happy to have been thought worthy the confidence of one friend, they are impatient to manifest their importance to another ; till between them, and their friend, and their friend's friend, the whole matter is presently known to all our friends round the Wrekin.
Page 213 - For this we may thank Pope, but unless we could imitate him in the closeness and compactness of his expression, as well as in the smoothness of his numbers, we had better drop the imitation, which serves no other purpose than to emasculate and weaken all we write. Give me a manly, rough line, with a deal of meaning in it, rather than a whole poem full of musical periods, that have nothing but their oily smoothness to recommend them...
Page 212 - But He, who knew what human hearts would prove, How- slow to learn the dictates of his love, That, hard by nature and of stubborn will, A life of ease would make them harder still, In pity to the souls his grace designed To rescue from the ruins of mankind, Call'd for a cloud to darken all their years, And said, "Go, spend them in the vale of tears.
Page 321 - ... these, I conceive, are the features peculiar to the real votary of virtue, and which must of course give to his strains a perfection of effect never to be attained by the poet of inferior moral endowments.
Page 194 - When one, that holds communion with the skies, Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise, And once more mingles with us meaner things, 'Tis e'en as if an angel shook his wings ; Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.
Page 313 - ... churches in town. The ladies, immediately on their entrance, breathe a pious ejaculation through their fan-sticks, and the beaux very gravely address themselves to the haberdashers' bills, glued upon the linings of their hats.

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