The Works of William Cowper, Esq: Comprising His Poems, Corrsepondence, and Translations with a Life of the Author, by the Editor, Robert Southey, Volume 4

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Baldwin and Cradock, 1836
 

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Page 272 - I'll tell you, friend! a wise man and a fool. You'll find, if once the monarch acts the monk, Or, cobbler-like, the parson will be drunk, Worth makes the man, and want of it, the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella.
Page 112 - I have writ Charity, not for popularity, but as well as I could, in hopes to do good ; and if the Reviewer, should say, " to be sure, the gentleman's Muse wears Methodist shoes, you may know by her pace and talk about grace, that she and her bard have little regard for the taste and fashions, and ruling passions, and...
Page 38 - Gothic porch smothered with honeysuckles, their little gardens and high walls, their box-edgings, balls of holly, and yew-tree statues, are become so entirely unfashionable now, that we can hardly believe it possible, that a people who resembled us so little in their taste, should resemble us in any thing else.
Page 2 - Better for a man never to have seen them, or to see them with the eyes of a brute, stupid and unconscious of what he beholds, than not to be able to say, "The Maker of all these wonders is my friend!
Page 278 - A dissenter, but a liberal one; a man of letters and of genius; master of a fine imagination, or rather not master of it— an imagination which, when he finds himself in the company he loves, and can confide in, runs away with him into such fields of speculation as amuse and enliven every other imagination that has the happiness to be of the party. At other times he has a tender and delicate sort of melancholy in his disposition, not less agreeable in its way. No men are better qualified for companions...
Page 2 - If every human being upon earth could think for one quarter of an hour as I have done for many years, there might perhaps be many miserable men among them, but not an unawakened one could be found from the arctic to the antarctic circle. At present, the difference between them and me is greatly to their advantage.
Page 43 - Lethean gulfs receive them as they fall, And dark oblivion soon absorbs them all. So when a child, as playful children use, Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news, The flame extinct, he views the roving fire, There goes my lady, and there goes the 'squire ; There goes the parson, oh ! illustrious spark, And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk.
Page 38 - In about five minutes a voice on the outside of the parlour door inquired if one of my hares had got away. I immediately rushed into the next room and found that my poor favourite Puss had made her escape. She had gnawed in sunder the strings of a...
Page 236 - Prove to me that I have a right to pray, and I will pray without ceasing; yes, and praise too, even in the belly of this hell, compared with which Jonah's was a palace, a temple of the living God. But let me add, there is no encouragement in the Scripture so comprehensive as to include my case, nor any consolation so effectual as to reach it.
Page 277 - But the beauties of the spot are themselves an interruption ; my attention is called upon by those very myrtles, by a double row of grass pinks just beginning to blossom, and by a bed of beans already in bloom ; and you are to consider it, if you please, as no small proof of my regard, that though you have so many powerful rivals, I disengage myself from them all, and devote this hour entirely to you.

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