The life and posthumous writings of William Cowper, by W. Hayley. Supplementary pages, Volume 3

Front Cover
 

Selected pages

Common terms and phrases

Popular passages

Page 446 - Implored your highness' pardon and set forth A deep repentance: nothing in his life Became him like the leaving it; he died As one that had been studied in his death, To throw away the dearest thing he owed As 'twere a careless trifle.
Page 390 - MARY ! I want a lyre with other strings, Such aid from heaven as some have feign'd they drew, An eloquence scarce given to mortals, new And undebased by praise of meaner things, That, ere through age or woe I shed...
Page 78 - Alas ! sir, 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.
Page 24 - It is a great thing to be indeed a poet, and does not happen to more than one man in a century. Churchill,' the great Churchill, deserved the name of poet : I have read him twice, and some of his pieces three times over, and the last time with more pleasure than the first. The pitiful scribbler of his life seems to have undertaken that task, for which he was entirely unqualified, merely because it afforded him an opportunity to traduce him.
Page 446 - ... person at the point of death, we cannot forbear being attentive to every thing he says or does, because we are sure that some time or other we shall ourselves be in the same melancholy circumstances. The general, the statesman, or the philosopher, are perhaps characters which we may never act in, but the dying man is one whom, sooner or later, we shall certainly resemble.
Page 74 - gan in haste the drawers explore, The lowest first, and without stop The rest in order to the top. For 'tis a truth well known to most, That whatsoever thing is lost, We seek it, ere it come to light, In every cranny but the right.
Page 56 - Burns' poems, and have read them twice ; and, though they be written in a language that is new to me, and many of them on subjects much inferior to the author's ability, I think them on the whole a very extraordinary production.
Page 213 - The world could not have furnished you with a present so acceptable to me as the picture which you have so kindly sent me. I received it the night before last, and viewed it with a trepidation of nerves and spirits somewhat akin to what I should have felt, had the dear original presented herself to my embraces. I kissed it, and hang it where it is the last object that I see at night, and, of course, the first on which I open my eyes in the morning.
Page 214 - ... and a little I would hope both of his and of her , I know not what to call it without seeming to praise myself, which is not my intention, but speaking to you, I will even speak out, and say good nature. Add to all this, I deal much in poetry, as did our venerable ancestor, the Dean of St. Paul's, and I think I shall have proved myself a Donne at all points'.} The truth is, that whatever I am, I love you all.
Page 151 - How many are the days of the years of thy life? And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years : few and evil have been the days of the years of my life...

Bibliographic information