Private Correspondence of William Cowper, Esq: With Several of His Most Intimate Friends, Volume 1 |
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Common terms and phrases
affectionate afford agreeable amusement battledore and shuttlecock believe called comfort consequence Cowper DEAR FRIEND dear Madam dear Sir desire doubt Eartham effect engaged expect favourable feel finished furnish give glad hand happy heard Homer honour hope house of Bourbon Iliad JOHN NEWTON Johnson JOSEPH HILL kind King labour Lady Hesketh lately least less letter live March 14 matter mean mind never Nineveh obliged occasion Olney once opinion opportunity Paul Whitehead perhaps pleased pleasure poem poet possible present prove racter reason received recollect rejoice remember respect romantic friendship Scott seems sensible sent sincerely soon spirits suffered suppose tell thank thing thought tion truly truth verse volume W. C. MY DEAR W. C. TO JOSEPH Wargrave Weston WILLIAM BULL WILLIAM UNWIN wish write wrote
Popular passages
Page 74 - ... amusement. There is nothing but this — no occupation within the compass of my small sphere, poetry excepted, that can do much towards diverting that train of melancholy thoughts, which, when I am not thus employed, are for ever pouring themselves in upon me. And if I did not publish what I write, I could not interest myself sufficiently in my own success to make an amusement of it.
Page 253 - The very head and front of my offending Hath this extent, no more. Rude am I in my speech, And little bless'd with the set phrase of peace ; For since these arms of mine had seven years...
Page 259 - I waited, and waited in circumstances of mind that made a state of non-employment peculiarly irksome to me. I longed for the pen, as the only remedy, but I could find no subject: extreme distress of spirit at last drove me, as, if I mistake not, I told you some time since, to lay Homer before me, and translate for amusement.
Page 167 - HAVE neither long visits to pay nor to receive, nor ladies to spend hours in telling me that which might be told in five minutes, yet often find myself obliged to be an economist of time, and to make the most of a short opportunity. Let our station be as retired as it may, there is no want of playthings and avocations, nor much need to seek them, in this world of ours. Business, or what presents itself to us under that imposing character, will find us out, even in the stillest retreat, and plead...
Page 178 - A thick fog envelopes every thing, and at the same time it freezes intensely. You will tell me that this cold gloom will be succeeded by a cheerful spring, and endeavour to encourage me to hope for a spiritual change resembling it ; — but it will be lost labour. Nature revives again ; but a soul once slain lives no more.
Page 39 - Thursday society, and was an Eton man, which lowered him prodigiously in our esteem. I once thought Swift's letters the best that could be written ; but I like Gray's better. His humour or his wit, or whatever it is to be called, is never ill-natured or offensive ; and yet, I think, equally poignant with the Dean's.
Page 185 - It is not possible to conceive a more engaging and agreeable character than the gentleman's, or a more consummate assemblage of all that is called goodnature, complaisance, and innocent cheerfulness than is to be seen in the lady. They have lately received many gross affronts from the people of the place, on account of their religion. We thought it therefore the more necessary to treat them with respect.
Page 236 - The literati are all agreed to a man, that, although Pope has given us two pretty poems under Homer's titles, there is not to be found in them the least portion of Homer's spirit, nor the least resemblance of his manner.
Page 217 - I have only endeavoured to serve them, and the loss will be their own. And as to their commendations, if I should chance to win them, I feel myself equally invulnerable there. The view that I have had of myself, for many years, has been so truly humiliating, that I think the praises of all mankind could not hurt me. God knows that I speak my present sense of the matter at least most truly, when I say that the admiration of creatures like myself seems to me a weapon the least dangerous that my worst...
Page 88 - You wish for more attention, I for less. Dissipation itself would be welcome to me, so it were not a vicious one ; but however earnestly invited, it is coy, and keeps at a distance. Yet with all this distressing...