The Life and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, Esqr: With an Introductory Letter to the Right Honourable Earl Cowper, Volume 1

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J. Seagrave, 1803 - 413 pages
 

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Page 171 - Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
Page 1 - Thy nightly visits to my chamber made, That thou might'st know me safe and warmly laid...
Page 101 - On the whole it appears, and my argument shows With a reasoning the court will never condemn, That the spectacles plainly were made for the Nose, And the Nose was as plainly intended for them.
Page 123 - It was not in the battle ; No tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak, She ran upon no rock. His sword was in its sheath, His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down With twice four hundred men.
Page 257 - 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 123 - She ran upon no rock. His sword was in its sheath, His fingers held the pen, When Kempenfelt went down With twice four hundred men. Weigh the vessel up Once dreaded by our foes ! And mingle with our cup The tear that England owes. Her timbers yet are sound, And she may float again Full charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main : But Kempenfelt is gone, His victories are o'er; And he and his eight hundred Shall plough the wave no more.
Page 217 - The man that hails you Tom or Jack, And proves by thumps upon your back How he esteems your merit, Is such a friend, that one had need Be very much his friend indeed, To pardon or to bear it.
Page 186 - ... nature an infinite share of ambition. But with it I have at the same time, as you well. know, an equal share of diffidence. To this combination of opposite qualities it has been owing that, till lately, I stole through life without undertaking any thing, yet always wishing to distinguish myself. At last I ventured, ventured too in the only path that at so late a period was yet open to me ; and am determined, if God have not determined otherwise, to work my way through the obscurity that has been...
Page 101 - Then shifting his side, as a lawyer knows how, He pleaded again in behalf of the Eyes, But what were his arguments few people know, For the court did not think they were equally wise. So his lordship decreed, with a grave solemn tone, Decisive and clear, without one if or but, — That whenever the Nose put his spectacles on, By daylight or candlelight — Eyes should be shut.
Page 254 - Beware of too sublime a sense Of your own worth and consequence. The man who dreams himself so great, And his importance of such weight, That all around in all that's done Must move and act for Him alone, Will learn in school of tribulation The folly of his expectation.

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