English literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- Intellectual life -- 18th century
between Olney and Emberton; here, bosomed in its embowering trees,
the little farmhouse called the 'Peasant's Nest.' Here, again, in the
valley, and framed between the feathery branches of the shrubbery, is
the spire of Olney Church, from which one may almost fancy that=
````'the sound of cheerful bells .
```Just undulates upon the list'ning ear;'=
here, standing out whitely from the yews and evergreens of The
Wilderness, the urn with the epitaph of Neptune. Farther on (a lovely
little landscape) is the clump of poplars by the water (not _the_
poplars of the poem: those were already felled) which the poet mistook
for elms; and here, lastly, is Cowper's own cottage at Weston, which,
with its dormer windows, and its vines and jasmines, might have served
as a model for Randolph Caldecott or Kate Greenaway. And, behold!
('blest be the art that can immortalize!') here is Mrs. Unwin in a
high waist entering at the gate, while Cowper bids her welcome from the
doorway.
Of Olney itself there are not many glimpses in the little volume. But
the vignette on the title-page shows the tiny 'boudoir' or summerhouse,
'not much bigger than a sedan chair,' which stood--nay, stands
yet--about midway between the red-brick house on the market-place
and what was once John Xewton's vicarage. It is still, say the latest
accounts, kept up by its present owner, and its walls and ceiling are
covered with the autographs of pious pilgrims. In Storer's plate you
look in at the open door, catching, through the window on the opposite
side, part of the parsonage and of the wall in which was constructed the
gate that enabled Cowper at all times to communicate with his clerical
friend. Its exact dimensions are given as six feet nine by five feet
five; and he must have been right in telling Lady Hesketh that if she
came to see him they should be 'as close-pack'd as two wax figures in
an old-fashioned picture-frame.' A trap-door or loose board in the floor
covered a receptacle in which the previous tenant, an apothecary,
had stored his bottles; and here, 'in the deep-delved earth,' one of
Cowper's wisest counsellors, the Rev. William Bull of Newport Pagnell,
the 'Carissimus Taurorum' of the letters, the=
`````'smoke-inhaling Bull,
````Always filling, never full,'=
was wont to deposit his pipes and his tobacco. 'Having furnished it with
a table and two chairs,' says Cowper, * here I write all that I write in
summer time, whether to my friends or the public. It is secure from all
noise, and a refuge from all intrusion, for intruders sometimes trouble
me in the winter evenings at Olney, but (thanks to my boudoir!) I can
now hide myself from them.'
The summer-house, * it has been stated, is still standing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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