[778] Attributed to Correggio, after contemplating the works of Raphael.
[779] Alluding to the monument of Lord Chatham, in Westminster Abbey.
[780] Brown, in Cowper's time, was the great designer in the art of laying out grounds for the nobility and gentry.
"January 6, 1804.
"Among our dear Cowper's papers, I found the following memorandum:
YARDLEY OAK IN GIRTH, FEET 22, INCHES 6½.
THE OAK AT YARDLEY LODGE, FEET 28, INCHES 5.
As to Yardley Oak, it stands in Yardley Chase, where the Earls of Northampton have a fine seat. It was a favourite walk of our dear Cowper, and he once carried me to see that oak. I believe it is five miles at least from Weston Lodge. It is indeed a noble tree, perfectly sound, and stands in an open part of the Chase, with only one or two others near it, so as to be seen to advantage.
"With respect to the oak at Yardley Lodge, that is quite in decay—a pollard, and almost hollow. I took an excrescence from it in the year 1791, and, if I mistake not, Cowper told me it is said to have been an oak in the time of the Conqueror. This latter oak is on the road to the former, but not above half so far from Weston Lodge, being only just beyond Killick and Dinglederry. This is all I can tell you about the oaks. They were old acquaintance and great favourites of the bard. How rejoiced I am to hear that he has immortalized one of them in blank verse! Where could those one hundred and sixty-one lines lie hid? Till this very day I never heard of their existence, nor suspected it."
[782] The late Samuel Whitbread, Esq., was an enthusiastic admirer of the poetry of Cowper, and solicitous to obtain a relic of the Yardley oak. Mr. Bull, of Newport Pagnel, promised to send a specimen, but some little delay having occurred, Mr. Whitbread addressed to him the following verses, which, emanating from such a man, and not having met the public eye, will, we are persuaded, be considered as a literary curiosity, and of no mean merit.