[275] See 1 Sam. vi. 7-10.
[276] The Rector at that time of Emberton, near Olney.
[277] Private correspondence.
[278] The Rev. Mr. Greatheed was a man of piety and talent, and much respected in his day. He wrote a short and interesting memoir of Cowper.
[279] The engraving of Bacon's celebrated monument of Lord Chatham, in Westminster Abbey.
The passage alluded to is as follows:—
"Bacon there
Gives more than female beauty to a stone,
And Chatham's eloquence to marble lips."
The Task, Book I.
[280] Cowper's summer-house is still in existence. It is a small, humble building, situate at the back of the premises which he occupied at Olney, and commanding a full view of the church and of the vicarage-house. Humble however as it appears, it is approached with those feelings of veneration which the scene of so many interesting recollections cannot fail to inspire. There he wrote "The Task," and most of his Poems, except during the rigour of the winter months. There too he carried on that epistolary correspondence, which is distinguished by so much wit, ease, and gracefulness, and by the overflowings of a warm and affectionate heart. No traveller seems to enter without considering it to be the shrine of the muses, and leaving behind a poetical tribute to the memory of so distinguished an author.
[281] Private correspondence.