[303] The dispute originated respecting the enclosure of the parish; and, as this act was unpopular with the poor, the bundle of quick-thorn was intended to be expressive of their indignant feelings.
[304] The proper name of the place is Tingewick.
[305] Private correspondence.
[306] The narrative of Miss Eliza Cunningham's last illness and happy death.
[307] In the Prolegomena to Villoisson's Iliad it is stated, that Pisistratus, in collecting the works of Homer, was imposed upon by spurious imitations of the Grecian bard's style; and that not suspecting the fraud, he was led to incorporate them as the genuine productions of Homer.
Cowper justly ridicules so extravagant a supposition.
[308] The playful spirit in which the writer adverts to this subject appears to have yielded afterwards to a feeling of indignation; the following lines in his own hand-writing having been found by Dr. Johnson amongst his papers:—
ON THE AUTHOR OF LETTERS ON LITERATURE.
The Genius of th' Augustan age
His head among Rome's ruins rear'd;
And, bursting with heroic rage,
When literary Heron appear'd,
Thou hast, he cried, like him of old
Who set th' Ephesian dome on fire,
By being scandalously bold,
Attain'd the mark of thy desire.
And for traducing Virgil's name
Shalt share his merited reward;
A perpetuity of fame,
That rots, and stinks and is abhorr'd.
[309] Private correspondence.