[494] At Wargrave, near Henley-on-Thames.
[495] Olney.
[496] We subjoin an extract from this Sunday-school hymn, for the benefit of our younger readers.
"Hear, Lord, the song of praise and prayer,
In heaven, thy dwelling-place,
From infants, made the public care,
And taught to seek thy face!
Thanks for thy word, and for thy day;
And grant us, we implore,
Never to waste in sinful play
Thy holy Sabbaths more.
Thanks that we hear—but, oh! impart
To each desires sincere,
That we may listen with our heart,
And learn, as well hear."
[497] Private correspondence.
[498] The character of this work is given by Cowper himself in a subsequent letter to his friend Walter Bagot.
[499] The reveries of learned men are amusing, but injurious to true taste and sound literature. Bishop Warburton's laboured attempt to prove that the descent of Æneas into hell in the 6th book of the Æneid, is intended to convey a representation of the Eleusinian mysteries, is of this description; when it is obviously an imitation of a similar event, recorded of Ulysses. Genius should guard against a fondness for speculative discursion, which often leads from the simplicity of truth to the establishment of dangerous errors. We consider speculative inquiries to form one of the features of the present times, against which we have need to be vigilantly on our guard.
[500] Private correspondence.
[501] Revision is no small part of the literary labours of an author.
[502] The French revolution, that great event which exercised so powerful an influence not only on European governments but on the world at large, and the effects of which are experienced at the present moment, had just commenced. The Austrian Netherlands had also revolted, and Brussels and most of the principal towns and cities were in the hands of the insurgents.