BIB_ID
107568
Accession number
MA 3107
Creator
Cowper, William, 1731-1800.
Display Date
Place not identified, 1783 June 3.
Credit line
Purchased on the Fellows Fund as the gift of Julia P. Wightman, 1976.
Description
1 item (2 pages) ; 22.4 x 18.6 cm
Notes
Cowper addresses his correspondent only as "My dear friend," but based on internal evidence, the addressee is likely to have been the Reverend William Bull. See the published correspondence, cited below, for additional information.
Signed with initials.
Signed with initials.
Provenance
Purchased at Sotheby sale, 1976 June 22, lot 203.
Summary
Beginning "My Greenhouse fronted with Myrtles, and where I hear nothing but the pattering of a fine shower and the sound of distant thunder, wants only the fumes of your pipe to make it perfectly delightful. Tobacco was not known in the Golden age. So much the worse for the Golden age. This age of Iron or Lead would be insupportable without it;" saying that he hopes Bull and his son are well: "The season has been most unfavorable to animal life, and I, who am merely Animal, have suffer'd much by it;" describing his current state: "Though I should be glad to write, I write little or nothing. The time for such fruit is not yet come, but I expect it, and wish for it. I want Amusement, and deprived of that, have none to supply the place of it;" saying that, as promised, he is enclosing "2 Stanzas composed at the request of Lady Austen. She wanted words to a tune she much admired and I gave her the following;" including the text of the poem "On Peace."
Catalog link
Department