BIB_ID
365001
Accession number
MA 86.25
Creator
Cowper, William, 1731-1800.
Display Date
1790 June 22.
Credit line
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904.
Description
1 item (4 p., with address) ; 22.6 cm
Notes
Addressed to "The Revd. Walter Bagot / Blithfield / Litchfield / Staffordshire."
Docketed.
Part of a large collection of letters from and related to William Cowper; please see collection record for MA 86-87 for more information.
With postmark and seal.
Docketed.
Part of a large collection of letters from and related to William Cowper; please see collection record for MA 86-87 for more information.
With postmark and seal.
Provenance
Sale (Sotheby's, 28-29 July 1903, lot 460); purchased by Pierpont Morgan from the London dealer J. Pearson & Co., 1904.
Summary
Discussing an African serpent "long enough to have afforded skin and guts for the purpose" of inscribing the Iliad and the Odyssey; mentioning African ants that "travel in a column of immense length and eat through every thing that opposes them"; remarking that these ants sometimes kill the long snakes while the snakes are digesting their food; announcing that he is almost done translating Homer and expects the Odyssey to go to press in the fall.
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