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A PILGRIMAGE TO OLNEY AND

WESTON UNDERWOOD.

BY SIR JAMES A. PICTON, F.S.A.

PERHAPS the most genial and pleasant form of hero

worship is the interest taken in the localities hallowed by the presence and associations of the illustrious departed. As our grand old lexicographer says: "To abstract the mind from all local emotion would be impossible if it were endeavoured, and would be foolish if it were possible." The surface of our country is redolent with the memories of gallant deeds in battle for the right, martyrdom for the truth, patient endurance and active effort in the cause of righteousness and humanity. Nor the less do we honour the associations with those who, in a less conspicuous walk, have contributed by their writings to the solace, elevation, and progress of the human mind.

Few writers have excited more sympathy in their readers than William Cowper. The texture of his intellect, hovering between genius and insanity; his melancholy history, with its tragic termination; the vigour, beauty, and high tone of his poetry, and his charming correspondence, with its playful raillery and little weaknesses, have endeared his memory to thousands of readers during the last three generations.

I had long desired a pilgrimage to the haunts of the poet and the scenes hallowed by his memory, and a few months

THE MANCHESTER QUARTERLY. No. IX.-JANUARY, 1884.

ago circumstances gave me the opportunity. I approached the locality by the way of Northampton, which is a good specimen of an old English midland town, somewhat modernized by its manufacturing proclivities, but still preserving a few picturesque old mansions and several ancient churches worthy of note. The church connected with the memory of Cowper is All Saints', situated in the centre of the town, and only remarkable for its almost unparalleled ugliness. It is of the Georgian era, in what might be called the "high falutin" style. In front there is a vast portico of columns forming a kind of narthex or parvise, over the centre of which stands a statue of Queen Caroline-not her of Brunswick, but the Caroline celebrated in the Heart of Mid-Lothian. The body of the church is a mass of unsightly absurdity.

The poet, in a playful letter to Lady Hesketh, dated Weston, November 27, 1787, thus relates his introduction to All Saints':

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On Monday morning last, Sam brought me word that there was a man in the kitchen who desired to speak with me. I ordered him in. A plain decent elderly figure made its appearance, and being desired to sit spoke as follows: Sir, I am clerk of the parish of All Saints in Northampton. It is customary for the person in my office to annex to a bill of mortality, which he publishes at Christmas, a copy of verses. You will do me a great favour, sir, if you would furnish me with one." To this I replied: "You have several men of genius in your town, why have you not applied to some of them? There is a namesake of yours in particular, Cox, the statuary, who, everybody knows, is a first-rate maker of verses. He surely is the man of all the world for your purpose." "Alas! sir, I have heretofore borrowed help from him, but he is a gentleman of so much reading that the people of our town cannot understand him." I confess to you, my dear, I felt all the force of the compliment implied in this speech, and was almost ready to answer, "Perhaps, my good friend, they may find me unintelligible too, for the same reason. But, on asking him whether he had walked over to Weston (eleven miles) on purpose to implore the assistance of my muse, and on his replying in the affirmative, I felt my mortified vanity a little consoled, and, pitying the poor man's distress, which appeared to be considerable, promised to supply him. The waggon has accordingly gone this day to Northampton loaded in part with my effusions in the mortuary style. A fig for poets who write epitaphs upon individuals! I have written one that serves two hundred persons.

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