{"product_id":"2940014515870","title":"Shelburne Essays, Third Series","description":"CONTENTS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e                                                          PAGE\u003cbr\u003e  THE CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM COWPER                       1\u003cbr\u003e  WHITTIER THE POET                                         28\u003cbr\u003e  THE CENTENARY OF SAINTE-BEUVE                             54\u003cbr\u003e  THE SCOTCH NOVELS AND SCOTCH HISTORY                      82\u003cbr\u003e  SWINBURNE                                                100\u003cbr\u003e  CHRISTINA ROSSETTI                                       124\u003cbr\u003e  WHY IS BROWNING POPULAR?                                 143\u003cbr\u003e  A NOTE ON BYRON'S \"DON JUAN\"                             166\u003cbr\u003e  LAURENCE STERNE                                          177\u003cbr\u003e  J. HENRY SHORTHOUSE                                      213\u003cbr\u003e  THE QUEST OF A CENTURY                                   244\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSHELBURNE ESSAYS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHIRD SERIES\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTHE CORRESPONDENCE OF WILLIAM COWPER\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIf, as I sometimes think, a man's interest in letters is almost the\u003cbr\u003esurest measure of his love for Letters in the larger sense of the word,\u003cbr\u003ethe busy schoolmaster of Olney ought to stand high in favour for the\u003cbr\u003elabour he has bestowed on completing and rearranging the _Correspondence\u003cbr\u003eof William Cowper_.[1] It may be that Mr. Wright's competence as an\u003cbr\u003eeditor still leaves something to be desired. Certainly, if I may speak\u003cbr\u003efor my own taste, he has in one respect failed to profit by a golden\u003cbr\u003eopportunity; it needed only to print the more intimate poems of Cowper\u003cbr\u003ein their proper place among the letters to have produced a work doubly\u003cbr\u003einteresting and perfectly unique. The correspondence itself would have\u003cbr\u003ebeen shot through by a new light, and the poetry might have been\u003cbr\u003erestored once more to its rightful seat in our affections. The fact is\u003cbr\u003ethat not many readers to-day can approach the verse of the eighteenth\u003cbr\u003ecentury in a mood to enjoy or even to understand it. We have grown so\u003cbr\u003eaccustomed to over-emphasis in style and wasteful effusion in sentiment\u003cbr\u003ethat the clarity and self-restraint of that age repel us as ungenuine;\u003cbr\u003ewe are warned by a certain _frigus_ at the heart to seek our comfort\u003cbr\u003eelsewhere. And just here was the chance for an enlightened editor. So\u003cbr\u003emuch of Cowper's poetry is the record of his own simple life and of the\u003cbr\u003elittle adventures that befell him in the valley of the Ouse, that it\u003cbr\u003ewould have lost its seeming artificiality and would have gained a fresh\u003cbr\u003eappeal by association with the letters that relate the same events and\u003cbr\u003eemotions. How, for example, the quiet grace of the fables (and good\u003cbr\u003efables are so rare in English!) would be brought back to us again if we\u003cbr\u003ecould read them side by side with the actual stories out of which they\u003cbr\u003egrew. There is a whole charming natural history here of beast and bird\u003cbr\u003eand insect and flower. The nightingale which Cowper heard on New Year's\u003cbr\u003eDay sings in a letter as well as in the poem; and here, to name no\u003cbr\u003eothers, are the incidents of the serpent and the kittens, and of that\u003cbr\u003ewalk by the Ouse when the poet's dog Beau brought him the water lily.\u003cbr\u003eOr, to turn to more serious things, how much the pathetic stanzas _To\u003cbr\u003eMary_ would gain in poignant realism if we came upon them immediately\u003cbr\u003eafter reading the letters in which Cowper lays bare his remorse for the\u003cbr\u003estrain his malady had imposed upon her.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47083769004272,"sku":"2940014515870","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940014515870_p0.jpg?v=1763610348","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940014515870","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}