Excerpt from On the Banks of the Ouse: Or Life in Olney a Hundred Years Ago The incidents in this story of life at Olney at the end of the last century are, it is needless to say, imaginary. But in the slight sketches of the poet Cowper and his friend John Newton, the scenes in which they take by no means a prominent part, are in harmony with the general tenor of their lives in the old-world town on the banks of the Ouse, and may therefore be said to be possible, if not probable. Perhaps no work ever more fully repaid the research necessary for its completion. The lapse of time and its restless stream has too relentlessly swept away from the notice of this generation the life and work of a man, whose pathetic story has thrown an additional charm over the fruits of his genius -a genius which, in a wonderful manner, clothed the common things of everyday life with the mantle of poetic inspiration, so well expressed by Mrs. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.