It
looked upon the Market Place, but it was in the close neighbourhood of
Silver End, the worst part of Olney. In winter the cellars were full
of water. There were no pleasant walks within easy reach, and in
winter Cowper's only exercise was pacing thirty yards of gravel, with
the dreary supplement of dumb-bells. What was the attraction to this
"well," this "abyss," as Cowper himself called it, and as, physically
and socially, it was?
The attraction was the presence of the Rev. John Newton, then curate of
Olney. The vicar was Moses Brown, an Evangelical and a religious
writer, who has even deserved a place among the worthies of the
revival; but a family of thirteen children, some of whom it appears too
closely resembled the sons of Eli, had compelled him to take advantage
of the indulgent character of the ecclesiastical polity of those days
by becoming a pluralist and a non-resident, so that the curate had
Olney to himself. The patron was the Lord Dartmouth, who, as Cowper
says, "wore a coronet and prayed.
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