Page:First impressions of England and its people.djvu/30

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XXII
CONTENTS.
derness.—Ancient Avenue. —Alcove; Prospect which it commands. as drawn by Cowper.—Colonnade.—Rustic Bridge.—Scene of the "Needless Alarm."—The Milk Thistle 297
CHAPTER XVI.
Yardley Oak; of immense Size and imposing Appearance.—Cowper's Description singularly illustrative of his complete Mastery over Language.—Peasant's Nest.—The Poet's Vocation peculiarly one of Revolution.—The School of Pope; supplanted in its unproductive Old Age by that of Cowper.—Cowper's Coadjutors in the Work.—Economy of Literary Revolution—The old English Yeoman.—Quit Olney.—Companions in the Journey.—Incident.—Newport Pagnell.—Mr. Bull and the French Mystics.— Lady of the Fancy.—Champion of all England.—Pugilism.—Anecdote. 315
CHAPTER XVII.
Cowper and the Geologists.—Geology in the Poet's Days in a State of great Immaturity.—Case different now.—Folly of committing the Bible to a False Science.—Galileo.—Geologists at one in all their more important Deductions; vast Antiquity of the Ear.h one of these.—State of the Question.—Illustration.—Presumed Thickness of the Fossiliferous Strata.—Peculiar Order of their Organic Contents; of their Fossil Fish in particular, as ascertained by Agassiz.—The Geologic Races of Animals entirely different from those which sheltered with Noah in the Ark.—Alleged Discrepancy between Geologic Fact and the Mosaic Record not real.—Inference based on the opening Verses of the Book of Genesis. —Parallel Passage adduced to prove the Inference unsound.—The Supposition that Fossils may have been created such examined: unworthy of the Divine Wisdom; contrary to