Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/112

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100
HANNAH MORE.

play. There was scarcely an innocent popular song in existence, simple enough for their understandings, and unconnected with evil, and the children and their parents were still too utterly rough and uncivilized to make it safe to relax the bonds of restraint for a moment.

As John Newton playfully wrote after staying at Cowslip Green, and making the round of the schools:—

In Helicon could I my pen dip,
I would attempt the praise of Mendip;
Were bards a hundred I'd outstrip 'em.
If equal to the theme of Shipham;
But harder still the task, I ween,
To give its due to Cowslip Green