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On The Burning Of Lord Mansfields Library, Together With His Mss., By The Mob, In The Month Of June 1780.

By William Cowper

Topics: classic

So thenthe Vandals of our isle,     Sworn foes to sense and law,     Have burnt to dust a nobler pile     Than ever Roman saw!     And Murray sighs oer Pope and Swift,     And many a treasure more,     The well-judged purchase and the gift     That graced his letterd store.     Their pages mangled, burnt, and torn,     The loss was his alone;     But ages yet to come shall mourn     The burning of his own.

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"So thenthe Vandals of our isle,..."

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Author:William Cowper

"So thenthe Vandals of our isle,..." by William Cowper

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"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"

William Cowper

About William Cowper

William Cowper (1731–1800) was an English poet and hymnodist whose work bridges the gap between the Augustan age and Romanticism. His poems "The Task" and "John Gilpin" were enormously popular, and his hymn "God Moves in a Mysterious Way" remains widely sung.

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