Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1898. Excerpt: ... EDWARD GIBBON AND WILLIAM COWPER: A CONTRAST. By C. J. Langston. 'WO great masters of prose and verse, whose intellects helped to -*- light up the tempestuous gloom of the eighteenth century, were Edward Gibbon and William Cowper. They never chanced to meet . Hayley, their mutual friend, tried to bring them together under the hospitable roof of Lord Spencer at Althorpe, knowing the real benevolence of both, and feeling how much they might enjoy each other's society; but at the last moment the extreme timidity of Cowper prevented the interview. The great company at the great house; the demonstrative conviviality of those three-bottle times; the measured state and ceremony; this the poet could not face. It were better, perhaps, that two such opposites remained apart, or there might have been a mild repetition of the stormy interview between Sam Johnson and the old lord of Auchinleck. One thing strikes us with regard to the literary celebrities of last century, they were often en evidence, and they were nearly always on stilts. Take Horace Walpole for instance, the beau with faultless wig, bedizened coat and spotless ruffles, extending a frigid finger, walking on tiptoe, and lisping an epigram: or his whilom companion, Thomas Gray complaining of the naise, and cutting at the heart of his noble Elegy to save an accent. It was an age when grown-up children dare hardly sit in the presence of their parents; when they styled their father "Sir," and full titles were rolled out in country houses at the breakfast table, even until the time of the poet Rogers. "Ask the Right Honourable George Canning if he will take a sausage." The age was in full dress, and the letters to Euphemia, and the verses to Phyllis are redolent of patch and powder. This artificiality was reflected on the heights of Pa...