Olney

“ You say well, that there was a time when I was happy at Olney; and I am now as happy at Olney as I expect to be any where without the presence of God. Change of situation is with me no otherwise an object than as both Mrs. Unwin's health and mine may happen to be concerned in it. A fever of the slow and spirit-oppressing kind seems to belong to all, except the natives, who have dwelt in Olney many years; and the natives have putrid fevers. ”

“ Accept none but men—of the very highest bravery. Let them know that they are chosen for the post of danger, which is the post of honour, and permit none to serve who does not so esteem it."
Olney saluted, and went at once to the main floor, which, for drilling purposes, was shared by four companies. He stood still until his eye fell on Johnny Fairfax—him he called aside.
"You can get the whole sixty right here if you want to," Johnny told him. "But if you want to distribute things——"
"I do," said Olney.
"Then I'd take Keith, Carter, that teamster McGlynn, and Salisbury." ”

“ The little man, however, has an independent fortune, and has nothing to do but to trundle himself away to some other place, where he may find hearers neither so nice nor so wise as we are at Olney.
Yours, my dear Sir,
With our united love,
W. C.
TO MRS. NEWTON. [101] Olney, Sept. 16, 1781.
A noble theme demands a noble verse,
In such I thank you for your fine oysters. ”

“ We seem of no use in the world;
Our fancies hang gray and uncurled
About men's eyes indifferently;
Our voice, which thrilled you so, will let
You sleep; our tears are only wet;
What do we here, my heart and I?"
But the last words were not spoken. They ended in a little sob, a little sob that would not be drowned by the power of the will. She would have risen and escaped from the room, but that Olney caught her about the waist, his face white and wistful and filled with apprehension.
"Carlita," he exclaimed, his voice low and soft with tenderness, "what is it? What has distressed you? ”

“ Olney, as it is now written, a small market town, for many years the residence of Cowper, known by its twenty-four-arched bridge, now no more, "of wearisome but needful length" spanning the Ouse—Olney, together with the fellow towns of Newport-Pagnel and Aylesbury, are much quoted by the authorities of the last century, though, as is too often the case in books of travels and statistics, one writer copies from another the information derived from a preceding author. ”

“ The crowd melted slowly. Soon were left only the inscrutable jail, the gun still pointed at its door, the rigid ranks of Olney's Sixty, who had evidently been left on guard, and a few stragglers.
Suddenly she turned and walked away. Mrs. Sherwood followed her as rapidly as she could, but did not succeed in catching up with her. At the corner below the Keiths' house she stopped, watched until Nan had gained her own dooryard, then turned toward home, a smile sketching her lips, a light in her eyes. ”

“ This they do not wish, for to plain people things not of earth are unwelcome; and besides, the Terrible Old Man often recalls what Olney said about a knock that the lone dweller feared, and a shape seen black and inquisitive against the mist through those queer translucent windows of leaded bull's-eyes. ”

“ The names and sentiments are of course fictitious; is anything known of their origin?
P. P.
Olney.—Can any correspondent state what is the signification of this name? The ancient spelling is Olnei or Olney, not Oulney, as it has sometimes been spelled of late years. The difficulty is not as to the termination ey, but as to the first syllable.
The parish church, which stands at the southern extremity of the town, on the banks of the Ouse, is entirely (modern alterations excepted) of the fourteenth century. There is not a trace of any earlier work. ”

“ Carlita, a woman's idea of a man—particularly a young girl's [Pg 207] brought up in the untarnished school you were—and a man's idea of a man are not the same. You demand purity of him as he demands it of you, and while Olney was my friend—while I loved him like a brother—I wished to save you from a knowledge of—his past. Two years ago, when Olney was in Mexico he met a girl with whom he thought he fell in love. She was a hot-blooded Mexican, who loved him in return, but with a sort of savage ferocity. She was the daughter of Manuel Meriaz. ”

“ Now and then, in the course of an existence whose hue [234] is for the most part sable, a day turns up that makes amends for many sighs and many subjects of complaint. Such a day shall I account the day of your arrival at Olney.
Wherefore is it (canst thou tell me?) that, together with all those delightful sensations to which the sight of a long absent dear friend gives birth, there is a mixture of something painful, flutterings, and tumults, and I know not what accompaniments of our pleasure, that are in fact perfectly foreign from the occasion? ”

“ Mr. Raban was apprenticed at Olney, where he first heard the truths of the Gospel from Mr. Moses Brown, author of 'Sunday Thoughts,' then the vicar of Olney. When about ten years of age, he was deeply convinced of sin, and guided to the Saviour of sinners. He became a stated hearer and an affectionate friend of Mr. Brown's, and joined in communion with the Church. He had occasional opportunities of hearing Mr. Whitefield, and to his dying day he retained the savour of the truths which that eminent servant of Christ delivered. ”

“ Leith looked at his friend for a moment, then put his book upon the table, face downward, and threw his cigar into the cuspidor.
"I was afraid of that," he said, slowly.
"Afraid of it!" echoed Olney. "You must have known it."
"How should I? A fellow isn't always in love with the girl to whom he pays attention."
"He is when the girl is one of the same kind that Miss de Barryos is." ”

“ Once again Carlita leaned forward, her scorching fingers touching Jessica's wrist in an uncanny sort of way that made the latter shiver.
"The truth is not upon the lips of—a guilty man," she answered, in a hollow, unnatural tone. "Forgive me, Jessica, but I heard your words the night he came with his awful story of Olney's—death. ”

“ It has in my eyes (and I doubt not it will have the same in yours) strong marks of providential interposition. A female friend, and one who bids fair to prove herself worthy of the appellation, comes recommended by a variety of considerations to such a place as Olney. Since Mr. Newton went, and till this lady came, there was not in the kingdom a retirement more absolutely such than ours. ”

“ Unwin's influence produced the Moral Satires. The Task was born of a more potent inspiration. One day Mrs. Jones, the wife of a neighbouring clergyman, came into Olney to shop, and with her came her sister, Lady Austen, the widow of a Baronet, a woman of the world, who had lived much in France, gay, sparkling and vivacious, but at the same time full of feeling even to overflowing. The apparition acted like magic on the recluse. ”

“ The stanzas ' On the Fire at Olney, 1777, ' contain incidental glimpses into the dark and fearful condition (spiritually considered) in which Christian society exists, even in places where the Gospel is most faithfully preached, and where it seems to bring forth much fruit. They show us in what a perilous state of unpreparedness the majority of our fellow-creatures every night lie down to sleep,— though liable to be awakened at any hour, by a cry of fire, by the shock of an earthquake, or by the last trumpet itself, for aught they can foresee. ”

“ If you are really serious in desiring to work out the end you have in view about Olney, you must bring Leith Pierrepont to terms as quickly as you can. There is absolutely nothing that will do it like feeling that you need a protector. In spite of the crime that he has committed, he is really a great prude himself, or poses as one, which is quite the same thing. He will not like to have the woman whom he wishes to make his wife playing poker, and it will bring him around more quickly than anything. ”

“ Great Bridge idlers had much to say of Curwen's town house in Olney Court; not so much the fine new one built in 1761, when the man must have been nearly a century old but the first low gambrel-roofed one with the windowless attic and shingled sides whose timbers he took the peculiar precaution of burning after its demolition. ”

“ Fine painting, and God the artist. Mrs. Unwin has something to say in the cover. I leave her therefore to make her own courtesy, and only add that I am yours and Mrs. Newton's
Affectionate
W. C.
TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. [277] Olney, June 4, 1785.
My dear Friend,—Mr. Greatheed had your letter the day after we received it. [278] He is a well-bred, agreeable young man, and one whose eyes have been opened, I doubt not, for the benefit of others, as well as for his own. He preached at Olney a day or two ago, and I have reason to think with acceptance and success. ”

“ A few light and agreeable poems, two hymns written at Huntingdon, with about sixty others composed at Olney, are almost the only known poetical productions of his pen between the years 1749 and 1782, at which last period he committed his volume of poems in rhyme to the press. There are examples in the physical world, of mountains reposing in coldness and quietness for ages ”

“ We make none but the cheapest laces, and the price of them is fallen almost to nothing. Thanks are due to yourself likewise, and are hereby accordingly rendered, for waiving your claim in behalf of your own parishioners. You are always with them, and they are always, at least some of them, the better for your residence among them. Olney is a populous place, inhabited chiefly by the half-starved and the ragged of the earth, and it is not possible for our small party and small ability to extend their operations so far as to be much felt among such numbers. ”

“ Readers of "N. & Q." who can supply any information respecting the removal of the church and town, or any other particulars (in addition to those contained in Dr. Lipscomb's History of Bucks) concerning the parish of Olney, including the hamlet and manor of Warrington, and the now district parish of Weston-Underwood, will greatly oblige
W. P. Storer.
Olney, Bucks.
Album.—What was the origin, and where do we find the earliest notice of the kind of friendly {236}memorial book so well known among us as an album? ”

“ The house is old but convenient, and when you are got within the little paddock it stands on, you would believe yourself an hundred miles from London, which I think a great addition to its beauty.” Moses Brown wrote a poem upon it, the Duke and Duchess having appointed him their laureate for the nonce; but though written by their command, it was not published till after the death of both, and was then inscribed to her daughter, at that time Countess of Northumberland. If Olney had not a far greater poet to boast of, it might perhaps have boasted of Moses Brown. ”

“ The wild ass, as it roams over the plains of Asia, or is seen in the Zoological gardens along with the gracefully-shaped and prettily-striped zebra, must be admired by every one.
Collins and the Old Donkey of Odell, Cowper's Messenger at Olney.
In July 1823, William Collins, R.A., visited Turvey, in Bedfordshire. His son remarks—"Besides the attractions presented to the pencil by the natural beauties of this [Pg 278] neighbourhood, its vicinity to Olney, the favourite residence of the poet Cowper, gave it, to all lovers of poetry, a local and peculiar charm. ”

“ She loves you already, and how much more will she love you before this time twelvemonth! I have indeed endeavoured to describe you to her, but, perfectly as I have you by heart, I am sensible that my picture cannot do you justice. I never saw one that did. Be you what you may, you are much beloved, and will be so at Olney, and Mrs. U. expects you with the pleasure that one feels at the return of a long absent, dear relation ”

“ These circumstances, combined with a general similarity of style and colouring, strongly favour the conjecture that Linche is the ‘R. L. gentleman’ who in 1596 gave to the world ‘Diella; certain Sonnets adioyned to the amorous Poeme of Dom Diego and Gineura. London, for Henry Olney,’ the publisher of Sidney's ‘Apologie for Poetrie.’ Heber (Cat. of Engl. Poetry, p. 171) describes the volume as of extraordinary rarity ”

“ The new house in Olney Court was now wholly free from disturbing manifestations, and although Curwen was much absent at the Pawtuxet farm which his wife never visited, he seemed more like a normal citizen than at any other time in his long years of residence. Only one person remained in open enmity with him, this being the youthful ship's officer whose engagement to Eliza Tillinghast had been so abruptly broken. Ezra Weeden had frankly vowed vengeance and, though of a quiet and ordinarily mild disposition, was now gaining a hatred-dogged purpose which boded no good to the usurping husband. ”

“ Yours, with our joint love,
W. C.
TO MRS. NEWTON. [95] Olney, August, 1781.
Dear Madam,—Though much obliged to you for the favour of your last, and ready enough to acknowledge the debt; the present, however, is not a day in which I should have chosen to pay it. A dejection of mind, which perhaps may be removed by to-morrow, rather disqualifies me for writing,—a business I would always perform in good spirits, because melancholy is catching, especially where there is much sympathy to assist the contagion. ”