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• Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs Receive our air, that moment they are free!
  They touch our country, and their shackles fall....
• She that asks Her dear five hundred friends.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 642...
• There is a pleasure in poetic pains Which only poets know.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 285...
• Whoe'er was edified, themselves were not.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 444...
• I would not have a slave to till my ground, To carry me, to fan me while I sleep And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth That sinews bought and sold have ever earn'd.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 29...
• His head, Not yet by time completely silver'd o'er, Bespoke him past the bounds of freakish youth, But strong for service still, and unimpair'd.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 702...
• Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 235...
• Transforms old print To zigzag manuscript, and cheats the eyes Of gallery critics by a thousand arts.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 363...
• Reading what they never wrote, Just fifteen minutes, huddle up their work, And with a well-bred whisper close the scene.
  -- William Cowper (1731-1800) -- The Task, Book ii, The Timepiece, Line 411...