Who did Jane Austen call – in 1796 – “the finest comic writer of the present age”?
Mr Cornelius Recites
“I have lived in Valley Fields all my life, and would not live anywhere else if you offered me a million pounds.”
“I won’t.”
“I was born in Valley Fields, Mr Shotter, and I love the place, and I am not ashamed to say so.”
“‘Breathes there a man with soul so dead,'” inquired Mr Cornelius. “‘Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d as home his footsteps he hath turn’d from wandering on a foreign strand?'”
“Ah!” said Sam. “That’s what we’d all like to know, wouldn’t we?”
What a Pity!
“Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does not it make you think of Cowper? ‘Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.'”