Laudator Temporis Acti

William Cowper, letter to John Newton (February 8, 1783):

You will suppose me a Politician; but in truth I am nothing less. These are the thoughts that occur to me while I read the News paper, and, when I have laid it down, I feel myself more interested in the success of my early Cucumbers than in any part of this great and important Subject.

William Cowper, The Task, III, 446-462:

To raise the prickly and green-coated gourd,
So grateful to the palate, and when rare
So coveted, else base and disesteem'd—
Food for the vulgar merely—is an art
That toiling ages have but just matur'd,
And at this moment unassay'd in song.
Yet gnats have had, and frogs and mice, long since,
Their eulogy; those sang the Mantuan bard,
And these the Grecian, in ennobling strains;
And in thy numbers, Phillips, shines for aye
The solitary shilling. Pardon then,
Ye sage dispensers of poetic fame,
Th' ambition of one, meaner far, whose pow'rs,
Presuming an attempt not less sublime,
Pant for the praise of dressing to the taste
Of critic appetite, no sordid fare,
A cucumber, while costly yet and scarce.