Hare today

We have a new addition to our garden. A beautiful sitting hare.  Given the affinity with hares in Olney, it seemed apposite.  William Cowper, the poet had tame hares, who used to run in and out of his house.  As well as poems, he and John Newton, the localt curate,  produced the Olney Hymns in 1779. 
 
Newton is well known for having penned "Amazing Grace".  He started off as a seafarer and was involved in the slave trade.  Something he regretted, but later when he became a minister in the Church of England, he supported the work of the Committee for the abolition of Slavery.