Words: William Walford, 1845; appeared in The New York Observer, September 13, 1845, accompanied by the
 following, written by Thomas Salmon:

 During my residence at Coleshill, Warwickshire, England, I became acquainted with W. W. Walford, the blind
 preacher, a man of obscure birth and connections and no education, but of strong mind and most retentive
 memory. In the pulpit he never failed to select a lesson well adapted to his subject, giving chapter and verse with
 unerring precision and scarcely ever misplacing a word in his repetition of the Psalms, every part of the New
 Testament, the prophecies, and some of the histories, so as to have the reputation of “knowing the whole Bible
 by heart.” He actually sat in the chimney corner, employing his mind in composing a sermon or two for Sabbath
 delivery, and his hands in cutting, shaping and polishing bones for shoe horns and other little useful implements.
 At intervals he attempted poetry. On one occasion, paying him a visit, he repeated two or three pieces which he
 had composed, and having no friend at home to commit them to paper, he had laid them up in the storehouse
 within. “How will this do?” asked he, as he repeated the following lines, with a complacent smile touched with
 some light lines of fear lest he subject himself to criticism. I rapidly copied the lines with my pencil, as he uttered
 them, and sent them for insertion in the Observer, if you should think them worthy of preservation.