TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. MY DEAR FRIEND, praise dearly, especially from the judicious, and those who have so much delicacy themselves as not May 10, 1780. to offend mine in giving it. But then, I found Ir authors could have lived to adjust and authen- this consequence attending, or likely to attend the ticate their own text, a commentator would have eulogium you bestowed-if my friend thought me been an useless creature. For instance-if Dr. witty before, he shall think me ten times more witBentley had found, or opined that he had found, ty hereafter-where I joked once, I will joke five the word tube, where it seemed to present itself to times, and for one sensible remark, I will send him you, and had judged the subject worthy of his cri- a dozen. Now this foolish vanity would have tical acumen, he would either have justified the spoiled me quite, and would have made me as discorrupt reading, or have substituted some inven- gusting a letter-writer as Pope, who seems to have tion of his own, in defence of which he would thought that unless a sentence was well turned, have exerted all his polemical abilities, and have and every period pointed with some conceit, it was quarreled with half the literati in Europe. Then not worth the carriage. Accordingly, he is to me, suppose the writer himself, as in the present case, except in very few instances, the most disagreeato interpose with a gentle whisper, thus-'If ble maker of epistles that ever I met with. I was you look again, doctor, you will perceive that what willing, therefore, to wait till the impression your appears to you to be tube, is neither more nor less commendation had made upon the foolish part of than the simple monosyllable ink, but I wrote it in me was worn off, that I might scribble away as great haste, and the want of sufficient precision usual, and write my uppermost thoughts, and those in the character has occasioned your mistake: you only. will be especially satisfied, when you see the sense case. James Andrews, who is my Michael Angelo, pays me many compliments on my success in the art of drawing, but I have not yet the vanity to think myself qualified to furnish your apartment. If I should ever attain to the degree of self-opinion requisite to such an undertaking, I shall labour at it with pleasure. I can only say, though I hope not with the affected modesty of the above-mentioned Dr. Bentley, who said the same thing, Me quoque dicunt You are better skilled in ecclesiastical law than elucidated by the explanation.'-But I question I am. Mrs. P. desires me to inform her, whether whether the doctor would quit his ground, or allow a parson can be obliged to take an apprentice. For any author to be a competent judge in his own some of her husband's opposers at D————, threatThe world, however, would acquiesce im- en to clap one upon him. Now I think it would mediately, and vote the critic useless. be rather hard, if clergymen, who are not allowed to exercise any handicraft whatever, should be subject to such an imposition. If Mr. P. was a cordwainer, or a breeches-maker, all the week, and a preacher only on Sundays, it would seem reasonable enough, in that case, that he should take an apprentice if he chose it. But even then, in my poor judgment, he ought to be left to his option. If they mean by an apprentice, a pupil, whom they will oblige him to hew into a parson, and after chipping away the block that hides the minister within, to qualify him to stand erect in a pulpit-that indeed is another consideration—But still we live in a free country, and I can not bring myself even to suspect that an English divine can possibly be liable to such compulsion. Ask your uncle, however, for he is wiser in these things than either of us. Vatem pastores. Sed non Ego credulus illis. A crow, rook, or raven, has built a nest in one of the young elm-trees, at the side of Mrs. Aspray's orchard. In the violent storm that blew yesterday morning, I saw it agitated to a degree that seem ed to threaten its immediate destruction, and versified the following thoughts upon the occasion.* W. C. I thank you for your two inscriptions, and like the last the best; the thought is just and finebut the two last lines are sadly damaged by the monkish jingle of peperit and reperit. I have TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. not yet translated them, nor do I promise to do it, MY DEAR FRIEND, June 8, 1780. though at some idle hour perhaps I may. In reIt is possible I might have indulged myself in turn, I send you a translation of a simile in the the pleasure of writing to you, without waiting for Paradise.Lost. Not having that poem at hand, a letter from you, but for a reason which you will I can not refer you to the book and page, but you not easily guess. Your mother communicated to may hunt for it, if you think it worth your while. ine the satisfaction you expressed in my corres--It begins pondence, that you thought me entertaining and clever, and so forth: now you must know, I love Cowper's Fable of the Raven concluded this letter. So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds For the translation of this simile, see Cowper's Poems If you spy any fault in my Latin, tell me, for I bring an odium on the profession they make, that am sometimes in doubt; but, as I told you when will not soon be forgotten. Neither is it possible you was here, I have not a Latin book in the for a quiet, inoffensive man, to discover, on a sudworld to consult, or correct a mistake by; and den, that his zeal has carried him into such comsome years have passed since I was a school-boy. pany, without being to the last degree shocked at his imprudence. Their religion was an honour An English Versification of a Thought that popped into able mantle, like that of Elijah; but the majority my Head two Months since. wore cloaks of Guy Fawkes's time, and meant nothing so little as what they pretended. Sweet stream!* &c. Now this is not so exclusively applicable to a maiden, as to be the sole property of your sister Shuttleworth. If you look at Mrs. Unwin, you will see that she has not lost her right to this just praise by marrying you. Your mother sends her love to all and mine comes jogging along by the side of it. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. REVEREND AND DEAR WILLIAM, THE affairs of kingdoms, and the concerns of individuals, are variegated alike with the checkerwork of joy and sorrow. The news of a great acquisition in America has succeeded to terrible tumults in London; and the beams of prosperity are now playing upon the smoke of that conflagration which so lately terrified the whole land. These sudden changes, which are matter of every reasonably expected, serve to hold up the chin of man's observation, and may therefore always be in general from the sin and misery of accounting despondency above water, and preserve mankind existence a burden not to be endured, an evil we should be sure to encounter, if we were not war DEAR SIR, June 12, 1780. We accept it as an effort of your friendship, that you could prevail with yourself, in a time of such terror and distress, to send us repeated accounts of yours and Mrs. Newton's welfare; you supposed, with reason enough, that we should be apprehensive for your safety, situated as you were, apparently, within the reach of so much danger. We rejoice that you have escaped at all, and that, except the anxiety which you must have felt, both ranted to look for a bright reverse of our most affor yourselves and others, you have suffered noflictive experiences. The Spaniards were sick of thing upon this dreadful occasion. A metropolis in the war at the very commencement of it; and I flames, and a nation in ruins, are subjects of contemplation for such a mind as yours as will leave a hope that, by this time, the French themselves lasting impression behind them. It is well that begin to find themselves a little indisposed, if not desirous of peace, which that restless and medthe design died in the execution, and will be buried, I hope never to rise again, in the ashes of ding temper of theirs is incapable of desiring for its own sake. But is it true, that this detestable its own combustion. There is a melancholy pleasure in looking back upon such a scene, arising plot was an egg laid in France, and hatched in from a comparison of possibilities with facts; the London, under the influence of French corrup enormous bulk of the intended mischief with the tion?-Nam te scire, deos quoniam propius conabortive and partial accomplishment of it; much tingis, oportet. The offspring has the features was done, more indeed than could have been supposed practicable in a well-regulated city, not unfurnished with a military force for its protection. But surprise and astonishment seem at first to have struck every nerve of the police with a palsy; and to have disarmed government of all its powers. of such a parent, and yet, without the clearest proof of the fact, I would not willingly charge upon a civilized nation what perhaps the most barbarous would abhor the thought of. I no sooner saw the surmise however in the paper, than I immediately began to write Latin verses upon the occasion. An odd effect,' you will say, 'of such I congratulate you upon the wisdom that with- a circumstance:'-but an effect, nevertheless, that held you from entering yourself a member of the whatever has, at any time, moved my passions, Protestant association. Your friends who did so whether pleasantly or otherwise, has always had have reason enough to regret their doing it, even upon me: were I to express what I feel upon such though they should never be called upon. Inno- occasions in prose, it would be verbose, inflated, cent as they are, and they who know them can and disgusting. I therefore have recourse not doubt of their being perfectly so, it is likely to verse, as a suitable vehicle for the most vehement expressions my thoughts suggest to me. What I have written, I did not write so much for the conifort of the English, as for the mortification of the • Vide Poems. to French. You will immediately perceive there- doubt but I shall like it. I am pretty much in the fore that I have been labouring in vain, and that garden at this season of the year, so read but litthis bouncing explosion is likely to spend itself in tle. In summer-time I am as giddy-headed as a the air. For I have no means of circulating what boy, and can settle to nothing. Winter condenses follows, through all the French territories: and me, and makes me lumpish, and sober; and then unless that, or something like it, can be done, my I can read all day long. indignation will be entirely fruitless. Tell me how I can convey it into Sartine's pocket, or who will lay it upon his desk for me. But read it first, and unless you think it pointed enough to sting the Gaul to the quick, burn it. For the same reasons, I have no need of the landscapes at present; when I want them I will renew my application, and repeat the description, but it will hardly be before October. Before I rose this morning, I composed the three following stanzas; I send them because I like In seditionem horrendam, corruptelis Gallicis, ut fertur, them pretty well myself; and if you should not, Londini nuper exortam. Perfida, crudelis, victa et lymphata furore, Posse tamen nostra nos superare manu. I have lately exercised my ingenuity in contriving an exercise for yours, and have composed a riddle, which, if it does not make you laugh before you have solved it, will probably do it afterwards. I would transcribe it now, but am really so fatigued with writing, that unless I knew you had a quinsy, and that a fit of laughter might possibly save your life, I could not prevail with myself to do it. What could you possibly mean, slender as you are, by sallying out upon your two walking sticks at two in the morning, into the midst of such a tumult? We admire your prowess, but can not commend your prudence. Our love attends you all, collectively and individually. Yours, W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 22, 1780. you must accept this handsome compliment as an amends for their deficiencies. You may print the lines, if you judge them worth it.* I have only time to add love, &c., and my two initials. W. C. TO THE REV. JOHN NEWTON. MY DEAR FRIEND, June 23, 1780. YOUR reflections upon the state of London, the sins and enormities of that great city, while you had a distant view of it from Greenwich, seem to have been prophetic of the heavy stroke that fell upon it just after. Man often prophesies without knowing it; a spirit speaks by him which is not his own, though he does not at that time suspect that he is under the influence of any other. he foresee what is always foreseen by him who dictates what he supposes to be his own, he would suffer by anticipation, as well as by consequence; and wish perhaps as ardently for the happy ignorance, to which he is at present so much indebted, as some have foolishly and inconsiderately done for a knowledge that would be but another name for misery. Did And why have I said all this? especially to you, who have hitherto said it to me-not because I had the least desire of informing a wiser man than A WORD or two in answer to two or three myself, but because the observation was naturally questions of yours, which I have hitherto taken no notice of. I am not in a scribbling mood, and shall therefore make no excursions to amuse either myself or you. The needful will be as much as I can manage at present-the playful must wait for another opportunity. suggested by the recollection of your letter, and that letter, though not the last, happened to be uppermost in my mind. I can compare this mind of mine to nothing that resembles it more, than to a board that is under the carpenter's plane (I mean while I am writing to you,) the shavings are my I thank you for your offer of Robertson; but uppermost thoughts; after a few strokes of the tool, it acquires a new surface; this again, upon a have more reading upon my hands at this present repetition of his task, he takes off, and a new surwriting than I shall get rid of in a twelve-month; face still succeeds-whether the shavings of the I and this moment recollect that I have seen it al ready. He is an author that I admire much; with present day will be worth your acceptance, I know one exception, that I think his style is too laboured. not, I am unfortunately made neither of cedar nor of mahogany; but Truncus ficuinus, inutile Hume, as an historian, pleases me more. I have just read enough of the Biogrophia Britannica to say, that I have tasted it, and have no Verses on the burning of Lord Mansfield's Library, &c lignum-consequently, though I should be planed till I am as thin as a wafer, it will be but rubbish to the last. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. July 2, 1780. It is not strange that you should be the subject CARISSIME, I am glad of your confidence, and of a false report; for the sword of slander, like have reason to hope I shall never abuse it. If you that of war, devours one as well as another; and a trust me with a secret, I am hermetically sealed; blameless character is particularly delicious to its and if you call for the exercise of my judgment, unsparing appetite. But that you should be the such as it is, I am never freakish or wanton in the object of such a report, you who meddle less with use of it, much less mischievous and malignant. the designs of government than almost any man Critics, I believe, do not often stand so clear of that lives under it, this is strange indeed. It is these vices as I do. I like your epitaph, except well, however, when they who account it good that I doubt the propriety of the word immaturus; sport to traduce the reputation of another, invent which, I think, is rather applicable to fruits than a story that refutes itself. I wonder they do not flowers; and except the last pentameter, the asseralways endeavour to accommodate their fiction to tion it contains being rather too obvious a thought the real character of the person; their tale would to finish with; not that I think an epitaph should be then at least have an air of probability, and it might pointed like an epigram. But still there is a closecost a peaceable good man much more trouble to ness of thought and expression necessary in the disprove it. But perhaps it would not be easy to conclusion of all these little things, that they may discern what part of your conduct lies more open leave an agreeable flavour upon the palate. Whatto such an attempt than another; or what it is ever is short, should be nervous, masculine, and that you either say or do, at any time, that pre-compact. Little men are so; and little poems sents a fair opportunity to the most ingenious should be so; because, where the work is short, slanderer, to slip in a falsehood between your the author has no right to the plea of weariness; words, or actions, that shall seem to be of a piece and laziness is never admitted as an available exwith either. You hate compliment, I know; but cuse in any thing. Now you know my opinion, by your leave this is not one-it is a truth-worse you will very likely improve upon my improvement, and worse-now I have praised you indeed-well, and alter my alterations for the better. To touch you must thank yourself for it; it was absolutely and retouch is, though some writers boast of neglidone without the least intention on my part, and gence, and others would be ashamed to show their proceeded from a pen that, as far as I can remem- foul copies, the secret of almost all good writing, ber, was never guilty of flattery since I knew how especially in verse. I am never weary of it myto hold it. He that slanders me, paints me blacker self; and if you would take as much pains as I than I am, and he that flatters me, whiter-they do, you would have no need to ask for my correcboth daub me; and when I look in the glass of tions. conscience, I see myself disguised by both-I had as lief my tailor should sew gingerbread nuts on my coat instead of buttons, as that any man should call my Bristol stone a diamond. The tailor's trick would not at all embellish my suit, nor the flatterer's make me at all the richer. I never make a present to my friend of what I dislike myself. Ergo (I have reached the conclusion at last,) I did not mean to flatter you. We have sent a petition to lord Dartmouth, by this post, praying him to interfere in parliament in behalf of the poor lace-makers. I say we, because I have signed it; Mr. G. drew it up, Mr. did not think it grammatical, therefore he would not sign it. Yet I think Priscian himself would Hic sepultus est Gulielmi et Mariæ filius Unicus, unice dilectus, Qui floris ritu succisus est semihiantis, 1780. Et. 10. Care vale! Sed non æternum, care, valeto! Having an English translation of it by me, I have pardoned the manner for the sake of the send it, though it may be of no use. matter. I dare say if his lordship does not com- My lov to all under your roof. W. C Farewell! "but not forever," Hope replies, The stanzas that I sent you are maiden ones, having never been seen by any eye but your mother's and your own. If you send me franks, I shall write long let- especially lest some French hero should call me to ters-Valete, sicut et nos valemus! Amate, sicut account for it-I add it on the other side. An et nos amamus. MON AMI, TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ. author ought to be the best judge of his own mean. False, cruel, disappointed, stung to the heart, July 8, 1780. IF you ever take the tip of the chancellor's ear between your finger and thumb, you can hardly improve the opportunity to better purpose, than if you should whisper into it the voice of compassion and lenity to the lace-makers. I am an eye-witness of their poverty, and do know that hundreds I have often wondered that Dryden's illustrious in this little town are upon the point of starving, epigram on Milton (in my mind the second best and that the most unremitting industry is but that ever was made) has never been translated into barely sufficient to keep them from it. I know Latin, for the admiration of the learned in other that the bill by which they would have been so countries. I have at last presumed to venture upon fatally affected is thrown out: but lord Stormont the task myself. The great closeness of the ori threatens them with another; and if another like ginal, which is equal in that respect to the most it should pass, they are undone. We lately sent compact Latin I ever saw, made it extremely diffi a petition from hence to lord Dartmouth; I signed cult. it, and am sure the contents are true. The purport of it was to inform him that there are very near one thousand two hundred lace-makers in cellor's recovery; nor can I strike off so much as I have not one bright thought upon the chanthis beggarly town, the most of whom had reason enough, while the bill was in agitation, to look is not when I will, nor upon what I will, but as a one sparkling atom from that brilliant subject. It upon every loaf they bought as the last they should thought happens to occur to me; and then I verever be able to earn. I can never think it good policy to incur the certain inconvenience of ruin-sify, whether I will or not. I never write but for ing thirty thousand, in order to prevent a remote my amusement; and what I write is sure to answer that end, if it answers no other. If, besides and possible damage though to a much greater this purpose, the more desirable one of entertainnumber. The measure is like a scythe, and the ing you be effected, I then receive double fruit of poor lace-makers are the sickly crop that trembles before the edge of it. The prospect of peace with my labour, and consider this produce of it as a second crop, the more valuable, because less exzon; but this bill is like a black cloud behind it, that sition to you, I have done with it. It is pretty pected. But when I have once remitted a compothreatens their hope of a comfortable day with America is like the streak of dawn in their hori utter extinction. I did not perceive, till this moment, that I had tacked two similes together; a practice which, though warranted by the example of Homer, and allowable in an epic poem, is rather luxuriant and licentious in a letter; lest I should add another, I conclude. W. C. TO THE REV. WILLIAM UNWIN. July 11, 1780. I ACCOUNT myself sufficiently commended for ay Latin exercise, by the number of translations it has undergone. That which you distinguished in the margin by the title of "better," was the production of a friend; and, except that for a modest reason he omitted the third couplet, I think it a good one. To finish the group, I have translated it myself; and though I would not wish you to give it to the world, for more reasons than one, Tres, tria, &c. certain that I shall never read it or think of it again. For this reason I decline answering the ques TO MRS. COWPER. MY DEAR COUSIN, • Vid. Poems.. |